Clap Your Hands Say Yeah¶
362 words on CYHSY
All blame, or credit, for this goes to the Pitchfork Media website whose music reviews I enjoy a lot. And after reading their piece on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah I wanted to listen to the music. Which turned out to be a bit difficult as their CD wasn’t – and still isn’t – widely available. But after sampling a few tracks on the web I still wanted to get the CD and ordered it from the U.S. with a few others. Thanks to their lower prices and the weak U.S. Dollar this wasn’t more expensive than getting CDs here – despite the costs of overseas shipping.
So now I’ve got the CD and I’ve been listening to it a lot in the past six or seven weeks. Trying to describe it wouldn’t do the music justice as I’d end up describing the singer’s voice as whiny, the music as not being rock music and their song titles as too long. And then I’d have to explain how I don’t consider these descriptions to be negative…
Anyway, with Clap Your Hands! the CD has a wonderful intro, with Is This Love? it has a fantastic climax and around those it has numerous other great songs. Whenever I listen to the album, and particularly to The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth, I am reminded of Arcade Fire songs. I was even tempted to say that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah could be considered a U.S. American Arcade Fire – but after seeing Arcade Fire live recently I’ve come to think that the comparison is only mildly appropriate.
As with many albums I enjoy I find it really hard to say why this one is great. But it is. And whenever its 38 minutes are over and I hear
They are going out to bars
And they are getting into cars
I have seen them with my own eyes.
America please help them!
And they are
Child stars (30 times)
With their sex, and their drugs
And their rock and rock and rockandrockandroll
Hey!Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood
I’ll sigh, reach for the remote and hit the play button again.
