off-topic: music from recently
I drive about 45 minutes to work each morning, so I have a lot of time to listen to music. And I drive the Hal Rogers Parkway, which is a sort of straight no-turnoffs interstate kind of road that you can safely drive at about 70 or 75 mph. And all the cars that pass me (which is most of them) usually drive at about 70 or 75mph. They don't seem to appreciate my efforts to drive my car in neutral for as much of the parkway as I possibly can, probably because this leads me to not care if I go the posted speed limit of 55mph. But I digress.
The point was that I get a lot of time to listen to music. I do this drive 6-10 times per week, which is about 5-7 plays of any CD and since so far I'm going at about a CD a week I thought I should say something about them or give you a song or something. So far it's been all ladies--
Kate Nash was the first week, and luckily I could fit both her CDs on one blank CD if I took the songs I didn't like from her first CD off. I loved Made of Bricks the first time I heard it, it's poppy fun and all that. But My Best Friend is You sort of went the other way? She could have gone two ways--the pop-star punk-rocker way or the Regina way, because her first CD was split about half and half between them, and she definitely went more pop-star punk-rocker. I really like Paris, which is the pop-star fun part with horns that sound like the audio equivalent of little starbursts on your powerpoint presentation. But I think my favorite is the regina-esque Pickpocket (have a download) because I had to stop and listen to it about a million times. Another one of those uncomfortably close lines--"get out, get out of town, before it catches up to you and you cannot withstand..." Mansion Song's spoken-word intro makes me really uncomfortable, but I never turn it off, so does that qualify it as art? I just have to keep listening for that Marla-Singer line:
"just another undignified product of society--
THAT GIRL SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MANSION"
and I don't regret it after that point.
Sleigh Bell's Treats (yes, I linked that, sorry) was last week and for all that I've been soooo excited and checking pretty much every day in may to see if this was leaked/out yet I'm not sure about it? The stuff that we've heard before is all fantastic--Infinity Guitars, Crown on the Ground, Ring Ring/Rill Rill (I'm really upset that they switched the pronouns on the "you're/we're just the weatherman, we/you make the wind blow" line, that was my FAVORITE and now it's backwards and I WANNA MAKE THE WIND BLOW) etc. But a lot of the other ones are just ehhhhh. And ever since that awful overplayed ahhhhh Boulevard of Broken Dreams I can't take that guitar effect seriously, the one at the beginning of Straight A's, I think it is. It's a bit like Japanese punk to me, too, am I the only on getting this vibe? Maybe the guitars + cute high girl singing just makes me think Japanese punk. It would be better in a movie, I think, with some badass action scene and a blonde chick wearing all black. You know, someone who goes from timid to badass in the course of the movie, and at the end there's a kind of Boondock Saints action/assassination/robbery/criminal/badass montage with Sleigh Bells playing. also lol and ditto on 10 Listen's "I want to rent out musical halls and destroy their PAs with this album. I want to see if this album can literally raise the dead. I think it can. I want this album to take my hearing because it’s the last thing I want to hear before I die and I don’t want to die yet." Preferably Riot Rhythm, kthxbai.
This week I'm listening to Basia Bulat's Heart of My Own. Do you know those bands that have no context? Some bands you hear about in blogs, or on the radio, or in magazines, or from friends, and you know what kind of music they're classified as, their label, the genre, where they fit: they have context. Basia Bulat has no context for me--I heard Go On on stereomood and immediately downloaded it, then heard Gold Rush somewhere and decided that getting the whole CD would be a good idea. So I did. And it still doesn't have much context. I like it, quite a lot--have this rollicking ditty (how often do I use the phrase rollicking ditty? I think this makes the first time, or the second if you count the use in this parenthetical phrase) called If Only You which starts out "I'm giving up, I'm going home" which is so much how I feel right now. Look out for fantastic lines like: "I've said hello to Jekyll and to Hyde / I still can't say who I want by my side / And truth be told / I love them both / and I'm no better half" ahhhhh look at that. Just look at that. And it's all good! you know, the sunny tree-covered parkway with sunglasses and windows down and all that and it's good for that. For real? All I know about her is that she's Canadian. And I'm okay with that. Music in a vacuum is easier to appreciate, sometimes.
