I have been anticipating the new Wolf Parade record for months and months now. Unless Spencer throws in a new Sunset Rubdown record in 2008, Wolf Parade’s next record will most likely be my record of the year. Earlier in the month, Pitchfork announced the next Wolf Parade LP, titled Kissing The Beehive (due out June 17th). They then proceeded to rip into it and clearly expressed their dislike for it. Aside from Pitchfork hardly ever liking a release following one of their “Best New Music” picks, there’s the other “we are better than thou” elitist intern rants that come into play more than half the time as well.
Sadly, categories can also wreck an artist and some people won’t give some music a chance because it happens to be in a category that isn’t “respected” because one or a few bands happened to create a different sound. As Pitchfork so eloquently put it in their record review of Pinback’s Blue Screen Life: “No? Then I’m totally stumped. How else can you explain so many excellent bands turning whiny all of a sudden? First Death Cab for Cutie, now Pinback. I swear, if the new Flaming Lips album so much as mentions heartbreak, I’m going to shoot myself. ”
This brings me to Pitchfork ripping on the new Wolf Parade’s record titled Kissing The Beehive (also the title of the last song on the record). Upon glancing at the Wolf Parade bio and news on the Subpop website site, it says under the heading Full Lengths: Apologies to the Queen Mary and simply: ”Wolf Parade LP2″. The title it looks like has been retracted or never posted. I over heard a DJ discussing it on a Sirius radio station saying how it looks like they did retract it after Pitchfork announced they hated it. I hope it’s not getting this point where entire record titles are changed or albums aren’t released because one (yet powerful) pompous online music media conglom doesn’t like it. It is an important release for Wolf Parade, but Dan said on the press release for LP2, “After Apologies… we wrote about four or five new songs, but we decided to throw them out because they sounded too much like we’d already done.” I think that’s the best thing one can do in their position. It eases up the pressure of a follow up and shows you aren’t following what’s safe…and in the end, safe can wreck a band.
We’ll see what Wolf Parade decides to do. Perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding and an early assumption on the record title. However, the tacklist was announced recently, which as of now hasn’t been made fun of. As a whole, Spencer has changed my life and has opened up ears to things I never new existed. Keep the good work gentleman, and no matter what, I will always support…even if they do become “emo”.
End Scene,
Dan Tana
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April 14th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
John
theres actually an interview with billboard where spencer says the album name’s still up in the air because of copyright issues: they didnt know it was the name of a novel so they have to sort it out with the author. I dont think they give a shit about what pitchfork thinks.
p.s. havent you heard the new songs live? theres no emo at all to worry about.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Dan Tana
John, I have heard one new song and it is great. Thanks for the info on the interview, I missed that. I think I just wanted to rant about Pitchfork and had a semi but not really good reason to.
-Tana