Friday, January 8, 2016
1/8/2016
The year begins with a healthy dose of shallow electropop, courtesy of Halsey. I didn't get into her record "Badlands" until it kept cropping up on AOTY and 2015 wrap-up lists her and there, and I'd heard "New Americana" enough to be intrigued by her style. I wound up listening to this record at least once a day this week, hooked on its hooks, and getting into the dark, moody vibe that's bound to take over radio playlists in 2016. I know I shouldn't like it. I think I'll be bored in another week. But it's edgy enough and too fun to turn off.
I dig the overall place these songs are coming from, overproduced and underdeveloped as they are. Between the likes of Halsey, Lorde and Alessia Cara, there's this growing cadre of female pop singers who write these really cutting, wry songs, ones about ditching the trendy scene, embracing weirdness, and cherishing introspection and originality over boy-chasing and booty-shaking. I'm into it, no doubt not as much as I would be if this was the narrative when I was in high school, but I'm glad that ~today's~ high school girls get to hear these messages in mainstream media, from the flavor-of-the-month pop stars, who are making it the norm to reject what you're sold and oppose patriarchy, an attitude that's for far too long been considered anti-establishment when equality ought to be the message from the top down.
"I sold my soul to a three-piece
And he told me I was holy
He's got me down on both knees
But it's the devil that's trying to
Hold me down, hold me down
Sneaking out the back door,
Make no sound
Knock me out, knock me out
Saying that 'I want more, this is what I live for.'"
~Hold Me Down
Halsey, Badlands
Sunday, January 3, 2016
1/3/2016
It's that time of year again.
The beginning. Which also means the end.
I'm particularly at ease as I sit down to write this list this year. It's the kind of thing that's an annual source of self-inflicted stress. While the AOTY list is a list that anyone who fancies themselves any kind of music "expert" or "critic" must be able to accomplish, I dread the work that it requires to reflect, write, compile. This year, though, it wasn't hard to find a free moment and begin typing. I knew most of this in my head, I had considered it several weeks before when I knew January was creeping closer. I kept a running Post-It list and refreshed my ears with a Spotify playlist. And I'm excited to put it out there, all this music that has meant so much to me.
2015, perhaps more than any other year in my adulthood, carried more emotional trials than I could have anticipated. I dealt with heartbreaks I could not predict. I faced fears I had been running from since I was an adolescent. I let people in. I let go. I ran farther, wrote faster and kissed harder than ever before. I gave up bad habits and picked up better ones, and I picked myself off the floor. I found surrender, I found self-love, I found the freedom and lightness a human can attain when you break your mind out of the fences of expectation, and now it is 2016, and I find myself still fighting for all of this, but with degrees of anticipation and confidence and the good kind of nerves, and I am encouraged. Most people reading this do not know most things about me; most people do not know most things about anyone, least of all strangers on the Internet, but if you are reading these words right now you can probably gather that that my lifeline (as it is maybe for you too) through all of this in life is music.
10) If I Should Go Before You - City and Colour
A late-year release that continues to captivate me, I didn't fully realize the brilliance of these songs until I had the chance to hear them live. And then I heard what I should've the first time - sweeping, elegant rock songs, with a timeless, bluesy feel, and Dallas Green's sorrowful interpretations of life and love. From the opening bars of the dark, groovy "Woman," you can tell this a record that uses the best of ingredients in the rock band pantry - heavy rhythm section, masterful solos, top notch vocals and hook-filled choruses. But mostly what I love about this record is how the sentimentality still steals the show.
Bound for trouble from the start
I've been walking through this old world in the dark
All along right by my side
There you were shining, my ray of light
~Lover Come Back
9) Permanence - No Devotion
When the day started to drag, when the week started to feel dull, this was the record to play to pick it up again. An indie favorite among a certain post-emo scene, the kind who might still care who Geoff Rickly is, the No Devotion record encapsulates a sound that's both reminiscent of a past era and somehow still trendy, walking one of my favorite lines. I love how synth-pop permeates the guitar parts, how new wave that sound is, matched with dark chords and stirring harmonies at the high-end of Rickly's vocal range. This record surprised me by how much I liked it, how fun it was to listen to, and also how unseen it was given its overall depth compared to acts in the same kind of genre.
