A guy told me really excitedly this winter that the solo album from the Sigur Rós lead singer was going to be the album of the summer— that you’d hear it blasting from the car of anyone who’s cool. He was so excited and it made me really happy to hear someone evangelizing a current album instead of just slamming the incessant cesspool that pop music has become. I went ahead and bought it when I saw it in a store a few weeks later and— I don’t know. It’s pretty structurally clever in some places but that never really means anything for listenability; just ask Captain Beefheart. Obviously, Go is a lot nicer to listen to than Trout Mask Replica— some of the operatic swells have a great galloping panchromatic beauty to them— but then you realize it’s because you’re riding astride an armored unicorn, straight for the heart of Care-a-Lot. It’s music I feel like I’m going to get beaten up for listening to— which makes it kind of hard to listen to.

Anyway. My Auditory Enjoyment Index has been out of commission since I accidentally listened to that new LCD Soundsystem album grading lab finals. Confidential to James Murphy— making it sound like you sampled “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” is not a blank check for lines like

As night has such a local ring

And love and rock are pickup things

And you know it, yeah, you know it

Yeah, you know, take

People are paying attention, man. We haven’t all had enough Pabst to get lost in the handclaps.

Here’s my Summer Jam: