In many musical ways, 2009 appears to be very similar to the early 1990's. The Flaming Lips shocked everyone in 1990 - well, no-one, with their marvelously deranged fourth album, 'In a priest driven ambulance.' Mercury Rev released the, ahem, mercurial, 'Yerself is steam,' to an uninterested, unconcerned 1991. And barely a year later Buffalo Tom issued their seminal recording, 'Let me come over.' All great records. All, relatively ignored. The current end of year best album lists; and the bands that feature heavily in them, seem, all of them, to have been intently listening to these classics of the 90's. This is especially true of Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips and these cited earlier works. Something, however, seems to be missing from these new bands. All great work - for it to be truly great - has to have an essential element of humour to it - The Velvets had it, The Stones had it, The Smiths had it - Radiohead have it. Twat isn't so sure the current crop - Animal Collective, Wild Beasts, Grizzly Bear et al have it. The question is - do they need to have it? Or has one particular sensibility replaced another?
Anyway here's Japandroids - to illustrate what we mean - but, also, TO DANCE 2!
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