2009 - the year of dissapointing follow ups

The year hasn't even finished, yet I'm already declaring it a write off... actually, no, it was a very good year for music, it's just a lot of the stuff I was looking forward to didn't come out exactly as I'd hoped. For starters, Yeah Yeah Yeah's - It's Blitz. The punk rock, garage pop band decides to put out a completely trend following pile of electro indie dance balls. The absolutely unstoppable and unpredictable guitar and drum work of Nick Zinner and Brian Chase take a back seat to synths and drum machines. I felt utterly betrayed. 10 tracks of heartbreaking dick cheese coated shit all topped off by Karen O's poor attempt at pop singing. I looked up to these guys and now I look down on them in SHAME.

Next is ARCTIC MONKEYS new album HUMBUG. What an awesome concept. The best of modern British rock teaming up with the cultural rock icon of the last 10 years Josh Homme. I was shitting myself with anticipation for an epic hard rock monster that would cement the arctic monkeys place in music history. What did I get? Watered down piss. There was the desert-esque feel of Josh Homme in there, but it just lacked passion. All the slower moments of the arctic monkeys put together in one place. Overall it's not terrible, in fact it's not even bad. But it's not good, great, amazing or even going to be remembered in 2 years time.

Finally we have the band that 6 months ago I said were the best band in the world. MUSE.
My heart sank as track after track revealed The Resistance to be more like a pop muse rip off band using hackneyed cliches about conformity and the government while filling in the rest with soppy ballads stolen from Celine Dion's B-sides collection. The Resistance is like being tortured by your best friend. My assumption about this (and a few of my friends think so too) is they're just too happy. How can you write anthemic anti-authoritarian rock when you've sold out wembly twice and are freaking millionaires with model wives? You can't! Not only that, but the production is a let down too. There are moments when some of the riffs seem like they're about to break out into a mountain of fretboard fire, but instead a wussy let down comes out sounding soft, rounded and weak. This might sell better than any of their previous ones, but it's Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry that'll go down in history as truly ground breaking.

Their have been some great albums this year though, I'm not all negative nancy pants. Future of the Left's album Travels with Myself and Another is totally brilliant. The Mars Volta's Octahedron is more restrained than usual but still a work of progressive genius. Kasabian's album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Assylum was not what I was expecting but is carved from great songs and hence is a success. Sonic Youth's new album totally caught me by surprise, and THE VIGNETTES EP VIOLENCE SOLVES EVERYTHING is out in NOVEMBER and you should definitely buy it.
The year's not over yet though. Wolfmother's new album Cosmic Egg will be out soon, and I guarantee Andrew Stockdale doesn't have the ability to follow up their awesome self titled debut.
Jet's new album just came out and surprise surprise it's about as rock and roll as Matchbox 20, and an AWESOME new band called THEM CROOKED VULTURES are coming out with something soon. If you haven't heard of them, look it up. It's ridiculously cool.

There's actually a dick load more music I'd like to talk about here, but I'll put it in another blog.
Until then, go fuck yourselves.

The Vignettes