A friend called me to ask whether she should buy the Broken Bells album.
Of course she shouldn’t. It sucks.
And nobody except hero worshipping rock critics and die hard fans of their other bands bothered with it.
Still the Shins and Gnarls member are happy with themselves. Touring. Wanna get back in the studio.
Gret, it is just the rest of the world who’d prefer they went back to their real jobs.
The world was very enthused over Thom Yorke’s side band Atoms for Peace. Not. Except for the rock critics and the die hards. And except for new York they couldn’t sell out a 1000 SRO room.
But Thom was so enthusiastic -not the dour, miserable fuck he is with radiohead (maybe he is as sick of Radiohead as we are. He actually, omg, danced around. Yeah? I saw him at the Beacon circa “Creep” and he danced then as well.
I like to call this the Keith Richard and the Winos syndrome. Crappy side bands that the main man pop star gets off on because it is new and they can play smaller venues and they haven’t played the same shit nonstop for twenty years. But who essentially suck.
And the rock critics are the enablers here. Shouldn’t somebody besides me have told the ultimate side band, Monsters Of Folk, they were the most boring buncha bastards you could ever get stuck at a bus stop with. How did Jim James (Sorry, Yim Yames -the ultimate side band name) and Conor Oberst become bedwetters? M. Ward we kinda get.
Instead, people who should know better, people who ARE PAID to know better roll out the same old over worked lies to gullible punters who spend ten bucks on an album they will listen to for a week -longer if they are going to the concert, and then forget it ever existed.
So sure, girl, buy the Broken Bells album.
And then wait patiently for what you really wanna listen to: the new Shins.