Dave Greek

Scene One: 11:30 PM on a Monday, I collapse into my desk chair exhausted from a day full of classes, meetings, deadlines, and missed meals. My unwieldy hair dribbles dewdrops of accumulated rain onto my decrepit wooden desk. I fire up the laptop, click on iTunes, and slowly spell out the alien words, “Swedish House Mafia.” Click, and the music pours forth from my speakers. Track 1, “Miami 2 Ibiza,” assaults me with a frenzied cacophony of thumping bass, screechy synth, and what sounds to be like a bad Kanye impersonator. “No,” I say to myself, tapping the spacebar to turn it off, “This is not what I want to hear right now.”

Scene Two: 8:00 PM on a Thursday, I am ready to rock. About 20 minutes ago, I pounded a Red Bull as I walked out of Ethics, and now sit anxiously (and twitchily) awaiting the arrival of a few buddies to get the night started after a long week. Fire up the iTunes and press play. My sage-like shuffle takes me to Track 11 (Satisfaction) on SHM’s new release “Until One,” and I suddenly find myself questioning my judgment in not installing a strobe light in the ceiling of my room. Strangely enough, my right hand forms a fist, and I soon find my whole arm pumping like an erratic piston above my head. Must be my Jersey roots.

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We Landed on the Moon! has everything one might expect to find in an up-and-coming superstar; strong, clean guitar riffs, a sexy front-woman with a fantastic voice, and a growing loyal fan base. The problem is, the only way I could sit through the whole of their new release, This Will be One for the Books, was with a grimace and my finger poised over the fast forward button.

It is hard for a band to distinguish itself in today’s crowded music business. We audiophiles have very high expectations for our musicians. It’s no longer enough to simply have a good voice, a great guitarist, or to write a catchy tune. We already expect all of that. To really succeed, artists need to put themselves into the music and prove that they have something more than the standard. That’s what is lacking in WLOTM!’s release: individuality.

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If you really want to understand what Bubblegum, the sixth studio album from British indie-rock band Clinic, is all about, don’t watch the video for its first single, “I’m Aware.” Among its more disturbing images, the video features an entourage of creepy, expressionless, Avatar-like puppets with antlers that vibrate and perform sun salutations to a pink smiling orb that vomits rainbows.

But once you get past the trippy music videos and sleepy, dream-like wistfulness that permeates every track, the album does not stray too far from conventions. In fact, Bubblegum follows the predictable formula of enjoyable, catchy tunes that the quirky band has subscribed to on every one of their album. This is not to say the album is bad–just familiar.

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