Things We Like: TV on the Radio, Dear Science

I still remember the first time that I heard of the band TV on the Radio. I was standing on the Staten Island Ferry with Katy and we had ventured outside to the front of the boat (the poop deck?), where only one other couple stood. Some hipster in tight jeans was raving about this underground band, TV on the Radio. I have no idea why that stuck with me but it did. The thought of combining TV and radio blew my mind.

I went out and bought their first album, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes*. It struck me as odd but mildly intriguing. I was alarmed by the lack of power chords and rawk screaming. Time passed, I grew a mustache, and I hardly noticed when their last album, Return to Cookie Mountain came out, until I saw a copy on my co-worker's desk. Hearkening back to my sole trip to the Big Apple and that trip on the ferry, I went ahead and got my hands on my own copy. It was a vast improvement over the first CD. Still weird, but now they were extremely intriguing. Dark, moody and misunderstood. Like me in high school.

Now comes their latest release, Dear Science. While very different from their first two, it remains all kinds of brilliant. Kind of like a cross between Prince (back when he was still good) and Radiohead. Unlike their first two discs, this one is imminently danceable. And let me tell you, here at the Handfelt Happy Hour, nothing pleases us more than the thought of white people dancing to soulful music as if no one was watching.

Sample it here.

*This was my planned title for my memoirs.