Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and
Matt Sweeney – Superwolf
Drag City, 2005
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012
Price: $5
I don’t know why it’s so easy to forget how fucking beautiful this record is,
because I listened to this album like near-infinite times when it came out. I
revisit it every year or so and am always astounded by Will Oldham’s songwriting
and the tone he and Sweeney strike that sounds separate from either Bonnie
‘Prince’ Billy and Chavez. Like a whole new band, born to make one album and
why the hell didn’t they just call themselves Superwolf because holy fuck
that’s a great name/title. And I can’t remember when I’ve heard guitars this
beautiful and epic since this record came out. Like the way they still manage
to sound huge despite sounding like all the treble has been sucked out of them
in “Goat and Ram.” And that beautiful beautiful picking on “Beast for Thee.”
It’s music you’d want playing at your death. Epic and sad and beautiful and
ready for the apocalypse. “Only Someone Running” is probably the loveliest song
ever. One that defies writing anything about it because well, I just can’t
think of any words. I’m speechless! So here’s that song:
Oh yeah, and that video for "I Gave You" with the weird birdy* murdery shit is pretty rad too.
Which Bonny 'Prince' Billy has someone dressed in a bird suit? I forget, I thought it was this one, then I watched this video and was like "Oh yeah, this is the one with the dead body."I still think the world wasn't ready for Will Oldham as an actor, because I swear to god homeboy could take the world by storm.
Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Punch the Clock Columbia, 1983 Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012 Price: $2 I really don’t know anything about Elvis Costello’s career. I know Burt Bacharach is in there in these latter days at some point. Maybe? I don’t even know. Maybe some collaborations with some quartets? I really only know this based on CDs I’ve priced at work. It’s weird though, given my compulsion with painstakingly (lie) tracking down information about artists I fall in love with. This was especially true when I was like 16 or 17 and got My Aim is True from the Indian Creek Branch of the Lawrence Public Library and had one of those moments that were coming day after day when I was 16 or 17. And then This Years Model fell into my lap when I was 20 and Armed Forces when I was 23 and then I kind of quit after that (though I own a copy of Armed Forces, I’ve only ever listened to that album like twice, and expressly for the purpose of this blog, which by-the-way I should revisit that one yes). But I saw this one at HPB and suddenly it ended up at home with me. Probably because it has “Shipbuilding” on it, which if I remember correctly was on the High Fidelity soundtrack, which I totally remember I listened to in excess when that movie was my favorite movie of all time.* It’s four albums removed from the Armed Forces, and there’s a whole lot of evolution I’m missing but fortunately, Costello is one of those fine fine artists who can totally maintain the essence of his sound/style no matter how the times (read: cheesy 80s production) change. The gloss on this album is as shiny as a freshly printed mid-80s glamour shot, and though this album is almost 30 years old, it doesn’t look nearly as cheesy as it should if we’re still running with that kind of poor glamour shot metaphor (since in my head, the soft focus of glamour shots would lend it self to matte photo paper but I really have no idea). So Punch the Clock, a glossy album that somehow manages to not be super-cheesy because Costello is a consummate artist who knows what the fuck he is doing at all times and he’s maybe one of the more bulletproof songwriters in the business (though having heard four of his albums, I could be totally missing something, and I feel like maybe there’s a Thrill of Discovery project in here…). “Shipbuilding” is an immediate standout, though I don’t really remember it despite listening to that High Fidelity soundtrack like a million times. Also, speaking of “Shipbuilding,” foregoing the commonplace 80s sax solo for a Chet Baker trumpet solo = a total fucking ace in my book. There’s a whole mood in that song that is like whisky and smoke filled rooms. It’s about the Falklands War, too, apparently, which is a +1 because how many songs can you think of about the Falklands War? Oh yeah, and “Every Day I Write the Book” is on this album, and I forgot to mention how great that song is and how it exemplifies how this album plays with those very dangerous mid-80s cheeseball tropes and how Costello totally makes them work. Sure, there are moments where the 80s grease seeps through the napkin, but it’s nowhere near as bad (not even by a mile) as when Springsteen does it.
