I hate hate hate Fall Out Boy. I hate everything about them: Their obviously carefully picked out Hot Topic wardrobe and eye make up, their overly polished top 40 songs pretending to be punk rock... Now, I'm not Mr. Punk Rock by any stretch of the imagination, but I know enough punk to know they're not it, and to be offended by the claim that they were. My hatred of them ran so deep I started to dislike bands I loved like The Promise Ring and Jawbreaker just because they were lumped with them into the whole emo thing.
Which is why I was so dumbfounded that Ryan Adams produced the upcoming Fall Out Boy album. Pax Am Days is supposedly a return to their punk roots, but I have yet to see any evidence that they have any. What's most surprising is that this song isn't terrible. I'm not ready to go out on a limb and say that it's good yet, but it's not bad. I'm not sure if I'm 100% comfortable with that statement, but there it is. The gang vocal chorus seems to be trying a bit too hard, but that's the worst I can say about it. I guess the best news is if Ryan Adams can make Fall Out Boy punk, I can't imagine how the new Evan Dando/Ben Deily/Juliana Hatfield Lemonheads album he produced will sound.
Pax Am Days is out on October 15. If you're curious enough, listen to "Love, Sex, Death" below.
Music made for kids is the absolute worst. As much as you might try to raise your kid on a diet of Dinosaur Jr and the Ramones, eventually a grandparent ruins everything with some Disney Princess nonsense or the Wiggles. Sure, there are children's albums out there by They Might Be Giants and the Fun Fun Records roster is actually good, but they are the exception, and the rule is Raffi.
Right now for free you can download a 3 song sampler on Noisetrade for Sandra Boynton's FROG TROUBLE. If you have a kid, you know Sandra Boynton's surprisingly good books featuring animals in people clothes (But Not the Hippopotamus is my personal favorite). FROG TROUBLE is a collection of kids' songs written by Boynton and sung by a mixed bag of artists. You'll probably want to focus on Ben Folds, Ryan Adams, Mark Lanegan, and Fountains of Wayne while ignoring Darius Rucker. The "fun pack" you can download for free includes Kacey Musgraves, Ryan Adams, and Ben Folds. Ryan Adams' "When Pigs Fly" is much better than it should be, and could actually fit in with his own songs.
You can download the FROG TROUBLE Fun Pack here, and watch a making of video below.
We love cover songs at If It's Too Loud..., so when one of my favorite artists covers another one of my favorite artists, you can rest assured I'm going to post about it. I'm already in a tizzy over Sebadoh's upcoming album (Defend Yourself, due out on September 17), and Lou Barlow just posted a video on YouTube where he's covering Ryan Adams' "Two," one of my all time favorite Ryan Adams tracks. The best part of this whole thing is that the video is posted on a brand new YouTube channel that Lou started so he could share covers of his favorite songs.
