The Indie Rock 25

Nop, no es otro concurso ni juego de Super Nintendo revisitado.

Resulta que ahora a Entertainment Weekly se le antojó escoger los 25 discos que representen estos 25 años de indie rock en el planeta, al menos para ellos.

¿Cómo lo hicieron? Pues, tomando 3 premisas discutibles:

Y esto fue lo que les salió:

::2008_radiohead
::in.rainbows
[...] it’s an elegant summation of everything that’s made Radiohead the most popular avant-gardists in a generation.

::2007_spoon
::ga.ga.ga.ga.ga
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was a creative leap forward that, at its best, placed Daniel’s vocals in a warm Motown-influenced frame.

::2006_the.hold.steady
::boys.and.girls.in.america
this joyous modern bar band has a lifespan beyond tomorrow morning’s hangover.

::2005_bright.eyes
::i’m.wide.awake,it’s.morning
[...] at only 24, he’d already released five albums under the Bright Eyes umbrella, and was as sure-footed in his hushed bedroom-folk beauty as a man twice his age.

::2004_arcade.fire
::funeral
Singer Win Butler sounded preoccupied enough with mortality, but these songs were equally obsessed with the thrills and hazards of growing up.

::2003_the.white.stripes
::elephant
The bass-bonanza awesomeness of ”Seven Nation Army” aside, their fourth album was a triumph of red, white, and blooze, from the Freddie Mercury-worthy kiss-off of ”There’s No Home for You Here” to their hypnotizing bare-bones riff on the Burt Bacharach classic ”I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.”

::2002_interpol
::turn.on.the.bright.lights
Together they conjured an all-enveloping urban darkness, brightened by just the right amount of danceable rhythm.

::2001_the.shins
:h,inverted.world
[...] these New Mexico natives’ underground sound eventually reached the masses, thanks in part to number-one fan Zach Braff; but really, they just had the chops all along.

::2000_yo.la.tengo
::and.then.nothing.turned.itself.inside.out
For a decade and a half, this Hoboken band wore hipsterish fandom on their sleeves — interpolating Sun Ra, the Kinks, and New Zealand bands you’d never heard of.

::1999_sleater-kinney
::the.hot.rock
Calling them one of the best female bands of the decade is a disservice — SK was simply one of the best, period.

::1998_neutral.milk.hotel
::in.the.aeroplane.over.the.sea
Those cathartic, horn-filled arrangements — mood music for the world’s most psychedelic funeral service — helped get the waterworks going too.

::1997_modest.mouse
::lonesome.crowded.west
[...] singer Isaac Brock took the postpunk aesthetic and made it astoundingly resonant and personal. Joined by drummer Jeremiah Green and bassist Eric Judy, he was like Frank Black leading the Pixies down a scrappy gutter-trash path — and it was glorious.

::1996_belle.and.sebastian
::if.you’re.feeling.sinister
Murdoch could use that sophisticated, shy-sounding musical sheen to put across songs that were funny, prickly, elliptical, and, at the core of things, emotional.

::1995_archers.of.loaf
::vee.vee
[...] crackling drums, guitars tuned in odd ways to create perfect dissonance, and a knack for turning abrasive noise into chummy sing-alongs.

::1994_guided.by.voices
::bee.thousand
Defining ”lo-fi” in the indie-rock lexicon is Dayton, Ohio’s Guided by Voices, the brainchild of part-time teacher/full-time rock star Bob Pollard, who, by the mid-’90s, had already gained the devotion of a small few.

::1993_built.to.spill
::ultimate.alternative.wavers
Martsch’s signatures — dreamy guitar smog, meandering melodies, and mournful, intuitive lyrics — were already forming, and the early glimmer of a titanic talent emerged.

::1992_pavement
::slanted.and.enchanted
Their debut LP made a downright virtue out of messiness, spilling noodly riffs and free-form lyrics as if at random — and somehow it all cohered into something much greater than the sum of those parts.

::1991_my.bloody.valentine
::loveless
The U.K. import was the emotional climax of mastermind Kevin Shields’ studio explorations, a cacophony of shoegaze noise, droning guitars, and barely audible vocals.

::1990_fugazi
::repeater
[...] it was their incendiary sound — and righteous, fair-play principles — that made them legends on their own, and accidental heroes, too.

::1989_the.píxies
::doolittle
The Pixies are such an influential act it is tempting to say that, had they not existed, someone would have been forced to invent them.

::1988_sonic.youth
::daydream.nation
Equal parts gorgeous melody and blistering noise, the racket these NYC art-punkers kicked up on their fifth full-length has shown no signs of subsiding since then.

::1987_dinosaur.jr.
::you’re.living.all.over.me
Mascis updated Neil Young’s barely leashed feedback squalls (and flannel, and creaky singing… for kids raised on punk.

::1986_r.e.m.
::life’s.rich.pageant
Taken as a whole, it captured R.E.M. after they crawled out of the sonic swamp, but well before they conquered the world or, ultimately, lost their focus — a Rich moment indeed.

::1985_the.smiths
::meat.is.murder
[...] Moz came into his own as a man of political principle, condemning carnivores, corporal punishment, and the Thatcher regime in the sweep of 10 gorgeously crafted pop songs.

::1984_the.replacements
::let.it.be
This 1984 LP caught them at a great transitional moment: not yet having shed their early scrappiness, while Westerberg came into his own as a writer. They could do vicious (”Seen Your Video” hardly needed any commercialism-indicting lyrics beyond its title) or go goofball (”Gary’s Got a Boner,” anyone?).

.::.

Pregunta necia, pero igual la suelto: ¿De acuerdo?

Super Soccer II

::mp3_the.roots

El mp3 del día_

::the.seed_2.0

::del.disco_phrenology