Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Thursday July 8

Good News is the album that really got me into Modest Mouse. I had been a casual fan for years, due to my good friend Audrey being a big fan while we were in college. I heard their music all the time and even saw them play a show at the Great American Music Hall. I owned a couple of albums, but I didn’t know deep in my bones what total badasses they are.

When Good News came out, Audrey and I had mostly drifted apart as friends, so I hadn’t been to Modest-Mouse-land for a while. Hearing songs like Float On and Ocean Breathes Salty made me want to go back and review all their prior albums and that’s when I suddenly realized how classic they are.

I’ve since fallen madly in love with all their early work, and I can’t imagine my musical life without them. Thanks, Good News!

Listened: Thursday July 8

Good Feeling is one of the classics of college life for me. All the songs are great to scream along to and rock the air guitar. There’s also the right amount of young-person-angst mixed with optimism in the lyrics.

Happy could be such a cheesy song with lyrics like “I’m so happy cuz you’re so happy”, but somehow it’s not. Happy was a staple of early Travis performances; they always ended their shows with it, which worked out perfectly, since by that point everyone was unabashedly happy. It’s still one of my favorite Travis songs to this day.

The last time I saw Travis, Fran was singing Falling Down and jumped up on a seat next to an audience member. Then he actually did fall down on her just as he was singing “I’m falling down” and apologized profusely. Life imitating art quite literally.

Listened: Thursday July 8

This is one of those entries I’ve been itching to write. I have to thank my former coworker Mike for introducing me to a great documentary called This England, about the Northern Soul scene of the 70s and early 80s. If you love any kind of music (especially dance music & DJs, since this is where that culture originated) you should check it out. One warning though – even if you are decently familiar and comfortable with UK slang and accents, some of the people in it will challenge you with their Northernese. I think I can understand most of them upon repeated viewings, but it took me a bit.

I picked up the Blackpool Mecca album in particular because I loved the opening song in the documentary, Turnin’ My Heartbeat Up by the MVPs, and this album is where I could find it.

I love many of the other songs on this album, especially Soul Improvisations part 2 by Van McCoy, Hold Back The Night by The Trammps, Are You Ready For This by the Brothers, and Phoenix by Aquarian Dream. I need to pick up the rest of the albums in the Golden Age series and see if the songs are all this great.

One bummer is that another of the songs I love from the documentary, Out of My Mind by Rain featuring Charity Brown, is still quite rare and doesn’t appear to be available anywhere on CD. Guess I need to figure out how to use the YouTube to MP3 tools I know are out there!

Listened: Thursday July 8

I’ve learned another new term, from the Ned’s Atomic Dustbin Wikipedia entry – Grebo Rock. I didn’t know that was a thing, I guess because it was a UK-centric subculture.

Ned’s is another band I saw way back in high school at BFD 2. I remember them being quite good, and I have a tape somewhere of their performance, which was re-broadcast over the radio.

Ned’s definitely have an unusual sound – they had two bassists, one playing the high end, one the low end, which might have had something to do with why it seems special.

This album has great energy and makes for good work music. It’s like a wave I jump on and ride until the end.

Listened: Wednesday July 7

Young Scottish men with heavy accents singing like 60s girl groups over rock music. This describes Glasvegas to a tee, and that might sound weird, but it’s awesome. I defy you to not sing along. Especially to a line like “Here we fuckin’ go-o-o-o-ooooo”.

Glasvegas are on my top 5 biggest Coachella disappointments list – they were one of the bands I wanted to see in 2009, but the singer was deathly ill and they canceled. Bad luck becauseI really wanted to see how the album translated to the live show. Unfortunately, they aren’t touring at this point, so I can’t find out!

Listened: Wednesday July 7

Give Up is another classic “driving to Coachella” jam we would always put on in the early years. Hearing it never fails to take me away to flying down Interstate 5 through miles and miles of farmland, shooting the shit with my friends, on the way to a weekend of fun.

It’s also a really touching album backed with unexpected music. It’s sometimes difficult for real emotion to come through a structure of so much computer-generated music, but The Postal Service succeed effortlessly. I actually prefer these songs to alter ego band Death Cab for Cutie, who play much more traditional “rock” music. The electronic music makes it complete, I guess. I wish they would release a second album, but it sounds like it was never intended to happen and won’t happen. Bummer.

Listened: Wednesday July 7

I like early Smashing Pumpkins, before Billy’s ego got out of control and when other people were actually playing the instruments and helping to write the music. Gish has palpable life in it – unlike some of the later works. Sure there are some great songs in the later SP canon, but no tight albums like this one.

Highlights include Crush (so beautiful and dreamy), Bury Me (sweet guitar work), and I really enjoy the obvious Fleetwood Mac homage of Day Dream. Well done.

Listened: Wednesday July 7

Gettin’ Wise is more twisted cheerleader rap (and I mean that in the best way possible) from Brassy. I prefer their debut to this album, but this still gets me going. “Bring it down to the sound of the druuuuuuuums”. Good work music.

Listened: Wednesday July 7

I love Get Behind Me Satan and also hate it, because after I listen to it I can’t get “I’ve been thinkin’ about my doorbell, when you gonna ring it, when you gonna ring it??” out of my head. And “Little ghost, little ghost, One I’m scared of the most, Can you scare me up a little bit of love?” sticks in there pretty good too. Jack White, get outta my braaaaaain!

Listened: Wednesday July 7

I have wonderful memories of The Futureheads album that come to mind every time I hear it. One of the early years we went to Coachella, we got horribly stuck in the parking lot on the way out after the show had ended. Earlier in the day we had forgotten our CDs back at the hotel, so the only CD we had was the one already in the car’s CD player – The Futureheads. It played over and over again as we were stuck in traffic for hours (not an exaggeration). It made the time a bit more bearable.

This album is very catchy in the first place, but due to hearing it so many times back-to-back, for the rest of the festival we kept breaking into rounds of  “Le garage, le garage-rage…” I also fell in love with their version of “Hounds of Love” – it’s brilliantly done.

Now whenever I hear this album, I’m transported back to being young and having fun. I don’t even care about the fact that we were tired and pissed off at being stuck in traffic – all I remember is the great times and the infectious spirit.