so i didn't write nearly enough about qotsa or beck. let's revisit them.

queens of the beck - lullabies to guero... or something. ok i guess i can't do them both at once.

beck
ok this cd isn't bouncy all the way through. it is good all the way through. but let's look at it closer. tracks 1-4 are the closest to old school beck. tracks 5-9 or so are a bit more mellow, but still somewhat absurdist - the crowning jewel being track 7, 'hell yes'. starting with track 10, 'go it alone', the cd turns towards a little bit sadder, introspective, serious music... and i'll be honest, i got kind of bored and didn't pay attention until i got to the three bonus tracks at the end, which were absurdist, bouncy, and fun.... and completely out of place. but eh, bonus tracks, what are you gonna do. still stand by the rating, cuz 'e-pro', 'girl', and 'hell yes' are 3 very good songs.

qotsa
first 7 tracks are very good, with interesting melodies, but not 'arcade fire'-interesting. simpler, but very enjoyable all the same. it's just straight bob-your-head music, and as i said yesterday, track 6 ('in my head') is awesome. track 8 ('i never came') is a bit slower, with a very cool electric violin thing going on, but the rock comes right back in track 9 ('someones in the wolf') which has the potential to become my favorite song on this cd ('in my head' is winning right now). anyways, i was thinking about how the first two tracks are a tantalizing 2 minutes each, and just as they get into their groove and find their riff they end... they are lullabies to paralyze, in a sense. i can't get 'in my head' out of my head, the crazy guitar part for 'someones in the wolf' is hypnotic... it's just classic queens of the stone age. this is what they do - simple, sometimes off the wall, guitar parts that they repeat until they are so far into your head that you can't get them out. also, the guitar parts are good; did i mention that? the music has to be good for the whole system to work.

ok, i'm done with beck/qotsa for now. i've been looking forward to these two cds for a long time so it's a very nice surprise to see both of them panning out the way they have. i'm kind of getting worked up over these stupid baseball hearings (what side do you think i fall on?) and i feel like this is one of the worst tournaments ever (maybe because i haven't had as much time to watch as i usually do), so maybe i'll post about those things later if they are of interest.