2009 = Music explosion!
Generally speaking, 2008 was kind of a dud year for new music. Not many new albums I was really excited about, per se, and even artists that I like who did release albums had some real middling end results. But this year? Well, we’ve got Bruce Springsteen, U2, Kelly Clarkson, Indigo Girls, Tori Amos, Pet Shop Boys… lots of new music for me to be listening to for the rest of the year, quite frankly.
As it is I’ve been listening to the Pet Shop Boys album preview (thanks Trevor!) today and there are a couple songs (“The Way It Used To Be,” “Pandemonium,” “Love etc.”) which have just instantly clicked—that great sort of feeling of, “Yes, yes, more like that” coupled with having a deja vu flashback to earlier albums and thinking how much you loved them as well.
I’m not saying that artists need to be like what they’ve already done (that gets old quite frankly) but there’s something great about a song that puts you in mind of an earlier project. Almost like you see how they’re connecting the dots from one to the next. Anyway, good stuff! Can’t wait for the actual release so I don’t have to keep clicking on a song title on the web site to listen to specific tracks over and over again.
I’m really enjoying the new album, which arrived last week. It’s interesting to compare it with the new Depeche Mode album, which doesn’t compare favorably. PSB decided to go back to their original “classic” sound (Please, Behaviour, Very) with lots of hooks and dangerously catchy melodies, and the usual interesting and for the most part upbeat lyrics. DM, on the other hand, seem to have gotten themselves into a bit of a rut, having given up on melody and still wandering about in some fairly alienated (and alienating) lyrics. It would have been nice — but too much to hope for — to also see them go back to their classic synth-pop sound, but apparently they’ve decided that part’s over. Who knows — maybe this was an album they’re contractually bound to put out, so they’re just going through the motions. Meanwhile, I don’t know if you’re a fan of Röyksopp (“The Understanding” is a classic), but their new album, “Junior” is quite good and is in semi-permanent rotation at the moment with “Yes”. Norwegian synth pop — yay!