Music News Explosion!

With everything that has happened today in my little corner of the music world, I can't help but feel compelled to get some of these feelings out. New Fall Out Boy track. Postal Service tour dates. New Relient K track. My head is spinning.

First and foremost, the thing I am most excited about-Postal Service is touring. With Jenny freaking Lewis. (that might not actually be her middle name, but it should be.) When the Postal Service announced that they were re-banding to play Coachella, I was hoping, against everything that Ben Gibbard was saying, that they would do a tour. And then I was directed recently to an article on Spin.com about my girl Jenny Lewis, in which she stated that she had a new album in the works, but that she needed to tour with one of her other bands before we would see its release. Could it be? I found myself waiting with baited breath to hear about her tour.

Imagine my excitement when I happened to check my Facebook feed today and see that my friend LB posted, asking if anyone wanted to go to Brooklyn with her, with a link to an article about the Postal Service.  I didn't even read the article. I figured it didn't say anything other than they were touring and the dates, but someone else commented "Jenny Lewis is on the tour, too?" and I about lost my stuff. I was actually sort of flailing around in my desk chair like one of those wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men that one sees in front of car dealerships and the like. I am glad that I only had a few children left in the classroom and that they were busy working on puzzles and didn't see my reaction.

LB is off work when the tickets go on sale, and as the Brooklyn date is (at least as of right now) the only east coast tour date, I am hoping shes able to land these bad boys. I think its realistic to assume that a Philly date will be announced in the next batch, but I also don't trust that enough to risk not getting these ones. I will probably shed a tear if we aren't able to see this tour.

Next up, Fall Out Boy is back from hiatus and I can't say that I care. I am, though, peeved at a point brought up by someone on twitter, which was that this band has gone on and come back off hiatus before Brand New got off their asses and made new music. I am hoping for new Brand New sometime this year, but with Jesse producing one of Kevin Devine's new albums and Brian Lane being wrapped up (as far as anyone can tell) in this Shone business, I think its a long shot at best. But I digress.

Fall Out Boy has been trying to keep this under wraps for a week or so now, since it leaked over on Property of Zack but they haven't done a very good job, really. I mean, swearing up and down that you aren't back together yet having Jimmy Kimmel post your appearance on his lineup doesn't quite work, you know? There have been lots of (obvious) tweets coming from members of the band about a Skate & Surf appearance, all the while good ole Petey Wentz was trying to deny the whole thing.

Anyway, so the band made the announcement officially this morning, via a radio station in Chicago (of course) and also premiered a new song. It is awful. I just can't even.

Maybe I am just so far removed from today's popular music culture that I don't understand the appeal, but honest to God, every time Patrick screeches "FIIIIIIRRRRREEEEEE" I want to rip my ears off of my head. I also really don't understand the hype surrounding this 2Chainz fellow, and I really am fine with that. I am really disappointed though, because I expect a lot more from FOB, especially with Butch Walker  at the helm.

I am fairly sure that the Fall Out Boy tour is one that I will be skipping.

Thirdly, Relient K put out a new diddy today. Its not going to have a home on their next release; it was just something that they came up with messing around in the studio. I don't hate it, at least not as much as I hate the above-mentioned song, but its almost annoyingly poppy and I am in a bad mood today, so it did grate on my nerves a bit. The saving grace for this song is that it is literally a string of 90's pop music references (think "Taxi Driver" by Gym Class Heroes.) I think that, if i remember it exists, I am going to love the crap out of this song when the weather is sunny and 75 (see what i did there?)

One last note-WXPN announced today that The Lumineers are headlining the Xponential Festival this coming summer. This is worth noting because A) I am still obsessed with "Ho Hey" and B) I missed them last year at the festival because they played first (at noon) on Saturday. They have come a long way in the last year, and that is both awesomesauce and well deserved. You can bet that I will renew my membership so that I am able to see them this summer.

i need to get this off of my chest.

I have a pretty wide open taste in music, and in such I have spent some time listening to "Contemporary Christian Music." I don't really spend much time with the genre these days, but there was a period of time in my life where it was all i listened to, and i dj'ed a radio show on my college radio station that played solely CCM.

