TV on the Radio

whos on the cover of the NME this week?

i used to be fookin great at the nme crossword. now i'd struggle for sure.

im kind of talking out of my ass in this thread.. i havent heard that much from tv on the radio. what little i have heard hasnt interested me, but perhaps ill give them another chance

also, i love gang gang dance.

nme readers would think gang gang dance was a misprint

oh

the white dude needs a kick to the jaw

funny essines ... looking at your avatar .. it suddenly came to me to wonder .. who built the beardanids ... are they are furry astral engine for communicating to the beings from beyond the sky ...

kof

Alright. I'm a huge TV on the Radio fan, and not because it was "forced down my throat" or because I'm trying to be hip. I didn't discover them through a trendy magazine or a website. A musician friend sent me a song online from their first EP Young Liars. I didn't get it at first. It was interesting, but it didn't click. But I found myself coming back to it, and it started to make more and more sense. On their first LP and EP they had a very stripped down, minimal sound. One of the things I love about TVotR is their amazing ability to impressively fuse genres. These releases had distorted post-punk/dreampop/post-shoegaze guitar sounds, chugging looped material, tons of electronic instrumentation, powerful layered vocals borrowing from blues/soul/doo-wop/barber-shop quartet and include some very interesting lyrics and harmonies. They seem very earnest about their art.

Their sound began to evolve when they added members to their lineup and they released their greatest record to date, Return To Cookie Mountain. This album is not an album you can skim over and know weather it is good or bad. You have to gel with it. TV on the Radio say this too. Upon first listen, I played it through and didn't really think to much. Not bad certainly, but nothing spectacular. The more I listened, the more the album revealed itself to me. This album adds new layers of complexity, instrumentation, and influences. Live drums, mixed with drum machine, their guitar sound bigger and better, and the lyrics are profoundly poetic and open. All of this and it still maintains a surreal, headphone music atmosphere. You can really tell that lots of their emotion and time went in to writing these songs. To me it is a huge album. It didn't seem that way at first, but every time I listen to it, the more I fall into it. A certain lyric will click into place, a particular part stands out, and my idea of that song evolves. The lyrics are better than any release I've come across in recent times, dealing with soul searching topics about religion, politics, love, the state of our world. They have big ambitions. I listened to this album without reading stupid press reviews, or even feedback like I left here, and maybe that's why I've been able to get into it. If I was expecting the things that people write about it, then I may be disappointed to. Let the music speak for itself.

I've seen TV on the Radio live 3 times, and every time they are alive and full of energy. Their songs take on a new life in the live arena. They are more energetic, and the members take the song structure liberally claiming in an interview that, "it would be mind numbingly boring if these songs stayed static." Every time I've been very moved by the show.

Dear Science definitely seems like a shift to a more accessible sound. I didn't like it very much at first, and I still don't like it as much as Cookie Mountain, but god damn it still has some great songs!

So fuck the way shitty media outlets portray a bands image. TV on the Radio themselves have talked about that. You can tell they are almost uncomfortable with the attention they've been getting lately. They are quite and shy guys. Yeah, they are an easy target for you smug assholes to one up your musical taste on without giving them a real chance. Don't believe the hype, believe the music.

i just want to reiterate that i typically do not enjoy any indie rock at all, but cookie mountain is seriously the most accomplished album i've heard in many many years. i listen to it all the time, on the plane, at work, while i'm drunk, while i'm playing xbox, wheneva

the lines "i was a lover / before this war" echo permanently in my brain 24/7

*high fives McGriff!*

*chest bump*

  Rambo said:

  Quote

BTW - I am honestly not flame-baiting. I'm curious why all of my friends are into it and I just don't see it.

 

this is the problem though, why do you have to see it? If this band were huge (see radiohead) this thread would simply be a reasons why i hate TV on the radio thread instead of your question. It's all directly proportional to how much the band is liked. It's stupid.

I don't have to see it... but a lot of people who i usually see eye-to-eye on most music are really into them, but i don't understand why. I guess i'm just interested in what the appeal is, since i am obviously missing it.

It's because they're black but sound white.

  277: 930-933 said:

It's because they're black but sound white.

Yeah, but they don't. Nice try though.

hey deepex, they suck, get over it

well that's just like, you're opinion man

  Fred McGriff said:

well that's just like, you're opinion man

You're out of your element.

Fucking fascist!

  delet... said:

is your response to their growing popularity a symptom of the opposite of group think .. ?? ...

 

i don't care either way ... and i'm not dissing .. was just something i wanted to point out ... like peeps on here are all .. habitual outsiders .. hehe .. even me .. and maybe we don't even control our response to thinks it's all just knee jerk reaction ...

 

omG popular .. what is this popular .. we don't do popular around here ...

 

still though ... cookie mountain had short lived fast food moments .. pico short .. i'm not fit to comment though .. cause i skim most music ... i mean i just bought two albums and i nearly spent more time listening to them demo'ing at bleep ... -sie- ... everything suks .. mostly ...

Popularity doesn't have an effect on how much I like an artist or group. It's only when the popularity affects the music in a negative way, by either watering down or trying to appeal to a larger or more broad audience. It's all about staying true to the original vision, which I believe becomes more difficult as you get more popular...but then there's the whole 'artist evolution' thing throgh albums which is a whole different discussion

so, anyone here into radiohead?

i heard cookie mountain when it came out and everyone was raving about it and didnt like it so much, deleted it and moved on. but i heard it again and again and again recently and it really grew on me. i'm not a mcgriff/deepex style fanboy but i got love for cookies and the odd song off dear science. haven't even heard the ep and don't care. anyway took me a while to appreciate

I hear that Fartspray is the next big thing.

I gave them a listen after seeing them in so many end-of-the-year lists, but I was doing the same thing with Fleet Foxes and they overshadowed TVOTR big time. And then Merriweather Post Pavilion came out and it made them seem even more irrelevant.

I saw them in Detroit a few years ago opening for the Faint. They put on a good show but the bass player had his back to the audience the entire show. This was also when they were all black.

  Benedict Cumberbatch said:

i heard cookie mountain when it came out and everyone was raving about it and didnt like it so much, deleted it and moved on. but i heard it again and again and again recently and it really grew on me. i'm not a mcgriff/deepex style fanboy but i got love for cookies and the odd song off dear science. haven't even heard the ep and don't care. anyway took me a while to appreciate

you're the one who made me listen to cookie mountain, fanboy faggot

I've had cookie mountain since it emerged but I've probably never made it through more than 5 tracks, I got a bit pissed off with how the vocals don't seem to have a lot to do with the backing track and are very forward in the mix. Maybe i'll give it another go