Saturday, December 30, 2006

Christmas Bargain-Bin Music Hangover

Regular #1 Hits posts will be back on Monday, just in time for the new year… but for now I have some things to finish up in 2006.

In addition to being one of the best days of the year, Christmas is also my annual time to catch up on music releases that I, for whatever reason, haven’t heard/bought yet. This year my attention was focused on three bargain-bin priced releases from artists that I’ve posted about this last year. All are undeservedly forgotten albums, and I was happy to discover that they’re all three pretty good. It’s not entirely unexpected to get burned by albums that are on sale for under five dollars on amazon, but these three were a good buy:


Tally Hall
I posted Good Day by Tally Hall a few months ago to great success, and I was eager to hear the whole album. I’m happy to report that it’s the best of the three releases. A very schizophrenic album, the band has the eccentric stylings of groups like Sparks and Of Montreal, and also a very strong Beatles influence in some songs. The record is all over the place: songs about bananas, the Olsen twins, haikus, etc. There’s even an amusing rap thrown in. The Queen-like Good Day is still the highlight, but the entire thing is remarkably consistent.

Mp3: Ruler Of Everything
Buy

Glovebox
I posted In The End by Australian duo Glovebox awhile ago and it seemed to interest a lot of you. Luckily, it’s not even the best song on the album. I recently saw the band’s video for their debut single Superstar and loved their style, so I decided to invest in the (admittedly cheap) record. It’s pretty good. There are definitely highlights with some filler surrounding them, but the whole thing ends up sounding like Anastacia if she hadn’t gone rock.

Mp3: Serendipity
Buy

De Novo Dahl
I posted Shout by these guys awhile ago and it seemed to go somewhat unnoticed, but I loved it, so I picked up their earlier album, an interesting two disc set called Cats & Kittens. Both discs contain the same songs, but Kittens is in remixed form. I actually haven’t listened to Kittens yet… still digesting the original versions. What I hear is fantastic Cars-esque power pop that, at very brief moments, almost reminds me of my beloved Ark. It’s actually better than their new stuff.

Mp3: All Over Town
Buy

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