Dear Billy Corgan,

We here at Trivial Design are longtime fans. We even gave Zwan a chance for a little while until we discovered it was The Smashing Pumpkins lite (Paz Lenchatin was a huge selling point). And I personally thoroughly enjoyed "Superchrist" for all its grandiose feel.

But we really think that unless you do something hella awesome really soon, we'd all rather you disappear quietly until a full band reunion can happen, because, well, you're embarrassing us and yourself, especially when the Silversun Pickups is out there making the type of music you should be making.

That's not to say they have bitten off your style completely. No, elements of your Siamese Dream and Gish days are present along with a healthy dose of Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. But this LA band has unpretentiously melded snappy lyrics with Brain Aubert's distinct vocals to a melodious, droning guitar-driven music with fantastic bass and drum accompaniment.

We thoroughly enjoy listening to their albums and seeing them live, as they always give us our money's worth. We feel "There's No Secrets This Year" should be as popular as "Cherub Rock" while at the same time don't want the band to get too popular otherwise have to see them with screaming teenage girls with too much makeup at an amphitheater (they and their sullen looking waifs of boyfriends can discover good music when they've all mellowed out a bunch).

Mr. Corgan we think the album you meant to make was Swoon, Silversun Pickups' second LP and that maybe your loneliness after Jimmy Chamberlain left or inability to make James Iha clean your toes has made you go a bit crazier than before (and you were absolutely batshit before). We understand your pain but at the same time are excited and amazed at the fact that the Pickups' Swoon is a better album than their debut LP album Carnavas.

Despite the fact they aren't as angsty as you were (or are) we enjoy them mightily. As your audience we've grown up a bit and don't need every song to be a veiled reference to how much life sucks anymore; that's why we have Jon Stewart.

So please Mr. Corgan, don't emerge from your lair in Chicago until you have done something cool and grown up, or at least made amends with James. Until then we're gonna enjoy the band you should have formed back in 2001.

They are really awesome.

Sincerely,
Your fans at Trivial Design

LCD Soundsystem- "Someone Great"

LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Uploaded by epb21

I have the horrible knack for ignoring wonderful bands and wonderful songs if too many people are talking about them. It's not completely my fault, it's conditioning. Growing up (not that I'm really an adult anyway) all the different bands and artists who were touted before me as the next big thing or the "greatest since..." whoever was the great thing that died in the 90's was a severe disappointment.

So if you come of age where the music that is popularized by pr machines and ad campaigns rather than an honest-to-god recommendation from someone you trust, be it a friend, your local record store employee or an artist you greatly enjoy you'd be pretty initially cynical about any band that got real big real quick. Unfortunately for me, as immersed as I am into underground bands, my concept of "popular" is somewhat skewed. Hence why I've willfully ignored LCD Soundsystem for so long and lately to my detriment.

For the past month I've been fretting about a song I heard on the best terrestrial radio station out and generally being frustrated 24 hours a day due to my not being able to remember a friggen song whose infectious bass line was haunting my everyday. This happens more often than I'd like it but never for a month. Imagine my relief when this morning I turned on said radio station and it was playing (thank you John Waters).

Finally listening in full to the two-year-old song I was happy to learn that the song didn't just stay in my head because it was catchy, but also because it was good. Jesse Murphy has long since proved himself to be one of the top electronic musicians around and "Someone Great" is one of the best his best examples.

Filling your head with a neo-disco groove perfectly suited for a packed house party in someones too-small-to-do-anything-but-stand-and-drink living room. Murphy's vocals seemingly are less important to adding meaning to the song but rather another layer of smooth melody in contrast to the sharp bell tones of which he harmonizes.

But most striking of the song has to be the cool delivery of what has to be some of the most melancholy lyrics in the past decade. The downer tone the song takes when you finally listen to it might be one of the reasons it never received too much notice here in the US and was pretty much relegated to widespread acclaim in the indie music circles; a factor which probably led to my not getting into the group before now.

But for the rest of the day I can now properly listen/dissect/obsess over "Someone Great" and get on with the rest of my life until the next song that gets stuck in my head comes along. If I'm lucky I'll actually have that song too.