hipster doofuses

A lot of bands emerged a couple of years ago that I pretty much summarily dismissed. Shrouded in a foggy haze of low-riding girl jeans and PBR, these bands emerged all around the same time as far as I can remember, and I never really got it straight who was who. The Strokes. The White Stripes. The Hives. The Shins.

I’m learning now. The Strokes I’ve learned to like a bit, actually, though I was initially offput by the constant reliance on the stupid vocal fuzz effect. The White Stripes I can take or leave, but I like Jack White’s work with Loretta Lynn (though, really, how do you make a bad album working with Loretta Lynn?). The Hives, as far as I can tell, are still in the “suck” category, but I haven’t invested much effort in finding out for sure.

The Shins, though – I recently got ahold of “Wincing the Night Away”, and it’s great.. Well, half of it is great. I’ve never heard an album open so wonderfully and taper off so quickly. The first 4 tracks are great, and then it’s like “enh”.