The Kooks - Coachella, Day Three

Of the three days at Coachella, day three is definitely the the day that I am least looking forward to. First of all, the headliner that day is Rage Against the Machine, a band that I couldn't really care less about. I know some people who thought they were awesome, but I never really got into them. Too much rage for me, and not enough melody I guess.

Of the other 35 or so artists performing that day, I'd only previously listened to a handful of them: Willie Nelson, Kaiser Chiefs, Placebo, and Air. And I can't say I'm too crazy about any of those four artists either. To be fair, I did listen to the Kaiser Chiefs first album a bit, and I think 'You Can Have It All' is a great song.

So, day three is a perfect candidate for my Coachella 2007 listening project. One of the first artists that I started listening to is The Kooks, a band from Brighton, UK, that's been together for just a couple of years. In addition to being young and British, the boys from the Kooks also enjoy sitting on large sets of stairs, acting casually cool and waiting for photographers to come by. But then again, who doesn't enjoy that?

The Kooks first album, 'Inside In / Inside Out', came out last October. I've been listening to that album here and there for maybe a week, and I think it's pretty good. The Kooks remind me a bit of another current band I like, The Futureheads, who are also from the UK. Both bands have a nice energetic and melodic sound. The main difference between the two is that the Futureheads singer sounds like the guy from the Proclaimers, whereas the singer from The Kooks sounds more like a yelping dog with a thick British accent, and I mean that in the best possible way. To be fair, there are only a handful of songs where the yelping comes to the forefront, not coincidentally those are the most energetic songs on the album.

My favorite song on the album has got to be 'Sofa Song'. I immediately loved that song and put it on repeat on my iPod. I must admit that I wore that song out before I even started listening to the rest of the album. I hoped that there might be another song or two on the album that I would like as much as 'Sofa Song', but unfortunately that has not been the case. Not that there aren't other good songs on the album, though - there are. There just aren't any others that are as catchy and agressive as 'Sofa Song'.

Some of the other songs that are worth a listen are: "Naive", "You Don't Love Me", and "She Moves In Her Own Way". Apparently "Naive" made it to #5 on the UK charts and was the Kooks first top 20 single in their homeland. It's a very nice song, but there could be more yelping in it if you ask me.

Being as this is my first ever music "review" (if you want to call it that), I'm questioning whether I've listened to this album enough to write about it. I wonder how much listening is appropriate before I write something about the album. How long does Chuck Klosterman listen to an album before he reviews it? I bet two hours, tops. He's a busy guy. I guess my worry is that I might like this album more if I listen to it more, but it seems unreasonable to listen to every album for weeks. How will I ever churn out the articles if I do that? Oh well, let's not worry about that.

So, to sum up, the Kooks are definitely a band that I will be checking out at Coachella. In fact, they are at this point probably the band I'm most excited about seeing on day three, which admittedly isn't saying much. I would recommend checking them out, especially 'Sofa Song'.