Dead Milkmen: Pretty Music for Pretty People
2014
Quid Ergo Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Pretty Music For Pretty People 2. Big Words Make the Baby Jesus Cry 3. Welcome To Undertown 4. Now I Wanna Hold Your Dog 5. Make It Witchy 6. Mary Ann Cotton (The Poisoner's Song) 7. I've Got To Get My Numbers Up 8. Anthropology Days 9. Somewhere Over Antarctica 10. Dark Clouds Gather Over Middlemarch 11. Streetlamps - Walking To Work 12. The Sun Turns Our Patio Into A Lifeless Hell 13. The Great Boston Molasses Flood 14. All You Need Is Nothing 15. Ronald Reagan Killed The Black Dahlia 16. Hipster Beard 17. Sanitary Times
Holy shit, I've been working on this post for almost a week...It's not that it's hard to write or it's anything special...It's just that I haven't had much access to a computer lately...Or I should say, I've had access to a computer but spent that time looking at stupid faceebook... And boy, is it stupid...
Favorite facebook comment of the year?
"So so stupid! Never would I buy this no matter if channing t. Came out of the box and wanted to play. This is the devil game, you play with fire."
I like these reunion-era Dead Milkmen albums just as much as the ones from the classic era...Their style, for a band who usually gets the "haven't aged well" label by poopy-pants critics, is such a seamless fit into the modern era...They haven't altered the basic sound much, outside of some updated keyboard sounds and a slightly more muscular feel (less jangly/gangly than before) , but the lyrics are very much in the here and now...They dropped the whimsical surrealism that characterized a lot of their stuff and replaced it with the nightmarish surrealism of everyday life in the 21st century...
Plus, they're the only band I can think of these days that doesn't kowtow to the empty-headed, phony pop music that's managed to monopolize radio and television, yet which somehow manages to never be criticized by anyone ever!!! Isn't that the job of up-and-coming bands who've slogged thru the underground and emerged in a musical climate where anything that isn't vacuous pre-set stripper pop is immediately dismissed? But no, most young bands I encounter seem to have that same glassy-eyed, empty-headed Taylor Swift stare...If I live to be a hundred years old (spoiler alert: I won't) I'll never understand it...Anyway, the title track provides just the carnival-esque takedown of the modern pop scene that I didn't even know I needed..
And manoman, does "Anthropology Days" ever rule...One of their all-time best...Rodney lists off a bunch of atrocities (including a rundown of some old racist Olympic event, a story of an elephant that was executed for turning on its abusive trainer, the birth of Pat Robertson, etc. Let me put it this way, if this album had come out a year or so later Cecil the Lion would probably get a mention)...And why is he telling us all this? He gets around to it in the chorus where he reveals that he's just trying to get us all riled up "so the next time you meet an idiot you’ll remember to tell them to SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Oh and if you've ever wanted a punishingly accurate view into my everyday existence, you should probably check out "I've Got To Get My Numbers Up"...It's hard to believe the Dead Milkmen, as far as I know, aren't cubicle-monkeys themselves, cos they got a lot of the details right...Maybe they read Upton Sinclair's "The Stapler"...
For the first couple of listens I think I still thought "The King in Yellow" was slightly better, but I don't feel that way now...It sounds a little hollow after this...This album is a little longer and denser, but I'm calling it a dang masterpiece...Captures the tenor of our times more than any other record I've heard lately...So let's listen to some...
Here's "Anthropology Times" by Dead Milkmen...Enjoy...
Dead Milkmen: Pretty Music for Pretty People
2014
Quid Ergo Records
Format I Own it on:Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Pretty Music For Pretty People 2. Make It Witchy 3. Mary Ann Cotton (The Poisoner's Song) 4. I've Got To Get My Numbers Up 5. Sanitary Times 6. Anthropology Days 7. The Sun Turns Our Patio Into A Lifeless Hell 8. All You Need Is Nothing 9. Hipster Beard
A truncated vinyl-only version of "Pretty Music for Pretty People." I think this was for the folks who bought all the 7-inches, cos it only has the tracks that weren't included on those...If you only buy this (like I originally did) and don't have the singles then you're gonna need to make another trip to the CD store cos you're missing, oh...8 tracks...I picked up this vinyl version first unaware of its purpose and I remember thinking, "This new Dead Milkmen album is awesome, if a bit slight..." Yea, cos I was missing half of it...
Oh well...gives us an opportunity to listen to some more DM...Here's "Dark Clouds Over Middlemarch"...Happy Friday Everyone...
No comments:
Post a Comment