Walcott

Walcott by Vampire Weekend

I haven't been blown over by an album in a good five years... probably longer. I think the last album that I bought and just blew my socks off like Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut was the Stroke's "Is This It" (I should note, I loved "Bows + Arrowss" by the Walkmen and listed to that album about 100 times over the summer of 2004).

What I'm getting at here is that albums that blow your socks off just don't come around very often. And when such an album does hit you, you listen to that album all the time. It becomes a time and place, more so than the actual geographical location itself. The album can take you back to where you were and who you were, what you were doing and what you were feeling. For example:

- "Phantom Power" by the Tragically Hip -- this album was my senior year of high school and it takes me back to my room in the 'Dale. I like my life. I had a good collection of friends and was at peace with pretty much everything. To this day, "Fireworks" is one of my favorite songs because it became apart of who I was at that point in my life. Bobby Orr and 1972 and Carlton Fisk are all some how connected because of this song and album.

- "Is This It" by the Strokes - I am taken to my sophomore year dorm and Centennial Village. If I am in my dorm I am probably playing Civilization II or III if it was out by then. If not, I'm walking around campus at night thinking and figuring out life.

- "Vampire Weekend" by Vampire Weekend - I don't know what the memory will end up being. Maybe I'll look back and realize how busy I was running around the city of Chicago and trying to find a job while trying to catch my first break and making my own luck.

This doesn't always happen, where a song an album becomes so ingrained in one's life, time, and place that it becomes apart of that person. But when it does, you wish there were more albums like this... these are the albums that give us hope in music.

As far as this song, two things... the lyrics are brilliant. I mean if the Strokes nailed the anxiety of the post 9/11 world I've grown up in, Vampire Weekend encompasses the boredom that Generation Y has been living in. We're been given too much. We know this. And we are bored by everything because of it. This is why we want to leave Cape Cod and why Hyannisport is a ghetto.

Secondly, any song that has THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE in it gets a word up and get ya.

Listen Here

She Loves You

She Loves You by the Beatles

When it's all said and done, I think the nominees for "Most Perfect Pop Song" will be:

1) I Want to Hold Your Hand by the Beatles
2) Hey Ya! by Outkast
3) I Want You Back by Jackson 5
4) Hey! Baby by Bruce Channel
5) She Loves You by the Beatles

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" features hand claps... you've got to love how the drums and Harrison's guitar work together... the song is about love, puppy love on top of it... the song builds up throughout, but the amazing thing is that it you really never know what it coming next. When they throw that bridge at you about halfway though the song, it's so out of the blue yet so perfect. I mean there may not be a more perfectly put together song out there.

"Hey Ya" is just three simple chords of greatness... the song features hand claps... a driving bass line which moves the song along... a catchy chorus... and then Andre 3000 asks us what's cooler than being cool? Ice cold of course. Ice effin' cold. And then asking the ladies what's up the song breaks down and well, face it, you wanta dace right now don't you?

"I Want You Back" has probably the greatest bass line of all time (though "Graceland"'s bass line rocks)... the song features hand claps, though they don't add too much... Micheal Jackson absolutely nails this song, and he's like 9 at the time... the song is about love, a broken heart on top if it... the 'A buh buh buh buh' during the bridge... the last minute of this song is flat out amazing... have I mentioned that bass line yet? or the fact that a 11 year old Micheal Jackson is flat out nailing this song?

"She Loves You" comes out of the gate telling you that, yeah, she loves you and then Ringo starts hitting his symbols and it's over. I mean... over... the song is about love, and a 'she totally wants you' love on top of it... they revert back to the intro in the middle AND end of the song... George does a nice job on his guitar playing the yeah, yeah, yeahs even when no one is singing... the stop and go's are so perfectly timed and the end of the song I mean you can't not be moved... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not totally sure about "Hey! Baby" but I'm putting it up there because it's pretty awesome, but I have the right to change my mind later... to something like "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" or "Tears of a Clown".

I have no clue who wins.



Is it me or does Paul look like a wanker even here?

Dumb

Dumb by Nirvana

All this talk about Neutral Milk Hotel had me thinking about the most important albums in my life. See, for as much as I love "In an Aeroplane over the Sea" it's not all that important in my life.

Enter Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York which might be the only worthwhile unplugged album to own (though Jay-Z's gets consideration). In a way it's probably the most iconic album of the 90s - not because everyone owned it (though most do) but because in the mid 90s this show was replayed on MTV at least five times a week. You couldn't get away from it.

