It turns out that maintaining the kind of supply of new music necessary to write anything close to a relevant stream of reviews is pretty difficult, and thinking back that’s not really what this site was about anyways. It’s not about new stuff, it’s about good stuff. Sometimes those things interact, sometimes they don’t, and hence this article is a lot more focused on old stuff. I figured I should put this out there to free up some leeway for more content.
Both of us, off and on when we have the money, collect vinyl. I’m going to ask Hannah to write her perspective on this too, but these are some of my favorite LPs – for a variety of reasons. Maybe we’ll do 45s later, but really that would just be a list of all my 45s.
Little by Little – Harvey Danger
I picked up this album at the band’s last all-ages show ever, right before they broke up. I believe I got it signed by all the members, at least most of them. They originally released a free digital copy of the album when it first came out, which I downloaded. Buying it on vinyl directly from them made me feel better about not paying for it earlier, and I felt like it kind of made up for illegally downloading their out-of-print, impossible-to-find second album as well.
The music itself is great. It’s not their strongest album overall, but musically it’s definitely their most advanced. By this time they had fully moved out of the post-grunge scene where they started into the new indie sound: melodic, but with all the same vitriol of their earlier songs. As far as I can tell, “Happiness Writes White” is the only happy song that Harvey Danger ever put out, and “Wine, Women & Song” remains one of the best ballads of abject mediocrity I’ve yet to hear. “Diminishing Returns” and to a less extent “War Buddies” both echo the soft tones of their earlier “Problems and Bigger Ones” from their first album – a song which has the distinction of containing the saddest single line in the history of rock music, in my book: “There used to be a baby, but the baby went away”.
Altogether, this album comes in and leaves strong with all the same variety found on their other records, and the memories associated with it don’t hurt much either. Sean Nelson, the lead singer, is kind of a jerk in person though.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie
I bought this album for 99 cents to use the sleeve as a decoration for my cubicle, before I even had a turntable. It’s warped – probably why it was in the 99 cent bin, but I’ve figured out a way around that and now it’s easily my most listened-to album. I really don’t need to elaborate on the musical content of this one, but suffice to say that my favorite songs are “Five Years” and “Starman”, in that order, and that my choices are entirely based on their lyrical content. On the whole, fantastic.
Hold on Now, Youngster – Los Campesinos!
I’ve raved about Los Campesinos! before, so I won’t take too much time on it here. The important thing is that this album came with a poster and a second platter, which had a 45 rpm single track on one side and an engrave picture on the other. Very neat.
The Greatest Hits of ABBA, Volume 2 – ABBA
“Dancing Queen” is the first track, the only problem is that I don’t have Volume 1 and Volume 2 doesn’t have “Waterloo”. That is all.
In the Reins – Iron & Wine
Two things: “History of Lovers” is disturbing in the best kinds of ways, and this technically isn’t an LP. It’s an EP, but since it’s 12” and plays at 33 rpm, I’m going to count it. I realize now that I haven’t listened to it in a while, which I’ll probably remedy later this evening, but I do remember the intensity of my two favorite songs off of this album. Like I said before, History of Lovers is particularly disturbing, because it takes a very nonchalant approach to the idea of loving someone so much that you move past the point of wanting them to be happy with someone they love more, on to the point of killing that competitor. Granted, it’s implied that the murder could have been self-defense, but it’s also stated that the deceased is “one she found better than me”. In a similar genre, “Prison on Route 41” describes the extent to which the subject’s entire extended family has all ended up in the same prison for unstated reasons, and the affection for his lover and savior – “not Christ the Lord” – which has so far allowed him to stay his criminal urges.
Tallahassee – The Mountain Goats
This album is the story of a couple who, though they start out loving each other, eventually grow to the point where they are only staying together in order to watch the other drink themselves to death. This is a running storyline throughout the Mountain Goats’ music, with these two named the “Alpha couple”, as many of the songs about them prior to this album contained the word Alpha in their titles (on this album the only one is “Alpha Rats Nest”, which happens to be one of my favorites).
As one might be able to tell from what I wrote before about In the Reins, I am a huge fan of this whole album. In terms of intense storytelling through lyrics, any given Mountain Goats song – and especially those off of this album – would top History of Lovers any day. In particular, “No Children” repeats the refrain “I hope you die, I hope we both die”, one of the milder parts of its lyrics. All of this is performed with just a few instruments bordering on the lo-fi, based around John Darnielle’s guitar and vocals.
Making Movies – The Dire Straits
The first few months I spent collecting vinyl – and note that this includes the time before I had a record player – were spent looking for this record. It was only because I couldn’t find it that I ended up going to so many places and getting so many other things. The reason behind it is kind of complicated, and gives a pretty good picture of how my mind operates. In the book So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, by Douglas Adams, two characters listen to an unnamed Dire Straits record, which is described as having a particularly impressive track. Based on when the book was published, I went through their discography and determined that this was the album in question, and then downloaded it. After listening to it, I figured that the track in question was “Tunnel of Love”, and started searching for the LP. I later confirmed that my guesses (both the album and the track) were correct from an interview that Adams gave before his death.
This record is fairly short, but just about every song is great. While I’m not as much of a fan of “Les Boys”, it’s more than made up for by “Romeo and Juliet” or “Skateaway”. Any album which has a song about how if Romeo and Juliet had lived they would have just broken up anyways is a winner in my book. Also, a song about roller skating through traffic doesn’t hurt either.