I liked the idea of being able to worship a little differently than the standard hymns and praise and worship songs allowed. i liked that the music that i was listening to was positive and uplifting, because i realized that a lot of what what out there in popular culture was fairly negative. i spent a lot of time with bands like the newsboys, five iron frenzy, jars of clay and relient k. i was happy and having a good time, but there was one thing that used to bug me.

quite often its been said that the basic formula for a hit CCM song is to write a regular love song, and then replace "baby" with "Jesus." this used to upset me a little bit because i liked to think that these bands that i was more or less putting my faith in were making music for worship, and not for money. now I'm not naive enough to think that they were doing all of the recording and touring and everything else for free, but i really, really wanted to believe that the dollar wasn't the bottom line.

my musical taste has evolved over the last ten years, and i don't really find myself listening to CCM much at all anymore, but there are still a few bands that i pay attention to. remember how i got excited last year when FIF announced that they were back? i still love them, despite my statements otherwise (i talked a lot of smack on them after the break up. i was heart-broken.) i also still gave a decent amount of attention to jars of clay. i always connected with their music, even when i had fallen away from everyone else, and always believed that they were actually in it for the love of Jesus, and not for the cash.

but today i was watching TV, and i saw the new commercial for Christianmingle.com. guess what song was playing in the background? Jars of Clay's "Love Song for a Savior."

everything i ever thought was wrong, and I'm pissed.

365 project "and im like baby, baby, baby ohhhhh"

156.

artist:Relient K
album: K is for Karaoke


Years ago, I was about the biggest Relient K fan I knew. In my lifetime, I have seen this band over 40 times. I was on a first name basis with Matty T. I wanted to marry Brian P. Then they wrote a song about Five Iron Frenzy and I loved them even more.

Here is a picture of us hanging out at Skate and Surf some years ago.

And then something changed.

By my senior year of college, I had pretty much given up on everything that was so important to me previously. Looking back, I still cant figure out why I changed so much, but i did and that was that. in the middle of all of this, i decided that i was "too grown up" for Relient K's silliness, and that was pretty much the end of my relationship with this band.

Lately, mostly because of this project, I have been going back to stuff that I had previously given up on and listening with fresh ears to determine if 31-year-old me is still as stuck up as 23-year-old me became. Mostly, I am finding, I am not. I don’t know if I am mellowing with age or just becoming more open minded, but i need to keep in mind that while i have always, always been a music elitist, I was working with nothing but pop music for most of my formative years, and that it really doesn’t matter if no one has ever heard of the bands that i listen to.

i believe that is where the root of my "issue" with Relient K came from. They used to be my band. part of the reason I’ve been lucky enough to see them so often is because B and the boys were able to play gigs with them, or i was lucky enough to be asked to come MC a show that they were playing. (I need to locate those pictures, that was a good day.) Then they released mmhmm and with that their single be my escape was everywhere. i think i just couldn’t stand that my band was all over MTV and that was more or less the end of that...also, Brian leaving the band had kind of a profound effect on me.

Well, all of this is to say that lately I have been listening to the band again, if even, as i said, a little bit at a time for this project, and was kind of excited to hear that they were putting out a covers album. and then I heard that they were covering they might be giants' dr. worm and I was all in.

I waited around to see if a leak ever got posted on my trusty leak-gathering site, but it didn’t, and then other things in life took over and i actually just forgot about the album. Then yesterday my friend Jason posted something about it and i immediately hunted it down and went about listening to it. my only complaint was that i was about to leave to go to the shore with Nicole and wasn’t able to burn it to a disk before i left, so i could only listen to it once through.

The album is a good time. I generally like covers, and I like them more when they are songs that I know and love. oh, they cover Justin Beiber, too, and while I’m wholly against anything beiberific, i cant help but to sing and dance along. it pains me that i know any of the words, and by the time this is over, ill probably know ALL of the words. oh well, at least my Bug will be proud of me.

365 project "Jesus loved the outcasts. He loves the ones the world just loves to hate"

99.

artist:relient k
album:employee of the month

i am under the impression that this EP really does not exist other than the copy i have in my hands. this is probably a good thing, as i am so not impressed with it at all. i looked on amazon and eBay and turned up one other copy, going for fifty bucks plus shipping, without its case. no thank you. maybe since mine still has its case, i can put it up on amazon for 75 dollars.

i popped this sucker into my car stereo the other day and it was like i was hearing it for the first time, and i don't mean that in a good way. i didn't know the lyrics to the songs. i don't remember having ever heard them before. I'm sure i have, because i used to carry this CD with me everywhere. its weird how very little i remember of it.

i just read on wikipedia that the guy on the front cover was lost at sea. i thought that was a joke so i researched it a bit more, and i found this article. what a strange, strange story to me. strange and sad.

