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200 Million Thousand provides a fair share of these moments and because of that you can say the album succeeds. It just could use a little more teenage head and a little less brains.
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Black Lips make the same album over and over. If that album sucked, this might be a problem. But it doesn’t.
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Grimy and disheveled, clever and infectious, it's a sloppy heap of classic pop, psychedelic haze, spastic rock, and teenage disaffection mixed to lo-fi imperfection in some kid's filthy garage.
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Black Lips are able to both faithfully emulate some annoyingly nearly-recognisable sixties and seventies styles while using the one-take demo approach to give their own 3 chord song structures an air of immediacy that prevents the album from sliding too quickly into the pit marked “slavish recreation.”
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Detractors will point to a failure to effectively up their game with 200 Million Thousand but the sly sense of craft remains.
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On Black Lips' fifth studio album 200 Million Thousand, their music finally catches up with their live-show notoriety. The surf-rock riffs are woozier, the girl-group melodies are brighter, and the in-the-red production channels extra psych-rock paranoia.
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FilterThey arise triumphant with their own footprint in the soil of rock and roll. [Winter 2009, p.91]
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The guitars are rough and the lyrics mumbled, but even the most rote garage tunes betray a craftsmanship often missing from the genre. The collection is the Lips' first that would have benefited from some trimming.
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MojoFor once, such a retrogressive and deconstructive approach is strangely thrilling. [May 2009, p.104]
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It means that the album’s instantly accessible and familiar to anyone who’s ever smoked a cigarette, flipped the bird to The Man or nailed the pastor’s daughter in the churchyard; but is subject to the law of diminishing returns which kicks in every time the fuck-you teen persona is reincarnated.
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Yes, there are jokes and doo-woppy moments of light-heartedness, but this is a soupy, stoned, distressed-sounding album at odds with the Lips’ image as the world’s premier party band.
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No holds barred, and no pitch-correction in sight, the tracks of 200 Million Thousand shine like diamonds in the rough, warts-and-all.
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200 Million Thousand falls somewhere between a riot and a soundtrack for a Sunday drive, too big for the garage but not quite ready for India, either.
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On 200 Million Thousand, Black Lips sidestep expectations and make a record less approachable than its predecessor.
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It is not The Great Black Lips Record many were expecting. But it doesn’t disappoint either.
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200 Million Thousand has more hooks and is better top-to-bottom than any previous Black Lips effort.
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Q MagazinePithy stompers such as 'Short Fuse' and 'Drugs' tell their own story, but the spooked death rattle of 'The Drop I Hold' is at least proof that the experimental mind-set of 2007's " Good Bad Not Evil" wasn't a one-off. [May 2009, p.107]
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This smart if self-conscious album makes it clear who the Lips would like to be, but it's hard to tell who they really are.
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The result is a gleefully presented disaster. One that's consistently captivating if not irresistible.
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Fortunately, buried beneath the Lips' psychedelic slop heap are surprisingly exacting pop hooks, clever musical experiments, and insidious grooves that belie the band's wastrel image.
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200 Million Thousand showcases some of their most satisfying [tunes] yet.
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Here they make less of an effort to conceal the pop smarts percolating beneath the slop-rock surface; catchy little gems like 'Starting Over' and 'I'll Be with You' help make this the most satisfying Black Lips album yet.
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Apparently they're nowhere near as wild as they once were, but their fifth album still sounds convincingly reprobate.
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UncutThis great LP is best seen as their Desert Island Discs, a statement of things the band can't do without. [May 2009, p.79]
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Very simplistic in melody and progression, each track on 200 Million Thousand is a tube-driven, distorted mess, complete with classic Brit-punk vocals. Twangy and overdriven guitars are matched with screams and pissed-off vocals full of attitude, creating a highly energetic punch, reminiscent of a Black Lips live performance.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 13
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Mixed: 1 out of 13
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Negative: 0 out of 13
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CiroMApr 26, 2009They are doing some smart rock n roll. This should be recognized.
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WalkApr 8, 2009
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hjFeb 25, 2009Only band that matters!