(no subject)
I love Countdown to Ecstasy by Steely Dan because it's one a record I've been listening to so often and for so long yet have never shared with anyone else. There's so much time that I've spent with this record, and often times when I'm listening to music the memories from the last five times I've heard whatever piece of music are replaying in a jumbled, reverberating mess in my head. All of those memories are solitary experiences, either listening intently from a bedroom, car, or other enclosed space or otherwise isolated environment (at work with headphones). Surprisingly this is my experience with only a finite set of music I genuinely care about.
On the other hand, there's no guilt here, whereas a lot of guilt and repressed feelings live on other records.
I'm surprised I can get through SMiLE by Brian Wilson so easily. The aborted Beach Boys project turned solo effort in 2004 was the soundtrack to returning back to school the September after my parents almost divorced. Never had I gone from hanging on a thread to ruling the world. 18 is a subtly odd age, you're at once a full-fledged adult but still only two years away from not being a teenager any longer. It's an even stranger time to be entrusted with the responsibility of others. I listened to Brian Wilson's version of SMiLE to find a 62-year-old genius in roughly the same shape, just over a longer stretch of time.
Between the 37 years since giving up on his answer to Sgt., Wilson had managed several drug-induced nervous breakdowns, there was the infamous 'in-bed' period, and once sober he awkwardly carried on his own efforts outside of his cousins and brothers who miserly carry the Beach Boys brand name with no protest.
Then one day, it just seemed like a good idea to finish the record. Not any day or year in particular, and with no real anniversary to speak of. It was just ... on the to do list (regrettably) and for once, life seemed to get out of the way of this project.
He sounded like an 'old mad scientist in charge of an abandoned amusement park' (I'm paraphrasing a Revolver article) but that's every reason why I loved it.
On the other hand, there's no guilt here, whereas a lot of guilt and repressed feelings live on other records.
I'm surprised I can get through SMiLE by Brian Wilson so easily. The aborted Beach Boys project turned solo effort in 2004 was the soundtrack to returning back to school the September after my parents almost divorced. Never had I gone from hanging on a thread to ruling the world. 18 is a subtly odd age, you're at once a full-fledged adult but still only two years away from not being a teenager any longer. It's an even stranger time to be entrusted with the responsibility of others. I listened to Brian Wilson's version of SMiLE to find a 62-year-old genius in roughly the same shape, just over a longer stretch of time.
Between the 37 years since giving up on his answer to Sgt., Wilson had managed several drug-induced nervous breakdowns, there was the infamous 'in-bed' period, and once sober he awkwardly carried on his own efforts outside of his cousins and brothers who miserly carry the Beach Boys brand name with no protest.
Then one day, it just seemed like a good idea to finish the record. Not any day or year in particular, and with no real anniversary to speak of. It was just ... on the to do list (regrettably) and for once, life seemed to get out of the way of this project.
He sounded like an 'old mad scientist in charge of an abandoned amusement park' (I'm paraphrasing a Revolver article) but that's every reason why I loved it.