http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hzCw0_E_nOc
I'll be the first to admit that my music tastes are skewed top-heavily towards the last twenty years - my parents were never lifelong devotees of any particular bands, and we haven't had a record player as long as I've been alive. I ended up mostly self-educating myself with contemporary groups, with only a passing familiarity of anything before 1990. So it's usually tough for me to seriously relate to music before my time - I sink in the quicksand of "how can I relate to this when I wasn't even alive?", turning over old songs in my head like antiques that just didn't age very well. But this song is one of the first I've heard in a long time that really captivated for me. It's whimsical without it being funny; a little unorthodox-sounding, but not in a dismissible way. It's the soundtrack to a spring fair or a movie montage or a jaunt through idyllic realms, and it's also fascinating in itself: it pinballs between all kinds of moods, it weaves through its melodies without retreading on itself. It's a song that reminds me of my own short-sightedness in this context, something way out of left field that's not only charming but truly evocative too.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
There Is A Mountain — Donovan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWkGs6MxATc
This song is not about sex, it's about Zen philosophy, but I understand the confusion. This song is a koan: a poem or story designed to elicit an instinctual solution to a problem, rather than a rational one. It is not easy to understand, and it is not designed to be understood. The song is a hippie song, about nature and change and the world outside your house.
I listened to this on the midnight road trip up to Chicago this winter: it was grooving and it carried on, past the red and orange streetlights at 4am in Eastern Illinois, out in nowhere, and the music filled the entire sky.
This song is not about sex, it's about Zen philosophy, but I understand the confusion. This song is a koan: a poem or story designed to elicit an instinctual solution to a problem, rather than a rational one. It is not easy to understand, and it is not designed to be understood. The song is a hippie song, about nature and change and the world outside your house.
I listened to this on the midnight road trip up to Chicago this winter: it was grooving and it carried on, past the red and orange streetlights at 4am in Eastern Illinois, out in nowhere, and the music filled the entire sky.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Take Off Your Cool — OutKast feat. Norah Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQHFqO6HvY
This is a very brave song, a jazz song on a big hip-hop album; a song about one thing and one thing only; a song about being brave and letting down your guard; a bold stylistic and lyrical choice, to bring a brilliant vocalist, but a female jazz vocalist, onto a testosterone-heavy hip-hop album, and it pays off: it's easily the most memorable song on the album, short and sweet and to the point and even a little romantic, musically proficient and just generally incredible. It has this sense of timelessness. Hiding behind a persona, as an actor, a musician, even just a person — this is common, it's always been common, it'll always be common. And begging someone to let that down and show their true self for even a moment, to stop pretending to be cool, that's touching. Hip-hop and especially OutKast-style hip-hop, about being sexy and rich and talented, it so built up on itself, a balancing act that says this guy is great because he's rich because he's talented because he doesn't try because he's great, this is promotional. There are no people like Kanye West. It's braggadocio. But this is not a song that pretends to be honest. This is a song that is honest.
This is a very brave song, a jazz song on a big hip-hop album; a song about one thing and one thing only; a song about being brave and letting down your guard; a bold stylistic and lyrical choice, to bring a brilliant vocalist, but a female jazz vocalist, onto a testosterone-heavy hip-hop album, and it pays off: it's easily the most memorable song on the album, short and sweet and to the point and even a little romantic, musically proficient and just generally incredible. It has this sense of timelessness. Hiding behind a persona, as an actor, a musician, even just a person — this is common, it's always been common, it'll always be common. And begging someone to let that down and show their true self for even a moment, to stop pretending to be cool, that's touching. Hip-hop and especially OutKast-style hip-hop, about being sexy and rich and talented, it so built up on itself, a balancing act that says this guy is great because he's rich because he's talented because he doesn't try because he's great, this is promotional. There are no people like Kanye West. It's braggadocio. But this is not a song that pretends to be honest. This is a song that is honest.
A Thing For Me — Metronomy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYB2Mqs24ss
Let it never be said I don't post enough British eurotrash electrosynthpop. With the quirky bassline and the falsetto and the drumline chorus and the low baritone verses and the delightfully inventive video, it's just all too much. I can't figure out the influences; I have no idea who these guys listened to as kids, or the history of the part of England they're from, or whether the song or band has any cares beyond the stark relationship drama of the song. And maybe that's for the best — not all music is deep and thorough. This is a party song, danceable and maybe even listenable — enough new sounds to be interesting but not enough to be shocking. It's a dance around the edges of what's traditional and what's unheard of, and it does it well.
