Songs of Summer

As I write this, Graham Coxon's punk guitars are raging through my headphones. I love the rush. But after an entire weekend of hearing giddy punk pop, I'm wondering if I've reached saturation point. Just consider:

Graham Coxon- Happiness in Magazines; Love Travels at Illegal Speeds. The Blur guitarist is the coolest man I've seen, from the haircut to the Elvis Costello glasses, to the melodicity of his guitar playing....and now this, a couple of albums of great to middling pop songs.

Fastball- Little White Lies. Maybe its not cool to like them, but 1998's All the Pain Money Can Buy is still one of my favourite pop albums from that decade. This new album is quite nice too, especially the title track and all those melodies and hooks that stick under my skin like some insidious rash. They aren't cool for sure, but heck they're fun!

The Strokes- Room on Fire. Two years after my Strokes craze, I finally hear their second album in full. A lot less giddy fun than Is This It? but then again first contact is always more electrifying. I love 12:51 and Under Control, but none come anywhere near You Talk Way To Much...perhaps because of the sentiment, or perhaps that's the song where they do theirbest Velvet Underground impersonation. I'd like to see them live.

Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca. What drew me to them was the fantastic pop moment of Knotty Pine, their collaboration with David Byrne on the charity LP Dark Was the Night. Now for someone like me, Dirty Projectors are a difficult band. I thrive on hooks, and with this band, you have to dig deep AND be patient to find them, and then you find quite a few actually. Cannibal Resource is a fantastic song, as are Temecula Sunrise, Stillness is the Move, and the wispy and beautiful Two Doves. I love it especially when they all scream "Bitte Orca, Orca Bitte!!!" Don't even know what that means.

Doves- Kingdom of Rust. Ok I know that the big production move in Noughties Indie is the atmosphere. Its everywhere, that echoey, down-in-the-bottom-of-a-well-sound- from Arcade Fire to Fleet Foxes to Coldplay (!) to these here gents, the Doves. Their playing is great-muscular, melodic and serious but not too serious. And this album has some really good songs- Jetstream, Kingdom of Rust (with its lovely muted country rock chug which becomes something much more explosive and beautiful by the time the chorus comes about, followed by the sparkling guitar arpeggios). But why did they have to go with the in vogue thing, and make it all so spacey? I guess I love Vampire Weekend cause their sound's so crisp.

Manic Street Preachers- Journal for Plague Lovers. I like the politics of the Manics, unabashedly left of centre. But as it so often happens, the band with the most attractive politics hardly ever match it with exceptional music. So though I've liked the occassional Manics songs over the years, they've always seemed to me to be one trick poneys, wailing anguishedly over metallo-punkish guitar walls of sound. Therefore, I'm very very pleasantly surprised with this album. This is harrowing music, both lyrically and in its musical bite, and it all makes sense, in no small part due to the fact that there's a lot of different textures to the guitars which keeps the songs interesting all the time...I'll be getting more into it, I'm sure.

Green Day- 21st Century Breakdown. I know Rolling Stone is bullshit, but even then, how could they give this album four stars? If I like the Manics for the guitars, I hate this album because of the guitars. While some of the songs veer between interesting and likeable- the opening three songs for example- the monotone growl of the guitars playing identical figures on each and every song grates like nothing else. Only the bits where they try to do a Gogol Bordello are fun. I despair...I love the Green Day of Dookie and Nimrod but all this big RAWK CONCEPT ALBUM EMPTY CLICHES, GESTURES and immature facile politics leave me cold. Which begs the question, should Green Day be a sideproject to The Foxboro Hot Tubs, instead of the other way round?

The Decemberists- Hazards of Love. Heard this bizzare concept album about princesses, and forest dwelling shape shifters and evil queens and swans et al just once from start to finish. Its very lush, very melodic, and I suspect that as long as I'm not trying to follow the story or some such shit, I might just spend a lot of time humming the hooks.

Franz Ferdinand- You Could Have it so Much Better. Thrilling, super virile, very sexy rock. Therefore, very demanding too..."Well do ya, do ya do ya wanna?" God, the pressure to have a good time! I think Eleanor Put Your Boots On is a classic.

Various- Dark Was the Night. The charity LP I was talking about. A veritable Indie who's who. However, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Indie crowd only does acoustic-y head music and leave the body to Hip Hop. However, of the 31 songs here, there are quite easily at least 25 very good songs. Favourites-

Dirty projectors and David Byrne- Knotty Pine

Feist and Ben Gibbard- Train Song

The National- So Far Around the Bend

Grizzly Bear and Feist- Service Bell

Beirut- Mimizan

My Morning Jacket- El Caporal

Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings- Inspiration Information

The New Pornographers- Hey, Snow White

Cat Power- Amazing Grace

Riceboy Sleeps- Happiness

....and finally....

TV on the Radio- Dear Science,

I spent all of last year wanting to hear this album, and now that I have heard them- over and over and over and over again- I agree with the critics. I haven't heard any of their other albums, but a band that can mix the post-Apocalypse tom toms and handclaps of Halfway Home, the absurdly lovely funk guitars on Crying, the propulsive Rap Rock of Dancing Choose, the majestic Golden Age, the stately melodic shifts of Family Tree, the funk politics of Red Dress, the Radiohead beauty of Love Dog and the brass-led sexual healing of Lover's Day into the same album could only be a great band.

Others I've heard, but not much yet: Neko Case- Middle Cyclone. The National- Boxer. The Mars Volta- Octahedron. Sonic Youth- The Eternal. Supergrass- Life on Other Planets.