According to tradition, after the release of 1975’s Born to Run and the superstardom and legal battles that ensued, The Boss spent some time soul searching, trying to find himself, as he put it, “stripped away [of] all of your celebrity and left…with all your essence.” What resulted was an album free of commercial ambition (or singles) and the super-ensemble that raced through his breakthrough. In its place was a collection of songs that is at once intensely personal and endlessly relatable. After all, who hasn’t woken up with an urge to get in a car and drive until your weariness and cynicism disappear from your rear view mirror? And while it’s admittedly much darker than the anthem-filled Born To Run (and also, free of saxophone), there is a peace in the album’s escapism that transcends its darkness and brings a sort of lightness to it.
Author: Nathaniel FitzGerald
Record #76: Broken Bells – Broken Bells (2010)
When I heard that Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins started a band, I had to hear it to believe it. I have long been a huge fan of both, and the prospect of a collaboration set my mind racing with what it might sound like. My curiosity was sated release of of lead single The High Road, with its drunken keyboard intro and gospel-choired refrain, with Mercer’s trademark wordsmithing and melody making, and Danger Mouse’s signature sonic exploration.
My expectations were exceeded.
Record #71: Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978)
There are a handful of records that I put on if I just want to drown in texture, without being barraged by coherent lyrics or rhythms. Those records are Victorialand by Cocteau Twins, In a Silent Way by Miles Davis, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, and this, Brian Eno’s first effort of creating ambient music that is, as he says, “as ignorable as it is interesting.”
Record #70: Brand New – Daisy (2009)
Giving this album its first listen, my roommate looked at me perplexed and asked, “When did Brand New become These Arms are Snakes?” It’s a valid question—Brand New’s first two albums spend so much time putting LiveJournal-worthy insults and teen-movie drama to pop punk, and the music itself gives almost no hints as to what happened between Deja Entendu and The Devil and God to get Jesse Lacey to forget about his beef with Taking Back Sunday and focus inward and upward. But after the somber theology of The Devil and God, Daisy is not a surprise at all.
Record #69: Brand New – The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me (2006)
I had written three ill-formed paragraphs about how emo was my musical center and how this album, with its brave questions and ruminations on spiritual matters and of lead singer Jesse Lacey’s spiritual shortcomings, as well as the band’s excellent mastery of mood, was one of the biggest influences in my own songwriting. But I can never not say too much about this album. It changed my life, and there’s hardly any way to write eloquently about that.
Record #68: BRAIDS – Native Speaker (2011)
BRAIDS hit me like an infection. I heard the arpeggio guitar loop of Lemonade in a mashup and set about ravenously searching for what on earth it was. When I heard the song, I then looked for the album online. After hearing it once, I ordered the record, and then had it on constant repeat on my iPod for the next two weeks. And here, months later, after knowing every melody and every sound and every turn the music takes, the album constantly proves its staying power and ever-present freshness.
Record #67: Bonnie Tyler – Faster Than The Speed Of Night (1983)
I don’t know what exactly it is about 80s female-led pop-rock that makes me love it so much. It has all the telltale production–gated drums, chorused bass, metal tinted lead guitar lines everywhere, piano arpeggios–as well as voices bigger than the hair they wore.
Record #65: Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP (2009)
After Justin Vernon came out of his cabin in the woods with his solo debut, he also came out of the minimalist confines that the instruments in his solitude offered him. Blood Bank EP is meager in tracks, but rich in content.
Record #64: Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (2007)
When I first heard For Emma, Forever Ago, I was a folk singer. And most of my inspiration came from the old country of Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris, as well as the humble figerpickings of Sufjan Stevens and Damien Rice. But I was listening to so much else–Radiohead, Sigur Ros, mewithoutYou–but my musical pallet didn’t have room for too much outside of an acoustic guitar, harmonica, banjo, voice, and occasional trumpet or drum set.
Then I heard Bon Iver.
Record #63: Bob Dylan – Shot of Love (1981)
I have played this record only once besides this listen, and it was the day I got it, after which it was quickly shelved. I remember it being pretty terrible, but I don’t exactly remember why. I’m being reminded a little bit now, though. While it maintains largely the same format as Saved, the arrangements, which were so subtle on Slow Train Coming and so masterfully executed on Saved, are sloppy in comparison. This backing band lacks both the control and the exuberance of the groups that accompanied Dylan on his last two outings. It crosses the line into hokey territory quite often, and it doesn’t help the songwriting.