Where Seattlest Asks Readers For What to Listen To

Last weekend, we were sitting at the bar at Solo (at 200 Roy St., where, coincidentally, Seattlest Happy Hour will be this Monday at 5 p.m.), talking with the owner, Val Kiossovski, who also happens to play guitar for Kultur Shock. We were drunkenly requesting a change in the music, and he obliged by putting on a record we've been listening to quite a lot lately: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's self-titled debut.

If you haven't heard it, it's the sort of record that grows on you: noisy, dream-poppy stuff, with yearning vocals and layers of distortion, very early-My Bloody Valentine-meets-the Cure. The point is, we didn't love this record when we got it, but some of the melodies got stuck in our heads, and now, although we admit its faults (primarily a lack of originality and a too-clever fondness for bad puns for song titles), we listen to it quite a lot. (And encourage curious listeners to check it out.)

This led to a long discussion at the bar. K., our significant other, simply doesn't like the record, and is fond of explaining that "If I wanted to listen to the Cure, I'd listen to the Cure." Val didn't really say one way or the other, but we gather he felt it was maybe a little uninspired, and this in turn provoked a long discussion about all the problems with music today, the sort of conversation that makes you feel old. Why are bands so willing to pigeon-hole themselves by simply choosing a sound from another, older band, and why do writers at places like Pitchfork reward them for it? And finally, we (well, this writer) got around to the fact that we hadn't found any new records to get really excited about in months, the Pains of Being Pure At Heart being the closest we'd come to something we could really get behind. And this isn't for lack of trying--something we hear really good things about, we'll go out of our way to get, and as a loyal eMusic subscriber, we get 50 songs a month for $10, which allows us to experiment a lot.

Which leads us to you, dear readers: We've got 50 downloads and a hankering for something good and new. So tell us: what's the album we need to get? The best album released thus far this year, local or otherwise, first record or not. Who should we be excited about, whose tour should we catch when they hit town? Our tastes are pretty broad, and we're willing to try. Post to the comments or write us directly at jeremy(at)seattlest.com; give us enough good stuff, we'll post it up. And we thank you in advance for the recommendations.