Lav's Music Corner

Headlights  - Alex G For over a decade now, Alex G has been a consistent presence in indie music, popping up every few years with a new acclaimed project that critics tend to enjoy a little more than I do. I thought that might not be the case with Headlights , because I enjoyed a few singles going into it. While "Oranges" pops up on the record's far more boring second half, and fits in, the first two singles really worked. "June Guitar" is a gentle, dreamy cut that still sounds just as infectious as it did when I first heard it. The lead single, "Afterlife," is even better and still stands among my favorite Alex G cuts to date. But honestly, I can't really think of a single deep cut that inspires the same level of interest. "Real Thing" is probably the closest the record comes. Even though the song itself isn't quite as sticky, the lyricism is a big highlight, and the way he deploys the metaphor of the "Real Thing" is worth ...

This week on "Upsetting Indie Fans" I'm taking on a gauntlet of artists who I either sort of like, or have never really understood in the first place yet they continue to receive massive amounts of critical acclaim. I'm giving them another spin to see if I figure it out all of a sudden.  We've Been Going About This All Wrong  - Sharon Van Etten Unlike the theme of these reviews so ineloquently states I actually like Sharon Van Etten and I've been known to dish out some praise to her music in the past, not to mention she puts on an excellent live show. While I wasn't crazy about the previous two singles she released I was more than willing to give this entirely new batch of songs a shot, because her music often has the poise and subtlety to grow on me over time. The record leans into that patience throughout with almost all of these songs starting out both very slow and very sparse. If you stick with them a lot of these songs develop into very compelling hi...