So, nearly a quarter of the way through 2011, and it has been something of a major disappointment. It is as if they've taken every that worked from 2008 to 2010 and redid it only worse.
Start off with two major sophomore albums from indie stalwarts, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Smith Westerns: they are both alright but both nothing special. Noah And The Whales newbie is OK nothing great, no where near as good as Spring. The Strokes has some killer tracks but not enough to justify buying the album. Panic At The Disco is really not a good album… Teddy Thompson is Jackson Browne for hipsters; Lucinda Wiliam's has written a good song since "Passionate Kisses",
Follow it with Gaga's worst song to date, and Brit splitting it on two songs, but even the good one wasn't THAT good. Ke$ha is repeating herself in ever decreasing echos
The Limey front is uniformly dreadful, Radiohead are outstaying their welcome, Elbow is worse than Radiohead. Jessie J is OK, Tine Tempah was better before he was succesful. Beady Eyes are OK nothing great. R.E.M. are better than they've been in years -is that enough? Not for me.
Oh yeah, hip hop. What a disaster. From Chris Brown to Lupe Fiasco, everybody is swimming in the shallow end of the pool.
Mainstream rock kinda sucks as well, the Decemberists latest was a drag, PJ Harvey's unsustainable, Cold War Kids was a bore.
So what worked?
Songs worked: k.d. Lang, Brumo Mars, Paul Simon, Gretchen Wilson, Wiz Khalifa, Tune-Yards, Cobie Callait
And a handful of albums.
I'd go like this:
1. Marsha Ambrosius – Late Nights And Early Mornings
2. The People's Key – Bright Eyes
3. Yuck – Yuck
Those are the three albums, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt are making it on to my end of year list.
MAYBE, I would add R.E.M. in at #4.
After that? I dunno.
It is like Ground Hog's Day, everybody is doing the same stuff over and over and frankly it is getting a little old right now. Where is the next big thing?