My Listening Hours: The Rest of January–March
Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
When this album came out last year I was mildly interested in hearing it but also felt that I was kinda done with Wilco. Then all the reviews I read said it was boring, and the two mp3s I downloaded didn’t put up much argument. Five or six months later it seemed to be on everyone’s best-of-07 lists, so I gave it a shot all over again, this time the whole album. My ultimate reaction is somewhere between “boring” and “best of the year.” The album starts and ends with some of the band’s strongest songs ("Either Way" sticks in my head for days at a time). But the middle sags, to the point that I rarely feel the urge to put the whole album on. I cherrypick my favorite tracks onto playlists instead. Part of what bothers me is that transparency of the influences on some of these tracks: the chorus of “Hate it Here” screams Beatles, and Jeff Tweedy’s delivery on “What Light” is like karaoke Dylan.
Neu!, Neu! 75
Neu!'s third and last album is just six songs, split down the middle between what Michael Rother wanted to do (synthy pseudo-ambient, a la "Seeland") and what Klaus Dinger wanted to do (guitar-driven punk riffing). Somehow it feels cohesive anyway—probably because both approaches still utilize a kind of tunnel effect—the songs move in one direction, little digression in terms of dynamics or structural shifts. Whether relaxing to the first half or waking up to the second, all six tracks on Neu! 75 envelope you. A little dated, but also a little of what I've wanted/needed lately. Like Animal Collective's "For Reverend Green," I've been drawn to songs that create a kind of sonic effacement. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense; but it will require a longer post to explain.
Vashti Bunyan, Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind
Standing in the record store, my wife and I held this collection in one hand and Bunyan’s debut album in the other. I think we were beguiled by that white coat she’s wearing on the cover, and the fact that there were twice as many songs on this album. There are a lot of great songs here; she's got a fantastic voice and often great lyrics (I find the sentiment in "Leave Me" refreshing for a pop song). But perhaps because this wasn’t a composed album, rather a collection of demos and outtakes from the same era and just after, it becomes a bit overwhelming. Twenty tracks of Bunyan’s morose lo-fi laments gets a little tiresome. One at a time, great, but tough to take as a whole.
Panda Bear, Person Pitch
I like Person Pitch, but I’m at a loss to figure out how it was at the top of so many lists last year. On the list, sure—but the very top? I think there are far fewer ideas happening here than it gets credit for; I don’t really hear what Person Pitch is trying to accomplish in forty-eight minutes that "Bros" doesn’t do in toto in twelve minutes.
The Mae Shi, Hlllyh
My full review of the album (including mp3) can be found here. My brilliant wife, after listening to the album herself, called me out: “you don’t really like it as much as you say you do, right?” The answer is I don’t know, maybe. A great deal of what I like about Hlllyh is tied less to the actual music and more to my memories of going to shows every weekend in a warehouse in downtown Phoenix or a house party in Tempe—just a crowd of smelly dudes watching their friends go apeshit in front of them (no actual stage, of course). Truth be told if I hadn’t gotten this album for free I wouldn’t have bought it. Now that I own it, I skip it as often as I let it play when the songs come up on shuffle.
Os Mutantes, s/t
I’ve had an album’s worth of Os Mutantes songs in my iTunes for years now, though it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I finally bought a proper release. Where better to start than this, their debut 1968 album? It doesn’t contain my favorite OM song—that would be the Rita Lee-sung version of “Baby,” rather than the version here—but there's plenty else to love, like the jubilant "Senhor F."
LCD Soundsystem, 45:33
To be honest I've only owned this album for a couple weeks, and probably listened to it three times since picking it up. So my opinion is not fully formed. I'll say this though: it's not my ideal workout mix.
Terry Riley, In C
Because you know what is my ideal workout mix? In C. I swear, I plug in my headphones, get on the treadmill, and start jogging my ass off to In C. Who needs a house beat when you have Riley's patterns and clusters? If only my body had the stamina to run for an hour fifteen. I poop out around, uh, 45:33. I get completely lost in this piece. I've only got a handful of contemporary composers in my collection—Glass, Reich, and a 3CD compilation tracing the origins of electronic music which hits a lot of the well-known twentieth-century avant-garde composers. A few months back I mentioned that this was an area of music I knew was in my future. In C might be the piece I needed to hear to make that future come a little sooner. (You can download all of In C for free from last.fm.)
Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
I'm actually surprised that I dislike this album as much as I do. I don't hate it, but based on how terrific I found Satanic Panic in the Attic, you'd think I'd be taken by the obvious aesthetic leaps the band is taking. I can respect the growth—there's even songs, like "A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger,"
that I really like—but as often as not I find Hissing Fauna to be terribly grating. The harmonies are almost abrasive on "Suffer for Fashion" or "Faberge Falls for Shuggie," and "The Past is a Grotesque Animal," all twelve minutes of it, just sounds like Kevin Barnes had the studio time so he indulged himself.
Buckingham Nicks, s/t
In another My Listening Hours post from a few months ago, I went on about Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, which sparked a lot of comments as to the worth of the group. My feeling on the band was that Lindsey Buckingham’s songs are far and away the best of the bunch, both on Rumours and on Tusk. Stevie Nicks’s voice is of course distinctive and, when her songs aren’t tainted by pop-cultural oversaturation, her songs can be great too. Really it’s just bland Christine McVie that weighs down the albums. So it seemed logical that searching out the out-of-print (but easily gotten) Buckingham Nicks—which the duo recorded prior to joining Fleetwood Mac—might yield great results.
Turns out this is a pretty perfect encapsulation of my post from a couple months back, “Do I Want to Go There,” in which I wondered aloud when, exactly, my jones for music from the 70s would steer me wrong. The vast majority of Buckingham Nicks is bona fide MOR schlock. Some good melodies here and there, but frankly the album cover should rightly scare you away.
George Harrison, Dark Horse
On a similar note, George Harrison’s Dark Horse was also disappointing. A couple good songs—particularly "Simply Shady"—but most of the album showcases Harrison’s weak voice, directionless songwriting, and bad sax, none of which I expected from George.
Tomorrow, I'll take a look at the albums coming out in the next few months that have me most excited.
