Adolf Noise (aka DJ Koze) - Wo Die Rammelwolle fliegt

The I Don't Cares (Juliana Hatfield & Paul Westerberg) - "½ 2 P" from their forthcoming album Wild Stab. "Your voice always makes me have to pee..."

I really don't like Kurt Vile. Like The War on Drugs, he apes the most boring styles and sounds from some of the most boring rock stars of all time. It was boring when Dire Straits did it. It was boring when Tom Petty did it. Springsteen's most boring years were spent doing it. Vile and WOD sound like sonic sleeping pills. Every time I hear a new song by either artist I feel like I've heard it thousands of times before, dripping from the speakers in of department stores and dentist's office waiting rooms.

There's just no excuse for music that boring.

I know a few groups that have managed to use similar influences to a much more interesting effect. Blank Realm, for one. Milk Music, even better. Milk Music solves for X by adding Meat Puppets' blistering countrifried irony to their equation. But Vile seems perfectly comfortable sounding like an ambien.

In Kurt´s gig he really seemed to me he was thinking he´s really cool. But to me he sounded & looked just lazy & boring. I have listened also some of his songs from YouTube, haven´t find anything from them.

Well, for what it's worth, I saw a twinkle of "something" in Kurt Vile back when he released Constant Hitmaker. But there are other slacker folkies out there who hold my interest much more. Chad VanGaalen, for instance. Jack Name. Nat Baldwin. Just to name a few.

not bad. I've always believed that if you're a child of the '80s and you claim *not* to enjoy at least some Duran Duran, you're either lying or there's something wrong with you.

I'm not saying they're objectively awesome, far from it. But they wrote some seriously fun songs, and I think part of growing up is being able to admit that you aren't too cool for fun shit.

I'm partial to "Girls on Film" myself.

"Rio" is awesome. And "Ordinary World."

The crackpipes, put 'em down... There isn't a single sound molecule able to redeem Duran Duran's wretched dismal putrid songs. I hope they get ass cancer.

Not to be a dick, but I'd rather listen to Duran Duran than Kurt Vile. I don't necessarily want anyone to get ass cancer, much less a homely musician who has like nothing going on for him, but I certainly hope the guy's music gets better.

It's interesting that artists who have spent a great amount of their lives subverting the song format and playing downright "unlistenable" ;) music —like Kim Gordon and Jennifer Herrema, among others— enjoy, admire and exalt the virtues of Vile's art and stance, while mooks dump their sorry-ass prejudices of conventionalism on the guy. Kurt "has like nothing going on for him"? Check yourself into Bellevue.

Chill man, I'm just bustin' balls. I don't hate Kurt Vile... Not the way you seem to hate goofy '80s pop, and I already admitted to enjoying Constant Hitmaker. I even liked the first couple of War on Drugs releases OK (yeah, I know he's no longer in the band, but you get me)...

I just think most of his music is boring, and I think he's capable of doing a great deal more. Honestly, I initially saw some solid influences in his work (early '90s jangly Flaming Lips, and Meat Puppets for example) and I'm a bit annoyed that he's chosen to go for a more ordinary sound.

No mistake- everything he's done has been better than that goddamn terrible War on Drugs album from 2014. Lost in the Dream indeed.

I was just kinda puntzin around with you. I have nothing against him other than the fact that his music has been mostly narcolepsy inducing. I want him to succeed. I saw him open for Thurston Moore a few years ago and it was pleasant enough.

Now man up and admit that you love Duran Duran ;)

(Btw: no offense, but whether or not "cool" folks like Kim Gordon like someone or something. If I don't like it, knowing that they do is not going to change a thing, nor should it. Though Kim is, of course, absurdly cool.)

Right now I'm listening to the reissue of Sun City Girls' Torch of the Mystics. Song: "Space Prophet Dogon" ... What an insanely awesome LP.

Before that it was the second half of GY!BE's Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress. Because, y'know.. Godspeed you! Black Emperor did in fact release an album this year, quickly forgotten though it may have been.

It's a good little album. "Piss Crowns Are Trebled" has a classic Godspeed feel to it. Could have been on Skinny Fists. I like the bagpipes and the crunches that makes up so much of the songs first half. The build is pretty basic GY!BE, but "basic" GY!BE can only really mean "familiar in its excellence" can't it?

I don't know if I gave Asunder... a fair go of it the first few times around. I loved Allelujah! Don't Bend, Ascend! even though a lot of crusty record store owners thought it was "demo quality". I'm going to make a point to listen to this album more over the next four weeks, because GY!BE deserves full consideration after all they've done for music, and for me in my sad little young adult hipster years.

Next up: Young Fathers - White Men are Black Men Too.
Then I'm gonna give a spin to some of the year's "comeback" albums (Blur's The Magic Whip, Faith No More's Sol Invictus, and Flying Saucer Attack's Instrumentals 2015)

I'm guessing they all deserve second chances. FSA doesn't need one, necessarily, but I love listening to that album.

Got a long article to write by morning, so I need to keep my brain feelin' good.

I think you already did.

Ha.

I agree. Never been Duran Duran-fan, but never also had nothing against them. My aunt had Rio, listened it some time through in the eighties and quite enjoyed it, never wanted it to myself. And I don´t believe Vile´s music will ever get better, but of course I can be wrong.

I love "Starlings of the Slipstream" ... Seriously. Where the hell does anyone get away with writing such a beautiful chorus and outro to a song about spying on sororities and other pieces of nonsense? It's glorious.

And "Fin." Possibly just as beautiful.

Overall, definitely my least favorite Pavement record, but those two songs are goddamn incredible.'

I hate Kurt Vile.....