Not since Fiona Apple’s second album (When The Pawn…), which had a poem as the title, have I seen such a peculiar title for an album. Yo La Tengo’s latest album is title “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass“, yes as you read. The name apparently is a joke related to the title of the band. “Yo la Tengo” is the spanish translation to the typical outfielder talk to another outfielder in a baseball game “I got it” to prevent a collision. “I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass” is apparently a common quote in the basketball pickup game street courts, and thus one part of the joke. The other part of the joke is that being an indie band, much it is said about how much indie bands can do in front of the big music industry power. Well, I don’t know, and the industry is changing to a less constraint one. I guess the title is trying to tell us something.
Back to the album… The album goes from genre to genre without boring you one bit. I have to admit that I don’t follow the indie scene that much, but I’ve liked Yo La Tengo since their 97 release of “I can hear the heart beating as one”, when I was desperate for new bands to listen to. From that time Yo La Tengo, along with Spiritualized, are probably the bands that I still follow somewhat.
This is one of these albums that you like when you hear it the first time but you feel like you need to pay more attention to it the next time. I’ve been listening to it for a week now and I am starting to appreciate now some of the lyrics, which in some cases are very rich and go dramatically well with the music. Take track 3: “I feel like going home”, for those of us that have been melancholic about our homes at any given point in time the background music is just simply great, powerful without being cheesy. Track 7: “The room got heavy” just works so well, again music, lyrics, and voices. Towards the end of the song you almost feel like you are listening to a Doors song mod, of course, Jim (or Jimmy as a fellow blogger referred as in a recent weekend with heavy amounts of alcohol running on our bloodstream). Track 11: “Watch out for me Ronnie” is a lot of fun. Of course not all of the songs are great (or good) and some go deep into the stereotypical indie guitar oblivion like “I should have known better”, and didn’t quite dig some of the more poppy songs like “The race is on again” and “The Weakest Part”.
All in all it is a good album and for sure it can kick most of the big industry produced albums that I’ve listened to lately. Talking about poor albums, AudioSlave Exile album SUCKS!, but that deserves a blog entry in itself.
ta-ta
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El ultimo CD de Fiona Apple: “When The Pawn…“, del cual el nombre es (aparentemente) un poema, habia sido el titulo mas peculiar que yo habia visto, hasta que salio el nuevo CD de Yo La Tengo: “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass” (algo asi como “No te tengo miedo y te voy a dar una paliza”). El nombre aparentemente es una broma en parte relacionada con el nombre de la banda. “Yo la tengo” es la traduccion de lo que normalmente le diria un outfielder a otro en beisbol para evitar un choque mientras buscan la pelota. “I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass” es lo que le diria un jugador de basquet a otro cuando lo reta en un juego de calle (conocido como caimanera en mi tierra). La otra parte de la broma es en contra de la industria musical controlada por las grandes disqueras. Es algo asi como el mensaje que les da esta banda independiente de no tenerle miedo a las grandes productoras.
… pero volviendo al disco. El disco atraviesa por muchos generos sin aburrir ni un poquito. Yo particularmente no estoy muy metido en la musica independiente, pero comence a escuchar Yo La Tengo cuando andaba en busca de nuevas bandas a finales de los 90 y eso me llevo a la musica independiente. El primer disco que escuche de ellos fue “I can hear the heart beating as one” en el 97 y me gusto mucho. De esa epoca las unicas bandas que continuo escuchando son Yo La Tengo y Spiritualized.
Este disco es uno de esos que gusta cuando se oye la primera vez, pero que uno se siente como obligado a escuchar con mas detalle, lo cual usualmente es muy buen signo. He estado escuchandolo por una semana y ahora lo aprecio mejor. Las letras en muchas de las canciones son bastante buenas y la musica va muy bien con ellas. Por ejemplo la cancion numero 3: “I feel like going home” es excelente, especialmente si alguna vez uno ha estado melancolico acerca de su familia y de su tierra. La cancion numero 7: “The room got heavy” tiene una buena combinacion de letras, musica y voces, pareceiera que uno estuviera escuchando a The Doors, claro esta, sin la voz de Jim Morrison. Pero no todas las canciones son buenas, la cancion numero 11 es tipica de las bandas independientes con exceso de guitarra disonante que en mi opinion la echa a perder, y no soy muy fanatico de sus canciones mas pop como “the race is on again” y “the weakest part”.
En conjunto me parecio un buen disco y por seguro “kicks ass” a muchos de los discos producidos por la industria ultimamente. Por cierto, hablando de discos malos, el ultimo disco de AudioSlave “Exile” es una mierda!, mas acerca el album en un proximo blog…
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