Ten thousand summers
Cannot replace what we lost when you went away
Ten thousand summers
In the grass
And though it's getting dark
Remember this will pass
~10,000 Summers
8)Carrie and Lowell - Sufjan Stevens
So many Sufjan fans fell by the wayside when his grand plans for a 50-album, 50-state spree stopped after two, myself included, as "The Age of Ads" and his BQE tribute didn't seem to have the same heart. But Stevens' musical brilliance, and poetic truths, shone through this year in the most surprisingly stunning ballad collection, a heartfelt, intimate tribute the love and loss and pain and quiet, awkward, awesome moments that make up family. It's just too beautiful. When I listen to this record, I feel like it's OK to be curious and shy and passionate about the ones you love.
Do I care if I survive this, bury the dead where they’re found
In a veil of great surprises; hold to my head till I drown
Should I tear my eyes out now, before I see too much?
Should I tear my arms out now, I wanna feel your touch
~The Only Thing
7) Run Wild - Lydia
Another one that really surprised me by how much I wound up listening to it. Lydia was a band I got into purely by Pandora association, despite knowing they lurked somewhere in the mid-aughts emo scene I'm so fond of. Choosing to get into them shortly before this release was somewhat serendipitous but also somewhat misleading - the Lydia that existed 10 years ago isn't the one that put out this radio-friendly, poptastic, shimmering party serenade. But I love it, oh how I love it, from the stammering chorus of "Follow You Down" to the wide-eyed dance rhythms of "Late Nights." Something about this record set the tone for a light and breezy ride, no matter how dark and heavy I felt, no matter where I was going.
I don't want to keep your heartache
And I don't want to feel your ghost
And I don't even know where we will go
Yeah, I'm just trying to make it home
~Late Nights
6) Pageant Material - Kacey Musgraves
There's so much to love about this record, which is one of the sweetest, funniest, smartest offerings country music had to offer in 2015 and one of my favorite morning sing-a-longs. Kacey Musgraves has a strong wit, sharp tongue and killer voice, wrapped in an aw-shucks-stoner attitude that makes her songs so original and listenable and just overall delightful. Her take on gossipy neighbors and nosy friends shows a mature mindfulness that you're more likely to read about on yogi websites than hear about in a country song, setting her apart from the usual heartbreak heroines. Musgraves is only two albums in but she's only getting better - and more sure of herself, too, if the "Dime Store Cowgirl" anthem holds up.
I ain't exactly Ms. Congenial
Sometimes I talk before I think,
I try to fake it but I can't
I'd rather lose for what I am than win for what I ain't
~Pageant Material
5) Peripheral Vision - Turnover
If ever there was a darker, dreamier record this past year, I hadn't heard it. Turnover came out of nowhere, relatively, to put out one of the most outstanding LPs in the alt-indie scene, one that cut through stereotypes of bands in the genre and threw down a new standard for moody yet upbeat tracks. This record soundtracked many a lonely night, injecting a shot of needy hopelessness right when it was needed, but in the most melodic fashion. There's a depth in production here that creates a really full sound, but still lets you pick out the guitar parts. So much delay!! And so cohesive, which is why I think it was so easy to listen to time and time again. "Peripheral Vision" is a tribute to the complications and anxieties in relationships, the kind that we all wish we could avoid, but if this is where the stumbles gets you, maybe it's worth learning your way through.
Would you come here and spin with me?
I've been dying to get you dizzy,
Find a way up into your head
So I can make you feel like new again
~Dizzy on the Comedown
4) American Candy - The Maine
This one really sneaked up on me. I had never listened to The Maine before "American Candy." What I discovered was the purest pop rock I'd heard since radio-friendly All-American Rejects tracks in high school, excellent parts and succinct playing. A perfect balance between light and dark, this record grapples with issues of anxiety and self-consciousness and stereotype better than any I've heard in ages, without being too obviously "fuck-the-man." Why it's not on other top 10s, I cannot say. Something this well-executed ought to be recognized - there isn't a bad track on this record, and it never left my rotation since it came out in the first quarter of the year. In a scene jam-packed with releases, that's not nothing.
