Listened: Tuesday August 3
I downloaded In Ghost Colours very cheaply because they were going to be at Coachella 2008 and I wanted to investigate their sound. At the time I thought the album was enjoyable, but I wasn’t that impressed. Now I think they might have just been ahead of their time.
As I hear it today, the 80s retroness of it (very Erasure-like) sounds good without being too referential, and of course, it immediately reminds me of sun and Coachella. That is never a bad thing.
Listened: Tuesday August 3
Until the project, I had never listened to If You Happy With You Need Do Nothing, it being another cheap acquisition bought on reputation.
It’s pleasant, mellow, kind of hippie music. Kind of like a blissed-out Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. It’s enjoyable and better than I thought it would be, but I’m not sure it’s good work music.
Listened: Tuesday August 3
I have to admit that when I was loaned If You’re Feeling Sinister in college, I didn’t quite get it. I liked it, but it wasn’t until The Boy With The Arab Strap that I really absorbed Belle and Sebastian. I still prefer Arab Strap, but now I appreciate Sinister.
It amazes me that back in that time they played Like Dylan in the Movies on the radio. I would think today it would be way too indie to get play. Though I guess the radio environment today is quite different than back then. The internet is where indie people go today to get their musical exploration.
Listened: Tuesday August 3
Shockingly, I Worked on the Ships (ballboy’s latest album) is relatively free of the extreme irony and smartassery of their earlier releases (the only awesome lyric I can think of is “You left your notes on lesbian sex on the fishtank in the hall, it took me all afternoon to read them all”). It’s still gorgeous musically, but it’s a bit of a bummer to have less of their trademark snark.
It’s been a while since this came out (2008), so I hope to see a new release soon. A song I have heard bandied about is called I Am an Indie Pirate and I Shall Scuttle Ye. Now that’s more like it!
Listened: Tuesday August 3
I hadn’t listened to I Should Coco much since high school, but the pop-punk with British accents came right back to me. I spent many hours rocking out to Caught By The Fuzz and Alright (and deciphering all the slang like “Fuzz” and “I Should Coco”). What a great soundtrack for teenagerhood.
The album art is a bit frightening. Admittedly the dudes themselves are very British looking normally, but the artist seems to have decided to accentuate every little British element of their features, to freakish effect.
Listened: Tuesday August 3
When I first bought I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning, I didn’t mind the spoken intro so much, but now that I’m older and wiser, it sounds horribly immature and ridiculous. I wonder how Conor Oberst feels about it?
Despite this, Wide Awake has a lot of great songs, some of my all time favorites. We Are Nowhere And It’s Now is brilliantly poetic and beautiful:
“I’m always lost in thought as I walk a block. To my favorite neon sign. Where the waitress looks concerned. But she never says a word. Just turns the jukebox on and we hum along. And I smile back at her. And my friend comes after work. When the features start to blur. She says these bars are filled with things that kill. By now you probably should have learned. Did you forget that yellow bird? But how could you forget your yellow bird? She took a small silver wreath and pinned it onto me. She said this one will bring you love. And I don’t know if it’s true. But I keep it for good luck”
Whenever I hear this song it brings me back to moments of being young and lost and drinking too much; I’m sure plenty of people can relate. Land Locked Blues is another song that reminds me of a time in my development, and also simultaneously the mood of the country, deep in George W Bush’s second term.
Conor Oberst is whiny, petulant, and insufferable sometimes, but this album is an astute time capsule of a time in history and a period of life. I like it more than any of his other albums. It was timed perfectly.
Listened: Tuesday August 3
It’s a little bit of a cheater to put Belle and Sebastian’s singles in the project, but I love them, and they don’t put most of the songs on official albums, so pah to the “rules”.
The retro 60s sound and funny quips like “You like yourself and you like men to kiss your arse” are in full force on I’m Waking Up to Us. I laughed out loud the first time I heard that line, which is a rare event when listening to music.
Listened: Monday August 2
I love all the Underworld I can get my hands on. A Hundred Days Off is where Underworld went from hard dance music to more ambient tracks (though some of the songs are still pretty energetic). This is mood-boosting work music for concentration, though it would also work for getting ready to go out music or chillout music too.
I didn’t notice the hand holding up the face on the album art until this review – cute!
Emily's Albums A to Z 