Set Yourself On Fire by Stars
A couple of weeks agao I signed up to Last.fm and installed the audiscrobbler plug-in. For those not familiar Last.fm/Audioscrobbler makes a note of every song you play on your computer on then sends it to the last.fm database so as to create your own music profile. You can then get stats about the music you listen to such as favourite songs etc. OK not that interesting really but it gets cool as it finds your music neighbours who listen to the same artists as you, and then it makes recommendations based on what they listen too. So for example you listen to The National and Wolf Parade, somebody else listens to The National, Wolf Parade and Stars it's a pretty good bet that you may like Stars too. So it comes up with a whole list of recommended artists and then you can stream their tracks in full as part of you "My Recommended Music Radio"!
So I was doing listening to the recommended radio, it was really nice to be able to listen to new music that was acctually pretty close to what you normally listen to. OK there was still some rubbish music but I felt there was a chance I could have liked it. Anyway a track came on that stood out I've forgotten the name but it was by a group called Stars. I previewed a few other tracks and then paid my £7.99 to download their latest album (Set Yourself On Fire) from iTunes. My impression...
I like it. There's a kinda kitch, cheesy feel about it which I think will always prevent it from becoming one of my classic albums but having said that there are some songs that have some stunning parts. But that always the problem, they're just parts. I've listened through a couple of times now and I haven't found a song I can enjoy all the way through.
The last song Calender Girl has a stunning verse but OMG never has a song been wrecked so much by the chorus. I nearly fell off my seat on the bus the first time I heard it, I was so shocked by how a band could ruin a whole song in 15 seconds. Stars have two main vocalists, a man and a woman which gives their stuff some really good variety. Calender Girl starts off with the woman singing a very heart-felt ballad... "Well out on the landing a friend I forgot to send home who waits up for me all through the night" and then along comes the man and in the cheesiest voice possible that sounds like a TV advert jingle sings "Calenndeeeer giiiiirl" - I mean really what were they thinking?
There are similar moments in every single song, just as I'm thinking something has potential they put in a really bad bass line that I just can't forget about. I can't help but shake the feeling it's a very little bit formulaic either, yes good for one song, but a whole album with the same equation? Maybe I'm not spotting the subtlties
An enjoyable album? yes. A classic? Nope. But my congrats to Last.fm for suggesting it to me.
So I was doing listening to the recommended radio, it was really nice to be able to listen to new music that was acctually pretty close to what you normally listen to. OK there was still some rubbish music but I felt there was a chance I could have liked it. Anyway a track came on that stood out I've forgotten the name but it was by a group called Stars. I previewed a few other tracks and then paid my £7.99 to download their latest album (Set Yourself On Fire) from iTunes. My impression...
I like it. There's a kinda kitch, cheesy feel about it which I think will always prevent it from becoming one of my classic albums but having said that there are some songs that have some stunning parts. But that always the problem, they're just parts. I've listened through a couple of times now and I haven't found a song I can enjoy all the way through.
The last song Calender Girl has a stunning verse but OMG never has a song been wrecked so much by the chorus. I nearly fell off my seat on the bus the first time I heard it, I was so shocked by how a band could ruin a whole song in 15 seconds. Stars have two main vocalists, a man and a woman which gives their stuff some really good variety. Calender Girl starts off with the woman singing a very heart-felt ballad... "Well out on the landing a friend I forgot to send home who waits up for me all through the night" and then along comes the man and in the cheesiest voice possible that sounds like a TV advert jingle sings "Calenndeeeer giiiiirl" - I mean really what were they thinking?
There are similar moments in every single song, just as I'm thinking something has potential they put in a really bad bass line that I just can't forget about. I can't help but shake the feeling it's a very little bit formulaic either, yes good for one song, but a whole album with the same equation? Maybe I'm not spotting the subtlties
An enjoyable album? yes. A classic? Nope. But my congrats to Last.fm for suggesting it to me.
posted by Quack at
6:29 PM
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