Tuesday, September 04, 2007

The New Pornographers challenge my prejudice


Here’s something else unexpectedly great. I’ve never really given Canadian supergroup (I believe they hate that tern) The New Pornographers much listening time. I mean, I know some of their stuff (everyone loves Mass Romantic, right?) but whole albums have eluded me until now and their recently released Challengers LP. I left it untouched for a while – that weird cover doesn’t really help – and my expectations weren’t very high. But what fool me!

The reality is that it’s a glorious piece of widescreen Americana, with a strong pop sensibility, ace riffs, breezy tunes and huge hooks. The songwriting credits this time around are mainly AC Newman’s, with three tunes by Dan Bejar, including stand-out Myriad Harbour. Neko Case may not be writing the songs, but her vocal contribution is always a welcome treat. Why did I miss this for so long? It’s one of the most joyous records I’ve heard for a while.

Download: The New Pornographers – Myriad Harbour
Download: The New Pornographers – Adventures in Solitude

Buy Challengers.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

WEB SHERIFF
Protecting Your Rights
on the Internet
Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013
Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080
websheriff@websheriff.com
www.websheriff.com

Hi DG,

On behalf of Matador Records and The New Pornographers, we would kindly ask you NOT to post newly released (non preview) New Pornographers links on this site / thread.

We do appreciate that - of course - you are fans of / are promoting The New Pornographers but, by the same token, you must also appreciate that, by posting a pirate copy of the album or tracks from the album pre-release / upon release (or linking to pirate copies), you are potentially causing considerable inconvenience and we are sure that you would not want to be personally responsible (or liable) for all of the resulting damage and disruption.

Thank you for respecting the artist’s and label’s wishes and, if you want good quality, non-pirated preview tracks, “My Rights Versus Yours” and “Myriad Harbour” (which you already have) are being made freely available to fans off the label’s and artist’s official web-sites, (check-out www.matadorrecords.com and www.thenewpornographers.com for full details), which you are most welcome to host / post etc. Unfortunately, "Adventures In Solitude" is not one of the designated, preview tracks and, as such, it would be greatly appreciated if you could remove it asap / substitute it with "My Rights ..." .

Whilst writing, we’d add that The New Pornographers and Matador Records are not at all against free music BUT, at the end of the day, it should be (and is) the artist’s decision as to whether or not they effectively allow the unauthorized distribution of their album on-line before / upon its release - as it’s THEIR MUSIC !! Thank you, again, for respecting their wishes.

As you will appreciate, this e-mail - containing, as it does, a position that is potentially prejudicial to our clients’ open / formal position - is written on a without prejudice basis and, as such, all of our clients’ accumulated, worldwide rights remain strictly reserved : please excuse this required formality.

With Thanks & Regards,

WEB SHERIFF

Campfires and Battlefields said...

As far as I'm concerned they can cram THEIR MUSIC!! up THEIR PUCKERED ARSES. When the bastards put the music into the stream of commerce and induced people to develop an emotional attachment to it, it ceased to be THEIRS and became OURS. It's not a fucking widget. It's a song.

The Drawings of Rob Matthews said...

It's official, Neko Case refuses to look at any camera put before her.

Campfires and Battlefields said...

tsk tsk tsk, mr. the drawings of rob matthews. Can't you see she's brooding?

The Daily Growl said...

Good point C&B, but at least they asked nicely (if long-windedly), unlike the RIAA and their likes who just send threatening legal letters to my file host. At least Mr/Ms WEB SHERIFF has graciously deigned to allow me a couple of tracks.

Mind you, my tracks ARE good quality. None of the 128kbps iTunes nonsense here!

Campfires and Battlefields said...

Sigh, I suppose you're right, and I understand that this is how people make their living, but you'd think that someone who loves music enough to make it his (their) life's work would see that there's a huge fallacy in this idea of the music being THEIRS alone. Certainly if you were using one of their tunes as the background music to some racist rant or to promote some product I could understand, but you praised the damned thing to the skies and may have exposed their music to some people who would never have heard it otherwise and who may now want to attend a gig or download tracks from emusic or iTunes or whatnot. It's just offensive, it's like trying to patent a memory. Sorry to rant.

Anonymous said...

"Like trying to patent a memory"?

What are you on?

Mind you, with the compelling "induced people to develop an emotional attachment to it, it ceased to be THEIRS and became OURS." argument I'm sure you're just freshly out of the nursery school stages.

When you've grown up a little and (god forbid) created something that somebody besides yourself and your mom gives a shit about, this will all start to make little more sense to you.