Album Review: Candy Hearts – Ripped Up Jeans and Silly Dreams

Posted on August 2, 2010 by bgibs122

Searching for new and exciting music in the digital age can be a disheartening process. It’s not for lack of material; loads of places (iTunes, MySpace, ifyoumakeit.com) do everything but throw free tunes at you, but too often the phrase “You get what you paid for” comes up. Or the music will be nice to listen to, but for whatever reason, it never sticks and rots away in the “downloads” folder of your computer.

Which makes finding a genuinely awesome band like Candy Hearts all the more rewarding. A total “sure, why not?” download off of ifyoumakeit.com and this album has become one of my favorites of the year already. Seriously, anyone who wants to be in a pop punk band that isn’t shit, take notes here, because Ripped Up Jeans and Silly Dreams is a perfect example of the genre. The band sets the energy straight on ten for “What I Want” and “Blocking the Sunshine” (perhaps the best song present). The choruses are total singalongs without trying too hard to be (a problem that plagues too many artists nowadays), and everything here is Top 40 catchy. And don’t let the name fool you, Candy Hearts are no sissies when it comes to getting loud; “Hiding From My Friends” is full of hard hitting electric guitars and dense cymbal crashes.

These guys (and gal) know their way around their instruments, too. Instrumentation here is a perfect mix of simplicity while throwing in tricks and flourishes that compliment the songs perfectly. These are well-crafted songs, too. Each one is able to stand on its own, even once you get more than halfway into the album where a lot of bands lose steam. For pop-punksters, there’s a lot of acoustic guitars here, but even then the band is inventive too. It’s not just an acoustic for the sake of it, Candy Hearts really makes the acoustic guitar work for them on heart on the sleeve “Why”, or fast-paced “Punk Songs”. Singer Mariel Loveland doesn’t have the most powerful voice, but she gets by perfectly fine with what she has, and the earnestness in what she says more than makes up for it. All of these features are made clear in an incredibly sharp mix; usually indie releases sound underproduced to the point of unflattering, that is definitely not the issue here.

Candy Hearts seems to follow the “crack open the journal/heart-on-the-sleeve” approach (again, keeping with the pop punk tradition) when it comes to lyrics. This approach is surprisingly difficult to do successfully in music. You can be too generic ala Taylor Swift, too juvenile like blink-182, or too “emo” like the band lyrics your ex puts in their Facebook status. Candy Hearts avoids that by painting extremely detailed pictures of personal stories like on “Flashers Flashing”. They cover themes like crushes, good times, bad times, loneliness, and having good old fashioned fun.

In a world with boring, derivative, bratty bands, discovering something like “Ripped Up Jeans and Silly Dreams” comes as a breath of fresh air. Everything about this album is great, and it’s definitely one of my favorites for 2010. The fact that these guys haven’t cracked the 500 fan mark on Facebook borderlines criminal. Five stars for the best pop punk album I’ve heard in years.

tl;dr: Listen to them now so you can say you heard them first. If they keep this up, Candy Hearts is going places. Five out of five stars.

Fan them on Faceook here.
Download the album for free here off IfYouMakeIt.com.

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2010 Bests So Far

Posted on August 1, 2010 by bgibs122

Well, now that we’re into August, I can start taking guesses at how end of the year “Best of 2010” will look. Below are some albums that you should be hearing about, Grammies be damned.

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach: As I said in my review of this album, “Plastic Beach” is awesome. Damon Albarn and co. managed to hit that sweet spot where music is weird, dark, twisted, and totally accessible and catchy at the same time. Current single “On Melancholy Hill” and future hit “Superfast Jellyfish” should get a lot of attention on the alt charts, and maybe even crack Billboard. My guess? A lot of top 10s and 5s.

Gaslight Anthem – American Slang: This has the potential to be this year’s “Backspacer”; an almost too-short set of songs that get in, get awesome, and get out by the 3 and a half minute mark. Nothing here is going to break the mainstream, but it’ll gain The Gaslight Anthem some more fans for those who missed out on “The ’59 Sound” for whatever reason. Probably place…eh, Top twenties and teens.

The National – High Violet: “High Violet” is so far the “indie” album this year (Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” might supplant this next week; we’ll soon see), and The National are currently that band it’s cool to have just checked in to. With “High Violet”, The National have at least made a name for themselves outside of hipster/indie circles, but only time will tell if they can keep up this momentum. I’m gonna call top 5s and maybe a number 1 or two.

Candy Hearts – Ripped Up Jeans and Silly Dreams: Wishful thinking on my part because no one has heard of these guys (and gal), but “Ripped Up Jeans and Silly Dreams” is my favorite album so far this year. I’m going to write the review for it this week, promise.

And now, for a look ahead at what I’m anticipating for the year…

The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs: Oh come on, do I really need to explain myself here? After following up one of the best debut albums ever with “Neon Bible” in 2007, Arcade Fire spent quite awhile in radio silence. In 2010, they’ve had a fairly quick resurgence, first announcing some festival dates and then a new album. Hot damn!

Katy Perry – Teenage Dream: Alright, I’ll be honest. I have no personal interest in whatever happens on this album. I am, however, curious to hear it as Perry has more or less described it as her make or break in the music biz. Time will tell.

Weezer – “Heavy Mental” (title pending) and Pinkerton’s rerelease: I like Weezer. Even though they’ve “degenerated” into a bunch of goofy middleaged guys making snappy power pop/pop rock, damn if they don’t do a good job of it. “Heavy Mental” promises to have more raw rock energy according to frontman Rivers Cuomo, which will definitely be something to listen for. Then there’s the rerelease of Pinkerton in October, which sees the 1996 emo-birthing masterpiece released with new material and demos. Win-win.

