I kind of disagree.

Yes on the Jaxx stuff, obviously, but dunno about the Rapture. First off: Luke does not sing all the songs. Secondly: exactly which Cure songs does "Olio" sound like? Admittedly I'm not the biggest Cure-head, but I was under the impression that they usually had some guitars, whereas there ain't a single one in Olio. It's straight dance-pop, which is why it's good. Moreover, how does Jenner sound like R. Smith? Smith always sounded a bit constrained to me, whereas Luke is all over the place; kind of a whiskey v. amphetamines thing.

Fair enough on the Primal Scream thing, but as for the Rapture's lack of current bigness and/or dissenting critical opinions ("the album has been engendering backlash for the near year it's been floating around on promos and P2Ps"), there are a few other things going on here. First is the fact that the Rapture are trying to do disco and dance, two genres which many American rock fans have an inbred, unreasoning hatred towards, no matter the merits of the actual music at issue--see the Zenarchery guy, for instance. So that's not helping them. As for that P2P backlash--c'mon, Michaelangelo, you don't actually think that backlash is all, or even mostly, in reaction to the music, do you? It's a hype-allergy, and fair enough, but the best antidotes to prerelease hype backlash are good reviews, and seeing as how the damn album isn't even out in America yet, there haven't been a whole lot of constructive criticism to contradict the hipster squeamishness about Things People Like.

I'm not saying the Rapture are guaranteed success. Hell, I work for a record company--I know not to say that. But I do think that it's unfair and extremely premature to dub them failures when their damn album hasn't come out yet. I've had Echoes for a while, and I still really, really like it. It's a great fucking album, and I think--or hope--that other people will think so, too. You know, once the damn thing comes out.
posted by Mike B. at 11:31 AM 0 comments