Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' (great) new album Living With the Living has apparently already locked up album of the year in some quarters and has been on heavy rotation at my palatial estate for the last week or so; but their ridiculously stomping cover of Chumbawumba's "Rappaport's Testament: I Never Gave Up" from the accompanying Mo'Living EP (actually a brief song cycle about some of the lesser known Wayanses*) is what's really rockin' my... uhm... palatial world right now. It's the only song I've listened to obsessively in gods know how long as well as the first one to fill me with some "Eye of the Tiger"-style get-up-and-go since... well, Ted's recent cover of "Rock n Roll Dreams'll Come Through." In fact, I think the only way I'll give up now is if they don't play this song when I see them tomorrow night in DC. For now you can listen to it at the very end of Omar's latest Best Show on WFMU recap.
*Yes, I went for a bad Wayans pun instead of a bad Rappaport pun. I daren't attempt both. I simply daren't.
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Sorry I'm so late commenting on this... But what did you think of Hearts of Oak? Because I was a huge fan of the previous Ted Leo albums but I just couldn't get into that one. It had a couple of good tunes but overall just seemed kind of generic and blah to me. Anyway I'm asking because it will put into prespective whether or not I should buy the new one.
Do you mean Shake the Sheets? That was the last one that came out - there's about 4 songs on it I love, but yeah there's a couple that you could definitely say are kinda generic. Sleater-Kinney were like that for me, I never liked every song on any of their albums but they were one of my favorite bands because they still hit higher heights than most other bands for me. You could say the same thing about Ted, even though I think his records are generally consistently good all the way through (I only heard Tyranny of Distance for the first time fairly recently and I think I like that one the best).
The new album seems like kind of a grower - I think some people aren't too crazy about it but I like it. There's the usual handful of songs that grab you right away, but then it also feels overlong. There's one song (one of the 2 or 3 best on there) that has an Irish jig breakdown as well as a reggae number, both of which sound like terrible ideas but he pulls them off effortlessly. More effortlessly than a band like Arcade Fire, anyway, w/ their array of old, theatrical instruments. The rest is more or less in the same vein as the other albums, but in a good way. So yeah, I would recommend it.
I'm not even sure. After Hearts of Oak came out I basically just stopped paying attention. Hm, I might check it out though. Tyranny of Distance was just amazing and possibly even one of my favorite albums ever. The self titled one before that also had a few really good songs but a lot of weird filler crap which was kind of unfortunate.
Shake the Sheets had "Me & Mia," "Counting Down the Hours," "Walking to Do" et al. It's well worthwhile.
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