Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to be Cool

I love it, but sometimes I think all this fuzz and mumbling and submerged vocals and general intelligibility enjoying a certain vogue in the musical underground can be pinned on the Bush administration. People follow their leaders. This can be really very subliminal, and, for the last eight years preceding this one, our leaders were as insolently vague and hard to pin down as they could manage to be. They have been the political equivalent of My Bloody Valentine. As much as I hate to see that sort of thing quoted in the newspaper and treated as if it were coherent, I sure like the way it sounds through my little boom box speakers. But with Obama in office I say it's time for something new.

I also say The Beets get grandfathered in. Their album, Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool, came in the same envelope as Thee Oh Sees. I'll take their word for it that this is "a collection of 12 songs about being cool" because I can really only make out the odd sentence fragment here and there, however, I can tell that it is a pleasant lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon type collection of extra down-tempo garage rock. If there is a day when you don't think you can handle the Black Lips or even the Strange Boys, put this album on. They rather elegantly neglect to rock out here but nevertheless have a swingin' scuzzy time. So, if the Sunday in question involves day drinking next to someone else's pool, well, so much the better. The obscured vocals are also obnoxious and nasal, giving the whole album a stoned, frat rock appeal. On the other hand, the songs all tend to run together, even with repeated listening. Then again, you will enjoy the process of listening repeatedly just to make sure.