Yesterday saw at least two much anticipated records released from highly successful bands in the oughts, TV on the Radio and Panda Bear from Animal Collective. I think that their differing styles leads to an interesting debate about popular music and if a band "gets it".
The new Panda Bear record, Tomboy, starts with a track titled You Can Count on Me, and if nothing else I can count on him being honest with himself and the style of music he brings to an album.
Tomboy is the follow up to the highly acclaimed Person Pitch that features some of the most ground breaking music of the last decade including Bros and Take Pills. It's definitely in my top 10 of the last decade. Which leads me to wonder as to what direction of an artist that he is going in, and weather he is one of the most genuine artists out there that honestly doesn't care about public opinion and only really cares about making music for himself.
Tomboy is one of the most beautifully crafted albums I have heard in a long time, with amazingly executed production along with Noah Lennox's use of his own unique voice to perfection. As a former chamber choir singer he no doubt knows how to execute in that department. My problem with the album is that there is no one track on it that I could point to and say that defines the album. It kind of just goes from track to track executing the game plan to perfection, much like a good role player in basketball i.e. Scottie Pippen. There is no one play by Pippen that you could point to and say that that is what made him a great basketball player. It is more about his body of work. Nor could he carry a team by himself (the bulls never got as far when Jordan played Baseball for those two seasons), but there is no denying that Pippen is one of the best Basketball players of all time.
In this sense, Animal Collective is the 90s Bulls and Noah needs the rest of the band to make a work that is more mass appeal. I am sure if I asked him he wouldn't be worried about accolades, he just wants to make quality music, which is totally admirable and there is no doubt that Tomboy will be a highly acclaimed record, but it is not a record that I will be playing a lot of around the house or at parties. Unless you are at a lame Williamsburg or WTUL party where some kid in the corner has control over the IPod and has to prove how much cooler his/her musical tastes are than yours.
Now on to a band that I wouldn't mind hearing around the house, in the car or at a party. The fifth album by Brooklyn based TV on the Radio is definitely one of their most solid records, and that is saying a lot. It is a vast improvement from Dear Science which seemed slightly lost. TV on the Radio has always been known as an amazing live band and I think they finally have fully translated that energy to a record.
I always believe there reaches a moment in a lot of artists career where you feel like they just "get it." I think of this as understanding what your strong suits are and running with it. We as fans are such a pain in the ass. A musician puts out a great record, than all of a sudden we are torn. We want them to bring something new, yet we loved them for the fact that they sound a certain way. And we also want those artists to be all ours through all of this, so we sometimes deep down don't want them to create a work that makes them mass appeal artists.
I first noticed this with Modest Mouse. After their record the Moon and Antarctica they seemed to understand what moved units. They then put out Good News For People Who Love Bad News and the world heard Float On. I felt like they "got it" in the sense that they couldn't keep making epic ballads to cowboys if they hoped to make an honest living and support a family with music. I am not saying that artists that I consider "getting it" like Modest Mouse and Arcade Fire are selling out. I'm just saying they understand what works for them to make them successful.
This is something that we all find in us as we mature in our careers. We start to understand what works for our suits and the smart ones stick to it and execute it to the best of their abilities. I think both the Panda Bear and TV on the Radio records exemplify this. They both know where their strong suits are and you can count on them both to bring it night in and night out just like the 96 Bulls that won 72 games.
I still think the TV on the Radio album is the stronger release this week, and here is just one reason why:
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