And this wasn't a bad thing. Like a "Few Good Men", whenever I stumbled upon the show while flipping channels, I'd watch until a commercial and then probably move on. Maybe I'd come back... but I just remember watching this show about a hundred and nine times between 1993 and 1997. If they ever showed it again, I'd watch it all over again.

So why is this show so addicting? Over all the band is fine. I mean they don't blow you away. Cobain does nail this entire show, he is completely and totally memorizing the entire performance (and that green sweater is the Micheal Jackson "Thriller" jacket of the 90s). Maybe that was because most of the time I watched the show, Cobain had already killed himself. And it's rare and weird that you can watch someone who has died yet be so charismatic, so real, and alive on TV.

Unlike watching actors in movies after the actor has died in real life, watching Cobain was a completely different experience. Maybe we listened a little harder to get a clue from these songs. Maybe we listened and watched for any expression or word that presented the pain that he lived in. I'm not sure... but this performance is utterly memorizing. Cobain allowed himself to be vulnerable for the cameras.

Then again, now that I think about it, that's just me and everyone else who's ever seen the show reading into something that isn't there. He wasn't being vulnerable or allowing himself to be so - he was just up there playing music. He never looked at the camera, or so it seemed, he just played his songs. He looked peaceful up there. And that's probably what was so memorizing about this show. Kurt Cobain looked completely at peace yet also utterly in pain.

BTW, Kurt Cobain would have turned 40 last week.

Anyway, this song sounds surprisingly like the original on In Utero for what it's worth...

Holland, 1945

Holland, 1945 by Neutral Milk Hotel

"One, two, one, two, three, four..."

And with that one of the greatest rock songs ever written kicks off.

The song, like much of this amazing album is about Anne Frank. On the face of it, writing and making an album about Anne Frank seems a bit... well, weird. I don't totally know why Jeff Mangum decided that Anne Frank would be his subject in this album - I do know that he was reading "Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl" during this time. But still why Anne Frank?

Emotion, love, sadness and Magnum says as much, "...I went into a bookstore and walked to the wall in the back, and there was The Diary of Anne Frank. I'd never given it any thought in my entire life. I spent two days reading it and then completely flipped out... I spent about three days crying, and just was completely flipped-out. While I was reading the book, she was alive to me. I pretty much knew what was going to happen.

"But that's the thing: You love people because you know their story. You have sympathy for people even when they do stupid things because you know where they're coming from, you understand where they're at in their head. And so here I am as deep as you can go in someone's head, in some ways deeper than you can go with even someone you know in the flesh. And then at the end, she gets disposed of like a piece of trash."

And that's what this song is. Anne Frank's sad, tragic, and pointless end. This is true when it comes to any death at the hands of some other human, but genocide hits home in a different manner. People are killed for something they can't control: Who They Are.

I'm not doing this song justice. It just so, real and honest. It comes from the heart. And that is what makes "In an Aeroplane over the Sea" so great. The album is honest, real, and passionate. The band, especially Mangum, pours their heart and soul into this album. As far as this song, I love the music, which sounds so big and moves so quickly. But it's the lyrics, the haunting lyrics, that linger in my mind for hours after I hear the song:

The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive
One evening 1945
With just her sister at her side...
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes

Two-Headed Boy

Two-Headed Boy by Neutral Milk Hotel

10 years ago, Feb. 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel's "In an Aeroplane over the Sea" came out. I was a sophomore in high school. HOWEVER, I did not know that this album even existed until like three or four years ago. So to say I was late on getting on train would be wrong... I missed the train. Here's the deal... I'm going to blog about pretty much every song on this album over the next few days. Why? Because it's probably the best album of the last ten years... maybe the last 15 years depending on how you feel about Nirvana and Pearl Jam and others. I'm not sure how this will turn out... but hopefully it will be enjoyable.

I compared Jeff Mangum to J.D. Salinger in the post about “In an Aeroplane over the Sea” which is interesting now that I think about it. I don’t think it’s that crazy of a comparison. But it is interesting to think about people who make it, and then fade away. For all I know Mangum and Salinger are shooting up junk as I write.

Mangum became a darling of the critics, but compared to Salinger, Mangum did not become nearly as famous. Most fans of music do not know who Jeff Mangum is. I would guess that most Americans know Salinger or at the very least “The Catcher in the Rye”. So why is it that Mangum faded away? Or did he burn out only he didn’t blow his head off like Kurt Cobain?

