Hype can be a double-edged sword in the music industry. If you don't have enough of it, your music, no matter how good it is, will go unheard before fading away into obscurity. Too much hype, though, and you'll find it increasingly difficult to live up to it.
That's a position that California quintet Young the Giant find themselves in at the moment. Before the band released its first album, it received endorsements from such mainstream media outlets as MTV, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Pretty impressive for a band that seemingly came out of nowhere.
Then the reviews of the band's recently released eponymous debut album arrived—and they've been mixed, to say the least. While Amazon.com listed it as the third-best album of 2010, Pitchfork obliterated the record in its review. Listening to "My Body," it's easy to understand why there is a divide over the group. The band effectively captures the indie-pop sound, but you can't help listing in your head all the bands they sound so much like. So, if nothing else, seeing the band in concert could make for a fun drinking game, where you take a shot every time they play a song that sounds like someone else.
Just make sure to have a designated driver for the night.
