Albums in 2006

[Julian, Alleged Computer F**kface]

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer:
  I guess nobody else cares.
 
   

Originally posted by skarider:
  anyone know when the new Streetlight Manifesto album comes out?

[/b]

fixed.

[vansmack]

Arctic Monkeys eye record debut
 
 The Arctic Monkeys' album could become the fastest-selling debut album in recorded chart history, after selling more than 100,000 on its first day.
 
 Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not sold 118,501 copies, outselling the rest of the top 20 albums combined.
 
 It is expected to sell over 350,000 copies by the end of the week, breaking Hear'Say's five-year-old record.
 
 "We knew day one sales were going to be big, but nobody expected them to be this huge," said HMV's Phil Penman.
 
 The retail chain's head of music added: "It's as if they had won the X Factor, but achieving the same kind of sales without the benefit of a massive TV audience."
 
 The Sheffield band built up a substantial fan base via the internet, before they were signed to Domino Records in June 2005.
 
 Their debut single I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor topped the charts last October.
 
 Follow-up When The Sun Goes Down gave the band a second number one last Sunday, and current sales figures put them in line to simultaneously top the album and singles charts this weekend.
 
 The album has already sold more in one day than the debut efforts from Kaiser Chiefs, Coldplay and Franz Ferdinand sold in their first week.
 
 NME nominations
 
 "They're well on their way to having the first million-selling album of 2006," said Mr Penman.
 
 "If it continues to sell at this rate, there's even a danger shops could sell out by the end of the week."
 
 Hear'Say's Popstars holds the current record for a debut album, selling 306,631 copies in its first week in 2001.
 
 Earlier on Tuesday, the band picked up four nominations at next month's NME Awards, including best British band, new band, live band and best track.
 
 Story from BBC NEWS:
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/4643436.stm

[brennser]

has anyone picked up the new  Clearlake album yet? Just curious....

[Bags]

I have neither of these, but I think each are coming through town in the next month or two -- New CD reviews from the NY Times:
 
 The Gossip
 Standing in the Way of Control
 (Kill Rock Stars)
 
 On a pair of short, raucous albums, "That's Not What I Heard" and "Movement," this Arkansas-raised garage-punk trio made a furious and sometimes thrilling racket. The guitarist, known as Brace, unleashed a series of scraping, strutting pint-sized riffs, while the singer, Beth Ditto, howled and moaned, evoking everything from 1990's hard core to 1960's girl groups.
 
 On "Standing in the Way of Control," the band's third album, the music simmers as much as it boils, especially on the title track, a slow-building four-minute song with a pared-down disco beat. (By this band's standards, four minutes is epic.) And "Eyes Open" is two minutes of shivery fear and longing; it could be a postpunk sequel to "I Walk the Line," by another singer from the band's home state. This is a transitional album: many of the songs seem underwritten without all that noise on top; sometimes it sounds as if the band is still trying to figure out what to do with its tense, restrained new sound. In fact, one of the best songs is one of the punkiest: an angular, three-minute feminist anthem called "Fire With Fire." KELEFA SANNEH
 
 Test Icicles
 For Screening Purposes Only
 (Domino)
 
 Britain is full of bands that turn their influences into a sound that's stylish and coherent; this is a British band (although two of the three members were born in America) that would rather make a mess. This debut album is full of giddy, omnivorous dance-punk songs: you can hear the expected new-wave precursors, but also more unexpected ones, like the Armenian-American freak-metal band System of a Down.
 
 This is music that tries to be over-the-top and uncool: too hard, sometimes. But more often the songs are too contagious and exuberant to dislike, even the ones with self-mocking (but not quite inaccurate) titles like "Party on Dudes (Get Hype)." The band had a British hit with "Boa vs. Python," a furious little blast of hard-rock new wave. And "All You Need Is Blood" cheerfully shows off the group's short attention span: there's no way to predict the grime-inspired electronic beat that arrives, uninvited but not unwelcome, at the end of the song. KELEFA SANNEH

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

How about the Capes? Anyone have an opinion on them yet?