Let it never be said I don't post enough British eurotrash electrosynthpop. With the quirky bassline and the falsetto and the drumline chorus and the low baritone verses and the delightfully inventive video, it's just all too much. I can't figure out the influences; I have no idea who these guys listened to as kids, or the history of the part of England they're from, or whether the song or band has any cares beyond the stark relationship drama of the song. And maybe that's for the best — not all music is deep and thorough. This is a party song, danceable and maybe even listenable — enough new sounds to be interesting but not enough to be shocking. It's a dance around the edges of what's traditional and what's unheard of, and it does it well.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Masterswarm — Andrew Bird
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgKokFIn3_U
This was the first album I ever bought, I think. It was 2009, and I was at the Strand bookstore downtown. It was my birthday, and I had a bit of money to spend on things I liked — books, music, anything. And I was discovering agency — rather than getting music other people liked and seeing if I liked it, I got to decide. I saw this album on the shelf: I'd heard of Andrew Bird very tangentially, and I really liked the album art. The title songs looked interesting and — this was all it took. It was summer in New York, but I was realizing there were totally immersive environments elsewhere in the world. I bought a Borges collection that day, too — I would read it and pretend I was in Buenos Aires, with all its metaphysics. And this album, this remained (remains!) unintelligible.
I don't have a clue what it's about. There's imagery of parasites, homunculi, life cycles, hive minds; it's comprehensive and complete and impenetrable.
This was the first album I ever bought, I think. It was 2009, and I was at the Strand bookstore downtown. It was my birthday, and I had a bit of money to spend on things I liked — books, music, anything. And I was discovering agency — rather than getting music other people liked and seeing if I liked it, I got to decide. I saw this album on the shelf: I'd heard of Andrew Bird very tangentially, and I really liked the album art. The title songs looked interesting and — this was all it took. It was summer in New York, but I was realizing there were totally immersive environments elsewhere in the world. I bought a Borges collection that day, too — I would read it and pretend I was in Buenos Aires, with all its metaphysics. And this album, this remained (remains!) unintelligible.
I don't have a clue what it's about. There's imagery of parasites, homunculi, life cycles, hive minds; it's comprehensive and complete and impenetrable.
Home — Great Northern
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTNf0nkSXdM
Another song off iTunes, purchased when I was in 7th grade. I liked the guitar and rhythms; the smooth voice like none I'd ever heard; I liked the switching off between male and female voices; I liked that it was busy and complex and somehow relaxing; it sounded like the immersive sounds I heard in movies. I would ride the bus to camp in the summers and listen to — oh, god, my iPod shuffle, the one like a stick of gum — and find songs that fit whatever we were passing, trying to link up the inside and outside worlds, to enforce order. And this song was that — it was happy, it sounded happy, it was about happy things, yet the tempo and instrumentation, the minor chords: it has malaise, a sort of beat-down sadness to it. And I loved this song.
Another song off iTunes, purchased when I was in 7th grade. I liked the guitar and rhythms; the smooth voice like none I'd ever heard; I liked the switching off between male and female voices; I liked that it was busy and complex and somehow relaxing; it sounded like the immersive sounds I heard in movies. I would ride the bus to camp in the summers and listen to — oh, god, my iPod shuffle, the one like a stick of gum — and find songs that fit whatever we were passing, trying to link up the inside and outside worlds, to enforce order. And this song was that — it was happy, it sounded happy, it was about happy things, yet the tempo and instrumentation, the minor chords: it has malaise, a sort of beat-down sadness to it. And I loved this song.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Mr. Hurricane — Beast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eHaps3Ykqk
In the very beginning, I discovered new music through iTunes — there would be free singles each week, one famous, ten or twelve not-so-much. I was young (8th grade or so) and I picked the songs which I liked the most. This, I judged from the 30-second clips they played; a song had to have lyrics I wanted to know more about, a sound I was interested in, and a name I liked. I didn't know you could look up full songs on YouTube (did YouTube even exist then?) so if I wanted a song, that was the one and only way to get it — and I did agonize over the free downloads, wanting to be discerning even then. This was one that stuck with me — my first taste of trip-hop, music that was modern, neither jazz nor rock nor classical. There were banging drums, a chorus, angry sounds and smooth sounds and a syncopation I loved. That was all it took for me to like a song then — I didn't know the context, I didn't know whether my friends knew or liked it. I didn't even care what it was about.
In the very beginning, I discovered new music through iTunes — there would be free singles each week, one famous, ten or twelve not-so-much. I was young (8th grade or so) and I picked the songs which I liked the most. This, I judged from the 30-second clips they played; a song had to have lyrics I wanted to know more about, a sound I was interested in, and a name I liked. I didn't know you could look up full songs on YouTube (did YouTube even exist then?) so if I wanted a song, that was the one and only way to get it — and I did agonize over the free downloads, wanting to be discerning even then. This was one that stuck with me — my first taste of trip-hop, music that was modern, neither jazz nor rock nor classical. There were banging drums, a chorus, angry sounds and smooth sounds and a syncopation I loved. That was all it took for me to like a song then — I didn't know the context, I didn't know whether my friends knew or liked it. I didn't even care what it was about.
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