New Releases:
Arcade Fire – Suburbs $26.97
Best Coast – Crazy for You $16.97
Books – The Way Out $19.97
Budos Band – III $16.97
Crowded House – Intriguer $19.97
Cut Chemist – Sound of the Police $18.97
Department of Eagles – Archive 03-06 $17.97
El-P – Weareallgoingtoburninhellmixxx3 $24.97
Endless Boogie – Full House Head $19.97
Brandon Flowers(Killers) – Crossfire(picture 10″) $6.97
Four Tet – Angel Echoes Remix $9.97
Herbie Hancock – Imagine Project $27.97
Jaill – That’s How We Know $15.97
Seu Jorge – Almaz $18.97
Lady Gaga – Remix $17.97
Lost in the Trees – All Alone in an Empty House $16.97
Love Language – Libraries $17.97
The McGarrigle Hour $18.97
Menomena – Mines $19.97
School of Seven Bells – Disconnect From Desire $24.97
Stars - Five Ghosts $19.97
Torche/Boris – Chapter Ahead $15.97
Next Stop Soweto Vol 3 – 24.97
Versus – On the Ones & Threes $24.97
Wolf Parade – Expo 86 $19.97
Recent Releases that finally got issued or we finally got in:
Big Boi – Sir Luscious Left Foot $15.97
Devo – Something For Everybody $22.97
Eminem – Recovery $15.97
Gogol Bordello – Trans-Continental Hustle $21.97
Indian Jewelry – Totaled $15.97
JJ – N 2 $16.97
LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening $19.97
Meshuggah – Alive $24.97
Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More $15.97
Matt Pond PA – Dark Leaves $17.97
Punch Brothers – Antifogmatic $24.97
Robert Randolph – We Walk This Road $26.97
Sleigh Bells – Treats $19.97
Surfer Blood – Astro Coast $14.97
Rokia Traore – Tchamatche $28.97
Reggae Gold 2010 $17.97
Reissues:
Hawkwind – Hawkwind $17.97
Michael Hurley – First Songs $17.97
Metallica – Reload $29.97
National – Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers $18.97
Radio Birdman – Radios Appear $17.97
Santana/John McLaughlin – Love Devotion Surrender $24.97
Robin Trower – Bridge of Sighs $24.97
Tom Waits/Crystal Gayle – One From the Heart Sdtk. $19.97
So the links send you to our download site, thinkindie.com, so you can sample and/or download.
Contact us if you would like to purchase vinyl online , our standard charge for shipping vinyl is $3.
It’s world cup time… and if you’re reading this post from somewhere in the United States, their is a good chance you don’t give a shit. But for the rest of us, and the world -- this is a big deal. Like the Olympics, but with more swagger and focused excitement. And like any proper world class event, sporting or otherwise, it comes with assortment of officially recognized merchandise, memorabilia, product tie-ins, and of course songs.
This year’s Official offering is from Shakira (and ostensibly, Fozzie Bear.) “Waka Waka” A colorful and frankly goofy song that bounces around to a tribally 2-step rhyme while Shakira does what she does best; shake her ass and belt out asinine lyrics like…
You’re a good soldier
Choosing your battles
Pick yourself up
And dust yourself off
And back in the saddle
(If i didn’t know better, I’d say she was positioning this track to be the official song of the US Occupation of Afghanistan… too soon?)
Ok. All things considered, not too bad… not to good, but lets see what else we can find…
Get on your Boots -- U2.
