David Byrne - Uh Oh

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If I remember rightly, this was the first album I ever downloaded off some random blog. It's the followup to Rei Momo (one of my favourite albums ever), and it veers much (much) more into conventional rock territory than its predecessor. Aside from the fantabulous singles (the wonderfully quirky Girls On My Mind and the horn-laden Hanging Upside-Down), it's basically the definitive 3-star album - nothing bad on it, but not much to write home about.

Motorpsycho - Heavy Metal Fruit (2010)

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My first foray into these famous Norwegian grunge pioneers, who've been doing interesting music since 1991 or so. Lots of folk, jazz, progressive rock and psychedelic elements on their latest release here, along with some of the grunginess that made them staples fifteen years ago.

So yeah, splendid album!

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Absolute zero by tetrafusion. Totally killer progressive metal band.
Also, I recently saw vektor live and they were super rad so I got black future. Not quite the live experience, it's really hard to capture in a recording but still way rad and totally worth the purchase.
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Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

This album is battling with Beach House's Teen Dream to become my favourite album of 2010 so far. It's just a great indie rock album with anthemic chorus, memorable hooks and great guitar lines. A very addictive album that will be on heavy rotation for months to come.

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R.E.M. - Murmur

Been digging out the old REM albums lately. I don't really have to say much about this. This album pretty much created alternative rock as we know it. Hadn't listened to it in quite a while and it still sends shivers down my spine. A classic album.

Don't get me wrong, I love Murmur (I rated it a 10/10 in my discography thread for chrissakes :rolleyes:) but I think you're giving it a tad too much credit. Murmur takes tremendous influence from two relatively unknown and very notable records, The Feelies' "Crazy Rhythms" (1980) and fellow Athens Georgia band Pylon's "Gyrate" (1980). These two records really laid the foundations for the 80s college rock movement and were arguably the first of the genre (which of course was spearheaded by R.E.M.).

Check em out if you like.

The Feelies - The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness


Pylon - Danger

Ahhh, but Murmur is indeed a gigantic step forward, and indeed a very note worthy cultural artefact... the best thing is it's also a very strong cohesive album...

So Television,Gang Of Four,the post-punk movement,The Feelies,Talking Heads, and Modern Lovers had nothing to do with it, and the idea of REM "creating" alternative rock seems to conviently overlook contemporary groups like Orange Juice,The Replacements,Husker Du,Meat Puppets,The Cure,The Smiths, and Violent Femmes, all of whom released material either before Murmur or almost simultaenusly which is very much alternative rock.

Stop toeing the official line Zero1986, I thought you knew better.

I think you're probably right... I would pare it down to something like "made a significant contribution tok the growth of Alternative music... it was one of many albums that kinda synthesized the alternative sound...

I think the qualifying phrase he used was "as we know it". All the bands you listened certainly did have a tremendous impact on the alternative rock at the time, but R.E.M. were the grandaddies of most college rock.

I'm downloading this album right now, infact it's just finished!

Anthemic chorus' eh? You've made it sound quite a good album.

We shall see, I liked the single a lot. I hope this will be one of my favourite for 2010 as well.