If your least favorite parts of The Crane Wife were the high-concept, prog-friendly, organ blaring twelve minute suites, then you should probably leave The Hazards of Love alone. Continue reading
Month: August 2012
Record #126: The Decemberists – The Crane Wife (2006)
The tragic thing about the Decemberists is that their greatest asset is also their biggest liability.
They’re universally lauded or discounted as bookworm friendly, concept heavy, occasionally prog-leaning folk rock, and if you don’t have time for lyrics you need to look up in the dictionary or 12 minute three-part folk-prog suites (namely “The Island”), then don’t even bother.
But, as often as that description is used disparagingly, it’s used by fans to describe why they love the Decemberists–because some people love parsing lyrics and trilogies of songs based on Japanese folk tales that appear out of order on the album, and some of these people also love that the lead guitarist is also credited with playing hurdy-gurdy on the album (unsurprisingly, the Decemberists are from Portland).
Record #125: Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs (2008)
A reviewer once called Narrow Stairs “unquestionably the best thing [Death Cab] had ever done.” While I would ask this reviewer if he had ever listened to Transatlanticism, I would agree that Narrow Stairs is the darkest and most ambitious thing they had ever done, sometimes with more in common with Radiohead than with the rest of their catalogue.
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Record #124: Death Cab For Cutie – Plans (2005)
While it doesn’t reach the same unequivocal classicness of Transatlanticism, Plans isn’t a disappointment to its predecessor.
And much to the indie kids’ relief, there’s little here that betrays Death Cab’s newfound major label deal—if you hadn’t seen the Atlantic label on the back, you might think it was recorded for the same tiny label as the rest of their catalog.
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Record #123: Death Cab For Cutie – Transatlanticism (2003)
Of all of the DCFC-disparaging hipsters I know (which I have become on their latest release), I don’t think I’ve heard any of them say a word about Transatlanticism.
That’s probably as much because the record is as close to perfect as any emo-leaning indie band has gotten as it is because every single one of them owned this record when they were in high school and still secretly love it. Continue reading
Record #122: David Bowie – “Heroes” (1977)
While it’s part two in David Bowie (and Brian Eno)’s famed Berlin Trilogy, “Heroes” is the only record of the three recorded entirely in Berlin. And Bowie, now free of L.A. and the cocaine-ridden nights it brought him, is much more upbeat here than on Low.
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Record #121: David Bowie – Low (1977)
And in the face of Young Americans and Station to Stations’ plastic soul, Low is entirely unprecedented and off-kilter.
Brian Eno’s presence is strongly felt, whether in his contributions or in his influence on Bowie. The songs on side one are avant-garde free-for-alls with obtuse arrangements free of the tyranny of the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure, where side two is filled with “more” experimental, mostly voiceless, electronic pieces.
The most notable of these pieces is the eastern-tinged droning “Warzsawa,” with a theme written by a four year old and a vocal segment featuring one hundred and ten David Bowies. There’s also the electronic wash of “Art Decade,” the minimalist staccato pound of “Weeping Wall”, and the ambient “Subterraneans,” all of which were described by Bowie as attempts to show the despair of a post-war Europe (which might explain why my wife asked, “Why’s David Bowie so sad?”).
Combined with the angular chaos of the first side (which, amazingly, was made while he was getting OFF of cocaine), side two creates a record that, while critically acclaimed, was clearly NOT David Bowie as usual. In fact, my old roommate once told me that Low was the only David Bowie album he liked, to which I responded, “then you don’t like David Bowie.”
Record #120: David Bowie – ChangesOneBowie (1976)
This is the first Bowie record I ever owned, and it’s a wonderful introduction to the pop culture maestro’s catalog. It spends most of its time with his glam rock pioneering Ziggy Stardust era, which is nice, since I don’t have any of those records (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane, and Diamond Dogs).
Record #119: David Bowie – Station to Station (1976)
Station to Station is an odd album–at once accessible and dense, soulful and mechanical, soul driven, yet dripping with influence from Krautrock, or German electronic music.
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Record #118: David Bowie – Young Americans (1975)
Somewhere along the line, after experimenting with pop culture as an art form (the Ziggy Stardust character) and pioneering a genre (glam rock), someone showed David Bowie soul music, and he fell in love.
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