The only nice thing i can say about this one is that the remix they did for the world cup featuring the Soweto Gospel Choir mercifully pulls out much of the original tracks elements and replaces them with Africany sounding stuff. You know what i mean, you’ve all listened to Graceland. It’s like that, but guileless and with 100% more Bono. Ewwww…
Oh so we need a “Good” entry now in order to make this post true to the title… Why don’t you, dear readers, post your favorite World Cup Songs. I’ve exhausted my good will from repeated viewings of World in Motion…
Let me start off by saying that every time we’ve played this number in the store, someone immediately wants to purchase it. You just can’t beat that kind of market research. Now for my bit:
This compilation of “Pure Ghetto Disco, Funk and African Boogie” from Brooklyn is the third offering in Kon & Amir’s series of city themed adventures in rare 45′s. Once described by Lord Finesse as “two of the most extraordinary but underrated beat diggers in the game,” the duo split up over two discs to share choice cuts from their expansive collecti0n. Kon takes the first disc, laying out a continuous mix of tracks, layering a bit here and there to stitch together funk and soul. Highlights include the soaring bass groove of slamming opening track “From the Heart” (Kon’s Multi Remix) by Donny McCollough, the temperature raising “Burnin’ Up” (Kon’s Edit) by S.F.B., and self titled track “E.O.D.” by prison band Edge of Darkness. In fact, the Edge of Darkness sums up the unfortunate situation that made most of the artists on this compilation underexposed. Bands with raw and unique talent from the ghetto were underfunded and under-appreciated, while bands with a more marketable sound soared on labels like Motown.
Amir’s disc guides the focus to Fela influenced African boogie and disco. This side represents the global ghetto underground melting pot of the album’s dedicated burrough. As a youngster with a fantastical vision of the sparkling 70′s, these jams make me envision a period of nightclubs blasting off into outer space to party in the funkosphere to the likes of “Galaxy” by Galaxy. “Saturday Night Raps” by Dizzy K is a dance floor stomper that would work just as well as a block party thumper. Picture yourself in the prime of your youth, doing the bump with a hot dog in one hand and a 40oz . in the other, that’s what this sounds like. My only complaint about this release is the severely shortened content of the LP version, but a full vinyl release would probably be out of the average browser’s price range anyway. Make it your summer soundtrack.
We’re a little over a week away from Record Store Day 2010. The last two were a lot of fun, so we’re pretty excited. There are a ton of titles this year on all formats, including exclusives, reissues, live material and all sorts of other neat stuff. In addition to all the Record Store Day releases, we’re going to be running some cool sales and putting out a ton of cheap used cd’s and lp’s.
This year we have an extra-special treat. We will proudly be hosting Grace Potter and some of her band-mates from The Nocturnals. They are going to come in to sign albums and meet fans. As if that wasn’t enough, Grace will also be DJing at the store for the final hours of the event. One can imagine a high-calibar songstress like herself having great taste! They should be arriving around 7pm.
Feel free to call the store with any questions you may have. Please take note of a few details before you do:
-Store Hours on Record Store Day will be 10am-9pm
-All of our orders for Record Store Day titles are in. We tried to get just about everything. Given the limited nature of these releases, we’re not sure exactly how much we’ll be getting of anything.
-We will not be reserving any of the event’s exclusive titles for customers. No exceptions. All items are first come first serve. If you really want that Magnetic Fields “69 Love Songs” Vinyl box set, come at ten o’clock.
-More information can be found at the event’s official website.
-Here is a fairly comprehensive list of Record Store Day releases: Read the rest of this entry »
So we’ve diversified our portfolio. Pure Pop now carries a small selection of books; some novels, some comics and a few non-fiction gems. If you’re interested in ordering anything through the store, we’ll happily do that for you. The best part? Special ordering a book at Pure Pop will get you 20% off the retail price. We’re sort of feeling it out as far as selection goes. Feel free to stop by and berate us for our pitiful selection, or commend us for a job well done. (Preferably the latter.)
Some of my favorites among the titles we’re offering include Don DeLillo’s White Noise, Charles Burns’ Black Hole and Irvine Welsh’s The Bedroom Secrets of Master Chefs.
…but there’s plenty more. Come on down and check it out.
I hate year end lists because I always spend way too much time on them and then scratch them in the end. I had this crazy long list of crap that I couldn’t even get through reading without losing interest and opening a new tab to watch You Tube. Then I realized what I was missing. You Tube is my favorite pop cultural development of this entire past decade. In honor of this glorious website, I will use it to show you my favorite music videos of the year.
