Week 3

Somewhat random mix this past week:

9. Sufjan Stevens - Come on Feel the Illinoise

I'd still like to know when Sufjan is going to get on the next state in his "50 States" series. I don't think it's actually going to happen, but it should. I think he realized he didn't know enough about all 50 states to make this happen. But what a great reason to learn! Come on Sufjan, man up and stick to your promises!

Anyway, this album is really really good, even 7 years later. I forgot what a beautifully creepy song "John Wayne Gacy" is. This album isn't exactly a feel-good experience from beginning to end, but it does have its moments.

10. The Best of Badfinger

Badfinger reminds me of the early days in my relationship with the BF. We both really dig this band and the first several songs were in heavy rotation for a while at our house. Badfinger was formed as somewhat of a Beatles spinoff, but I think that they really did hold their own. At times their sound reminds me of Big Star too, which is always a good thing.


11. Best of Crowded House

I don't think that the album cover to the left is actually the one that goes with this CD, but I have long since lost the cover so I really have no clue what it looks like. At any rate, this is a great album. The Finn brothers write some of the best songs around, and after listening to a few "sad bastard" albums lately, it's nice to have some feel-good music to drive to. I let this one start over a few times before I went on to the next CD.




12. Local Natives - Gorilla Manor

I discovered this band one night when flipping channels. They were the musical guest on Craig Ferguson's show, and I think this album had just come out. I rarely enjoy bands on late-night talk shows anymore, but these guys had my attention. I immediately went to Itunes to download the song that they performed on the show. When I sampled the other songs on the album, I realized that there wasn't a bad song in the bunch, so I downloaded the whole thing. That just doesn't happen much these days. Some might say that the harmonies are too cliche' and easy, but I think they feel right and sound awesome. Sometimes music doesn't have to be complicated.


13. Dave Matthews Band - Crash

Ok, I'll admit it. I was a HUGE Dave-head in college. Up until a few years ago when I got my new car, I still had a Firedancer sticker on my back window. Yeah, I know.

I had not listened to any DMB in a long time. I lost interest in the mid-late 2000s because I felt like the latter albums that the band released were just... meh. Not the same music I fell in love with as a 20-something. Going back to the music now, I have to say that a lot of it doesn't have the staying power that I once thought it would. Maybe I'm stuffier and older now, but some of the lyrics are just bad. "I have no lid upon my head/but if I did/you could look inside and see what's on my mind..." Ugh. Really?

I'll always have a soft spot for Dave in my heart, but now I look at him and the band almost like old college boyfriends. They were cute at the time, but it was never going to last beyond a couple of road trips to music festivals together.

I still really like the first song on the album, "So Much to Say." And I still say that Carter Beauford is in my All Time Top 5 Drummers, along with Stewart Copeland and Keith Moon. I guess I'm just glad we've all grown up and kinda gone our separate ways now.

Week 2

This week I've been listening to some more music that I haven't listened to in a long time. That's what's so great about this project - rediscovering songs and artists that have been on the shelf too long.

5. Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint - The River in Reverse

I think I got this album by mistake, actually. Remember Columbia House and BMG? I still belonged to one of those clubs back in 2006 or so. This album came out after Katrina - a somewhat strange collaboration between one of New Orleans' renowned R&B musicians and, well, Elvis Costello. I think this one was the "selection of the month" and I forgot to respond to the email or whatever. I probably wouldn't have gotten this album otherwise. Nothing against either artist - I just didn't really know anything about it beforehand. I had to give this one a couple of listens, and it's not bad, but it's not amazing, either. The album gets off to a slow start, but toward the end there are some really nice songs. I'm glad I gave this one a listen again. It did at least remind me to put the WWOZ app on my phone so I can listen to New Orleans jazz at work or whenever I want. It puts me in a good mood every time.

