Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, they're a young band that

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

Welcome to my world.
 
 

Originally posted by Barcelona:
   Not sure why, but I really like the fact that so many people dislike them.

[Bags]

Originally posted by Lazer Guided Melodies:
 best album of 1997.

Sleater-Kinney, "Dig Me Out"
 
 '97 wasn't all that great a year for albums for me...

[godsshoeshine]

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
  Best albums of 1997:
 
 Sleater-Kinney -- Dig Me Out
 
 Followed closely by Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind.  Maybe Cornershop in third.

dig me out, yes
 
 i can hear the heart beating as one
 perfect from now on
 also candidates
 
 edit never mind on if you're feeling sinister, looks like 1996

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

Best album of 1997: Too Far To Care

[ccfalzon]

Hey Booker, gimme a call so we can grab a few brews and rock out to my Foghat LP's.

[TheWaz]

i like the second half of the album.
 
 they were hyped by pitchfork so the scenesters will claim to hate them, but theyre really ok.  of course theyre also not all theyre hyped up to be

[eltee]

Originally posted by TheWaz:
 they were hyped by pitchfork so the scenesters will claim to hate them

Nah, just like them again in three years.  

[Jaguar]

Without going into detail, I have good reason to suspect that The Black Angels will probably be playing at Coachella next year.
 
 Don't know anything about the Hand Clappers and couldn't care less. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Pitchfork since I have no idea what is going on there since I never bother with it. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with being or not being 'hip' as I couldn't care less what any faux hipsters think. In the end, it's all about the music.

[kosmo vinyl]

There is a CYHSY track "In This Home On Ice" on this months Paste Magazine CD sampler and instrumentally it's fairly straight forward decent dreamy indie pop.  However, once the "singer" kicked in I was ready to pull out my hair.  Tuneless, limited range and unintelligible lyrics.  One of the few lyric couplet I can make out is something shedding skin like a snake.  If this is what the band is about then I'm not interested.  Plus, At least on this track there is no evidence of a Talking Heads influence either.
 
 Are people so desperate to find the next thing first, that one Pitchfork reviewers opinion is enough to send them into mass hysteria?  
 
 And gotta say that based on my limited exposure to Broken Social Scene that they appear to be making cacophony for the sake of making cacophony in order to cover up the weak songs.  Take the track on the sampler disk "Ibi Dreams of Pavement".  It would appear they decided that horns were needed to agument otherwise lazily strummed guitars, with little added effect I might add.

[Barcelona]

Originally posted by Jaguar:
  Without going into detail, I have good reason to suspect that The Black Angels will probably be playing at Coachella next year.
 
 Don't know anything about the Hand Clappers and couldn't care less. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Pitchfork since I have no idea what is going on there since I never bother with it. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with being or not being 'hip' as I couldn't care less what any faux hipsters think. In the end, it's all about the music.

if at the end it's all about the music and you don't know anything about Clap your... why don't give it a try, you might or might not like them, but listen to them, otherwise you are prejudging them based on who knows what, which probably makes you another cool indie music fan.

[TheWaz]

Originally posted by Barcelona:
   

Originally posted by Jaguar:
  Without going into detail, I have good reason to suspect that The Black Angels will probably be playing at Coachella next year.
 
 Don't know anything about the Hand Clappers and couldn't care less. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Pitchfork since I have no idea what is going on there since I never bother with it. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with being or not being 'hip' as I couldn't care less what any faux hipsters think. In the end, it's all about the music.

if at the end it's all about the music and you don't know anything about Clap your... why don't give it a try, you might or might not like them, but listen to them, otherwise you are prejudging them based on who knows what, which probably makes you another cool indie music fan. [/b]

touché.  I have a feeling you do know "what is going on there (pitchfork)", i dont read pitchfork either, but its very obvious that they raved over CYHSY tossing them into stardom.

[ggw]

The notion that Pitchfork alone can push a band into "stardom" is frequently cited, but demonstrably false.  Arcade Fire and Clap Your Hands are but two of dozens of albums that Pitchfork has raved about in the last year.  
 
 How come there hasn't been a similar effect for Serena Maneesh, Wilderness, The Boy Least Likely To, Caribou, Isolee, Edan, Six Organs of Admittance, Castanets, etc....

[HoyaSaxa03]

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
  The notion that Pitchfork alone can push a band into "stardom" is frequently cited, but demonstrably false.  Arcade Fire and Clap Your Hands are but two of dozens of albums that Pitchfork has raved about in the last year.  

i'd agree with arcade fire and clap your hands ... they both got buzz from a lot of other places ... there's more of a case to be made, however, for broken social scene

[godsshoeshine]

clap your hands was more of a push from blogville, i thought

[Julian, Alleged Computer F**kface]

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
  The notion that Pitchfork alone can push a band into "stardom" is frequently cited, but demonstrably false.  

The way I see it, a band needs two things to break: (1) a sound that appeals to people at that time, and (2) someway for people to hear it.
 
 Pitchfork has been that #2 for BSS, CYHSY, Arcade Fire, and a few others. Simply look at sales figures from before pitchfork's reviews, and right afterwards. Without pitchfork, I don't see any of those bands being particularly big.
 Now, you make the good point of other hyped bands that don't break. They're lacking #1 on my list.
 
 I guess the point is, Pitchfork is sort of like an accelerant; it speeds up the word of mouth drastically - whereas it might have taken CYHSY years to have the word-of-mouth generate, Pitchfork allows a large group of people who would be favorable to their music to figure out they exist much quicker then otherwise. So, as with most things, the answer is neither of the extremes ("Pitchfork does nothing" vs. "pitchfork MAKES bands") but lies somewhere in the middle.