The Slants, an Asian band out of Portland, Oregon, A mediocre Band at Best

transmaster

AK Subscriber
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You may have heard about "The Slants" in the recent news, nuff said about that. Their discography is available on Apple Music. Decided to listen to some of their music. I was completely underwhelmed. They are a quasi J Pop rock band without a real defining style. I would call them a local band in the Portland area with a billion dollars of free world wide advertising. To me this is one of the values of a music service like Apple Music you can listen to a band without forking over for a CD that will become a coffee cup coaster. It's funny I put in a search for "The Slants" on my iPhone and found their music but not on my Apple TV. You can listen to their stuff on Youtube if you want.

https://www.youtube.com/user/SlantsVideos
 
None of their tunes is listed among the over 50000 played by my favorite indie station over the past 5 years. I only looked at one video and seems maybe "techno"? Dunno. These guys OTOH are very cool -

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I've been following the court case for some time, and it seems that frontman Simon Tam has been putting more of his time and energy into the legal fight than the band. Hopefully with the Supreme Court ruling, they can concentrate more on the music.
 
Just as Larry Flint was a fighter for free speech, sometimes the principal they are defending is more important than the message they are sending...
 
When The Slants add Asian instruments and tonalities they have something but the quasi Devo beats doesn't hack it. A great example of this is the fusion Jazz band Hiroshima. This from their fantastic album "Another Place" One Wish.

 
As a band of Asian-Americans, they don't have to exist in Chinatown musically. If they want to play modern rock instead, that's their choice. I rather like what I heard from their new EP The Band Who Must Not Be Named and would consider buying a copy if they were selling physical copies, I'm old-fashioned that way.
 
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