A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing: Mismatched Album Art

Idea by Matt Keeley
With contributions by. . .

What is an album with artwork so amazing that despite knowing you’d dislike the music, you’ve almost bought (or perhaps actually did buy)?
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What is an album with artwork so ugly or hideous that, despite having a good feeling that you’d like the music on there, you could never bring yourself to own?
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I Heard Your Voice In Cambridge: Elvis Perkins In Dearland

By Chelsea Spear

Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA
April 22, 2009

The music of Elvis Perkins has a cathartic quality that borders on the spiritual. His vivid, fever-dream lyrics draw on Biblical themes and imagery (note the title of his first album, Ash Wednesday, and its closing song “Good Friday”), his melodies share the memorable simplicity of hymns, and he and his band perform them with great fervor and no small emotion. Thus, it seemed appropriate that they would grace the stage of the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass.
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Top Five Post-Neutral Milk Hotel Bands

By Chelsea Spear

If In the Aeroplane Over the Sea were a child, that child would be entering middle school right now. That the landmark album turned eleven in February of this year is a bit unbelievable. It certainly doesn’t sound as though it’s been around for that long. Some of the album’s elements, like its tarnished brass-band arrangements and intoxicating, passionate vision sounded out of step with the detatched irony of indie rock in 1998, while others—like the evocation of Anne Frank and the rich melodies—were simply timeless.
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The Passions, Thirty Thousand Feet Over China

By Chelsea Spear

The Passions first came to me on a cloud of cinema nostalgia, flickering with maroon-tinted images of Laboratory Aim Density Girls and smelling faintly of vinegar. John Heyn, best known for co-directing the infamous Heavy Metal Parking Lot, had cut a short film of China Girl images to the tune of “I’m In Love with a German Film Star.” The images and footage of China Girls left me gobsmacked (more about that here), but the song lingered in my mind long after I first viewed the short. Though the British band’s albums were elusive on this side of the pond, a copy of Thirty Thousand Feet Over China surfaced in a bag of donations my boyfriend received at his job in a library.
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Oren Lavie, The Opposite Side of the Sea

By Chelsea Spear

In the early days of 2009, the Internet became aware of Oren Lavie. The video for “Her Morning Elegance,” the album’s opening track and first single, was auspiciously posted on YouTube, and was subsequently linked on individual blogs and websites (like the group blog MetaFilter.com) with great enthusiasm. As Lavie’s catchy melody burbled along, a narrative of dreams and unrequited love unfolded in appropriately elegant, yet painstaking stop-motion animation. The album’s sales figures at online retailers increased faster than you can say, “YouTube embed.”
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Popshifter‘s Best Of Lists

Pete Best

Most publications give you their “Best Of” and “Top Ten” lists in their December issues. But what about giving props to of all the great things you embraced in the penultimate month of the year?

That’s why Popshifter has decided to provide you with our favorites now, so that you can add them to your list of “Things To Check Out In 2009.”

In addition to the lists our staff compiled, we’ve also posted the lists from some very special guest contributors.

Enjoy!
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The Shortwave Set, Replica Sun Machine

By Chelsea Spear

If you like lush melodies, boy/girl harmonies, blackly clever lyrics, handclaps, obsolete musical technology, analog synths, or references to great pop songs of the past, I have great news for you: The Shortwave Set has released their second album.
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Dark City Is Overrated

By Chelsea Spear

In 1998, Alex Proyas’s Dark City saw a quiet theatrical release, and an even quieter end to its engagement. In the years since it was dismissed and disinterred to home video, filmmaker Joss Whedon and Roger Ebert, dean of American film critics, have found inspiration in the expressionistic, dystopian feature. Andy Herod of acclaimed indie band The Comas cited the film as “the only movie that makes sense or matters.” It has become a fetish object for slavering fanboys and Ebert acolytes. A decade later, it has all but been inducted into the neo-noir cannon. Ebert has recorded a commentary track for the deluxe edition DVD. Fans discuss the news of a sequel in hushed, reverent tones.

It is quite possibly the most overrated film of the 1990s.
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China Girls

By Chelsea Spear

Working as a production assistant on a low-budget movie teaches and rewards the novice cineaste in ways that might not immediately pay off. One of the most enduring lessons I learned during my internship involved an archaic slab of film technology. While the film’s director was working on color correction, I frequently almost-spotted the image of a woman’s face at the start and end of a reel.
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10,000 Maniacs, Blind Man’s Zoo

By Chelsea Spear

You are twelve years old. In your pocket you have some jangly change and a wilted sawbuck, heavy with sweat from your clammy hands—money you earned from babysitting your snot-nosed brother while your mom went out on another pointless date. You enter the Tape World at the mall—a store smaller than your bedroom at home—with the intent to buy the first album you’ll purchase with your own money.
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