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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Smashing Pumpkins

  • Tinted Windows: The Soundtrack to Summer 2009??

    tinted-windows

    Tinted Windows is probably not a supergroup you would’ve seen coming, but that doesn’t stop their debut album from being one of the most fun pop records to come down the pike in a while. Who’s in the band?, you might ask. Well, on drums there’s Bun E. Carlos, of legendary power-pop band Cheap Trick. On guitar, there’s James Iha, formerly of Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. Your bassist is Adam Schlesinger, primary songwriter and chief wiseass for Fountains of Wayne, and on lead vocals…say hi to Taylor Hanson. Yes, THAT Taylor Hanson. Don’t lie. You know you’re still interested.

    Actually, if you’ve actually been following Hanson since “Mmmbop” turned them into teen sensations, you’d have known that they’ve released several highly entertaining albums recently, and that Taylor has grown into quite the assured vocalist. His voice is still boyish, and can alternately sound innocent or snotty, depending on what the song calls for. He’s the perfect fit for this band, bringing a bit of soul to what would still be a killer power-pop album. The riffs are crunchy, the drumming swings, and the hooks (mostly written by Schlesinger-is it me or is FOW one of the most underrated bands around these days?) are golden. These songs are perfect for dropping the top on the car on a nice summer day and singing at the top of your lungs.

    Tinted Windows uses the half-hour or so and 11 songs to pull just about every earworm trick out of the book. Whether it’s the “uh oh’s” and “whoa whoa”s in the frenetic album opener Kind of a Girl, the chorus of Doncha Wanna, which gets repeated so much it’ll ingrain itself in your head for at least a week, or the stut-stut-stuttered chorus of Take Me Back, these guys prove themselves masters of the great pop song.

    You know what the coolest thing about this album is? These guys sound like they’re having a fucking blast playing together. Most music is so processed and serious now-you rarely ever find anything in the mainstream that sounds as tossed-off (in a good way) and fun as Tinted Windows. So, if you’re looking for a great pop/rock album that you’ll be singing along with all summer, look no further than Tinted Windows. If you let the preconceived notions of a band with a Hanson brother keep you from checking this out, it’s your loss.

  • Journey to the Discotheque Vol. 1: 10 Song Shuffle

    Last weekend I was at a family get-together. Somewhere along the way MP3 players became a popular topic, which caused my dad to pose the immortal question, “Who the hell cares what’s on my iPod?” Now chances are pretty good if you’re reading a music blog you already know the answer to that, but pretending that you don’t since I can’t think of any other way to open this up: it’s because it allows you to know a person without actually knowing them.

    For example, if your iPod is loaded with songs from Type O Negative, Burzum and Scandinavian death metal sensation Vordghackf, it means you have you several pentagrams carved into your arm, like to write overlong and half-racist internet dissertations on why “rap music” sucks, and it’s only a matter of time before you shoot up the post office you’re inevitably working for. If your iPod is loaded with songs from George Jones, Daddy Yankee and Godsmack, it means you’re going through a mid-life crisis and can’t decide whether you want to want to embrace a conservative adulthood or put up the façade that you’re twenty years-old again, ‘cos god forbid that you should accept your age and move on. Finally, if your iPod is loaded with nothing but Ani DiFranco, it means you’re one of those feminist types with a butch haircut, lots of beads and a huge ass (stolen courtesy of “That’s My Bush!”).

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  • Paul’s MyTunes Baker’s Dozen: A Random Nickel Tour of What’s Playing on My iPod

    If you haven’t been watching Bravo’s Flipping Out this summer, you should really start.  It’s the kind of show that makes you really reassess just how crazy your boss might be, or just how degrading your job might be, or just how anal-retentive your partner or spouse might be.  This reality show follows obsessive-compulsive (to the hundredth power) house-flipper Jeff Lewis and his crew of long-suffering assistants.  In one of last season’s best episodes, Jeff had one of his assistants drive his cat to an appointment with an acupuncturist, and insisted that the assistant have a discussion with the cat on the way over to explain where they were going and what would happen there.    Jeff Lewis’s mindboggling demands and his perfectly timed, deadpan one-liners are the true star of this show; but the absurdist antics of his assistant Chris Elwood (a sometimes actor) sometimes threaten to steal the occasional scene.

    This week, Chris Elwood drew his boss’s ire by wearing his iPod headphones all the time, which had everyone he ran into asking what he was listening to.  It was one of those scary moments when I actually understood and (gulp) agreed with Lewis’s righteous indignation – it’s so…  unprofessional! – but then, I wanted to know what Elwood was listening to too, and felt cheated when I didn’t find out.  Then again, one could hardly fault Elwood for turning up the Tunes and tuning out his boss’s self-absorbed rants.  If I were Elwood, I’d probably do the same.   And here, apparently, is what I’d be listening to:

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