6. Peer Music: Your Soul Destination Vol. 2

This is the 2nd part of a 2-CD set that was given to me by a good friend that used to work for Malaco Records. To be honest, the 2nd CD isn't as good as the first. The first album has a lot of really classic soul and R&B hits that were recorded on the Malaco label back in the day. The 2nd CD has mostly modern-day songs that either sample the classics, or are just modern songs that were also recorded at Malaco, or that Malaco had the rights to. It was enjoyable enough.

7. Uncle Tupelo - 89/93 Anthology
I was a Wilco fan before I delved into Uncle Tupelo. I like some of Son Volt's stuff, too, but to be honest Jay Farrar's voice grates on my nerves after a while. I remembered most of Uncle Tupelo's music as being of the "sad bastard" variety, and listening to it this week I think I can still kind of classify it as such. There are a few rockin' tunes, and overall it's pretty good driving music, but I did feel kinda bummed out by the end of it.


8. Keane - Hopes and Fears

I just popped this one in today. This album is several years old now, but it still sounds pretty fresh to me. It's just a good pop album. I never noticed before how much the lead singer sounds like Freddie Mercury. Queen is listed as one of the band's influences, so that makes sense I suppose. Queen should've gotten Tom Chaplin to be their new frontman instead of that guy from Bad Company (although he has a great rock voice; it's just not anything like Freddie's operatic tenor).

The Great CD Project of 2012

I'm about to leave for work so this is a really quick post that I will expand on later. I've decided for 2012 to listen to each and every CD I own before the end of the year. Most of this will take place in my car, because that's really the only CD player I still use often. And I'm always getting bored with the radio in the car.

I will blog about the music, to help me remember why I got the album in the first place, or just to review an artist that we have maybe forgotten about over the years.

This first week of the New Year I started out with the following:

Otis Redding - Greatest Hits
VHS or Beta - Bring on the Comets
Bishop Allen - February
The Shins - Oh Inverted World

Will come back later and write more details about these albums. Yippee for new projects and a new year!

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Ok, very quickly, because now it's past my bedtime, a few notes about this week's music:

1. Otis Redding - Greatest Hits
What's not to love about Otis? He's a classic. There isn't a lovelier, more bittersweet tune than "These Arms of Mine," and "Try a Little Tenderness" is one of my all-time favorite feel-good songs.








2. VHS or Beta - Bring on the Comets
This album reminds me of when I first began writing music articles for the Jackson Free Press . BOTC was one of the first albums I was given to review. I had not heard of the group before, but I was pleasantly surprised. The music still holds up pretty well and is fun for driving.







3. Bishop Allen - February
I can actually say that I got into Bishop Allen before anybody else really knew about them. In the very early 2000s, when I still lived in Memphis, I somehow began corresponding with Christian Rudder, who is one of the founding members of the band. I think it had something to do with his website (now defunct) thespark.com and the fact that he was originally from Arkansas. Anyway, he used to let me know when the group was traveling south, and then they got all fancypants and had their music featured in films like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and that "Chuck" show on NBC, and that was the end of that. I still really love their music and I don't think they are capable of writing a song that isn't catchy. "February" is an EP from 2006, when they made an EP for each month of the year. I meant to get all of them, but only have January - March, I think.

Also, Bishop Allen got their name from a street in Cambridge. Christian and Justin Rice, the other founding member of the band, met at Harvard and lived on this street. Furthering the coincidence between myself and the band, my cousin who has lived in Boston for the last several years used to live around the corner from Bishop Allen drive. Here's a picture from my visit there for her wedding back in 2007:













4. The Shins - Oh Inverted World
I didn't realize this album came out in 2001. I don't think I got into the Shins until 2004 or 2005, which makes sense because that's about the time when Garden State came out and introduced the masses to The Shins and a whole lot of other "indie" music. I had not given this album a spin in a long time because I got kind of burnt out on that whole scene, but I have left it in the CD player for a couple of days now because it really does hold up remarkably well. Even if it is (gulp) eleven years later.

Looking forward to what this week will bring!