[brennser]

John Cale Produces New Alejandro Escovedo Album
 Zach Vowell reports:
 Good news: On May 2, Backporch Records will release The Boxing Mirror,
 Alejandro Escovedo's first new solo album since 2000. Even better news
 (in case you haven't heard yet): Escovedo has for the most part overcome
 the Hepatitis C that left him collapsed on a Phoenix stage in 2003.
 Thanks to the generosity of family, friends, and fellow musicians,
 Escovedo has been able to fund his treatment and recovery despite his
 lack of health insurance. (The 2004 Escovedo tribute album Por Vida,
 featuring Lucinda Williams, Calexico, the Jayhawks, Son Volt, Steve
 Earle, and many others, sure helped.)
 Now that he's back in the game, Escovedo has enlisted one of his more
 famous friends, John Cale, to produce The Boxing Mirror, which the pair
 recorded with Escovedo's touring band in Los Angeles late last year. The
 album will feature 11 new Escovedo songs, but has 12 tracks in all. If
 you just go by the story the tracklist tells, it looks like Escovedo had
 to settle a disagreement between John Cale and Larry Goetz (who,
 incidentally, worked on Cale's 2005 effort Black Acetate) by including
 both of the soundman's mixes of "Take Your Place".
 Tracks:
 01 Arizona
 02 Dearhead on the Wall
 03 Notes on Air
 04 One True Love
 05 The Ladder
 06 Break This Time
 07 Evita's Lullaby
 08 Sacramento & Polk
 09 I Died a Little Today
 10 Take Your Place (John Cale mix)
 11 The Boxing Mirror
 12 Take Your Place (Larry Goetz mix)

[nkotb]

I love this idea:
 
 Although no specific plans have been settled on, Casale says it "would be funny as hell" for Devo 2.0 to make an unannounced appearance at a regular Devo show at some point. "I think the greatest thing would be if they came out and did the exact same set we're about to do," he says with a laugh. "And then we come out and do it. I like that idea. By the time the audience sees us old guys, it's like, 'No! Bring back the kids!'"
 
 

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
  Surely the album of the year
 
  Dev2.0

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

Drive By Truckers news:
 
  It's been pushed up!  A BLESSING AND A CURSE US RELEASE DATE: APRIL 18

[Jaguar]

The new Trespassers William album will be out on February 28th. I can't wait for this one.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

How about these guys?
 
 Here are the names of bands that flitted through the mind of a music critic while listening to the Capes' debut album, Hello: the Buzzcocks, Wire, Oasis, the Beatles, the Kinks, the Beach Boys, Squeeze, the Beatles (again), the Jam, the Kinks (again), the Beach Boys (again). That is august company, of course, and it is also indicative of the Capes' music, which is catchy, guitar-based pop/rock that edges toward punk/new wave rock, but also boasts enough keyboard blips to show greater musical sophistication, along with occasional harmonies to sweeten things and often clever lyrics declaimed in clear British accents. In the mid-'60s, many of these tracks could have been hit singles; in the late '70s, they could have set clubs pogo-ing. In the 2000s, they can admittedly sound somewhat retro at times, but the Capes manage to reinvent their influences for their own purposes and play with enough conviction to make this infectious music their own. And they throw enough odd ingredients into the mix (the Japanese "chat" in "Shinjuku Hi-5," the eerie synth riffs in "Francophile [Ver 1.5]") to give the songs individual character. The Capes are not just pale imitators of previous generations of British rock bands, even if they bring many of those bands to mind. They accomplish the feat of taking an utterly familiar style and coming up with something new.

[ggw]

The Raconteurs (Jack White, Brendan Benson, et al...)
 
 Two songs streaming on their website:
 
 http://www.theraconteurs.com/

[ggw]

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer:
  How about these guys?
 

I heard them last year.  Not bad, but not much to differentiate them from dozens of other retro Brit bands either.

[Lazer Guided Melodies]

Just ordered myself of copy of Guitar Loops by J. Spaceman.  It just came out on Ashley Wales and John Coxon's label Treader.  Very excited for this.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

So what is it about the Arctic Monkeys that DOES differentiate them from the other retro British bands? Why are they getting so much attention?
 
 

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
   

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer:
  How about these guys?
 

I heard them last year.  Not bad, but not much to differentiate them from dozens of other retro Brit bands either. [/b]

[kosmo vinyl]

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
  The Raconteurs (Jack White, Brendan Benson, et al...)
 
 Two songs streaming on their website:
 
  http://www.theraconteurs.com/

Even aftering listening to those songs via crappy laptop speakers this record is going to be SUPERB.