#5 KE$HA -- Tik Tok & LMFAO -- I’m In Miami Bitch
Another one of my favorite things about the millenium decade was guiltily following the hipster phenomenon. I was still in High School when that scene exploded and I partied to Dim Mak, DFA, and Ed Banger all the time. Not to mention the presence of thecobrasnake.com, and last night’s party and pwnsites latfh.com and hipsterrunoff.com. Anyway, what I like about these videos is that KE$HA and LMFAO were the mainstream’s late tweenpop response (role modelz). The You Tube videos of tweens lip synching to these songs are good too, and the hater comments. I wish the LMFAO one had profanity.
#4 Tobacco -- Hawker Boat
This came out in 2008, but whatever, I watched these this year. All the music videos for the album Fucked Up Friends which this track is from were tripped out collages made with out of context clips of old tv. This one is my favorite overall combo.If you have a bubble gum bubble fetish, watch the one for Street Trash.
#3 Method Man & Redman -- Ayo
2009 was a great year for members of the Wu. Raekwon, Ghostface, U God and Method Man put this year’s auto tuned candy rappers to utter shame. While Raekwon’s album Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 received more critical acclaim than Black Out! 2, I played BO2 more and ended up seeing Mef and Red at Higher Ground. I like this video mostly because I have huge crush on Method Man.
#2 Kid Cudi -- Day N’ Night (the vs Crookers version too)
This was the only track off Cudi’s album that I really got into. As a chronic daydreamer, these videos are kind of what my mind is like. If you’re only going to watch one, go with the Crookers version because there are lots of boobies.
#1 MSTRKRFT -- Heartbreaker
I’m a sucker for Summer Lovin’. I’m also a sucker for Dance Pop and cute boys. After working at a stationery store for some time, I learned that stickers are a great way to pick up dudes, glad to see this lady representing the technique. In my imagination, she gets fired and doesn’t care so she runs after the dudes and calls her girls and they have an epic night of mayhem on the boardwalk and pass out on the beach Snookie style.
5. “Chill-Wave”
I’m not going to list a single element of this year’s preferred blog friendly genre – not because they’re homogeneous or bland, i won’t make that claim – over the year I’ve found chill-wave to pull from an assortment of the music collective unconscious, from early 90′s hip hop, to 70′s am radio, and genre’s as disparate as hardcore and smooth jazz. While the end products are similar enough to comfortably align under the same stretchy star – they stay unique to themselves.
Pitchfork bands like Neon Indian, Memory Tapes, Ducktails, Toro Y Moi, Washed Out, and CFCF (just to name a handful.) have occupied the recently played list on my iTunes consistently this year – maybe I’ve needed a little more escapism than usual, or perhaps i’m just getting lazy in my musical relationships, but these bands have had me nodding my head and raising my eyebrows to their production choices; washes of nostalgic synth, bouncy white-boy funk, reverb drenched space-vocals – You know, actually it’s probably just because i’ve loved New Order and The Cocteau Twins for so long i’m just happy to hear their distant echoes reconstituted and re-imagined.
Some of my favorite moments in music this year are off of these albums, Neon Indian‘s 6669 (I Don’t Know If You Know) throws you into the drivers seat of your beat up K car, complete with ancient-tape-deck-as-unreliable-narrator production, driving somewhere late at night, (probably BK) just really really stoned. Washed Out and CFCF are picking up were Air France and The Tough Alliance left off last year, albeit filtered through more overt american tropes of hip hop and suburbia, and tell us their dreams of warm climates, dance parties and unending romantic love with an impossibly beautiful stranger. The last two minutes of Memory Tapes‘ Bicycle alone was a early contender for #1 – it just didn’t get that much better for me this year, and that makes me think,
As our economy and environment continues to eat shit and die and Obama’s promises are slowly crushed under the jackboot of reality, this kind of escapism feels so necessary just to maintain my sanity, when the day or week is over, there’s Ol’ Nick Cave or Antony, maybe some Oldham or Songs Ohia, John Cale or Judy Sill - frankly, staring me down – sure, this misery loves company, but lately I’ve leaned towards forgetting my sorrows instead of my usual preference of drowning (in) them (with them.) These bands make for perfect companions for a night of revelry, though – like the morning after any great night of catharsis, your often left thinking to yourself, “I did what?!” and while it’s too early in the long night of my discontent to know, i don’t doubt that even a few months from now i’ll be saying “I listened to what?!” But until then i’m glad to have such great distractions, sometimes it’s just what the doctor ordered.
4. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix have likely made the album of their career with this one – everything has come together into such a perfectly compact and muscular pit bull of pop rock. Every hook and bridge, every place where they could have placed a drum fill but didn’t, ever lyrical snippet, like a sniper’s bullet right to your happy spot. It’s telling that the subsequent remix album could do nothing to improve upon any of these songs – but these facts alone would not get them on my list, they’ve made some spot on pop music in the past, the fact that the album is completely consistent back to front is a big factor, the deciding element however, is the subtle way Mars and Co. inject each track with nostalgia and longing – memories (or wishes?) for long distant Roman sunsets, the promise of returned love, the nostalgia of youth (“Do you remember when 21 years was old?”). It’s this juxtaposition of airtight pop and river walk rumination that makes Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix one of the best of the year, and the best of their career to date.
3. The xx – The xx
If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve only been listening to this album for a month, it may have placed at #1. The xx have made the album that I’ve been wanting to make myself, for two years – actually, they’ve made the album i wish I’d had to the ability to even conceive of imagining, let alone producing… i digress. If music is a body than the xx is music stripped down to it’s smoldering, bleeding heart, and it’s all the better for it’s lack of that other stuff. What we’re left with is sentiment beyond their years, and style that both speaks to the past (Young Marble Giants, Interpol, Burial), and the future of music – (don’t be surprised if we see a new wave of dark minimalism in British bands this coming year.) Skeletal beats, verb heavy guitar and bass, quietly whirring synths and the back and forth girl/boy ruminations on love, lust, and longing. These are the ventricles, aorta, and the blood being pushed rhythmically and meditatively back and forth. It’s easily one of the most simply engaging pieces of music I’ve ever heard, this year or any.
Hi! i’m josh riggs and most of this stuff was invented, conceived, produced etc before the 09, but in this the year of our lord eco=-crash (and/or) recovery year of 2009 i was clumsy enough in all the right ways to stumble over these(my) annual choice pleasures!
1.Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty @ New Museum (NYC) -- 3 floors of rot, wood, eats, blobs, sheetrock, chains, surreal installations by an artist that is my big time in the 09! Made me feel like peeing on something inanimate.
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/417/urs_fischermarguerite_de_ponty
2.Sun Araw -- Horse Steppin’ on YouTube -- hazed out sleep junkie surfs up! YouTube has replaced the MTV basshead in all of us…even though it was released in the 08′ -- i’m a late bloomer!
3.Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey -- In 7th grade I chugged a bottle of this stuff with some of my degenerate friends. It seemed like a good idea at the time and made my high as a georgia pine until I puked my guts out and vowed never to touch the stuff again. 15ish years later 1 sip changed my direction in adult libations-will be sippin’ for many years to come!
4.Men With No IQ’s -- 80′s BLACK metal 4 realz ya’ll! Insane Mississippi brutal rock afro-oddball scene I wish I was a part of. Obscure-only thing I have found is 2 songs on this Myspace site. Oh Myspace…what happened to you in 2009???????????
http://www.myspace.com/menwithnoiqs
5.Hotel Gault/Chez L’Epicier/Zone Orange -- 3 choice spots on my annual Montreal tour de force! Made my 2009 trip one of the best ever! Lux!
http://www.hotelgault.com/
http://www.chezlepicier.com/
http://www.galeriezoneorange.com/
6.Dylan Nyoukis Live @ No Fun Stockholm 2009 -- vox art to the fucking maximum voltage! Wish I could have seen it in the flesh…mope…
7.Richard Kern -- I’m not sure why it took me this long to find him considering I am such a huge Terry Richardson fan? In my opinion his work is better and it makes me tingle-ROAR!Patrick Tsai runner up!!!!!(PHOTO DUDES!)
http://www.richardkern.com/
http://www.hellopatpat.com/mldd_e.html
8.Eating sushi for hours alone at Sakura in BVT = Pure Bliss!
