1. "Does He Love You?" - Rilo Kiley - I love the way the guitar storms in right after the "at last, you are complete" line. Really dramatic. The strings at the end are a great touch. God, I love strings.
2. "Ill-Placed Trust" - Sloan. After the first 10 or 12 songs on the new Sloan album, it starts to tail off a bit (though I do place it as #3 between One Chord To Another and Navy Blues among my favorites), but this rocker is the one song I remember from the second half of the album from my first listen. The lyrics are dumber than hell, but the sheer power of the song more than makes up for it.
3. "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)" - The White Stripes. Zeppelin reincarnated. It flicks my Bic.
4. "Hell Below/Stars Above" - Toadies. I love the way the "response" lines of the verses are double-tracked or whatever ("feathered hair and tall and tan," "stroke his cheek and hold his hand"). And the second movement of the song (the "Stars Above" portion, after the fast part) is beautiful - like, "f**k you, woman, I'm so beyond you now, and you'll never hurt me again, because I am possibly dead; the lyrics are somewhat vague in this regard."
5. "More Adventurous" - Rilo Kiley. Let me be loved.
6. "Gravity's Gone" - Drive-By Truckers. I haven't posted a review of the latest DBT album yet, because I'm not sure. Sure, DBT is supposedly a bit of a democracy, sometimes to their detriment - you wish sometimes that Patterson Hood would just grab the reins and make the band in his image. But while his songs can tend to dominate, the hidden gems are in the tunes written by Mike Cooley ("Zip City" on Southern Rock Opera, "Marry Me" on Decoration Day, this one).
7. "White Collar Boy" - Belle & Sebastian. A fuzzed-out rocker that's emblematic of their change in direction the last couple of albums. It still boggles my mind that this is the same band that did "If You're Feeling Sinister" - but while pointing your musical compass 180 degrees in the opposite direction can often mean doom for your band, B&S still has the songs to back it up. I love B&S mark II almost as much as the more orchestrated "chamber pop" they used to play.
8. "Right or Wrong" - Sloan. Whereas DBT's "democratic ideals" can be a bit of a disadvantage, the fact that all of Sloan's members contribute different styles of songs make the whole greater than the sum of its individual parts. For all of his time spent under the radar, Jay Ferguson, I think, is Sloan's strongest songwriter, even if he doesn't write the big driving rockers, and this breezy little 2-minute gem is a perfect example, with a vocal hook that just won't quit. A perfect little pop-rocker.
9. "I Never" - Rilo Kiley. Redemption through love. "I've lied, cheated and stole, been ungrateful for what I have" - and, in the same verse, "all of the oceans and rivers and showers will wash it all away and make me clean for you." God, I hope their new album doesn't suck.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
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Hey, I agree. With all that stuff you said.
ReplyDeleteI'm dragging this week. Don't feel I have much to offer.
So what's with the poem?
Shit, man. I've been in a pretty bad place this week, as evidenced by the verses below. Not feeling much use to anyone. Struggling to find my place and keep my place. Fear of abandonment by those who love me. (For no goddamn good reason.)
ReplyDeleteYou know, the usual stuff that you feel in your late teens and early 20s, which naturally should have been out of my system by now.
There are things that I'll discuss with you offline, about general unhappiness - deeper than general malaise - and whatnot. Ahhhh, fuck it, I probably won't. You've heard me bitch enough - in this blog, in e-mail, on the phone, me caterwauling outside your house at 3am. You can count on it like clockwork, about once a year; you can change your smoke alarm batteries by it.
But I will tell you this:
As I'm sure you have experienced yourself ... the highs, they are really high. All endorphined up and shit.
The depth of the lows, however, are commensurate with this. There is no happy medium. I can't just *be*. "Just being" brings on the blahs, which leads to ... this.
[An aside: You think my former crazy neighbor's crazy spilled onto me? "SHIT THE BED! I GOT CRAZY ON ME!!!"]
Anyway, that's what's with the poem. It comes from a place that I don't like to be, but my brakes are out and there are no soft landings at this speed.
But I'm on my way back. Love is an amazing thing, so powerful. I'm not trying to sound all New Agey and shit. In fact, I probably sound more like Huey Lewis. Which isn't really good for anyone. But the love of a woman - the honest, sincere, unselfish love - is truly a miraculous thing. (And that sounds a little more Waylon Jennings, which is OK by me.)
Hope you're well, man. See you on the way up. Oh, and looking forward to the dippin'; keep me posted. I watched parts of "The Godfather" trilogy this weekend on AMC as preparation, so we should be good to go.