make ya neck snap back
Alright, it's time to admit it: I'm fixated on Ratatat's Seventeen Years. Catherine got it on a CD sampler; I subsequently downloaded it from iTunes when I was frantically larding my iPod for the plane flight.
Yes, it's the song from those Hummer H2 commercials. But I can't help that. Don't blame Ratatat for creating music that's so perfectly congruous with a hated artifact. The song sounds like the soundtrack to Optimus Prime having sex, then falling asleep. Clearly, this is an artistic statement that deserved to be made, and one that's necessarily compatible with the promotion of monstrous SUVs. Blame the Hummer people who don't understand that the appropriate outlet for machine fetishism is Bjork videos (and trips to Microcenter). You don't have to commit a goddamn truck out of it.
Anyway, Seventeen Years is great, but has anyone heard the rest of the album? Pitchfork seems to have liked it, but the review's awfully written, and not in the usual Pitchfork way. So what's the verdict?
Comments
"Seventeen Years" is a great song. Really great. The album is not so great. It's fine, but the songs are extremely undifferentiated and none approach the greatness of the hit single.
I hear they're awesome live, though.
i saw ratatat with mouse on mars in atlanta back in october and they blew my mind. the album doesn't capture the band's live presence, but still completely rocks. There are a couple other tracks on it that are almost as good as seventeen years (breaking away, germany to germany) and the rest a decent. Jake is correct though, the style doesn't vary much, but that's ok.
also, one of the guys in ratatat has his own bedroom auteur/laptop rock thing going under the name e*vax. recommended.
"I've been rappin' for about seventeen years, okay...?"
Great song, but I didn't know it was co-opted by Hummer. Too bad.
el pico is good as well
as much as i hate to admit it, that particular hummer commercial is actually pretty cool.
The album is beautiful for walking around NYC to, which makes some sense since they're based in Brooklyn. I can't believe they are in a Hummer commercial, that's a real let down. The guy who does the voiceovers between songs is a Brooklyn MC, I can't recall his name right now, and they're recorded from messages he left on the RATATAT guys' answering machine.
Someone above said that the album is pretty undifferentiated, but I would say that the differences are subtle instead. They all have the same style of music—layered distorted samples focused on the rhythm and beat. The variety is in the speed and, er, "tactile" quality of the track. None of the rest of the album are nearly so "stompy" as "Seventeen Years", though—they're rather more mellow, and some like "Everest" are downright meditative. "Desert Eagle" approaches the same kind of stompiness, but it never gets quite there and it's interleaved with quieter bits.
I love the album, but then I'm partial to things I can call "soundscapes" without people looking at me funny. It doesn't hurt that it reminds me of old video game RPG music and trips my nostalgia, either. It'd be worth giving it a listen at a record store if you can find one with a sample copy, or even downloading a random couple of tracks off a P2P service to see if you like anything other than "Seventeen Years" before buying the album.
Is there a youtube vid with the commercial? I want to see how bad the damage is.
Sorry, but i think the Hummer H2 commercial is the coolest commercial i've ever seen. "Seventeen Years" sounds amazing in coordination with the hummer going down the assembly line, so screw all of you that think otherwise.
-downlow in wisconsin
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