I’m sure fame and critical success is not easy. We have seen what it’s done to the Lindsey and Britney’s of the world. Then there is Cobain and of course all those who get hooked on drugs or booze. It doesn’t appear to be easy – especially when you live your life on a stage, literally. However, we rarely see politicians break down and turn their backs on the world like we see musicians, actors, and other artist do from time to time. Maybe having a big/huge ego, like all politicians do have, prepares people for the attention and fame. Politicians want to be in the spotlight. Artists might now always want to be in the spotlight.

And then again, maybe it’s about people’s mental make up. Maybe that creativity that artists have, what make their art so fantastic, also makes adjusting to the fame and focus that success brings that difficult. I’m not sure, but it’s interesting – what is so hard about fame? Is it giving up one’s privacy? Is it all the attempts that people and the media make to ‘get to know’ or get inside one’s head?

I’m not sure why Mangum turned his back to the music world. I’m sure he has his reasons (he didn’t stop making music, I guess he’s done a few minor things). It’s a shame though, that Mangum is no longer making music. Because it really was great.

King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. 2 & 3

10 years ago, Feb. 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel's "In an Aeroplane over the Sea" came out. I was a sophomore in high school. HOWEVER, I did not know that this album even existed until like three or four years ago. So to say I was late on getting on train would be wrong... I missed the train. Here's the deal... I'm going to blog about pretty much every song on this album over the next few days. Why? Because it's probably the best album of the last ten years... maybe the last 15 years depending on how you feel about Nirvana and Pearl Jam and others. I'm not sure how this will turn out... but hopefully it will be enjoyable.

In the winter of 1998, I was a sophomore in high school. This was probably the worst time in my life, which now that I think about it, wasn't all that bad. I've been pretty lucky.

No matter, I was stuck during most of the school years. I was caught up in stupid school drama. My grades were so-so. I was a wise ass from time to time.

Anyway, in Feb. 1998 there was apparently an Olympics going on in Nagano. Sex and Candy was the #1 according to the Billboard's chart. I'm sure Torn by Natalie Imbruglia was on VH1 all the time. Everyone was talking about Titanic (which I had not seen but would seen soon) and Seinfeld was nearing the end.

This was probably my life. I don't remember too many day to day things - I remember the classes I took, but honestly I don't think that is too interesting. In fact my life wasn't all that interesting. This is sort of depressing now that I can think about it. My sophomore year of high school was normal in that "it totally sucked" kind of way. I survived and lived to tell about it. I'm not even sure there was a moral to all this. It just was.

And of course, Neutral Milk Hotel played no roll in my life then.

King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1

So here's the deal... 10 years ago, Feb. 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel's "In an Aeroplane over the Sea" came out. I was a sophomore in high school. HOWEVER, I did not know that this album even existed until like three or four years ago. So to say I was late on getting on train would be wrong... I missed the train. Here's the deal... I'm going to blog about pretty much every song on this album over the next few days. Why? Because it's probably the best album of the last ten years... maybe the last 15 years depending on how you feel about Nirvana and Pearl Jam and others. I'm not sure how this will turn out... but hopefully it will be enjoyable.

Since I've gotten this here MacBook that I'm typing away on, I have listened to this song in more than any other song over the last 19 months. (Though, I think I've listened to "Fake Palindromes" more since I have two copies of that song on iTunes, but whatevers).

Anyway, since I brought it up already, might as well get it out of the way - I did not know this album even existed until 2005. But it took me five seconds to realize how important and great this album is. King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1, kicks everything off and despite what Pitchfork says, "the achingly gorgeous nostalgia" the song can only be heard to fully understand how gorgeous the song is. It's chilling really, the tail of two adults who are pathetic... yet there are also these two lovers. And this is surrounded by this amazingly simple and great acoustic guitar, eventually an accordion is thrown in there. This song is beautiful.

But back to me not owning this record for forever... I can't tell you why. For some reason I owned Echo & the Bunnymen's "What are You Going to do with Your Life" and knew Wilco existed and liked them. But Neutral Milk Hotel slipped by me.

