TV On the Radio – Dear Science (2008)

TV On the Radio was one of the coolest bands towards the end of the 00's. I bought it mainly because all the indie circles were so excited by it and the album was fairly cheap and looked amazing on vinyl. However, at first, I didn't much care for the album. TV On the Radio is not just average indie rock, like the bands I listened to at that point. It has a far more rhythmic focus and there are influences from many different musical styles outside of rock. There are some influences from funk, jazz, disco and hip hop. I've only learned to appreciate the uniqueness of the sounds later on, perhaps as a result of getting to know some funk bands more recently. I'm glad I bought the album when it was new, because now this album would most likely be really expensive on vinyl. I am, however, a bit disappointed that I didn't see the band live around that time.



I don't know why TV On the Radio sounds so British, when in fact they're from New York. I guess it might be because the vocals and style sound somewhat similar to Bloc Party. Then again, there are other nationalities that come to mind from this music here and there. There are some strong similarities to Nigerian funk scene as well. I think funk is the most obvious influence in addition to indie rock in this music. It's very interesting, since indie rock has often lacked interesting rhythm sections, and funk is usually considered to be all about rhythm.

The album starts with big guitar sounds and a looping vocal humming that sound incredibly lot like Bloc Party, in the song Halfway Home. Even though this song has the usual electric guitars on overdrive that dominated mid-00's indie rock scene, you can immediately notice the focus on rhythmics. Crying starts with interesting drum beats mixed with electronic samples. The melodies come creeping in with instruments entering the song one by one. Dancing Choose goes more electronic and the vocals are closer to hip hop style than indie singing. The chorus on the other hand sounds like later albums of Blur. Stork & Owl has some glorious imitation strings and some great vocals. The song keeps growing towards the end with some chiming guitars. Golden Age is the first proper funk song. The clicking drum beat along with innovative bass lines makes it sound like some Afrobeat bands from Nigeria. Family Tree tones the vibes down a bit and the echoey piano sounds get to take lots of room. you can also hear the vocals more purely in this song and they sound very beautiful. Red Dress goes properly funky. If it wasn't for the cool New York vocals, I could easily confuse this song to a Fela Kuti song that has just gotten some modern instrumentation added on it. Love Dog is another lighter song that still maintains interesting drum beats. There are some fantastic string arrangements towards the end of the song. Shout Me Out sounds a bit like Vampire Weekend with its organ sounds and ticking beats. DLZ was one of the biggest hits from the album and it's been used in some TV-series. It's a very cool song that really reminds me of Bloc Party again. The album ends with Lover's Day, which is the noisiest and strangest song on the album. There's some noise psychedelia with trumpets involved.

I don't know if I've seen any TV On the Radio music videos before now. The video for Golden Age looks quite amazing. It features the band in white monks' capes on a mountain clapping the rhythms of the music. On the other mountain-top, there are dancing cops that look like they're from some Tom of Finland musical fantasy. There are all sorts of strange sequences in the video where the band members transform into different kinds of animals and start playing golden instruments.

For a long time I was kind of stuck in music that had conventional melody structures and I couldn't really appreciate bands that were more focused on rhythms. This resulted in a very narrow musical perspective. I'm glad that my intentional self-education into different styles of music and into classic pop albums of all genres has broadened my horizons and now I can look at some bands in completely different light. TV On the Radio is definitely one of the bands that have gotten a completely new place in my mind.

Listen to the album on Spotify.