Sometimes I feel as though I'm going mad when
I get a touch of saccharine on my lips
I hate the taste on my tongue too damn sweet
I don't fancy american candy, american candy
~American Candy
3) Something More Than Free - Jason Isbell
This record contains my favorite song of the year, the one that I played on repeat the most, with the chorus that still brings tears to my eyes. I was so obsessed with this record when it came out, and while I listen to it less in full, I still think it's one of the best showings of the year, with every track showing how timeless and tireless Jason Isbell's sound is. While his breakthrough on "Southeastern" gave us all a taste of what he is capable of as a songwriter and introduced us to his own personal angels and demons, "Something More Than Free" gives us more of a look into how he sees the world and what matters in, things like working hard and loving true.
"You thought God was an architect, now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames
In 24 frames"
~24 Frames
2) Astoria - Marianas Trench
The top two were really hard for me this year to balance out, because they both hit me in the gut. So consider this almost a tie...and consider them both the kind that lived up to high expectations. Marianas Trench may not be a well-known act in most music circles, and that might be the biggest oversight in critical estimations. I think Josh Ramsay is a brilliant modern pop composer and if you disagree, I guess you've never heard a little song called "Call Me Maybe." He is a production master - and he shines brightest in his own band, Marianas Trench, who write epic after epic after epic. This one might their strongest yet - clearly 80s inspired, and clearly heavy on the drama. But it's tight as hell when it comes to hooks. How "One Love" isn't tearing up the radio stations, I don't know. In the past month or so since I bought this record I've listened to it almost every day, and it only gets better. It only cuts deeper. "Astoria" makes me smile, it makes me cry, it gives me shelter, it makes me a fighter. If ever there was a band that proved pop music as a genre exists beyond what's on the charts, it's Marianas Trench, and if there was any rock album in 2015 that lifted my heart to places I didn't think it could still reach, it was "Astoria."
"Don't remind me what the price is when left to my own devices
'Cause I'll find out in all due time what happens to never say die"
~Astoria
1) No Closer to Heaven - The Wonder Years
When "The Greatest Generation" came out in 2013, I couldn't help but think that this big-sounding, on-the-rise rock band from Philadelphia, my favorite active artist, had the makings of a voice of a generation. When "No Closer to Heaven" dropped this year, I knew that inkling was spot-on. Dan Campbell has turned his musings outward, and this record finds pondering the sick, sad world around us as much as his own place in it. The band followed its strengths with this record, and they've wound up with some of their best-ever songs, like "Cigarettes and Saints" and "Stained Glass Ceilings." This is not a record for the faint of heart, as it has its fair share of thrashing and screaming, as well as some disturbed imagery, from car crashes to drug overdoses to gun violence. But in this aggression is a ferocious heart, one that refuses to quit, colored by drum rhythms for days and dueling guitar solos. To me, this is the essential combination for punk rock - an American critique offered by the minstrels of its lower middle class, and loud-as-fuck playing. But there's something else that that phrase "punk rock" doesn't quite capture, and that's literary-level vocabulary, narrative-style scene setting and that particular brand of maturity that only comes from traveling to mental depths so low, and so dark, and surviving them. No one does it quite like The Wonder Years does, and no band ever will.
This god damn machine; hungry and heartless.
My whole generation got lost in the margin.
We put our faith in you. You turned a profit.
Now we’re drowning here under your waves.
~Cigarettes and Saints
Honorable mentions, for lack of enough listening to properly rank:
Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit - Courtney Barnett
Vitals - MuteMath
Traveler - Chris Stapleton
All Your Favorite Bands - Dawes
Dealer - Foxing
1989 -Ryan Adams (listened a lot, but didn't feel quite right to rank. Best cover album of all time, tho, for sure.)
Past years:
2014
2013
2012
2011
The beginning. Which also means the end.
