The best things in life follow a stream of consciousness.
First impressions of Eveningland: This reminds me of someone...Sarah McLachlan, who held my obsession back in the early 90s...or...Cowboy Junkies? Very pleasant. Will I want to keep listening?
First impression of American Idiot: This sounds like Green Day. It rocks, mostly. But I think it's derivative, but of what? [Oh...I bet I think it sounds like it's ripping off something all right, but I suspect the reality is that I have some exposure to this album, so it's ripping off itself...speaking of idiots...]
The failure of my first listens required a change in strategy. We've shared our favorite music with each other, but we haven't shared the context. Many of my favorites are also attached to times, places, people--this is what we listened to when we fell in love, or that summer when we were doing this or that, or that band that rawked as we were sweeping W out of office. Mr. Rozema, there's more to music than the worst lyric you can find ("Baby face, baby face, open the door, let me unpack my case...")
Let me put myself in e.e.'s shoes as I give Eveningland another go. I'm sitting in my Prius (I'm jealous), tooling around the Twin Cities or the U.P. But the car is too quiet, so the music sounds exactly the same. Still very pleasant, but a little too country for me (I can only define it as the things I like that are a little country aren't too country, whereas those that don't hold my attention are too country). I like it and would listen to it were someone to play it, but I'm not going to be playing it myself.
How does DAG listen to Green Day? You got me...I know him from English 101 and the interwebs...he's a man with a range of tastes. That's not going to help much. But what did help was getting the right track list rather than relying on a random list from Grooveshark. Turns out I'm a sucker for a concept album in which the songs belong together, and American Idiot flows well. This is good. So good, I'm listening to it again right now.
This isn't a mystery--American Idiot moves on to the next round.
It is all about the context - Eveningland is Steve's submission (who is Steve?). Perhaps Steve lives in war-torn Chechnya. He is a commander in the liberation army and drives his homebuilt Trabant/tank through the streets of Grozny, shouting commands to his troops using a PA speaker hooked to the car's battery.
ReplyDeleteBefore leading the troops into insurgency each night, Steve pulls out his scratched and warped 'Eveningland' LP and plays it over the speaker. While Russian solders shell their position, his men stand with their heads bowed, bowlers in hand. No one understands a single word of the album, but they all know that when this damn war compaign is done, they will pledge to their local NPR station.
Oops. Maybe Nate and I should work on our reading comprehension before doing any more reviews.
ReplyDeleteThe context is always important--with music, with literature, with any kind of aesthetic experience. So, in some very basic way, I can never really understand the subjective meaning you create in listening to any given song. Your responses are your own.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, since we are attempting to judge the merit of these albums, we need to work with some set of external criteria, or else resign ourselves to saying, "this worked for me because it sounded good with breakfast" or "I really hate this song because it reminds me of Steve." These individual assertions are true, and perhaps we can't get beyond them at all, but for me, they are not very telling and might not influence my decision to listen to or purchase new music.
Of course, I'm still having fun.
May Putin and his repressive regime die a thousand deaths.
ReplyDeleteIt's spring. The windows are open. Just finished dinner, and I'm doing the dishes, which I enjoy doing. Lindsay is downstairs giving the girls a bath, which she enjoys doing. Life isn't perfect, and something tells me it's going to get tougher. But it's pretty good right now, and I'm listening to HEM's Redwing played loud and I sing along:
Fly above the houses and the schoolyards
And fly until you cannot feel the Earth
No I don't mean that it's so easy
And I don't mean that it's so small
But the world below is not so mean
That it can make us fall
We are standing on the rooftops
We are circling like sparrows
We are tiny, we are trembling,
Scared of everything
But the heart is still a red wing
I'm in Grand Rapids, but it could work in Chechnya.
All of the music I like has been recommended by someone (much of it by people in this Death Match). But some of my best music recommenders love bands that I simply can not tolerate. And I'm curious about that, wondering if considering the context will help.
ReplyDeleteIt's all I have to go on after The Best Album Ever (imho) just got all blowed up in the first round.
Sorry if that was me blowing up your BAE. For what its worth, Illinoise is on my short list for BAE-IMHO, but I didn't put it on the list because I didn't think it would make it as BAE for others. ...And if it would have been Illinoise vs most anything else, Illinoise would be the clear winner.
ReplyDeleteI'll buy you a beer at the cabins if it was I that killed your joy.