Lost in the Funhouse

There are a few different ways I could frame this match-up. Like Dwight, I could look at this as a nice boys vs. bad boys kind of thing. Or, I could look at this as 70's punk vs. 90's pseudo-alternative (in this case, I'd love to see someone write a dissertation showing the link between these two groups). Maybe I should think of this as guilty pleasure vs. hipster garbage.

After listening to both albums, I found that I don't have too much to say about The Counting Crows. August sure feels like it's from the 90's. I've never been crazy about this guy's voice. I think his vocal style has greatly influenced contemporary worship leaders. Maybe I should blame this guy for the fact that instead of getting to sing the good old hymns in chapel, I too often find myself watching some guy singing in an over-dramatic fashion, kind of ruining my experience. In fact, this whole album has a bit of that feel. I guess I can now say I know where contemporary worship is at: firmly planted in the 90's (those of you familiar with both this album and that style of worship, tell me I'm wrong).

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from Funhouse. I've never been a huge Iggy Pop fan, but somewhere along the line, I picked up that his early stuff was better. I expected this to be a loud, MC5ish kind of album. And for me, that meant that it could be really good or really bad, depending on how well it was executed. The first few tracks were fine, but they bored me a little. As the album continued though, I found myself really enjoying it. And by the time the horns kicked in on the last three tracks, I was sold. Essentially, this is an album of some half singing, half yelling vocals, with some heavy bass and sprawling guitar. One of the things that impresses me about this record is that with all that half screaming/yelling, it never sounds overly angry or bitter. In fact, it sounds like they're really enjoying themselves--celebrating rock n'roll in the same messy way that a kind delights in his food by smearing it all over the table.

Anyway, I ended up enjoying Funhouse enough that I went ahead and downloaded it, a pretty obvious sign that it wins. I guess I'm just a sucker for hipster garbage.