I'm particularly at ease as I sit down to write this list this year. It's the kind of thing that's an annual source of self-inflicted stress. While the AOTY list is a list that anyone who fancies themselves any kind of music "expert" or "critic" must be able to accomplish, I dread the work that it requires to reflect, write, compile. This year, though, it wasn't hard to find a free moment and begin typing. I knew most of this in my head, I had considered it several weeks before when I knew January was creeping closer. I kept a running Post-It list and refreshed my ears with a Spotify playlist. And I'm excited to put it out there, all this music that has meant so much to me.
2015, perhaps more than any other year in my adulthood, carried more emotional trials than I could have anticipated. I dealt with heartbreaks I could not predict. I faced fears I had been running from since I was an adolescent. I let people in. I let go. I ran farther, wrote faster and kissed harder than ever before. I gave up bad habits and picked up better ones, and I picked myself off the floor. I found surrender, I found self-love, I found the freedom and lightness a human can attain when you break your mind out of the fences of expectation, and now it is 2016, and I find myself still fighting for all of this, but with degrees of anticipation and confidence and the good kind of nerves, and I am encouraged. Most people reading this do not know most things about me; most people do not know most things about anyone, least of all strangers on the Internet, but if you are reading these words right now you can probably gather that that my lifeline (as it is maybe for you too) through all of this in life is music.
10) If I Should Go Before You - City and Colour
A late-year release that continues to captivate me, I didn't fully realize the brilliance of these songs until I had the chance to hear them live. And then I heard what I should've the first time - sweeping, elegant rock songs, with a timeless, bluesy feel, and Dallas Green's sorrowful interpretations of life and love. From the opening bars of the dark, groovy "Woman," you can tell this a record that uses the best of ingredients in the rock band pantry - heavy rhythm section, masterful solos, top notch vocals and hook-filled choruses. But mostly what I love about this record is how the sentimentality still steals the show.
Bound for trouble from the start
I've been walking through this old world in the dark
All along right by my side
There you were shining, my ray of light
~Lover Come Back
9) Permanence - No Devotion
When the day started to drag, when the week started to feel dull, this was the record to play to pick it up again. An indie favorite among a certain post-emo scene, the kind who might still care who Geoff Rickly is, the No Devotion record encapsulates a sound that's both reminiscent of a past era and somehow still trendy, walking one of my favorite lines. I love how synth-pop permeates the guitar parts, how new wave that sound is, matched with dark chords and stirring harmonies at the high-end of Rickly's vocal range. This record surprised me by how much I liked it, how fun it was to listen to, and also how unseen it was given its overall depth compared to acts in the same kind of genre.
Ten thousand summers
Cannot replace what we lost when you went away
Ten thousand summers
In the grass
And though it's getting dark
Remember this will pass
~10,000 Summers
8)Carrie and Lowell - Sufjan Stevens
So many Sufjan fans fell by the wayside when his grand plans for a 50-album, 50-state spree stopped after two, myself included, as "The Age of Ads" and his BQE tribute didn't seem to have the same heart. But Stevens' musical brilliance, and poetic truths, shone through this year in the most surprisingly stunning ballad collection, a heartfelt, intimate tribute the love and loss and pain and quiet, awkward, awesome moments that make up family. It's just too beautiful. When I listen to this record, I feel like it's OK to be curious and shy and passionate about the ones you love.
Do I care if I survive this, bury the dead where they’re found
In a veil of great surprises; hold to my head till I drown
Should I tear my eyes out now, before I see too much?
Should I tear my arms out now, I wanna feel your touch
~The Only Thing
7) Run Wild - Lydia
Another one that really surprised me by how much I wound up listening to it. Lydia was a band I got into purely by Pandora association, despite knowing they lurked somewhere in the mid-aughts emo scene I'm so fond of. Choosing to get into them shortly before this release was somewhat serendipitous but also somewhat misleading - the Lydia that existed 10 years ago isn't the one that put out this radio-friendly, poptastic, shimmering party serenade. But I love it, oh how I love it, from the stammering chorus of "Follow You Down" to the wide-eyed dance rhythms of "Late Nights." Something about this record set the tone for a light and breezy ride, no matter how dark and heavy I felt, no matter where I was going.
