New Animal Collective EP Streaming

Here

I know you're shocked, Love to Hate gave it an 8.9....Are they going to run out revise their prematurely released best of '09 lists? I haven't listened to it yet so I have no comment, but just thought you'd like to know!

<3 The Elephant

Guilty Pleasure-New Moon OST

This shouldn't be a Guilty Pleasure, the soundtrack contains Thom Yorke, Grizzly Bear, Lykke Li, and Bon Iver among many others. When the track list was released there was all of this fury and hubub around the blogosphere about selling out to something that so blatantly opposes indie culture. I couldn't disagree more about "selling out" as I have probably said many, many times. I saw New Moon, and honestly, enjoyed it. Aside from the obvious porn-y quality, the soundtrack is far above that average teen movie and the artist who participated were undoubtedly handsomely rewarded. This handsome reward allows these artist to take a break from touring and write new, progressive material.

That said, most of the album is a little too catchy. Lykke Li's track "Possibility" could have easily come off Youth Novels. It is perfect within the context of the film and will garner her a much larger audience of album purchasing teenage girls. The Grizzly Bear song sounds just like them, but its not going cause the shows to fill up with cougars looking for some action. It's not the catchiest track on the album and it's too simplified to sound like they wasted precious days working on it. It's stripped down backing up Victoria Legrands vocals for large sections of the track. No love lost there. Bon Iver's song sounds exactly like his work for Blood Bank, so it doesn't hint at what may be in the future for a new album (unless he plans to flush out that EP in this style).

On the whole the album is decent, and for the most part the artist wrote catchy songs, so in some cases it feels like a bit of a departure from the artists' natural instincts. That's fine with me though. I am not sure why indie artists are held to different standards than everyone else, they apparently are not supposed to be interested in supporting themselves and their families. By all means write a catchy song, get these teeny boppers to buy your album, and let them feel overwhelmed by your actual music. Maybe I'm trying to be too much of a soothsayer, but that is my hope for the future of these kinds of projects: more money for the artist, not overcrowded shows.

Happy Holidays friends...

<3 The Elephant