wish list

Beach House--Teen Dream

Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand (or Beach House) released their new album “Teen Dream” this month. The sound is more mature and polished than their previous two albums, Victoria becomes more confident with her vocals. Many credit the cleaner sound with the album’s release on Sub-Pop and fear that Beach House is selling out. In fact, the album doesn’t lose the dazed quality BH is loved for, it refines it. Teen Dream is all at once sorrowful, delightful, mesmerizing, but modest. This is a triumph of an album, and shows a clear progression from Devotion.

Favorite Tracks

silver soul

Silver Soul is a sad song. It opens with birds chirping , slides into a slow, soulful verse and settles into a devastating chorus. Victoria chants, almost sobs “it is happening again” over and over. The second verse is angrier, the percussion gets stronger and Legrand screams “it’s a sickness, embedded quickness”. The song builds; Scally’s vocals are added as additional rhythm and the song really sweeps you up. You can feel the despair itSilver Soul.

_norway

Norway is the first single off “Teen Dream”. It’s a perfect song for winter. Legrand’s breathy vocals are sampled softly as part of the rhythm section in the chorus. These laid over her soulful, warm voice creates a rich feeling. The song wraps you up in its long sad tones, but delights with its twinkling guitars and upbeat tempo. Norway is a standout track that defines BH”s new, cleaner sound and assures fans they’re not abandoning their dreamy aesthetic.

lover of mine

For me, Lover of Mine is the best track on Teen Dream. It has that haunting quality I love about BH. It begins with a fun sounding 80s synth line. Once the echoy vocals kick in the synth is faded out leaving you alone with Victoria’s tortured voice. The verses sound like fairy tales, lyrics about a dark forest and the contrast of this fantasy with the bleak quality of the vocals and melody makes the song all the more unsettling in the best way, like you’re dreading something, but you don't know what.

Twilight: New Moon

Somehow I've managed to put down the glitter I was adhering to my "Future Twi-MILF" shirt, and stop furiously clicking "TEAM EDWARD" in online polls long enough to write down some of my thoughts on the second film (?) in the Twilight saga. I haven't read the second book so this movie is all new to me, and riveting.

Except that it isn't. As far as I can tell New Moon is about getting the audience to invest in a relationship between Bella and Edward, revealing that he's a werewolf, Bella accepting him for the monster than he is, and then totally fucking him over because Edward is still super hot. Pretty much. And they still haven't refined the sparkle feature in ProTools. Hate this movie.

The problem with the first movie was that they ruined a potentially compelling love story with terrible acting, and spinning camera angles, and Muse songs. They fixed all that for New Moon, firing Hardwicke was a great decision, and the acting was pretty decent, mostly because Robert Pattinson only had to appear in like two scenes. Kirsten Stewart was mostly believable, I really want to like her, you can tell she hates every moment of these movies and just wants to be smoking a bowl on the public sidewalk the day after the movie she stars in breaks records . Love you Kirsten! Anyway, Taylor Lautner's not bad either. The only cringe worthy thing production wise was the ghost-like version of Edward warning Bella against doing dangerous things, but how are you supposed to make that look good.

The blame for this movie falls squarely on Stephanie Meyer's shoulders. The implausibilities are endless. The movie begins with Edward leaving Bella to give her a chance at a normal life, he says he will never see him again and we believe him. Later, when he comes to believe that Bella has died he decides he cannot go on in a world without her and decides to commit suicide. OK, I know that's romantic and all but, Ed, if you're as serious about this as your exaggerated pouting in every scene suggests, shouldn't not being able to be with her be enough to drive you to suicide. Also, a round of applause to the filmmakers for having the audacity to make Robert Pattinson recite lines from Romeo & Juliet at the beginning of the movie because WE DIDN'T GET IT WITHOUT THAT FLASHING SIGN.

Jacob's character is kind of disturbing too. I mean, in that there were several scenes that made a point of making you think about his age (16!). Bella even has to buy his ticket to get into an R rater movie--cringe. Then in the next scene he tears off his shirt to literal SCREAMS from the middle aged women in the audience, skeevesville. There's also seriously a scene where hes chopping wood shirtless in the rain. Congrats producers, you are the worst! I can't wait for Eclipse!!!