The point was that I get a lot of time to listen to music. I do this drive 6-10 times per week, which is about 5-7 plays of any CD and since so far I'm going at about a CD a week I thought I should say something about them or give you a song or something. So far it's been all ladies--
Kate Nash was the first week, and luckily I could fit both her CDs on one blank CD if I took the songs I didn't like from her first CD off. I loved Made of Bricks the first time I heard it, it's poppy fun and all that. But My Best Friend is You sort of went the other way? She could have gone two ways--the pop-star punk-rocker way or the Regina way, because her first CD was split about half and half between them, and she definitely went more pop-star punk-rocker. I really like Paris, which is the pop-star fun part with horns that sound like the audio equivalent of little starbursts on your powerpoint presentation. But I think my favorite is the regina-esque Pickpocket (have a download) because I had to stop and listen to it about a million times. Another one of those uncomfortably close lines--"get out, get out of town, before it catches up to you and you cannot withstand..." Mansion Song's spoken-word intro makes me really uncomfortable, but I never turn it off, so does that qualify it as art? I just have to keep listening for that Marla-Singer line:
"just another undignified product of society--
THAT GIRL SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MANSION"
and I don't regret it after that point.
Sleigh Bell's Treats (yes, I linked that, sorry) was last week and for all that I've been soooo excited and checking pretty much every day in may to see if this was leaked/out yet I'm not sure about it? The stuff that we've heard before is all fantastic--Infinity Guitars, Crown on the Ground, Ring Ring/Rill Rill (I'm really upset that they switched the pronouns on the "you're/we're just the weatherman, we/you make the wind blow" line, that was my FAVORITE and now it's backwards and I WANNA MAKE THE WIND BLOW) etc. But a lot of the other ones are just ehhhhh. And ever since that awful overplayed ahhhhh Boulevard of Broken Dreams I can't take that guitar effect seriously, the one at the beginning of Straight A's, I think it is. It's a bit like Japanese punk to me, too, am I the only on getting this vibe? Maybe the guitars + cute high girl singing just makes me think Japanese punk. It would be better in a movie, I think, with some badass action scene and a blonde chick wearing all black. You know, someone who goes from timid to badass in the course of the movie, and at the end there's a kind of Boondock Saints action/assassination/robbery/criminal/badass montage with Sleigh Bells playing. also lol and ditto on 10 Listen's "I want to rent out musical halls and destroy their PAs with this album. I want to see if this album can literally raise the dead. I think it can. I want this album to take my hearing because it’s the last thing I want to hear before I die and I don’t want to die yet." Preferably Riot Rhythm, kthxbai.
This week I'm listening to Basia Bulat's Heart of My Own. Do you know those bands that have no context? Some bands you hear about in blogs, or on the radio, or in magazines, or from friends, and you know what kind of music they're classified as, their label, the genre, where they fit: they have context. Basia Bulat has no context for me--I heard Go On on stereomood and immediately downloaded it, then heard Gold Rush somewhere and decided that getting the whole CD would be a good idea. So I did. And it still doesn't have much context. I like it, quite a lot--have this rollicking ditty (how often do I use the phrase rollicking ditty? I think this makes the first time, or the second if you count the use in this parenthetical phrase) called If Only You which starts out "I'm giving up, I'm going home" which is so much how I feel right now. Look out for fantastic lines like: "I've said hello to Jekyll and to Hyde / I still can't say who I want by my side / And truth be told / I love them both / and I'm no better half" ahhhhh look at that. Just look at that. And it's all good! you know, the sunny tree-covered parkway with sunglasses and windows down and all that and it's good for that. For real? All I know about her is that she's Canadian. And I'm okay with that. Music in a vacuum is easier to appreciate, sometimes.