Nine Types of Light

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New TV on the Radio album = very good. Return to Cookie Mountain remains the album of theirs that stopped me in my tracks and was the iPod reboot of choice once takeoff was done. In 2006, at least. Nine Types seems a little bit more pop accessible than Dear Science, which was inevitable. The entire album is... down? Every track seems elegiac, which is probably appropriate for this strange era in which we live -- and TV on the Radio has, to their credit, been on top of what America didn't know it felt, though it felt it deeply.

"Will Do" is a genuine pop hit. My inner elitist recoiled a bit when (I think it was) Stan Levy referenced it on SportsCenter the other night, but it's a fantastic song and deserves some popular play. This band is too good to keep locked up in the skinny jeans and ironic or not moustaches crowd. I'm sort of adamant about this -- if you have a moustache and you're under thirty, chances are you're an insecure douche. "Will Do" seems genuine, some sort of plea from a wounded heart capable of actual feeling and actual pain.

That aside, "Return to Cookie Mountain" with its opening refrain of "I was a lover before this war" and "Dear Science" are most likely the best musical perspectives on this extremely weird era from say 2003-2011 in which my generation has come of age. Come of age meaning that we understand pop culture and what it means, we understand politics and the shell game it is, and we understand that money is fungible and is at the end of the day what separates the skins from the shirts. It's a fucking strange era to be youngish in.

All of that aside, and take this for the first record review it is -- Nine Types of Light is good.