Let's make happy
Listened Things
Jean on Jean
Mar 2nd
You might be familiar with Molly Schnick from her craft posts on the Purl Bee, the blog of New York’s Purl stores (favorites of mine and anyone else who has ever visited.) You might not have known that Molly is an accomplished musician as well!
After playing with the indie electronic band Out Hud earlier this decade, Molly released her own album under the name Jean on Jean last year. Also titled Jean on Jean, the album is nostalgic, a bit girly, and has gorgeous instrumentation—it’s more or less the musical equivalent to her style of unassumingly beautiful crafts.
Here is a video she recently released for the first track, titled “Tonight.”
Blueberry Boat
Feb 19th
A new favorite!
I’d stayed away from The Fiery Furnaces because of the mixed reviews and “challenging” label that people tend to give them. But my music taste seems to have been veering a little to the strange side lately, so I thought I’d give Bluebuerry Boat, their 2004 rock opera, a try. On first listen, the theatricality wore me out a little, but before long, I had completely gotten on the boat. I bought the album two days ago, and I have listened to nothing else since. I kind of can’t stop.
Five of the 13 tracks are over seven minutes long, but among those are some of my favorites, composed of mini songs—some jazzy, some classic rock—mixed with sung dialog. Unusual rhymes and nonsense phrases abound; Lewis Carroll would probably approve. The album as a whole doesn’t have a story per se, but it’s about a lot of things, including seafaring, teleconferencing, and fratricide. But ultimately, it’s about the most fun with music and words that I’ve experienced in a long time.
Not for everyone, but probably for more people than it gets credit for.
New Animal Collective
Jan 27th
Animal Collective has a new album just out, Merriweather Post Pavilion. After listening to it a few times, my thoughts are that it’s very good, but not their best for me. I really liked the frenetic energy of 2007′s Strawberry Jam and the gorgeously complex sound of their older albums. Merriweather Post Pavilion is a bit more easy and domesticated, and the lyrics are much more understandable than in previous albums, which for me is actually a bit of a drawback. It doesn’t leave so much up to the imagination, if that makes sense.
But MPP seems like Animal Collective’s most accessible album to date, so it’s probably a great introduction to their music if you’re not already a fan.
If you are already a fan, here is some other music from 2008 that you might have missed and may like:
Visiter by The Dodos
I love the way they combine simple acoustic sound with fun complex rhythms.
Ice Cream Spiritual by Ponytail
It took me a while to be ready for the heavy guitars and high-pitched growling, but at one point I just got it, and really liked it. (The son of the president of the company I work for plays in the band, in the interest of full disclosure.)
The Evening Descends by Evangelicals
A little psychedelic, and different enough to hold my attention. Also, they’re from my home state of Oklahoma!
Highballs for All
Dec 11th
I seem to be on a ’90s music kick lately. Well, here’s one more. But this time it’s new to me!
The Coctails made playful lounge-y music in Chicago in the early ’90s, which I discovered recently when I should have been working or maybe sleeping. The collection of their early works contained on the Early Hi-Ball Years album is actually an eclectic mix of sounds from different genres and eras throughout the 20th century—it’s mostly light on vocals and heavy on vibraphone and sax, but there are some exceptions. One of my favorite exceptions is “Jobless,” a very catchy little song that stops abruptly after 58 seconds.
Later in the ’90s, the Coctails changed their sound to more closely resemble something like Pavement, which is fine, but less interesting to me than their earlier groove.
Sweet Memories
Nov 29th
I was browsing through iTunes the other day and came across a mention of Matthew Sweet’s 1995 album 100% Fun, which happened to be one of the first CDs I bought as a teenager. To my frustration, I no longer seemed to have the album anywhere, but I really wanted to hear it again, so I broke down and bought the digital copy after a few days of vacillating. It’s so great!
The “power pop” sound of this album didn’t really fit in with the alterna-grunge vibe of the mid-’90s, and that might be one reason that I didn’t give it the credit it deserved at the time, and it didn’t make the cut of CDs to take with me when I went to college a few years later. But the classic, super-catchy tunes of 100% Fun are even better than I remember as I listen to them 13 years later, even though I’m finding again that this album doesn’t really fit in with the music that fills most of my life (this time, indies, experimental rock, folk, and other oddities). The first track, “Sick of Myself,” has quickly become a rediscovered favorite, for its bittersweet lyrics over a memorable melody.
It makes me a little sad to think about how Matthew Sweet has never became a huge name, even though his sound is perfectly suited for mainstream mega-hits. At the same time, there’s no way that he’ll ever go away. (And I hear that “Girlfriend,” from his earlier breakout album, is on Guitar Hero II, so there’s that.)