Ten years on, nearly to the day, Vampire Weekend released their self-titled debut... and they didn't slip through the cracks with me. The, like Neutral Milk Hotel's, is amazing. I'll say it now, it's one of the five most important records to come out in the last ten years. The Strokes are up there and maybe the new Radiohead. Then again, maybe nothing touches Vampire Weekend - maybe their record is the best since "In an Aeroplane Over the Sea" came out.

I love how symmetrical life can be - it really is beautiful.


Not sure about the video here, but it's the song.

Rocket Man

Rocket Man by Elton John

Is this Elton's most famous song? Apparently it's not... according to last.fm it's his 10th most listened to song over the last 10 months. So, yeah... I'm not sure what to write here. Of course this is a good song. It's hard to not like this song. The lyrics are thoughtful and honest. Apparently it's about a Ray Bradbury book. Not sure how I feel about this. I am not against songs that have little or nothing to do with modern life, but at the same time, songs that say something about there here and now are just so much more... or are they? I mean, the music in this song is pretty fantastic. Elton's voice nails each note and the piano is nice. So yeah... I am much better at this when the song means something to me or the world. Let's just move on to tomorrow.

Goodbye Stranger

Goodbye Stranger by Supertramp

For reasons I've never knowed, in my final weeks in DC back in 2006, I listened to this song a lot. I've never really thought of this song as a "good bye, thanks for everything" type ditty, and still today I don't really think it is, but it captured that moment in my life.

I was ready to leave DC. It was time for me to say goodbye. It wasn't a sad farewell, nor was it a happy farewell. It was just a, see you around, type thing. I had nothing else to give DC and it had nothing else for me. I was at peace with this - the time had come. I was off, back to Chicago, to start life. I had been stuck for a few years just going through whatever happened.

I would sit at my desk at work and listen to this and reflect, mostly fondly, of the District of Lameness. A wry smile might cross my face, in a way DC was a stranger. I was never home there. Even though I was leaving behind a few relationships and a lot of friendships, I guess this song was a way for me to say good luck to all of them... will we ever meet again? Who knows, probably. No matter, the song, or at least the memories that the song triggered gave me peace and closure without having to talk to anyone.

Your Little Hoodrat Friend

Your Little Hoodrat Friend by the Hold Steady

"I've been dusted in the dark up in penetration park./I've been plastered... But I ain't ever been with your little hoodrat friend."

This really says it all. I don't live the life of any of the Hold Steady's songs. But I can appreciate it. I can only imagine what it'd be like. I can appreciate the life style, and even thought it's not me nor most of my friends, it brings a smile to my face.

But it only gets better:
"Tiny little text etched into her neck it said "Jesus lived and died for all your sins."/She's got blue black ink and it's Scratched into her lower back./It said: "damn right I'll rise again." yeah, damn right you'll rise again."

Last Good Friday, I sat there at the service contemplating what Jesus' death meant to me. That Christ died for all of us... and as I sat there those words, in Craig Finn's voice sang out "Jesus lived and died for all your sins" popped into my head.

I felt bad. I felt like what I was thinking was wrong. Maybe it was Catholic guilt... maybe I'll be punished later in life - or death - and it's that's the case, I'll be pretty bummed out. Is it really my fault that Jesus' death lead me to thinking about Craig Finn's lyrics? He did go to Boston College, so we're both Jesuit educated... or maybe it's just our/my way of putting faith into perspective? I think I need to figure this one out still. We'll see what this season of Lent brings to the table and mind.

Social Life

Social Life by Koufax

I have no clue what happened to these guys, but for a period of time in 2003 I listened to them, this song espically, a lot. Memories are fuzzy... I want to say I listened to it while living in London, but history tells me that this is unlikely. So maybe it was my senior year of college? Who knows. For a period of time when I had a lot of free time and listened to a song a lot, this song doesn't trigger memories. Sort of a drag.

No matter, this song has a lot going on but it's pretty straight forward. Listen here (best I can do). Anyway, the song tackles cocaine use... I'm not sure if they're pro or con coke, but they're singing about it and includes two classic lines (no pun intended) "Simply calling it trouble doesn't make sense, When doctors and lawyers are clients" and " There are those two streets in Brooklyn/And it's Lou Reed lyrics as living" I've always like the Lou Reed line. I can see thousand of Brooklyn hipsters trying to live their life as if it was a Lou Reed lyric. Oh hipsters...

Anyway, I have no clue if their name has anything to do with Sandy Koufax. And I don't know if this song has anything to do with Iggy Pop. I feel like I have more to say about this song, but I don't.