This was supposed to be published 12/14/2013 and then it wasn’t.
Though Guided by Voices didn’t have any big winners this year, they would definitely be up for a Most Productive of 2012 nomination. The Bears for Lunch was the third LP released this year Continue reading
Year-end articles always seem rather arbitrary and questionably pointless, but one thing is for certain…this year-end article is late. It’s already the fourth week of January 2013! To make the list even more arbitrary I decided to do the Top 12 of 2012 (I did the Top 11 of 2011 last year) and you can expect the Top 52 Tracks of 2012 soon. I refuse to make honorable mentions as that defeats the purpose. I hope that you deem this article worthy of reading despite its tardy release. Continue reading
Guided by Voices is a band that you may know by name but have never listened to. If that’s the case, this article will hopefully warrant a listen. I myself hadn’t listened to GBV until a few years back outside of a few tracks of theirs I had on a Matador Records sampler. Since then, they have become my most listened to artist according to last.fm, surpassing Beat Happening and Joy Division a few days ago thanks to my non-stop research over the past week. I wouldn’t consider Guided by Voices my favorite band, but there are reasons why I’ve listened to them as much as I have… Continue reading
Guided by Voices is a band that I didn’t start listening to until about two years ago. Since then, they have become one of my top 5 most listened to artists. Hearing of a new LP to be released on January 16, 2012 had me revved up for two reasons: 1) frontman Robert Pollard had officially disbanded Guided by Voices in 2004, and 2) the new LP, Let’s Go Eat the Factory, was to include the most celebrated GBV roster of Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Greg Demos, Mitch Mitchell and Kevin Fennell who hadn’t played or recorded together since 1996 when Pollard reportedly fired the rest of his bandmates after a falling out with Sprout. Continue reading
As promised, below you will find the Self-Hating Hipster’s T0p 51 Tracks of 2011 thanks to a scramble at my lake house, indirectly motivated by six girls working on their Masters theses. I actually mistakenly published the article about a week ago but quickly made it “Private” so as not to give you readers a glimpse of the SHH in his article underpants. I didn’t realize (stoopit!) what a massive undertaking this article would prove to be as a solo project. I know it’s too late, but I’m hoping that you don’t find it to be too little. I’ve been really busy with my job lately, and in the words of Garth Marenghi, “I’m not Jesus Christ…I’ve come to accept that now.”
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51. Fucked Up – “Queen of Hearts”
David Comes to Life
Fucked Up adds a cute, poppy flare to post-hardcore as evidenced by “Queen of Hearts.”
“Hello, my name is David!” Hi, David. “Let’s be together! Let’s fall in love!”
Stop yelling, David. Continue reading
Before Today by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (2010)
I was introduced to Ariel Pink’s Worn Copy and The Doldrums in college by my glorious roommate, Robakabob. Before Today isn’t a complete departure from the Ariel Pink that I knew and loved [parts of], but it is certainly a more focused and market-saavy approach. It is technically Pink’s 10th album. His albums prior to Before Today were often sprawling, lacked consistency and were even unlistenable at times—not unlike his mentor Continue reading
Music From the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle by The Olivia Tremor Control (1996)
The Olivia Tremor Control’s first album, Dusk at Cubist Castle, is a psych pop tour de force. It is supposed to be the soundtrack for an unreleased film about two girls, Olivia and Jacqueline, and an apocalyptic quake in California. The album offers a wide range of genre exploration: neopsychadelia, indie rock, lo-fi, folk, Krautrock, surf rock and noise. The first time I listened to it, I expected Continue reading
the self-hating hipster 