A.V. Club's favorite Milwaukee music of 2008: IfIHadAHiFi

Throughout the year we hear a lot of local records at Decider HQ. Some of them are good, a lot of them aren’t, and a select few never leave the CD player. The following records belong in the last category. Today, we look at IfIHadAHiFi's Fame By Proxy. 

Fame By Proxy is IfIHadAHiFi’s most successful stab yet at capturing the unhinged sonic assault of its live shows, where poppy, often bitterly funny songs are submerged in nine circles of hellish screeching and squawking. (A notable exception is “Success! Success! Success!” where Dixie Jacobs of White, Wrench, Conservatory coaxes out the band’s gooiest chorus ever.) Sometimes, the overwhelming momentum of the music on Fame By Proxy makes it tough to understand what the shouting is all about. But the HiFi have never been polemicists, anyway. They would just as soon beat the shit out of each other than allow a “message”—something about the predatory nature of celebrity—get in the way of torturing any eardrums that cross their paths. Here is the eye-catching video for "Success! Success! Success!", and a free MP3 download of "Paradise By The Paulding Light."

Download IfIHadAHiFi's "Paradise By The Paulding Light" here

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