The following music blurbs have run in The Daily Northwestern between 2008 and 2009. The limit for each review was 150 words.

Lykke Li @ Metro, 2/7

Ah, Lykke Li, breaker of alt-bro hearts; your precociously sweet-sounding-yet-sinister love songs are made even better when you flagellate yourself on stage, pounding your shoulder with a tight fist and dancing madly in the spotlight, a brazen look of “fuck you got mine” scrawled all over your face.  Dressed in a cape and gaudy jewelry, Lykke played a too-brief set of the best songs off her debut album Youth Novels, throwing in a few Kings of Leon and a Tribe Called Quest covers into the mix, adding a bit of that Swedish shake to each jam.  Lykke’s handclaps and the band’s added percussion got the crowd moving to songs like the robotic “I’m Good, I’m Gone” and crying during melancholy shit like “Tonight,” showcasing, what else, her range.  Be my Valentine, Lykke.

Morrissey – Years of Refusal

It’s been 20 years since The Smiths broke up, but you’re always there for us.  You make us feel better about our miserable love lives.  Your ethereal voice, the sound of a choir of angels descending upon the terrestrial Earth, doesn’t sound that good here when you’re trying to belt out over a cacophony of noise, but when you just let the words flow like you always do on songs like “That’s How People Grow Up” and “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris,” life suddenly makes sense.  The sense is in your voice, Morrissey.  No one has an ear for the melodramatic like you, spitting vitriol in “It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore” as you ask, “Did you really think we meant all those syrupy, sentimental things we said yesterday?”  We never do, but you always do, Moz.  You always mean them.

The Black Lips – 200 Thousand Million

Say what’s up to 1969 in a big way, as the Black Lips kick out their best Iggy impersonations filtered through even shittier amps than the Stooges were playing with on this new record. The vocals are strained and garbled, the riffs garagey and bluesy, and the hooks immaculate: Shuffle along to the handclaps and retro pop feel of “Drugs” and warble to the best of modern-white-boy-blues on “Short Fuse” like the English Revolution of the ‘60s never happened. Another standout is the dangerous slither of “Take My Heart,” which would feel at home in a cowboy bar and a punk club. The Black Lips aren’t breaking any new ground, but if you’ve ever wondered what would have happened if the early Rolling Stones had created punk rock, throw this shit on.

The Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea

This record really bummed me because singer David Berman just sounds flat and listless, he’s lapsing into self-parody with ridiculous songs like “Candy Jail” (“Life in a candy jail / peppermint bars / peanut brittle bunk beds and marshmallow walls”) like his buddy Stephen Malkmus.  In previous Silver Jews jaunts like American Water and Tanglewood Numbers Berman’s voice at least settled into a groove that you could swing along to if you were a little drunk, but the music is dull, the production blends all of the instruments together and there’s so little melody that you have no reason to listen without a lyric sheet.  The songwriting has suffered too, as Berman resorts to clichés, generalizations, and other tired poetic devices; for a band that’s about the lyrics, this is problematic.  He’s never sounded energetic but here he just sounds bored, and it’s just not an interesting record.

TV on the Radio – Dear Science

Drenched in the ambient noise producer/guitarist/general whiz Dave Sitek is known for but buoyed along by syncopated drum claps and cute little guitar lines, this is the surest push for mainstream success TVOTR has ever made.  Don’t panic: Just because you might hear it in a club as well as a college radio station doesn’t mean it’s a total departure.  Even though singer Tunde Adebimpe’s vocal delivery is more Anthony Kiedis-ian than ever with stilted rap-rocking filling up a number of the songs, his falsetto yelps will still charm the pants off your girlfriend.  Check the horn/synth outro of “Crying,” which sounds like the breeze of a Carribean dance party, and the pained release of “Family Tree”.  A few years ago, TVOTR would have let the latter track end simmering in a slow haze, but recorded today, a slow drumbeat kicks in towards the end before fading out.  What are the drums building towards?  Whatever it is, these guys are leading the way.

The Replacements – Let It Be

Oh boy, The Replacements – a band that’s lived in my heart since the first time I heard them, one of the most overlooked bands ever, and finally their first four albums have been re-mastered, the best of which is this one.  It kicks off with the romantic, galloping thump of “I Will Dare,” one of the most optimistic love songs I’ve ever heard, and the rest of the album is balanced between emotional devastation and wry humor.  There’s the ache and longing of ballads like “Answering Machine,” about a lover who never picks up and “Unsatisfied,” the best song about never getting what you want to stomping rockers like a cover of KISS’s “Black Diamond” and the anti-MTV roar of “Seen Your Video”.  One of the best underground rock albums of all-time and way, way better than the one The Beatles did.  Take a deep breath and accept it.  It’s true.