Warning: This is lightly spoilery, so if you haven’t read the book or get extremely upset about finding out that characters go places, then skip for now! Spoilers are weird, I tried reading Jenny bits or telling her something like “They go to Amsterdam” and she was all “WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO RUIN THINGS FOR ME?!” and I was like “Dude, John Green was in Amsterdam for two months because the book had something to do with Amsterdam of COURSE they go to Amsterdam, and by the way, if I start writing novels remind me to set it in an exotic locale…” Anyway, this is a great book and this post only makes sense if you’ve read it. Which if you haven’t, you really should. Because it’s great.
The Mountain Goats – “Minnesota” What with all the Dutch and all the sadness (and Green’s open love for the Mountain Goats*), this one feels kind of perfect for The Fault in Our Stars.
*In addition to using “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” as the epigram for Paper Towns, Green occasionally namedrops the Goats in Vlogbrothers videos and John Darnielle is thanked in the acknowledgments of The Fault In Our Stars.
The Mountain Goats – “There Will Be No Divorce” “And all the hair stood up on the back of my neck/ We were rising from the grave/ Yeah yeah/ yeah yeah.”
Neutral Milk Hotel – “Two Headed Boy Pt. 2”
This video kills me. You see the somberest of somber followed by one o the most jubilant pop songs I can think of.
Again, all the Dutch. And that scene where Augustus and Hazel go to the Anne Frank house which was one of the most magnificent parts of the book. A way of putting tragedy in perspective. So naturally, I kept thinking of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea the whole time I was reading that part of the book. It was hard picking just one song, but I feel like this has to be the one. It’s the most tragic. It’s also the last song on the album. It’s also my favorite song on the album. Or if I was forced to pick a favorite at knifepoint, I would pick this one. Probably because I default to the first or last song on a record when it’s a Record record. “Two Headed Boy Pt. 2” is the most tragic of all the tracks on Aeroplane. It’s the conclusion to Jeff Mangum’s audio essay on life and death and the criminal unfairness of the world and the beauty we need to find that world despite its horrors. It’s also the one most specifically about Anne Frank.
The Weakerthans – “Manifest”/ “Hospital Vespers”/ “Past Due” These three tracks (all Elizabethian sonnets) provide the coasts and geographic center of the Weakerthans third LP, Reconstruction Site. These brief songs chronically a person with a terminal illness. Diagnosis, hospital, and death. These tracks, naturally, provide the thematic core of the album which is one of my favorite albums of all time (Notably, it was my #1 record of the year the first year I started making best of lists, 2003). I’m weird with Weakerthans albums, in that I don’t really understand why I love them til way later. Like this one, I didn’t catch all the thematic stuff until I read something about it on Wikipedia and then everything made sense and made sense hard since I knew the album so well. This album is full of grief but it’s also full of love and excitement and joy. And that’s the same stuff that The Fault in Our Stars is full of. It’s like Romeo & Juliet where you know it’s doomed (there are mentions of star-crossing and hell, the title is straight outta Julius Caesar) but you go along with it anyway because of course, it’s beautiful. I was in a drawing class when this album came out, my junior year of high school. Every week we had to do a drawing. Any kind of drawing, total freedom. So I would draw scenes from songs I liked or scenes from books I was reading (I’d only started reading books like, the year before that class**). One week I drew “Hospital Vespers.” It looked like this. Looking back on it I can see why this album has stuck with me. I’d never really drawn before (or drawn like a serious person who draws and understands perspective and contrast and how to use pencils etc) but I spent so much time on that drawing, listening to that song, trying to capture why it was important to me even though I didn’t really have any touchstone in my life that corresponded with the subject matter. It was just incredibly important and made me feel more full as a person. And it’s perfect that this song corresponds with The Fault in Our Stars because that book made me feel the same way.
**See: That one Fourth of July where I sat in the bed of my dad’s truck reading The Catcher in the Rye, listening to Alkaline Trio’s From Here to Infirmary, and becoming a 16 year old oh my god. There were no fireworks that night. Actually, they were, but there was some crazy malfunction on the ground where they all exploded at once and someone ended up in the hospital. Weird Fourth of July that I remember so well.
The Weakerthans – “The Reasons” For love so pure and good. On an album laced with grief this is that blinding positivity that knows no limits because damnit, it’s just so pure and good and true. “I know you might roll your eyes at this/ But I’m so glad that you exist,” sings John K Samson. It sounds like the song Augustus would write to Hazel if he could write well (though he sells himself short and while he might not be eloquent, his intent would surely be felt in waves). Or even better, a song he would put on a mixtape for her (after paring it down from nothing but songs by the Hectic Glow).
Years back, one of my closest friends told me about how much he loathed Christine Fellows’ music. I don’t know why he ever listened to it, he of dance and house and electronica, but somehow it came across his plate and he spat it out. That’s how I recognized her name when John Darnielle (coming full circle now) listed “Vertebrae” as one of his favorite songs of 2007. I tracked down the song and thought it was one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking tracks I’d ever heard. A week later, Paper Anniversary came into KJHK and I quickly snatched it up at a music staff meeting so I could review it. I spent the next week drowning in that album. But mostly “Vertebrae.” It’s rare to find a song that just hits you in the precise place where you just kind of fall apart. The break in the armor. Achilles heel. Etc. And once I found out that Christine Fellows was married to John K Samson (the circle here gets even fuller!) well, it didn’t help.
The first year I was fortunate enough to have the radio station pay my way into SXSW (Spring 2008) I was scouring the massive schedule to find something to do on Thursday or Friday or Saturday evening, I forget which. But I wandered into some small bar where I THINK Mint Records was having a show case and Ms. Fellows as on the bill and I showed up just in time, got a beer, and sat down on the floor with the rest of the small crowd and watched probably the best show I saw that whole trip (which was made up of probably 5 “Best Shows,” really, they’re all equal). Fellows played keyboard while a hired artist worked an overhead projector and cutouts that went along with every song. It was beautiful. And peaceful. And no one shouted or talked over the music and at the end I kind of freaked out at how great it all was. Even better because I’d seen Fellows play keyboards with the Weakerthans earlier that day in a shitty club that was too small and too hot and Southern Comfort was sponsoring it so I drank way too much Southern Comfort mixed with Coca-Cola on the back patio between sets but that set was still great because Christine Fellows sang the vocal harmony parts on “Benediction” in lieu of Sarah Harmer and I only the other day realized it wasn’t her on the recording while reading the liner notes because I’d never read the liner notes to Reconstruction Site. I don’t even remember if she played this song, but she must have, because it’s incredible. And so sad. And it was running through my head the whole time I was reading this book and I wonder if that’s a spoiler. I kept trying to tell Jenny stuff while I was reading it. I tried to read her these gorgeous bits of prose and she just put her hands over he hears, went “la la la la la” and said “NO SPOILERS” as loud as she could. I understand not wanting to be spoiled, but there are basic plot elements of The Fault in Our Stars that are just kind of known (I.E. The book involves a protagonist with terminal cancer, that’s established from the get go right? And since the world isn’t a wish-granting factory and it isn’t a Hollywood movie, you can assume it stays terminal, right?). If I had a running playlist for The Fault in Our Stars this would be the last song. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you listen to this song you’ll get the picture.
R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction I.R.S., 1985 Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2010 Price: $2 Oh yeah! I forgot I had this R.E.M. album too. Sadly, I still don’t get it. It’s like when I was 16 and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot had just come out to rave reviews and I was just starting to get into music-music and I just for the life of me did not understand Wilco not one bit. Then a few years later it all clicked and they became my favorite band until I converted to GBV. Maybe that will happen with R.E.M., I don’t know, but I find it incredibly hard to find elements that make them compelling outside of the fact that they were pioneering this sound. But it’s ancient history. Sure there’s influences a-dozen, a-million even, but the music feels flat out of context. For me, at least, but I have no context. I don’t know why I feel such guilt about thinking R.E.M. is boring. It’s like some sort of fake credibility gauge in my brain that says I have to at least appreciate what R.E.M. was doing, and I do I do I do, but there’s this other part that says I have to like it and I know that’s not true. And maybe this is all something that will be rectified when I do this “Guided Tour of R.E.M.” thing and listen to their output album by album. Maybe that’ll manufactures some artificial context that is impossible for me to have organically. Fables of the Reconstruction is only an album removed from Murmur, and it sounds so much more advanced, like the progress that this band makes is exponential and I can see how that kept them pioneers and such. And I don’t hate it. The second half was more pleasant than the seemingly dark and brooding first (“Green Grow the Rushes” is extra pleasant right now). And I suppose “Driver 8” is a pretty rock solid jam, even though I’d never be like “Oh man I wanna listen to ‘Driver 8.’” Just one of those songs that if it came on I wouldn’t change the station. I just hope I can revisit this post later and be all “Pff what the fuck was I talking about this record is the JAM.”
R.E.M. – Murmur IRS, 1983 Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012 Price: $1.50 The biggest “living the dream” moment I had while working at KJHK wasn’t the sense of unity I felt, the sense of responsibility I gained, or the fact that I finally found something that I truly loved to do. It was getting to takeover hosting duties of my favorite radio show. After a year and a half in my self-imposed indie-pop ghetto, I got Alternative Flashback. It was an important moment for me. A little triumph. It was important because Alternative Flashback is the show that made me start to dig deeper. To take the modern music I loved and trace it back to the 80s and 90s. It was effectively a time machine that sent the listener back to the golden age of college radio for two hours every week. And somehow I hosted the show without ever listening to R.E.M. It seems really bizarre now. I knew a bit about college rock, etc (not nearly as much as Justin or Gabe, mind you) going into it but I was thrilled to learn on the job, and yet somehow R.E.M. eluded me due to the simple fact that I thought they were boring. And still to this day I can’t think of a single R.E.M. track that I’ve heard that I remember thinking “goddamn that’s an amazing song!” Maybe that’s not true. I picked up a scratched up copy of New Adventures in Hi-Fi for a buck at work and enjoyed it, but then again, I can only remember that high note Michael Stipe hits in the first song. Anyway, I don’t know how someone who hosted a college rock radio show did it without knowing one of the (if not THE) most important college rock band there is. It just feels like I missed the boat and where people five or so years my senior are safe asail the good ship R.E.M., I stand like a cartoon character with three question marks drawn over my head. BUT, I’ve been listening to Murmur a lot lately, making a real go of it. An honest effort. And the more I listen, the more I peg references used by other bands (read: every other jangly pop band that came after) past and present. “Shaking Through,” "Catapult" and (natch) “Radio Free Europe” are the two jams I can easily remember upon relistening with an “Oh yeah I like this one” sorta fondness. It’ll be interesting to see what a little immersion does.
Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver Jagjaguar, 2011 Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2012 Price: $8 I have mostly quit buying records. Something clicked in my brain like, 6 months ago where I realized I was broke and really needed to un-stuff my life. Not like I’m going to sell off my record collection, but I used to be pretty bad when it came to buying records. Now I can’t think of buying anything without thinking about how many hours of work it took me to get something. In this case, it took a little under one hour of work to get one of the most beautiful records of 2011 on vinyl, which is a more than fair trade I think. Considering that Jenny loves it too, and it will spend a considerable amount of time on the turntable (and assuming the bedroom turntable worked, it would take out a year long lease there NOT WHAT YOU THINK (or is it!!!)). The Grammys are on tonight and Bon Iver got some nominations for this record. It’s obnoxious because it’s the Grammys, which seem to go out of their way to honor only the garbage, but they seem to be getting restless (what with “Who the Fuck is Arcade Fire?” gate last year) and getting ballsy by nominating an occasional excellent record. But really, good for Justin Vernon! Now more people will get to hear this gorgeous record. Jenny and I drove across Wisconsin last week. From Minneapolis to Milwaukee, cruising across snowy hills and barns, through Vernon’s hometown Eau Claire and down through more countryside. It’s beautiful up there. I see where he gets it. And I love how he’s moved beyond the cabin mythology on this one, driving his music further than anyone excepted on the sophomore LP. The lyrical directness of For Emma, Forever Ago and “Blood Bank” is all but gone, replaced with beautiful words and images and a timeless quality. We spent the whole driving listening to Bon Iver (with the exception of the last couple of hours, in which it was stand-up comedy because that and This American Life podcasts are what keep a roadtrip from getting insane). I have that habit of soundtracking any place I go to on vacation. When we were in Minneapolis, I played nothing but the Hold Steady, Lifter Puller, Husker Du, and the Replacements. When we went to Denton last year the Mountain Goats All Hail West Texas was prominently featured. It’s corny but I like it. So Bon Iver meshed up nicely with the early evening across Wisconsin where the sun made the fields look like iced over ponds. I still think “Beth/Rest” is the defining song on this record but only because I think picking an individual song off of this record as a favorite is mindbogglingly hard because, again again again, it’s such a Record with a big fat capital R (and to be fair, "Beth/Rest" sounds almost entirely different from every song on the record, it's just that every song on the record seems to be somehow building up to this point). I am exceedingly excited about following Justin Vernon’s hopefully long career (and the prospect to moving to a cabin in the upper Midwest with my wife and dog and getting to just enjoy because holy shit, it’s gorgeous up there).
Destroyer – “Archer on the Beach”/ “Grief Point” 12” Merge, 2010 Acquired: Love Garden, New, 2011 Price: $6 I’m pretty sure I got a spur of the moment deal on this from Kelly when I bought Kaputt at Love Garden. AWESOME. I tend to hate how the list price of 12” singles tends to be like $10 and $6 is right at the line where I will cave under the right circumstances. Well played, Love Garden, well played. “Archer on the Beach” is a pensive and subdued affair much less vibrant than anything on Kaputt. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, just moody. Extra cool points because it’s a collaboration with Tim Hecker (whom I know from having my experimental music friend play me parts of Haunt Me, Haunt Me, Do it Again at various places in our college tenure and I specifically remember it was the only thing out of his collection I could stand. Hecker’s new album Ravedeath 1979 is pretty great, from the chunks of it I’ve listened to, and I wish I had more patience as a listener but I’m just too easily distracted). The B-Side is a collaboration with longtime collaborator Loscil, who did that weird last side of the Destroyer’s Rubies vinyl. It’s weirder than “Archer on the Beach,” and much more pensive, featuring some very sparse and ambient synthesized sonics and Bejar reading some stuff off a page (you can hear him turning the pages). Bejar’s reading appears to be a treatise about the song, or about quitting music (“I have lost interest in music, it is horrible”). He also appears to be drinking scotch. Or maybe ice water, but I like to pretend it is scotch. Canadian whiskey! “I think the world does not like me grim. It likes me melancholic, but not miserable. English on the Mediterranean, which is oddly enough some of the worst people there are.” The writing here, even as a testament to not making music, is beautiful and brilliant like any of Bejar’s songwriting. “The answer to the making of “Grief Point” is picnic baskets, filled with blood. Too rich, nothing at stake.” It’s the not so secret 18th century European poet living in side Dan Bejar, and it’s little things like this cast off anti-song that makes him such a fascinating artist. Well, not just this, but the fact that something like this exists, and that he is constantly willing to change it up to keep from getting stale or boring.
The Byrds – Younger Than Yesterday Columbia, 1967 Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011 Price: $2.50 SPEAKING OF THE BYRDS! I only remembered that I’d recently acquired this album when I was looking up that cover of “My Back Pages” for that last post and WOULDN’T YOU KNOW! IT HAS THEIR COVER OF “MY BACK PAGES” TACKED ON THE SECOND SIDE! See, my problem with the Byrds is that I see them as a sort of yoked up cover band. Though they have plenty of songs that are their own, and I heard Sweetheart of the Rodeo during my alt-country kick years back and dug on that, and “Eight Miles High” and all that, I still haven’t ever been able to get past the fact that their best known songs are Bob Dylan songs. I know there’s a whole musical history of people popularizing songs written by other people, but in the case of pop music I just read it as a red flag. Well, most of the time. And sure, their version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “All I Really Want to Do” are probably better than Bobby D’s, technically, zeitgeistly, whatever, but in the end I don’t think there’s really a qualitative judgment to be made. Or maybe there is. Who cares? Anyway, there’s a whole chunk of musical history that is totally alien to me, and that’s folk rock, which the Byrds basically chaperoned into the musical history books. My boss, a massive music nerd of the classical school (read: 60s/70s/prog-rock) gave me a lesson about the Byrds one day and it sort of convinced me to revisit them. Now I just have these little chunks of history floating around in my brain involving Gene Clark and David Crosby and Gram Parsons and I have no way of sorting it out other than reading a book (or diligently combing the Wikipedia). I don’t care enough yet, but someday soon I will! ANYWAY, going from what I know about the Byrds, I know that this is one of their famous albums. I guess all their albums are famous though. Or most of them, probably. The 60s ones, given how apparently influential they were. The psychedelic influences start coming out and really weirding it up about halfway through. Still, I don’t have any reference (other than “Mr. Tambourine Man”) for how this fits into their discography, and though this record stands fine on its own, it would benefit from being a specific piece in a specific puzzle.
"Have You Seen Her Face" was my favorite tune from the record. Pop majesty all up in this jam!
Day 7: December 14, 2011 Suck it and See And THIS is the potential that Arctic Monkeys always hinted at…well, half the album at least. It’s not like it’s evenly split, but it kind of is. The first two songs and the last four are phenomenal. Just great, solid, excellent in varying degrees. The stuff in the middle varies from pretty fuckin’ good (“Reckless Serenade”) to pretty OK (“The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala) to the worst Arctic Monkeys song of all time (“Brick by Brick” which sounds like the group trying to collectively suck off an arena for the favor of the arena hosting a rock show, just pathetic, and awful, and really the sole reason why this album didn’t get the #25 spot on my year end list. An album is only as good as its worst song). But the six songs I love, I love fiercely. I understand this band now, and I think Alex Turner is a lifer. I think he has it in him to not have a Gallager-esque meltdown. I know this because I listened to this album like 100 fucking times in my car over the span of three months when I was supposed to be writing these little Thrill of Discovery bits really quick. I wanted to take my time, give them the benefit of the doubt, and on this album I realized that it was the iffiest album I’d ever heard. It’s the breaking through the wall. Which is to say, there’s bits of brick (pun intended, in reference to the aforementioned godawful “Brick By Brick” holy shit is that song terrible) in the punch. But let’s get on with the good, ok?
“She’s Thunderstorms”
Oh man, what an opener! Pensive riff all on its lonesome for the distorted chords and Turner’s dulcet tones to ease their way in and then the crash-in of the drums yes, yes, yes. Everyone sounds better here. The dance punk phase is dead and buried, fuck that. Arctic Monkeys sound like Arctic Monkeys now and I am so excited about this. It’s a great song title too. Titling songs is a lost art, and only the great songwriters know how to do it right. It’s important. Did I mention that already? Like the title of a book. I know music is a joke now and even the indiest of music blogs suck off the mainstream at will, but I really do appreciate Arctic Monkey’s effort at titling their songs. I looked at the tracklist before listening to this album, just to make sure I wasn’t crazy for wanting to listen to Arctic Monkeys (I listend to this before I even listened to their debut Whatever You Think I Am That’s What I’m Not) and with tunes titled “She’s Thunderstorms,” “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala,” “Piledriver Waltz,” and “Love is a Lazerquest” I was convinced to charge ahead. The album title is brilliant too, if only to get a rise out of the censors (I believe this album was barred from the shelves of Wal-Mart or something due to its “suggestive title”).
“Black Treacle”
Like I said, I’ve been listening to this album in my car for months. At one point, I thought I’d start a feature on the blog where I took songs I liked and made recipes out of them. Oh yeah, the songs would have to be about food. FOOD SONGS BLOG! FUN! So there would be a recipe for treacle tart but then I realized I’m not British and I don’t know where I’d even GET treacle so I decided to put that on the shelf. This was also the song where Turner won me over. This line, in particular: “Now I’m out of place and I’m not getting any wiser/ I feel like the Sundance Kid behind a synthesizer/ And I tried last night to pack away a laugh/ Like a key under the mat/ But it never seems to be there when you want it.” He’s a WEIRD songwriter, which is wonderful. Stream of consciousness, know what I mean? Just images I haven’t thought of coming out of his head and making it easier to understand where he’s coming from.
“Brick by Brick”
Did I mention I hate the song? It’s like a total regression. “You were doing SO well in rehab until you ate all that crack like it was a pudding.” Yeah. “I wanna rock and roll/ Brick by brick.” This stands in stark contrast to the above-mentioned line about synthesizers. This song is just so blatantly terrible, I don’t know how it ended up on this album. Who the fuck would ever care about this song? Really, who? Seriously, fuck this shit. Fuck it so goddamn hard. This ruins the album for me. I don’t even think Arctic Monkeys like this song. They pry think it’s a joke, good for them. This ruins the album. Did I say that already? “Piledriver Waltz”
Annnnnd we’re back, with that hypnotic two-note guitar line. And magnificent songwriting. I feel like Alex Turner thinks this is his masterpiece, and really it goddamn is the best song he’s written. I say this because it’s the only song from the Submarine soundtrack that ended up on this album. And that soundtrack was FULL of amazing songs. Granted, there were only five songs on it, but still, the crossover is telling. This is the song that won me over though. It transfers well from the solo version over to the full band version. Have I mentioned how amazing Alex Turner’s soundtrack to Richard Ayoade’s Submarine is? It’s so great. Submarine is my favorite film from 2011 and part of that is because of the music. So perfectly placed, so perfectly executed. There’s so much trust, too. I can see it in my head, I don’t know how it happened, but I see Ayoade and Turner as friends (Ayoade directed all the best Arctic Monkeys videos) and Ayoade telling Turner about this movie he’s making and how he wants him to do the soundtrack. That’s a big role, really, because music can kill a movie if it’s done wrong (see: the 80s). Submarine is very Rushmore-esquebut moves beyond it because it’s just barely so unique. Does that make sense? It’s unique in the way anything can be unique in the 2010s which is basically impossible. It’s unique because it’s something that is so familiar yet so fresh and exciting at the same time. That’s what Turner’s songwriting is to me. It’s like an old friend I’ve never met before.
“Love is a Laserquest”
Goddddddd, fuck. This song kills. The backhalf of this album is the strongest backhalf of an album I’ve heard in forever. I don’t know how these songs got buried at the end, and I don’t know how all the substandard songs got shoved up front. The aching, goddamnit! Alex Turner writes lyrics that are easy to transpose into a critique. So many songs you hear and you love the words but you type them into a bit you’re writing and they don’t have the power you want them too because there’s that intangible IT that you get with a song, but Turner is onto something I just don’t know quite what. I love his words. And this is my favorite song on the album. Well, writing-wise at least. I think the title track is more of a sweeping anthem, but the tricks Turner pulls in this one are just phenomenal. “Do you still feel younger than you thought you would by now/ Or darling have you started feeling old yet?” Maybe that doesn’t seem grand when you read it but when I write it and look at it it feels grand. “Don’t worry, I’m sure that you’re still breaking hearts/ With the efficiency that only youth can harness.” THOSE ARE THE NEXT LINES! THIS SONG IS PERFECT! It’s like an AIM instant messenger away message in the making. The whole thing! And it’s a song about trying to forget someone you’re incapable of forgetting as much as you need to. And it does everything right. “I have found a better method of pretending you were just some lover.” It hurts. It stings. It’s necessary.” Brilliant tune.
Day 8: February 11, 2012 “Suck it and See”
Saw the video to this while combing through music blogs and inadvertently remembered that movie Submarine was coming out and vaguely remembered that Alex Turner was doing the soundtrack. Although then, it was “that dude from Arctic Monkeys eh, who cares?” Then I cared, because though this video was kind of the usual music video fare, the song was damn good. And I watched Submarine that night and Turner’s songs were just flat out amazing. And that set this whole ball rolling. I feel like I’ve spent the eight years of my life living in this world and have been taking more and more vacations from it as of late. Being embroiled in college radio or writing for a local weekly non-stop burnt me out, and getting to listen to the back catalog of a band I had trained myself to ignore has been a pretty liberating experience. It’s not that I’ve quit listening to music critically, it just feels like I’ve quit doing that self-defeating thing where I refuse to listen to bands based on this or that. Being music director at KJHK was the worst because I felt like there was this air of quality I had to maintain and it was absolute insanity trying to make sure no hip new bands slipped through the cracks. By the end I was depleted, and though I usually regret having to graduate and not getting to try out for programming director, I think I probably woulda been too fried to handle it. It might have killed me at that point. So out to pasture for now, where I like it, and get to listen to songs like Arctic Monkeys’ “Suck it and See” and just enjoy modern pop music done precisely right. It’s not overly special or anything like that, but it is infinitely enjoyable, and sometimes that’s more important.
Conclusion
I can’t wait for Alex Turner’s solo career. Or for his band to scale it back for a record or too to give his songwriting some room to breathe. “Piledriver Waltz” and “Love is a Laserquest” are just a taste of what I think this guy can do when the tempo takes a break. Turner’s soundtrack to Submarine is still on repeat. Well, not on repeat, but I listen to it once every other week. “Stuck on a Puzzle” is a perfect song in my head because not only does it serve its purpose and fit the film it was written for like a well tailored glove, but it works even better on its own. The version of “Piledriver Waltz” on the soundtrack is better than the version on Suck it and See, too. It’s the acoustic guitar that does it. Directs it straight to the heart. There’s a smoke-filled room quality to Turner’s vocals, which just kind of push this version to another level. I can hear it playing in some lounge to maybe 5 or 6 drunks. Everyone else has left. This is the last song. He sounds kind of exhausted, but you can hear the effort shining through. It’s a beautiful mix. A beautiful song! And I hope Alex Turner doesn’t end up blowing it because right now he is poised to just keep getting better.
Bob Dylan – Another Side of Bob Dylan Columbia, 1964 Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011 Price: $2.50 I was baffled that I didn’t own this and quickly scooped it up when it came into the store. I was certain I’d purchased this with all the other Bob Dylan albums during my Bob Dylan phase somewhere mid-college. You know that phase? The one where it clicks—either for or against, I suppose—and you spend the next six months trying to absorb his whole discography by osmosis or shunning him completely (if you’re one of the latter discoverers, and probably for the rest of your life until you’re like 40 in that case). So revisiting this record is a treat, full of songs I love and forgot were on this album. “All I Really Want to Do” and “My Back Pages” were the ones that stuck to me years ago and they’re still the ones that are clinging to me now. I can pinpoint the Dylan phase to Autumn 2007 through “I Don’t Believe You,” if only because I can recall a pretty terrible song I wrote at the time that started “I don’t you believe you/ You act like we’ve never met/ At least that’s what Dylan said.” And “My Back Pages” is still one of my absolute favorites, mostly because of that line about “confusion boats.” I wanted that for my AIM screen name SO BAD when I wanted to change my AIM screen name but it was taken. Listening to this now new songs are emerging. The meanness of “Ballad in Plain D,” which is just fucking brutal and harsh and amazing even if it’s a bit who-cares by the end of it’s exhausting 8 and a half minutes. “Chimes of Freedom” is a bit more successful on the long-song front and it’s one I didn’t have the patience for back then and am ready to revisit at the now. “I Shall Be Free No. 10” is one I don’t know how I overlooked because I love Bobby D’s talking blues tunes and this one is funny and topical and such a refreshing look at the mid-60s that it oughta be used by some hip high school teachers somewhere (even though it’s almost mockingly (and hilariously) self-referencing and inside-jokey, but that’s kind of the beauty of the song). And the loveliness of “To Ramona” how have I never listened to this one with any mind!
Bob seems to have successfully made it so that youtube has none of the studio versions of his songs and only awful covers come up when you search for them. Well, awful except for The Byrds version which is actually pretty nice.
