Better Luck with Music to Everyone in the Year 3000

Okay, I know that I'm more than a little late to the proverbial party here, but... The Jonas Brothers? I don't get it.

Moby - Last Night (I decided to make money)

I wasn’t necessarily shocked by this album; in fact, it is exactly what I expected. The same playin’ it cool Moby, dabbing into nothing new. After the first couple tracks, it was right on target! However, after a few more tracks I began to notice the pattern. Moby is not writing music anymore to write music: Moby is a sell out! Every song on Last Night can be heard in the foreseeable future for the next BMW 3 series or Samsung’s new professional camera phone or Vidal Sassoon’s Super Extra Mega Hold Hairspray. Funny enough, there is a picture of a television on the album cover. It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife…

If I didn’t look at the track names when the song changed, I wouldn’t be the wiser to realize I’m listening to a new song. Every single track is the same tempo. No joke! You can tap your foot in time to the first track and you won’t miss a beat… all the way to track 14. Talk about musical expression. And each song has a well selected four-word loop from a 60’s Motown Record perfect for whatever product it will be selling. “257.zero” just counts. That’s the lyrics! Some obvious recording (I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the woman who does those incorrect dialing error messages) just spits out random numbers in the background with 2, 5 and 7 being the most repetitive. Perfect for Gillette’s Mach 7 Razor. See? I’m already marketing for Moby!

Though, I guess in this day in music where everyone is stealing something, making money in the industry is as easy as open heart surgery. Moby was probably smart to make a record specifically for commercials, whether these were his intentions or not. Sucks for Moby fans, if there are any.

I don’t hate this record. Last Night is better than his previous batch of records plus side projects which are absolutely nothing to write home about. There are a couple of tracks I do like, but that’s because I’m part of the American public and will like this song the second I see it on TV (which I won’t be surprised if I go home and see it tonight). I might even buy the product its advertising. Who am I kidding? No, I won’t.

Dear Phantom Planet,

I love your band. In fact, The Guest is one of my favorite albums ever! Seriously! It's just so poppy and fun, and I still enjoy listening to it today, six years after its release. I wasn't a fan of your self-titled 2004 release, but in true die-hard-Weezer-fan fashion, I was holding out hope that you could have one (or in Weezer's case, three) disappointing album and then return to your catchy pop-rock roots with your latest release, Raise the Dead, which came out today. But imagine my dismay when I learned that your "new single" is not, in fact, a new song at all, but a re-recorded version of "Do the Panic," a b-side from The Guest! Oh, Phantom Planet, is that really the best you could do? Are you kidding us?

Yours truly,
Betsy

P.S.- Don't even try to blame this on Jason Schwartzman!

P.P.S.- Or Fueled by Ramen!

Death Cab For Cutie Fails at Possessing Anything

You know what really grinds my gears? Pretentious bands. Ever since their major label signage, Death Cab has gone straight down the tubes. Transatlanticism is probably one of the better albums this decade, and now everything they produce is just garbage. This song is eight minutes long! Like... really? Does a song really need to be this long? And if yes, does it really need to be on the radio? If you're going to write a song that is as long as the entire Vampire Weekend record, the least you could do is make it worthwhile to listen to because you do have my attention for almost 10 minutes.

Most of the time when this song comes on, I don't even realize it has been playing for so long until I think about what I'm listening to. It's the same damn thing over and over again... for eight minutes. It's boring! For starters, the song is called "I Will Possess Your Heart." This is not exactly the pick of choice for a sweet love song. In fact, I'd be a little concerned if I was the girl of choice here. Its my heart, if I wanted you to have it, win it with a song I'd melt to not fall asleep to. Creepy. And forget the fact that there are no lyrics for the first half of the song! I bet during one of your snooze-fests aka concerts you had a jam session then thought afterwards "oh shit we should make that our new single!" Because one thing that everyone wants to hear is your boringass, on-stage instrumental inserts - which you use in place of an actual song thereby conning your fans out of a good song yet still managing to only play an hour - on your new CD, more specifically as the single that will be on every friggin' radio station because you have nothing better to write. You're full time musicians! You can write a freakin' song.

Yeah okay, they made a radio edit, but they didn't edit out the bad parts which would kind of be redundant because then the song would be zero minutes long. DCFC, you don't even possess my attention here and I don't even have ADD! Oooh look a ball........

Ed Note: Here is the song