I don't want to keep your heartache
And I don't want to feel your ghost
And I don't even know where we will go
Yeah, I'm just trying to make it home
~Late Nights
6) Pageant Material - Kacey Musgraves
There's so much to love about this record, which is one of the sweetest, funniest, smartest offerings country music had to offer in 2015 and one of my favorite morning sing-a-longs. Kacey Musgraves has a strong wit, sharp tongue and killer voice, wrapped in an aw-shucks-stoner attitude that makes her songs so original and listenable and just overall delightful. Her take on gossipy neighbors and nosy friends shows a mature mindfulness that you're more likely to read about on yogi websites than hear about in a country song, setting her apart from the usual heartbreak heroines. Musgraves is only two albums in but she's only getting better - and more sure of herself, too, if the "Dime Store Cowgirl" anthem holds up.
I ain't exactly Ms. Congenial
Sometimes I talk before I think,
I try to fake it but I can't
I'd rather lose for what I am than win for what I ain't
~Pageant Material
5) Peripheral Vision - Turnover
If ever there was a darker, dreamier record this past year, I hadn't heard it. Turnover came out of nowhere, relatively, to put out one of the most outstanding LPs in the alt-indie scene, one that cut through stereotypes of bands in the genre and threw down a new standard for moody yet upbeat tracks. This record soundtracked many a lonely night, injecting a shot of needy hopelessness right when it was needed, but in the most melodic fashion. There's a depth in production here that creates a really full sound, but still lets you pick out the guitar parts. So much delay!! And so cohesive, which is why I think it was so easy to listen to time and time again. "Peripheral Vision" is a tribute to the complications and anxieties in relationships, the kind that we all wish we could avoid, but if this is where the stumbles gets you, maybe it's worth learning your way through.
Would you come here and spin with me?
I've been dying to get you dizzy,
Find a way up into your head
So I can make you feel like new again
~Dizzy on the Comedown
4) American Candy - The Maine
This one really sneaked up on me. I had never listened to The Maine before "American Candy." What I discovered was the purest pop rock I'd heard since radio-friendly All-American Rejects tracks in high school, excellent parts and succinct playing. A perfect balance between light and dark, this record grapples with issues of anxiety and self-consciousness and stereotype better than any I've heard in ages, without being too obviously "fuck-the-man." Why it's not on other top 10s, I cannot say. Something this well-executed ought to be recognized - there isn't a bad track on this record, and it never left my rotation since it came out in the first quarter of the year. In a scene jam-packed with releases, that's not nothing.
Sometimes I feel as though I'm going mad when
I get a touch of saccharine on my lips
I hate the taste on my tongue too damn sweet
I don't fancy american candy, american candy
~American Candy
3) Something More Than Free - Jason Isbell
This record contains my favorite song of the year, the one that I played on repeat the most, with the chorus that still brings tears to my eyes. I was so obsessed with this record when it came out, and while I listen to it less in full, I still think it's one of the best showings of the year, with every track showing how timeless and tireless Jason Isbell's sound is. While his breakthrough on "Southeastern" gave us all a taste of what he is capable of as a songwriter and introduced us to his own personal angels and demons, "Something More Than Free" gives us more of a look into how he sees the world and what matters in, things like working hard and loving true.
"You thought God was an architect, now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames
In 24 frames"
~24 Frames
2) Astoria - Marianas Trench
The top two were really hard for me this year to balance out, because they both hit me in the gut. So consider this almost a tie...and consider them both the kind that lived up to high expectations. Marianas Trench may not be a well-known act in most music circles, and that might be the biggest oversight in critical estimations. I think Josh Ramsay is a brilliant modern pop composer and if you disagree, I guess you've never heard a little song called "Call Me Maybe." He is a production master - and he shines brightest in his own band, Marianas Trench, who write epic after epic after epic. This one might their strongest yet - clearly 80s inspired, and clearly heavy on the drama. But it's tight as hell when it comes to hooks. How "One Love" isn't tearing up the radio stations, I don't know. In the past month or so since I bought this record I've listened to it almost every day, and it only gets better. It only cuts deeper. "Astoria" makes me smile, it makes me cry, it gives me shelter, it makes me a fighter. If ever there was a band that proved pop music as a genre exists beyond what's on the charts, it's Marianas Trench, and if there was any rock album in 2015 that lifted my heart to places I didn't think it could still reach, it was "Astoria."
