Favorite Songs:
“Brooklyn Girl, You’re Gonna Be My Bride” – Barton Carroll
Favorite line: “I know she’s drownin’ in boys, and a lot of hipster noise, but i can see her from across the divide.”
Albums:
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
I just love this album, it’s honesty and closeness. It took me a while to warm up to it, but it’s ice-laden, softly-falling snow sound just blanketed me. It is beautiful and sad and delicate, and sounds like the melancholy you resolve yourself to when you know it’s really over, but you just can’t quite pull yourself out of it yet.
Favorite Tracks: Flume, Skinny Love, The Wolves (Act I and II).
Favorite lyrics:
“This my excavation and today is kumran
Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed”
Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs
Okay, this isn’t that different than their other albums, but it has the same song-writing goodness. I don’t know what it is, but i love their lyrics, and their songs always leave me wondering what the story is behind the song. I don’t give a shit if their songs were on The O.C., i just want to eat their sweet hearts up. I just heart them in an inexplicable way, which is not a good thing when you are trying to review an album. Let’s put it this way: Sometimes when I listen to them, i wish my life was sadder, in a teenage heartbreak kind of way, so that I could wear these albums out in a real way. Favorite Tracks: I will possess your heart. Lyrically a little darker than their usual stuff, and in a creepy way. I think my favorite song is “Cath:” “She stands with a well intentioned man
But she can’t relax with his hands on the small of her back
As the flashbulbs burst she holds a smile
Like someone would hold a crying child”
It’s got the kind of biting and observant lyrics that I love. And i love the imagery of that uncomfortably held smile. And what did Cath do? I am dying to know.
British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?
Yes, I do. This one all kind of sounded the same to me at first, but quickly grew on me. Favorite Tracks: Lights out for Darker Skies (“And we walked under neon skies.” ”
Welcome for a day or stay forever,
There’s things which we all need to navigate.
Daisy chains of light surround the city now.
They glow but never quite illuminate.”)
“Atom.” (“I’ll be the first to admit this is a bright but haunted age
I just don’t know now now I just can’t say hey hey
When you get down down to the heart and the bones of it
Thats when it breaks you know, thats when it falls apart”)The first and last tracks “All In It” and “We Close Our Eyes” are nice bookends, with their mass consciousness chants. I sometimes put them at the beginning and end of my workout mixes.
Bang on Gang All-Stars – Brian Eno: Music for Airports (Live)
Quiet, moody instrumentals, made for background music while working. Could put you to sleep, though.
Ben Folds – Way to Normal. I really wanted to like his latest albums, but they just don’t do it for me anymore. Todd keeps buyin’em, though, so i keep listening.
Bloc Party – Intimacy. I loved Silent Alarm. Still do. Liked A Weekend in the City. This just rehashes the last two albums. Boring.
Blood on the Walls – Liferz
Really wanted to like this one, but it just sounded like a sad Kim Gordony Sonic Youth imitation. Had too much fun the night they played the Earl, although I didn’t even see them.
The Breeders – Mountain Battles
That “I can feel it.” at the beginning showed so much promise. And then it never delivered. I wish Kim would get fucked up again before recording the next album. There. I said it.
Cat Power – Jukebox. Snooze.
The Cool Kids – That’s Stupid The Mixtape. Meh.
Favorite Books:
Twilight. duh.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson