Holy Delayed Post

Well that was a crazy month.

From my first experience with university finals to an awesome New Years my last month...wait it's been two months?! Well that's my bad then, but I would like to talk about the new(ish) Mother Mother single. It's called Bright Idea and like seemingly every other Mother Mother song it gets critiqued based on the band's past songs. Even when they're second album came and introduced nearly everyone to the band, people still questioned a guy singing that high. On its own Bright Eyes is a decent song, certainly not revolutionary but it doesn't deserve to be shoved under the rug like so many people have been doing.

This leads into the thing I've been thinking about for a couple weeks now: the expectations that are caused by past accomplishments. Mother Mother is a fine example of this but a more personal example for me is Hey Rosetta!. Into Your Lungs remains one of my favourite album of all time, being a cohesive album with sappy trumpet and string parts that make me feel things that I don't normally feel. When Seeds was released I listened, wasn't sure what to think, then I listened again, waiting for that same feeling, and then I listened again and again and again... then I gave up hope. It just wasn't as good. So why would I listen to it again? I went back into a trumpet haze.

Now if you look at the albums together, like I did, I still feel like Into Your Lungs is superior. But if you look at them individually, completely separating the band from the album, looking solely at the content of each you realize Seeds is certainly worth listening to. It is clear is has much more production value and sounds more "hi-fi" then previous albums, but it's missing that emotional attachment that Into Your Lungs had. This may be a very verbose way of saying what I did earlier: listen to the MM single and don't compare it to old MM stuff...as hard as it may be.

-Chris

Changes!

Wow.

The amount that I've learned from the month of doing this blog is incredible. At the beginning I was very against doing number or letter ratings for albums due to the ambiguity of the ratings. What's the difference between 5 and a 4? What is a 5?

These are the questions I want to answer before doing reviews.

The posts themselves won't be too different. The main changes coming in the length and the production. I'm hoping to write a lot more for each album and focus more on recent releases, also I'll be adding more pictures (yay!) and cleaning the page up a little bit.

The guide for my system of rating will be up soon and will always be posted on the right so you, single reader, will never forget.

I'm also planning on doing at least two reviews per week, if you have suggestions let me know.

Thanks

You Forgot It In People

Baffled.

I was shocked this was the same band. The first album felt so different and fresh, and while this one is certainly an interesting album I was confused when I was listening.

That's all I have to say about it right now, it's 9:47 AM where I live and I've been up since 5:45 doing a recording session for my final project; I'll definitely post it here after it's done.

A suggestion if your looking to invest a couple dollars, go buy all the Tegan and Sara DVDs. It's amazing to watch their transformation.

Feel Good Lost

Dreamy.

That's all I could think about the during my first listen of this record. The sounds were so lush and gorgeous. I wish I had a stronger vocabulary but that's how I felt. Another thing, pretty obvious actually, is the lack of vocals throughout. This is actually what I've been thinking about the most; writing music that doesn't really have a melody. I guess in a sense there are lots of melodies but there's nothing that you'll be singing along to. It's an interesting concept actually and one I have never thought about.

I'll be coming back to this album through this week as I move on to You Forgot it in People. And one last observation, a large portion of what I heard previous to this album from BSS felt like a jam session, but this, I don't know it feels composed and crafted. Anyway here's the video I promised.


Death From Above 1979 "Romantic Rights" by lalarikyu

Intro Cont. / 1st Week Plans

Hi everyone who randomly clicks on my blog. With this post I want to give you a little more information about myself as well as tell you what my next few posts are going to be about.

I grew up in southern Alberta where the prairies, conservative values, and country music rule all. Until I was about 13 I had never actually listened to anything besides country music, but then I heard of Limewire. While I buy all my music legally now back then Limewire was a miracle; a way for me to become exposed to all the music and viruses I could find.

I can't exactly remember how I came across these artists but I first started listening to Coldplay and Chris Brown. Quickly I moved on to the American Idiot album by Green Day. The Green Day album and the influence of my friends lead me to the Screamo/WhateverYouWantToCallTheGenre (I generally hate genres but this seems to be an exception to me, maybe I'll look deeper into it in the future). My favourite band for about 2 years was Escape the Fate, and I still think their first EP was really good, the rest maybe not so much.

Then something happened. I can`t exactly remember what age it was at or why it happened, but I started listening to a lot of what Jay-Z calls "Indie Rock" (him calling Kings of Leon indie rock makes no sense at all). Actually I think it had something to do with a new radio station, X92.9, opening up in Calgary.

But regardless this type of music opened my eyes and ears to something completely new. Something different. Something that maybe no one in my small school had ever heard of before. Something that made me feel different in a (relatively small) sea of my peers.

I think that`s probably too much about me right now so I'm going to get into what I'm planning on exploring for about the next week or so.

Recently Broken Social Scene played their last show at a venue in Brazil. I wasn't sure how to feel, I only had listened to the singles off their last album and a few other songs. World Sick of their most recent album is an amazing song but I felt like I couldn't have an opinion on them until I listened to everything.

So the next week will be dedicated to BSS. Feel free to listen along with me if you`d like, I`m planning on writing about the first album, Feel Good Lost, on Friday.

Thanks for making it to the bottom of this wall of text. Next time I`ll embed a video at the bottom as a reward. See you then.

First Post/Introduction

Hi potential readers! I'm very much aware that as I write this I could quite possibly be talking to myself for....well quite a while, and honestly I'm okay with that.

My name is Chris and I'm a student at the University of Lethbridge in their new Digital Audio Arts program. Basically its a Music degree but instead of playing an instrument it focuses on production and music technology. I still have to take all the courses required of any other music major and this includes Music History. And well my writing is poor which is one of the reasons for me starting this blog.

Aside from working on my writing I'm hoping that this blog will help me go deeper into contemporary music. I love talking and arguing about music, and most of all being proven wrong.

While this may sound odd let me try to explain it through something that happened the other day. I was having a conversation with one of my friends between classes and he brought up Kelly Clarkson. Needless to say I was shocked, this person was a huge fan of the Dirty Projectors (they'll come up in later posts I'm sure) and here he was arguing that, a singer that I had written off as some pop "artist" that won a recording contract and had nothing to offer musically, had one of the best songs in the last decade. After 10-15 minutes of debate he asked if I had actually listened to her music. And then it hit me, I hadn't, and there I was passionately arguing a point I had actually no idea about; there's that joke about assuming and its certainly true here. So I made it a goal of mine to either learn or shut up, and well I talk a lot so I went with learn.

The format I'll be using in this blog will of course evolve over time, but what I want to stay constant is a conversation. I don't want to tell you how good or bad an album is, attach an arbitrary star/number value to it and move on to the next album. I want to be challenged by you and by the music. I want to challenge you to go outside your comfort zone and go listen to that Dirty Projectors album (wow already). I want to have debates about the importance of the music, the evolution of artists, disappointments, things you find interesting, and the future of music. But what I hope most comes out of this is a new perspective.

Thanks for reading and I hope you'll join me. Feel free to email me or comment, I'll be sure to reply.

Chris