9.The Sinful Dwarf (1973) -- Orlof, the creepy dwarf in the skuzz pit slum of London keeps kidnapped girls in the basement nice an high on smack for his mommies pimp rough trade! GRINDHAUS shit with a killer soundtrack and somewhat watchable if yr into that kinda thang!(sorry JOSH i saw it 1st!) I also saw Daisies and that totally blew my noggin”! Sedmikrasky!
10.Black Beauty -- My band w/ amigo Josh! We can clear a room in 1/2 a song! Gives me yet another excuse to drink beer on Thursday night! THIS IS GOING TO BE SUCKS! -- a hopeful 2010 release (avail @ Pure Pop!) maybe’zzzzzzz~! shameless self promo’!
11.Listening to Oneohtrix Point Never, Blood Stereo, Omar Soulyman, Areski & Brigitte Fontaine, Endless Boogie, WaVVes, The JACK Quartet/Iannis Xenakis, The Clash, Brainbombs, Sensational, A&E, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Kito Mizukumi Rouber, Mozart, The Beatles, GAS, Preggy Peggy & the Lonely Babymakers, Borful Tang and of course Justin Bieber! (I prob left out about 70 others but…)
Sometime ago I was a DJ on WRUV and decided to host a 9 am to noon radio show on Christmas Day. I didn’t really have anything better to do than eat Chinese food and go to the movies with the rest of the non-Christian contingent, anyway. That really marked the beginning of my exploration of Christmas music. Generally, I, like many others, clutch my head to keep my ears from bleeding as I walk past yet another retail outlet that is piping the dogs barking Jingle Bells into the great outdoors for all to enjoy. That is why I’m so glad that bands are still writing original Christmas tunes. To paraphrase the director John Waters (who, by the way, has his own fascinating Christmas album), you can pick your own way to celebrate this season: you can make it a cynical celebration, a sad celebration, a hysterical celebration. But you have to pick, because as much as some of us might like to, this a season which just can’t be ignored. What I really love about most of these songs is that while they acknowledge how the holidays (no matter what denomination you subscribe to) are always difficult in so many different ways, they never lose that essential cheer.
1. Candy Canes – The Physics Club
They’re local, they love Christmas, and they’re almost dangerously fun. In fact, they only put out Christmas albums. You can also check out The Physics Club Half Hour Radio Hour on the Radiator Tuesdays 6-8 pm (don’t worry – it’s not just holiday music). Every song is a gem; another favorite is Holiday Family Time.
2. Always Winter Never Christmas – XTC
Actually XTC has several great Christmas tunes, including Thanks for Christmas, played by their alter ego The Three Wise Men. This one captures that feeling of being a kid and having to wait through that so, so, so long night on the eve of the holidays.
3. Christmas Isn’t Safe for the Animals – Of Montreal
After getting revved up with the first two tunes I gotta mellow it out with this warning about how our winged and/ or furry friends might be feeling during these holidays. Plus, I really enjoy the little consumerism montage in the middle.
4. Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses
This song is a classic I would never want to go through a Christmas season without. This perfectly wraps up (chuckle, sssh) the dichotomy I am always looking for in a holiday tune. It’s song about trying to skip Christmas, and yet it’s so catchy it’s apt to make you more joyous than angsty.
5. Christmas Reindeer – The Knife
This one verges on annoying, but it also gets me oh so ready for the dance party. Time to get sloshed with Santa, or at least so woozy on holiday spirit that you could be swaying in the corner to this tune, hair in your face, totally not caring what your relatives and/or friends think.