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Radio Rant: Jason Derulo – Ridin’ Solo

Posted on July 27, 2010 by bgibs122

Looking at the stuff I’ve covered so far in Radio Rants, I’ve noticed that I’m going for stuff that people will at least remember in the future. Kesha will be some one or two album novelty act that makes everyone chuckle when they hear “Tik Tok”, B.o.B might end up having a stable career with a number one every now and then, and Katy Perry might even stick around for awhile.

Which is more than I can say for Jason Derulo.

Alright, before I really get going, I’ve got to say a thing or two about sampling and originality. Am I anti-sampling? Well, no. It’s a process that’s gone on for decades, and has opened the door to some really clever work. But at the same time, I’m against blatantly swiping something from another song and throwing it fairly unaltered into your own music. A sample takes a small piece of something else, reworks it, integrates it, and the piece functions as something new. A sample that just takes something from another song and puts it in something else? Much more like “ripping off” than sampling.

Jason Derulo has had two singles so far. The first one, “Whatcha Say”, ‘sampled’ Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” so much that I’m surprised Imogen Heap didn’t get partial writing credit for the entire chorus. Mr. Derulo’s next hit was “In My Head”, which didn’t sample Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” as much as lazily rewrite it and strip it of any charm and originality. So what about third single “Ridin’ Solo”? Did Derulo ditch his sampling past and write a song without samples? Did he ditch the Auto-Tune?

Don’t I wish. A few electronic beeps, and…oh, hey, there’s the chorus already. So this time we’re ripping off “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve, a 90’s hit everyone’s heard at least a few times in their life. That’s…that’s great. And the chorus consists of cliches (“Feeling like a star/you can’t stop my shine/I’m riding cloud nine/my head’s in the sky”) and “I’m ridin’ solo” too many damn times. It’s kinda catc–actually, no. This song is not catchy. “Bittersweet Symphony” is. This is why I hate lazy sampling; the newer song is only remembered for copying the old one, it doesn’t stand on its own, and it relies on piggybacking off an older, more established tune to get by.

Lyrically, the fact that the song’s about feeling good after a breakup should tell you everything. Now that I think about it, hasn’t he written about girls before? “Whatcha Say” was about him cheating on a girl, then “In My Head” was about him wanting to get with a girl at a club (this led to the cheating?), and now he’s happy to be single in “Ridin’ Solo” (as a result of “Whatcha Say”?). These might be the three most covered topics in pop/r ‘n b, just adding to Jason Derivative’s list of cliches. The bridge consists of him hitting some “sing like a girl” high notes and spelling the damn title. One more chorus, and we’re done.

People talk about generic and bland pop all the time, but shockingly few songs on the radio really fit into the mold as well as “Ridin’ Solo” does. It’s the third run of the mill single by an artist without an original bone in his body, it’ll go to number one, and I’ll be grumpy about it. Next!

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Album Review: Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

Posted on July 27, 2010 by bgibs122

**As you might have noticed, I’ve used the last few weeks to review some older records, mostly because nothing new has come out that I like. This changes next week though, with “The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire.

With “Plastic Beach”, Gorillaz is no longer about a wacky cartoon band. Nor are they any longer purely Damon Albarn’s experimental sideproject that happens to churn out a great tune or two. The first clue about these is on the cover itself. Instead of mugshots of Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s ink creations, we’re treated to the mammoth Plastic Beach itself, which looks big enough to hold more people, sounds, and ideas than Gorillaz have put in one album thus far.

And boy are there a lot of ideas here. Not that “self-restraint” has ever been an element of Gorillaz, but they’ve never gone as all out as they do here. “Plastic Beach” isn’t as deliberately hip-hop as the self-titled, nor does it flirt with the rock side of things like “Demon Days”, but instead draws easily overlying lines in the sand between pop and hip-hop with a side of funk every now and then (such as first single Stylo). Albarn handles all of this alone, and he handles it with more concentration and finesse than we’ve seen before. The music is rich, melodic, and is tight all across the board; be it a full synth track or an orchestra.

Gorillaz as a project still centers around Albarn, but there’s plenty of room to play. In fact, it isn’t until the third proper song (the fantastic Rhinestone Eyes) for him to make an appearance; Snoop Dog leads the way with Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach, and then British rappers Kano and Bashy trade off on White Flag. Albarn’s co-conspirators are as various as they are numerous: Bobby Womack and Mos Def both find room to breath on Stylo, De La Soul and Super Furry Animal go nuts on super silly Super Fast Jellyfish, and Albarn is able to croon alongside the godfather of weird Lou Reed on Some Kind of Nature and it’s all sorts of awesome. Half of The Clash even makes an appearance, and this isn’t even everyone.

“Plastic Beach” as an album is stacked. The first ten of sixteen songs are a nearly flawless workout of weird, moody, exuberant pop. There’s a brief lull towards the tail end where things aren’t as dynamic or engaging, but even then the songs are still good on their own. Favorite songs are Rhinestone Eyes, Superfast Jellyfish, On Melancholy Hill, and Cloud of Unknowing. “Plastic Beach” is expansive, gorgeous, catchy, and darker pop at it’s finest. Jump on in, the water’s great. Four and a half stars.

tl;dr: Weird, worrysome, eco-friendly pop every bit as synthetic as its namesake. Maybe not the best album of the year, but damn if it ain’t close.

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