Belated Farewells

According to their website, Sleater-Kinney has decided to go on an "indefinite" hiatus. Seems like every few years there is a flurry of grrrl-rock bands that try to break into the mainstream but SK, even if not the first of that genre, should be considered pioneers. You've probably never heard of them, in fact the only other person I know who owns any SK music doesn't even like them, calling each of their albums a rehash of previous work. I own their last five discs; short of conceding my friend's point, I would say that at the very least each represents considerable gains in production values. At worst, then, each album supercedes what came before it but can stand alone on its own merits.

Their "farewell" album, The Woods, certainly sounds like a band ready to call it quits -- not from a lack of creativity but out of an apparent frustration from trying to shoehorn their raucous style into a radio-friendly sound. SK has been in the biz long enough to realize that anything with a six-minute, speaker-melting guitar solo will not find a place on any corporate radio playlists, it's just that they don't care anymore. Not surprisingly, the album is the better for it. At last check, one of my favorite songs from that album was available as a free download on Amazon.

Now that I think of it, my "appreciation" of SK is an important footnote regarding the salad days of unchecked file sharing. Had it not been for the original Napster, I don't know how I would have ever come across SK (certainly not via commercial radio). But because I was able to download a handful of their songs I ended up buying their CDs and even saw them live a couple of times. There is no better way for a struggling band to get noticed than to carpet-bomb the Internet with free mp3s.

I'm not about to get sentimental over a defunct e-tailer, but AllDirect.com also bowed out recently. They were my favorite source for music and books. I always thought their prices were too good to be true and now I understand why.