Saturday, December 31, 2011

Frank's Favorite Albums 2011: Girly Indie Electro-Dance Pop Edition


Yeah you heard me, girly indie electro-dance pop. A genre I am embarrassingly well versed in.  In my pop music fantasy land these two artist are on the radio 24/7 instead of Ke$ha, Lady GaGa and Nicki Minaj. full disclosure I did enjoy that Super Bass song I never ever listen to any radio other than NPR so I get to be a little pickier about how I get my pop fix. Like most other fields this year, not many standouts, but these two are more than enough for me.  


Class Actress - Reapprocher
October 18 Carpark Records

This album is cool as ice. Heavy on the synths and sultry vocals the debut from the Brooklyn duet have released one of the best synth-pop albums in a good while. Each song is clean and efficient, with front woman Elizabeth Harper's confident and crisp delivery doing what good dance music does, creating an emotional as well as physical connection with the listener. Nothing on Rapprocher steers outside the lines of traditional dance pop, but this can be excused when the music is as as good as it is here. Despite the hero worship the whole album manages to feel contemporary.

  Hopefully their sophmore release will lead them to a more unique product, building on the many strengths of Rapprocher. Kind of like what happened with the following artist.



LIGHTS - Siberia
Last Gang Records

This is the second album for Canadian lap-top pop ingenue LIGHTS following up her debut The Listening. The Listening had strengths such as the songwriting (for the medium) and her voice, but was marred with production vying for a commercial sound via auto-tune and such.

Siberia tones back and dirties up the production letting the vocals do most of the work while providing a dark counter point to her youthful delivery.  I recommend purchasing the vinyl because staring at the cover while listening greatly enhances the experience.


Saturday, December 24, 2011

Frank's Favorite Albums 2011: Nice Singing/Songwriting Brah Edition


Here are a couple albums by dudes that write and perform their own work. I bet there are some good chick albums too if you check back later.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Frank's Favorite Albums 2011: Vacation Away Edition


It's that time of the year again where critics line up to show you how much more they know about art than you and then end up picking Arcade Fire as their #1 album. This was a pretty shitty year for music but there were a few bright shiny parts as well. I will be making these post periodically without rhyme or reason (well maybe some rhyme) until the end of the year or until I have ran out of stuff I liked. Each post will be grouped together by some sort of banal theme.

This first post's theme is...Time for a Vacation! All three of these albums I put on frequently when I needed to escape into their musical getaways as the pressure of non-vacation world became too much. So allow me to be your guide through a tropical retro paradise, a fictional California town suspended in the 80's and finally a peaceful resort of indie soft pop delight.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Last Ten Movies I Watched 12/3

They do this in the fancy movie magazines I read.

Stardust Memories - Woody Allen - 1980



Potiche - Fracois Ozon - 2010



Cave of Forgotten Dreams - Werner Herzog - 2010
Our Idiot Brother - Jesse Peretz - 2011
Director Jesse Peretz was the original bassist for The Lemonheads. WTF?
The Lady Vanishes - Alfred Hitchcock - 1938
Woody Allen: A Documentary - Robert Weide - 2011
The Exterminator - James Glickenhaus - 1980



Lolita - Stanley Kubrick - 1962
Paths of Glory - Stanley Kubrick - 1957
Page One: Inside the New York Times - Andrew Rossi - 2011