Damek.

Look, I like electronic music, OK? I like synths and bleeps and bloops and drilling drums and ambient washes of sound and noise and intricately placed beats … I like it all. (If it’s good, ha!) But recently I’ve been in a something of a rock/pop mood, and I’ve been revisiting favorites like The Cure and New Order and enjoying a bit of VH1 Classic when they have the 80s and 90s new wave & modern rock artists on. And so I’ve been looking for new bands that might stroke the same musical bone that those old artists do. I checked out some “indie” music sites like Pitchfork Media and, well, some other places. They’re all idiots, but they can be good for some suggestions now and then.

I see all sorts of new music out there, some of it apparently quite popular, and I go trying it all out (thank goodness for Nicotine. Franz Ferdinand? Derivative, a bit boring — though I liked the simple Daft Punk remix of their “Take Me Out” song. Interpol? Kinda bland really. I see the attraction, and I liked about half of the tracks off their first album. The Shins? Boring. Björk’s new album? No thanks, I wanted pop music. There were more I tried, but basically, nothing.

And then…

Funeral by The Arcade Fire. Great album. Gets a little weak at the end, but it’s worth it. Plaintive, magical, beautiful. I suppose it’s not any more creative or less derivative than the other artists, but… Music is personal, it’s all about timing and mood, and Funeral is hitting me right.

Good News for People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse. Awesome. Modest Mouse have been around a while and never quite worked for me. I gave their previous albums another chance after hearing this one, and they still don’t do it for me. But this one is perfect. Darkly upbeat, uniquely inventive, and lyricaly captivating. A couple of weak tracks, but overall, a great soundtrack for a duty-bound early Saturday morning commute.

And that’s it. I tried tons of music, literally at least 50 albums in the past week or so, and deleted almost everything but those two. Maybe I’ll rediscover some of the discarded music someday and enjoy it then, it’s happened before — Boards Of Canada being an ironic example. Against my expectations, I liked Brian Wilson’s Smile. It’s been so over-hyped I didn’t want to like it, but there it was. And I sorta liked Echoes by The Rapture, in a “well, they’re better than the ghastly over-rated !!!, but I’d rather be listening to Fischerspooner or Scissor Sisters” kind of way.

So that’s that. Check ‘em out, and wait for next time when I’ll be back to my usual being tired of rock music and recommend some weird squelchy instrumental stuff. I probably won’t talk about any rock-ish music again until Weezer’s new album comes out sometime in 2005.