*NOTE* You can also find this post on Playground Dads, where I'll be blogging about dad stuff as well.
I’ve been a dad for more than six months now,
but I’ve been a music lover ever since I was about two years old. My dad played
me a VHS taped off MuchMusic that included videos by Van Halen, Duran Duran,
and The New Romantics. I was hooked. There’s a home movie of me air guitaring
to “Jump” with a plastic tennis racket.
Since then I’ve spent the last 28 years
expanding and refining my musical tastes, and while haven’t been to a live show
in quite a while, thanks to the Internet (and Metacritic in particular) I
haven’t missed much when it comes to new records.
It’s a pretty significant commitment keeping up
with the latest and greatest stuff while also keeping up with my fatherly
duties, and I hope to one day pass on my appreciation of good music to my
daughter (she enjoys Rush, Tool and Genesis when I play them for her, but she
also seems to equally like her mommy’s love of Backstreet Boys, Bieber and Bob
Marley).
For now, I’d like to pass on to my fellow new
dads some terrific music from the last few years that may have passed you by
whilst changing diapers and attempting to put your kids to bed.
The
Walkmen
If there was a musical genre known as “Dad
Rock”, The Walkmen would probably be the poster boys (poster men?) for it. The AV Club said it best in their review of
the 5-piece’s latest record, Heaven:
“It’s an album of big adult themes: the weight of
responsibility, the realization that romantic infatuation is fleeting and
probably bullshit, the power of fidelity and loyalty to outlast momentary
sensation and passion. And it dispenses with them in an ordinary, everyday way,
like taking out the trash or changing the baby’s diapers.”
Top Tracks:
Louisiana, Dónde Está La Playa, Stranded, We Can’t Be Beat
The
Horrors
I got the tip on these guys from Trent Reznor’s
Twitter feed in 2009, hailing their album Primary Colours as “the greatest
thing I’ve heard in a long time.” The English rockers followed up that terrific
record with last year’s Skying, which hit #5 on the UK charts. The first
single, “Still Life”, is an absolutely perfect song with a great bass line and
killer keyboards.
Top
Tracks: Still Life, New Ice Age, Mirror’s Image, I Can’t Control Myself
My
Morning Jacket
MMJ have gathered a cult following (including,
apparently, the guys who make American Dad) and with good reason: they friggin’
rock. Ranging from eight-minute slow-building epics to punchy rockers to soft
acoustic ditties, this Kentucky band does it all, and does it very, very well. Basically
everything singer Jim James touches turns to gold; whether it’s his work with
MMJ, or with folk supergroup Monsters of Folk, or his album of George Harrison
covers.
Top
Tracks: Dondante, Lay Low, One Big Holiday, Wonderful (The Way I Feel)
Fleet
Foxes
Sometimes you just need a folk-influenced band
like Fleet Foxes to mellow you out after a particularly stressful day. Their
eponymous debut was named Album of the Year by Pitchfork in 2008, which makes
sense because if you know even a little about Pitchfork, you’d know Fleet Foxes
is right up their alley.
Top
Tracks: Montezuma, Sun It Rises, Meadowlarks, Helplessness Blues
Grizzly
Bear
I saw this band in Austin while visiting my best
friend, and the lead singer played an autoharp. I mean, that says it all right
there. Plus, “Two Weeks” is in pretty much every commercial, and with good
reason: it’s one of the best, if not the best, pop song of 2011.
Top
Tracks: Two Weeks, Knife, Fine For Now, While You Wait For The Others
Beach
House
Featured on backing vocals for “Two Weeks” is
the lead singer from dreampop act Beach House, and she’s no slouch, either. Some
bands are named ironically, but in this case, Beach House is bang on: it’s the best music to listen to while lying
on the beach.
Top
Tracks: Myth, Wild, Lazuli, Norway
Atlas
Sound / Deerhunter
One of my most vivid memories of the past few
years was a walk through Cherry Beach in Toronto as winter was thawing into
spring. Atlas Sound’s Let the Blind Lead
Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel was playing in my headphones, and it could
have been a movie soundtrack. Since then I’ve come to like all of Bradford
Cox’s musical projects, be it his solo work in Atlas Sound or his group work
with Deerhunter.
Top Tracks: Recent Bedroom, Cold As Ice, Agoraphobia, Nothing Ever
Happened
Battles
I was introduced to Battles when I saw them live
in Rome at the Terme Di Caracalla - ruins of ancient Roman baths. Rock shows in
foreign countries are always a great time, and so is this band, an experimental
group that layers sounds upon sounds and rhythms upon rhythms.
Top
Tracks: Ddiamondd, Atlas, Tij, Futura
Black
Mountain
This Vancouver quintet are a throwback to the
psychedelic 70s era, and having seen them live I can safely say that your dads
would like them a lot. I’ve definitely given my pop these records and when I
listen to them, I picture my dad in his 20s listening to Pink Floyd and Led
Zeppelin.
Top
Tracks: Stormy High, Let Spirits Ride, Don’t Run Our Hearts Around, Tyrants
Bon
Iver
Pretty much everyone knows Bon Iver now, thanks
in part to an Arcade Fire-esque Grammy run and Kanye West. But my introduction
to Bon Iver was back in 2008, when they opened for Black Mountain. They gave me
chills, a feeling everyone at Lee’s Palace surely shared. Their records, For
Emma, Forever Ago and Bon Iver are quite simply two of the best albums to come
out in the past ten years; this band definitely lives up to the hype.
Top
Tracks: Flume, Skinny Love, Perth, Holocene
Field
Music / The Week That Was
The Brewis brothers have given a lot to fans of
modern British pop/indie/art-rock between Field Music and side project The Week
That Was. Catchy and intricate, they’ve put Sunderland on the map for more than
just a middling Premier League side.
Top
Tracks: Them That Do Nothing, Measure, Learn To Learn, Scratch The Surface
Japandroids
Let’s close with the two loudest bands on this
list. Vancouver’s Japandroids manage to create a lot of racket for just two
dudes, and the music world is finally starting to take notice. The duo released
their breakthrough record Post-Nothing to little fanfare, assuming it would be
the last thing they ever did as a band. Instead it was nominated for several
awards, and their follow-up effort Celebration Rock is every bit as bombastic
and fun.
Top
Tracks: Heart Sweats, The Boys Are Leaving Town, The House That Heaven Built,
Continuous Thunder
A
Place To Bury Strangers
Noise rock doesn’t do these guys justice. Easily
one of the three loudest bands I’ve ever seen live (Muse and Nine Inch Nails
being the other two), APTBS are guaranteed to drown out your baby’s cries. Not
that you’d WANT to do that, of course.
Top
Tracks: It Is Nothing, In Your Heart, Keep Slipping Away, Exploding Head
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