The dance rock trend

After buying Phoenix's new album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, a few weeks ago (I love it, by the way), it made me think about all of the enjoyable bands out right now that play a brand of dance rock. 2009 has already seen at least two outstanding releases from this category with the Phoenix album and Passion Pit's Manners.

2008 also saw its fair share of great dance rock albums. M83, Cut Copy and Hot Chip all released solid records combining dance beats with guitars, bass and keys. You might even be able to throw TV on the Radio's Dear Science in this category as well. And would MGMT's debut have been anywhere near as popular as it was if it wasn't for "Electric Feel" and "Kids"?

The trend is even showing up in unlikely places. Animal Collective's 2009 release Merriweather Post Pavilion is practically all electronic with a full-out raver ("Brother Sport") as the final song. Even the likes of My Morning Jacket got in on the action on their latest album, Evil Urges, with "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2."

I'm not going to say we're experiencing an "electronic dance rock" era or anything. But it seems like there are so many good options out there right now. (Let's not forget probably the best option from this category -- LCD Soundsystem.) So I'm wondering if people agree with me, or if this maybe is just a type of music that I have gotten into recently, and that I wasn't paying attention as much before.

2009 Pitchfork Music Festival: Yeasayer and M83

This year's Pitchfork had its share of solid performances, stinkers, and surprises. The surprises did not come from the headliners (I can only speak for Saturday and Sunday -- I did not attend Friday), as the Flaming Lips put on a rushed, seemingly abbreviated -- but fun -- set, and the National sounded great but really couldn't deliver as a headliner.

The two bands that stood out the most to me had to be Yeasayer and M83. I saw Yeasayer live on two occasions in 2008. At the Logan Square Auditorium their sound was kind of muffled and they seemed uneasy for some reason. I chalk it up to the venue. At Lollapalooza, they put on a much better set, playing with more confidence in front of a much larger crowd. But after seeing them this past Saturday at Pitchfork, I can see they have continued to jell as a band over the past year. They got rid of their drummer and split his duties among two new members. Now the band features one drummer that plays a regular kit, and another that plays an electronic drum set -- something the band's previous drummer tried to conquer all on his own.

Because of this change, I felt the group sounded much tighter. They played probably 4 new songs that all sounded good. And they nailed all the songs from their debut album All Hour Cymbals. Look for good things coming from these guys in the future.

The other bright spot of the festival came from M83. I probably shouldn't have been so surprised -- I did, in fact, list their album Saturdays = Youth in my top 5 albums of 2008. But lately I had stopped listening to the album, and I wasn't all that excited to see them perform. M83 put on a great set, however, probably getting the crowd going better than any other act at the festival. I would definitely like to check these guys out at a smaller venue the next time they roll through Chicago.