"Don't remind me what the price is when left to my own devices
'Cause I'll find out in all due time what happens to never say die"
~Astoria
1) No Closer to Heaven - The Wonder Years
When "The Greatest Generation" came out in 2013, I couldn't help but think that this big-sounding, on-the-rise rock band from Philadelphia, my favorite active artist, had the makings of a voice of a generation. When "No Closer to Heaven" dropped this year, I knew that inkling was spot-on. Dan Campbell has turned his musings outward, and this record finds pondering the sick, sad world around us as much as his own place in it. The band followed its strengths with this record, and they've wound up with some of their best-ever songs, like "Cigarettes and Saints" and "Stained Glass Ceilings." This is not a record for the faint of heart, as it has its fair share of thrashing and screaming, as well as some disturbed imagery, from car crashes to drug overdoses to gun violence. But in this aggression is a ferocious heart, one that refuses to quit, colored by drum rhythms for days and dueling guitar solos. To me, this is the essential combination for punk rock - an American critique offered by the minstrels of its lower middle class, and loud-as-fuck playing. But there's something else that that phrase "punk rock" doesn't quite capture, and that's literary-level vocabulary, narrative-style scene setting and that particular brand of maturity that only comes from traveling to mental depths so low, and so dark, and surviving them. No one does it quite like The Wonder Years does, and no band ever will.
This god damn machine; hungry and heartless.
My whole generation got lost in the margin.
We put our faith in you. You turned a profit.
Now we’re drowning here under your waves.
~Cigarettes and Saints
Honorable mentions, for lack of enough listening to properly rank:
Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit - Courtney Barnett
Vitals - MuteMath
Traveler - Chris Stapleton
All Your Favorite Bands - Dawes
Dealer - Foxing
1989 -Ryan Adams (listened a lot, but didn't feel quite right to rank. Best cover album of all time, tho, for sure.)
Past years:
2014
2013
2012
2011
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
12/30/15
"I have said to myself in a mirror's company
'Who's that panicked stranger on his knees?'
All I want is to reset how I breathe
And slow down the fear I bleed."
~Composed
MuteMath, Vitals
My list of albums to listen to only moves in one direction, and it's never shorter. Sometimes it means that I rush through first listens just to check them off the list, plugging my headphones while I work, but then I inevitably end up getting interrupted/distracted. What I'm always after is that moment when an album really clicks for me, when I hear something special in it that makes me want to give it another listen.
It took me longer than I'd like to admit to really get into Mute Math's latest release, "Vitals," because I hadn't sat with it long enough and only intently listened to sporadic tracks. But then, after a few listens to "Vitals" while walking around with headphones or relaxing in my apartment, I realized that my delayed respect for this record was actually the perfect way to get into it. "Vitals" unfolds much in the same way "Odd Soul" did, with high-energy openers that dissolve into slower-paced electronic deliveries. Catching a few of the verses brought to light the album's message, one of hope and striving in the face of darkness, however real or imagined.
I love the hooks and choruses that color "Light Up" and "Monument," I love the optimism in Paul Meany's voice. There's a lot of talk about the lack of Darren King's excellent drumming on this record - he's there, but not as much in the forefront as he once was - but the beats and rhythmic intensity of this band are as prominent as ever, if not shifting into a direction. I initially found myself wanting more guitars and fewer electronic noises, but I've come to accept this is simply Mute Math's sound these days, evolving from a straightforward rock band to one that relies on the latest and greatest in sound technology to create a more ambient, full effect.
The result is something really shimmering, really light, really gorgeous like "Stratosphere" and "All I See." While I'm inclined to find this kitschy, I love how bright it is, and how the same style of narratives stuck around, acting as a familiar hand guiding me out of my comfort zone. Mute Math is still a thinking man's band, even if the sound seems designed to elicit dancing. They're still at their strongest when they get into the groove, no matter what instruments are playing.
