TAGT Fruit
Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to perception and how I view the world, especially with regard to music and the associated imagery (hello, it’s a music blog and I don’t get paid to do it, so you have to figure I’m kinda sorta obsessed with the whole ball of wax in the first place). When I was younger – and I still have a gut reaction in this regard that I have to actively resist – I would judge music based on the album cover. This is really stupid, of course, but if an album had something I found unappealing in the artwork, I would usually find myself uninterested in listening.
I eventually overcame this problem (for the most part) as I realized that the music contained therein often had no real connection to the packaging. Sometimes it does, but I think that only becomes relevant after you’ve had some time to get to know a band. You sort of get in their head and start understanding what it is they’re going after. Take Blur’s Parklife – I hated that album cover upon first inspection, and wasn’t sure I wanted to listen to them. I was on the fence about it and eventually popped it in, and of course once you’ve heard the music you understand the context of the photo and it all sort of fits together. But in many cases, you still might not know what a band were going for even after listening.
At any rate, this had me thinking about why I made those associations, and I came back to this idea of ‘packaging’. So many artists these days are very carefully marketed, and there’s a lot of thought behind the complete package and how it’s presented to potential customers/listeners. Take Britney Spears, for example. Her album covers typically tell you what you need to know about her music. There’s a clear connection. Even something like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon – triangles and rainbow prisms somehow manage to communicate how trippy the music you are about to listen to is.
So when I hear a band, I think I form a mental picture of what they’re about and what image they’re likely to project. If I then see said band in the real world outside that mental context, I think my brain has a temporary short-circuit. I think this is why some people just couldn’t deal with Kings of Leon when they suddenly stopped looking like scraggly mountain men. Regardless of the music, their brains just couldn’t accept them as the same band.
All of which brings me to The Asteroids Galaxy Tour. They produce what I guess is now called neo-soul, and it’s really a lot of fun and a pleasure to listen to. But somehow, perhaps due to previous performers in this genre like Duffy or Amy Winehouse or Adele or even The Hives, I keep expecting them to look period appropriate in their promo materials and music videos. Then I see them, and everything is sunshine and outer space and big, bright saturated colors, and I feel like they should be singing Ting Tings songs.
Maybe, just maybe that means that they’ve resisted ‘packaging’ and have just decided to be themselves. In which case, I’m quite happy. But I need to train my brain to accept this visual/auditory inconsistency.
I first talked about the band over a year ago, if you can believe it (I said they ’sound like 1969 wrapped in a rainbow’). They are finally getting around to a full-length, which they’ve titled Fruit. The LP will be in stores October 27th.
The Asteroid Galaxy Tour – The Sun Ain’t Shinin No More
US TOUR DATES:
11/12: New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
11/14: New York, NY @ Tribeca Grand, GBH Party
I think the album cover is a good indication if the band will suit your tastes. Generally speaking visual and audio aesthetics are pretty closely linked, so if I like the album cover the band chose, that probably means we're pretty sympatico on matters of taste and thus their music.