I received a text on Saturday morning from a DJ friend of mine. She was with a mutual friend and they wanted to know, “in a short and sweet way, what your current fav album is?” What prior events had taken place to lead to the posing of this question, I don’t know. I assume that, aware of my often-impeccable taste in music, they were simply in search all things shiny, new and sonically pleasing. As someone who has spent time around DJs, if it’s the weekend and you’re having a deep and meaningful with a DJ, chances are you’re arguing about music. This is usually a big, ole fat waste of time. DJs have a much wider vocabulary to describe what they do or don’t like, and not much interest in expanding their own tastes beyond their chosen sub-genre. Whatever their peculiar blend of deep-glitch-dub-step-son-&bassman might be.
Still, it’s always nice to be asked isn’t it? The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s It’s Blitz is the album currently giving me a reason to get out of bed. Everyone knows good albums, as in good the whole way through, are an increasingly rare and endangered species, but It’s Blitz does the trick. This is the New York indie band’s 3rd album and it should catapult the band to mainstream success. Fronted by lead singer Karen O, lead single ‘Zero’ is one of the year’s best songs so far, an indie rock anthem with enough uplifting synth action to rival anything by Lady GaGa. Even better is ‘Heads Will Roll’ the album’s trump card and a disco moment to end them all. The album has been polished with a thick futuristic disco sheen, a risky move executed with panache and precision by TV On The Radio uber-geek Dave Sitek. The result is a memorable long-player for people who struggle to take The Killers seriously. If you identify with that last statement you must be a fan of The Kills, who played Auckland’s transmission room last week. With a sexy art-rock vibe and a female vocalist, The Kills are not too dissimilar to how the Yeah Yeah Yeahs used to sound, and their best song, ‘The Last Day of Magic’ is one of the best songs of last year. The guitar riffs that dominate the first 40 seconds of this song are sufficiently awesome as to remind one just how vital it is to be alive and doing something or someone you love. Best-case scenario – both.
While The Kills were in Auckland some murky practitioner in the dark arts of PR, (okay it was Chris from Mint Condition) who in a delicious piece of PR magic – managed to create a photo opportunity with the band for Meadowlark jewellery. No harm in that, that’s what PR people do and Chris is one of the good guys. It soon caused a right fuss over on isaaclikes.com/2009/03/387-kills-dying-for-meadowlark.html and isaaclikes.com/2009/04/397-tall-poppy-syndrome-and-nz-designer.html as a series of anonymous posters appeared to be just a little too eager to mention that it was a Meadowlark pr stunt and that The Kills were also wearing pieces by Deadly Ponies and Company of Strangers, coincidentally repped by a different PR firm. What fun. A few years ago this kind of bitchiness was kept behind closed doors but with blogs, everyone is fair game and the game never sleeps….
To hear ‘The Last Day of Magic’ by The Kills go here…
To hear ‘Zero’ by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs go here…
theyellowstereo.com/2009/04/the-daily-graboid-70/
Buy them if you like them….
