Well I was telling her about how offended I was at how somebody, here, compared my appearance to Dave Coulier but she interjected when I got around to "from that television show" with Niles from Frazier. Needless to say, that's much better than "that annoying guy from Full House" but I asked her further and she said something about being equally esoteric (read: pretentious).

On closer introspection, though, we are both skinny, blond-headed snobs.

You know what I honestly think? As they've went along, they've wanted to be taken more seriously. Of course, their songwriting hasn't really improved, it's just gotten a bit more boring, some might call it a refinement, but it betrays what made them interesting to begin with, while still forcing in these little parts to appeal to their fans from 9 years ago. Ultimately, I do think they have some unique material, but more often, it's annoying material, and the new stuff just sounds suffocating, like all this stuff is going on, clashing with each other, and it's hard to appreciate from any angle. The songs aren't really good enough to get into, the noises aren't anything new or interesting, there's nothing haunting or particularly interesting about the songs, and the lyrics are the same tired shit. It's pretty much business as usual, except it sounds a bit cleaned up and more, eh, "focused" than before. Which isn't my thing.

I've always really liked this band. That said, I thought Women as Lovers was pretty fuckin' boring aside from like 2 songs. I'll check this new one out though. They're playing here in a few weeks I think. I'm debating whether or not to go.

It's ok. Pretty run-of-the-mill and not a big departure for them. Even Woman As Lovers is a better record I think. But it's looking like they pretty much hit their peak with The Air Force anyway.

he started sleeping with women and his band went down hill.

what did he expect?

I just came back from seeing xiu xiu. It was amazing, I have no words to describe it, just phenomenal?

I think their recent work is way more interesting than the first albums. My favourite is still la foret because... they've been doing something new since then. The first albums were very nice, but still guitar song stuff. What they are doing now takes getting used to, but there's some real thought behind it. It's still very very melodic, and their set up is extremely creative and the sound incredibly powerful with only two people onstage.

His songwriting is still as innocent/dirty/miserable/kitsch and his voice just beautiful.

It's just difficult to hear at first, it takes a few times, but these last albums (air force/women as lovers/dear god, i hate myself) have some powerful tracks.

I'm not going to really debate any of your points, though I do have to stop question when you call the band "very very melodic". I'm not sure about that one...

Despite all the sounds they are very catchy melodic songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4xuQiwgbZM

I just wouldn't describe them overall as a very melodic band, a few songs notwithstanding..

I seem to have a very particular definition of what melodic is, so ok.

Yeah, apparently, you have your own definition, which isn't the right definition. There are melodic elements, like some of the bass at times, and whatever, and they certainly have went more into that boring direction on recent albums, but yeah. They're pretty amelodic overall.

if you can whistle it, its melodic.
all of his singing can be whistled.

you can whistle a drone

Yeah, you can whistle feedback. You can whistle Merzbow.

Knox, I'm a musician, I know what a "melody" is.

Just sayin.. Just because Xiu Xiu uses melodies on a few songs doesn't make them a "very very melodic band".

i wish i could whistle. because then i could pretend knox was right and consider myself some kind of melodic genius

I am a musician too, so what? It doesn't mean we can't have different opinions/definitions, it doesn't mean you know any more than anyone else. Here are some I found:

• tune: a succession of notes forming a distinctive sequence
• the perception of pleasant arrangements of musical notes
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

A melody (from Greek μελῳδία - melōidía, "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a sequence of pitchesdurations, while, more figuratively, the term has occasionally been extended to include successions of other musical elements such as tone color. and
Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a song or piece in various forms.
There's a shitload of repetition of musical phrases and/or motifs, there are choruses and verses, althought I think you are referring to their attempts to balance that with noise and unexpected/"unpleasant" arrangement.

If by "melody" you mean what you find pleasant and catchy, that does vary a lot from person to person, their cultural background, familiarity to what they are hearing and so on. Those definitions are hardly easy enough for anyone to claim they know what melody is.

Personally, I don't need to be in the mindset to find "order in chaos" to easily identify this melodic phrases when listening to Xiu Xiu, as they usually provide verse/chorus/verse structures.

In fact, what I think is so difficult about listening to them at first is that it is disrupting how these singing melodic lines are constantly broken or drowned by random and atonal sounds.

but anyway THIS IS A LAME DISCUSSION.
because it's only happening because you can't accept that I find it melodic and catchy and dancable, which I do.
the structure of what he is SINGING is melodic most of the time.

now, you can please whistle merzbow and put the file up for us to listen.

Lame discussion in which knox is right (but still a cunt).

Seriously though, the main thing to latch onto in Xiu Xiu is their melodies. There's really very little else there. The melodies are usually counterposed to 'noises' rather than other melodies or chords; I'd argue that makes them far more melodic than many other bands at the moment (a trick that Nico does as well)

always in agreement with a previous poster, butting in everywhere to say something bitter rather than something new.

how can you do it with this amount of words when I need hundreds and CAPS.
watch out, here comes wellcharge.
i never knew you listened to xiu xiu, save me is for dancefloors.

I think they juxtapose noise and melody very well so I can't really say either of you are wrong actually haha.