I'm not sure that ill ever listen to this CD again. i really wish i didn't have such a strong distaste for relient K, because Matty t is a great dude. i guess its okay to like a person and not their art, but it makes me sad that i used to be such a fan and these days i just really cant get into them. i have a few relient k albums left to try on during this project, so maybe something will click.

365 project:" no i don't hate you. don't want to fight you. Know i'll always love you but right now i just don't like you."

74.

artist:relient K
album:mmhmm


my job involves me being outside for the better part of the day, so i like to keep an eye on the weather, and we all get very excited when we are going to have a perfect day. all week long Friday's weather has been the topic of conversation-sunny with a high of 75. because i was at one point a rather big Relient K fan, hearing that forecast always makes me sing "sunny with a high of 75 since you took my heavy heart and made it light" so it was a no-brainer this morning on what album i would listen to.

a little while back, i covered their album the anatomy of tongue and cheek and my comments were less than glowing. my opinion of mmhmm, however, is totally different. I actually really love this album, and am not sure why i don't listen to it more.

before this album, Relient K was a bitty baby band, really. they were still "my" band. they were accessible and we had what i deemed to be a working relationship. they knew my name. i knew them. we coordinated on interviews and other fun and exciting things. Brandon and I emceed one of their shows in Ocean Grove. full surrender had played with them a bunch. it kind of seemed like they were always around for us and i liked that.

and then Be My Escape hit the airwaves and started getting airtime on MTV. i knew that there was going to be a big push behind this album, but i didn't know that it was going to make them into a household name so to speak, and that it would take away all of that accessibility. in hindsight, I'm sure this wasn't the only reason that we fell out of contact. most of the band roster switched. i left college and therefore the radio station. life got in the way of shows. but at the time, it felt like MTV was ruining one more thing for me.

This was about the point where i stopped listening to Relient K. maybe that was the wrong choice. i don't know. what i do know is that i didn't feel like they were the same band that i had grown to love, and i couldn't handle their "growing up" so to speak, so i just turned my backs on them.

when i was listening to that CD today, i found myself commenting quite a few times about how much i really like mmhmm. i think now that the weather is warmer ill have to find more time to listen. i cant really name a song on this album that i dislike, and my list of likes would more or less read just like the track listing, so it seems silly to post it. i was pleasantly surprised by this CD today.

my suggestion is that all of you go pull it out of your collection and give it a spin again and then tell me if you agree.

356 project:"i think we're going somewhere. we're onto something good here"

day 6.

artist:Relient K
album:the anatomy of tongue and cheek

back in college i was a DJ on the college radio station. i did this at both schools i attended, and i loved it. obviously i kind of really like talking about music and sharing new stuff with people, otherwise i wouldn't be doing this blog at all.

at any rate, for the entire five years i was on air, i dj'ed Christian music shows. i did a few others during my time, but this is the one that i stuck with all the way through college. i had my favorite artists to play, as anyone would, and relient k was right up there at the top.

relient k, for us, was a band that was just always around. we were playing them on the radio. they were playing shows in our area. B's band was playing shows WITH them in our area. they were always touring with five iron, so i saw them a lot. they played skate and surf one year (i just recently came across a picture of us up in the seats at convention hall with Matt and Brian), i mean, at some points in time i felt like i was seeing this band more than i was seeing my friends or my own family.

i was interviewing them for some reason or another at a show, and when i walked in, i distinctly remember Matt theissen saying "oh, genesis lomax!" like i was the one about to get up on stage and play (i really DO have that kind of a name, though...)

i haven't listened to relient k in a really long time. its probably been a few years. i know i busted out an EP a summer or two ago, but before that i cant even remember the last time i listened to this band that i used to love so much, so i decided that for today's aotd, id listen to anatomy of tongue and cheek. i used to love the poop out of this album, and it was in regular rotation on our radio show, so i figured it would be fun to throwback and also the upbeat music would keep me motivated to clean my room.

i was right, it was motivation to clean, because i had made a deal with myself that i couldn't leave the room until i was through the album, and my options were to clean or to die a slow and painful death while all of my blood escaped out of my ears.

alright, that might be a bit much, because there are still some bright spots on the disk, but overall its not something that i think ill ever spin again. i don't know why i went from love to hate with this album exactly, but I'm not about to sit through it again anytime soon to figure it out.

at best, ill add a few songs to itunes and add them to mixdisks here and there, and that will be that. but i guess that's what the point of this whole experiment is, to see what i still like or what I've grown to hate...to see how I've grown and changed since i started buying Cd's.