I think this is a really smart effort, one that focuses on a fun, forward sound without ridding the introspection this band has always channeled. Overall, it's sleek, it's lean, it's a powerful little record that brightens up a room before pulling it ever-so-slightly inward. Few bands manage to match this much musical professionalism and intellectual honesty in their records, time and time again. As a fan, I don't mind the evolution, and as a listener, it's a welcome change to indulge in something new.
"I’ve been dreaming
Dreaming of a day in the end
Waiting for someone
To wake me from the dream that I’m in
I’ve been confiscating
Every shred of hope that I can
I keep on mistaking
The future for the places I’ve been
Always the same
Always, forever, we remain
Always the same
I’m dying just to keep my place."
~Remain
MuteMath, Vitals
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
12/23/15
"There is nothing I've ever done
I didn't learn to be ashamed of
There is no hope or no dream
I won't curse and demean
If that's what it takes
That's what I'll do
If that's what it takes, I will
I hope I never get my fill
Of pushing this boulder up on this hill
Getting to the top and taking a spill
Every time's like the first time
Every time is the same
And maybe you don't believe me now
But you will
Until you hang upon such a cross
You won't know a thing about laughter or loss
From Galilee to Gethsemane to Golgotha
Is a short walk, a short, short walk."
~Joset of Nazareth's Blues
Titus Andronicus, The Airing of Grievances
Every year when people start talking about Festivus, I start thinking about Titus Andronicus. I love this song in particular, how joyful and busy its bells and harmonicas are contrasted with the scratched-throat vocals and self-damnation narrative. What a forceful little band, with such a devoted cult following. Their newer releases are just as punk-tastic, fueled by spit and rage and overly literary sentiments. A perfect band to listen to when you're ready to thank the world for all its done to you and repay it in kind, for better or worse...
Thursday, December 17, 2015
12/17/15
How many unexpected things can happen in a day, a month, a year? Many, if you're open to whatever the world throws you and leave your expectations at the bottom of the murkiest of oceans that is your own self-involved psyche....which leads me to the AMAZING news of the first song from The Starting Line in eight years!
I'm so happy. I love this band. Always have! I still play "Up and Go" and "Hello Houston" on a regular basis (UTG referred to their releases as within the "golden era of Drive-Thru" and I'd have to agree). Now I find myself loving this song's chord progressions, lead guitar parts and references to waiting and words and watching reality unfold.
I had no idea TSL was still a band - let alone recording, let alone with Will Yip - and perhaps there was news about this that I missed, but at the moment I'm just going to let this just-under three minute track encapsulate my ears for the rest of the workday.
I hate to be cliche, but this year Christmas came early.
"I assumed that I could do no harm
until I started to lose my charm
I gotta go and put it all away
but i can't help to think about it almost every day
I was anxious right before your eyes
but i was sure to always wear my smile
I know we've overcome a lot of pain
cause it's so hard to be human in so many ways
overcome most my life
i should be swallowing all my pride
I've had a lifetime to wait
such a magnificent drain on all my energy
I want another word, awake
until the right words fall into place anyway
Anyways."
~Anyway
The Starting Line, Anyways
I'm so happy. I love this band. Always have! I still play "Up and Go" and "Hello Houston" on a regular basis (UTG referred to their releases as within the "golden era of Drive-Thru" and I'd have to agree). Now I find myself loving this song's chord progressions, lead guitar parts and references to waiting and words and watching reality unfold.
I had no idea TSL was still a band - let alone recording, let alone with Will Yip - and perhaps there was news about this that I missed, but at the moment I'm just going to let this just-under three minute track encapsulate my ears for the rest of the workday.
I hate to be cliche, but this year Christmas came early.
"I assumed that I could do no harm
until I started to lose my charm
I gotta go and put it all away
but i can't help to think about it almost every day
I was anxious right before your eyes
but i was sure to always wear my smile
I know we've overcome a lot of pain
cause it's so hard to be human in so many ways
overcome most my life
i should be swallowing all my pride
I've had a lifetime to wait
such a magnificent drain on all my energy
I want another word, awake
until the right words fall into place anyway
Anyways."
~Anyway
The Starting Line, Anyways
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