Neon Bible

Today's Music That Jason Likes But Can't Quite Decide How He Feels About is Neon Bible, from the Arcade Fire. This is the group's second album, released earlier this year.

It's difficult to talk about Neon Bible without mentioning it in terms of Funeral. Whereas Funeral is a very intensely personal album, about life changing and loss, Neon Bible is a much broader album and more political. It took me a few listens to really get into it; the album didn't grab me right away. The songs are more layered and complicated, still very emotional and, dare I say, beautiful. It probably is more accessible than Funeral, even if it doesn't have quite the impact; this is a fine album and doesn't represent a radical departure from the Arcade Fire style. One criticism, though, is that Win Butler (the primary songwriter) does almost all the lead vocals on this album. On Funeral, Regine Chassagne (sp) had a number of vocal duties, but she is almost completely absent here, sadly. Still, I would recommend this album to almost anyone. Lots of good songs here, in particular "Intervention" and "Ocean of Noise". "Antichrist Television Blues" is another very good track, and probably has the best title of any song I can think of released in the past year.

So I guess I really can decide how I feel about this album. It is a letdown, but only in comparison to its amazing predecessor. Compared to almost anything else, it shines.

In other news:
I bought a car, a pretty nice one. I can't wait to drive it around a little bit.

I also sprained my foot today. It's painful, but nothing that will keep me from my regular routine.

Cleaning out the attic.

Today, rather than give you one semi-detailed entry for an album, I thought I'd give you some quick thoughts on music I've been listening to lately.

Be Your Own Pet: Be Your Own Pet - This seems to be like Goldfinger if they were a little more punk and had a rowdy female singer. It might not ever be my favorite, but I like it for what it is. Plus it's great workout music.

Slint: Spiderland - This is very interesting. I wasn't really able to form an impression of it because I was running all over the place at work and listened to it in pieces, but it seems to be good early post-rock. Probably warrants a more in-depth entry in the future.

The Beatles: Rubber Soul - This is a really good album, a number of wonderful songs appear here. If you were to pit it against other Beatles albums, I don't know if it would beat out Revolver, but it certainly would push Sgt. Pepper's. I like how simple so many of the songs are; they're clever but don't clutter the air too much, so you get to enjoy everything that happens. This is probably the greatest step forward for the Beatles in terms of songwriting, the album that really made them a band.

Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother - fun, interesting early Floyd. Sort of pretentious, but without the alienation and despair that would define the later and greater Waters-heavy Floyd works. I can't say I prefer it over the better-known Floyd albums but it's certainly worth a listen.

In other news:

I bought a car today. Straight cash, homey.

You Don't Like It? Tough.

You don't get a blog today because I'm far too busy looking for a car. Don't hassle me. Maybe this weekend.

Twin Cinema OMG

Today's Music That Jason Is Badly Smitten With is Twin Cinema, by the New Pornographers. Well, if you've read any of the other NP-related blogs of mine you kind of know what to expect. This is the album where A.C. Newman & company slowed things down, some, but really made some great songs.

There are ballads on here, Neko Case ballads mind you ("These Are The Fables", "Bones of an Idol"), and they're excellent. There are also some more traditional-sounding NP songs ("Jackie, Dressed in Cobras", "Stacked Crooked", "Use It"). There's even an epic song ("The Bleeding Heart Show"), a cheerful almost cult-happy song ("Streets of Fire"), and some bizarre falsetto ("Three or Four"). This album is all across the board but all the songs work. The Bejar songs seem to fit even better with the Newman songs than on the previous albums; also, Kurt Dahle's drumming comes to the forefront of a lot of songs and it seems to be a change for the better. It's clever Canadian indie-pop, probably about as good as it gets.

This album is generally regarded as the best NP's album, and for good reason. It kept the energy of the prior albums but slowed things down a little bit. There's a reason why my name on Myspace was "Bones of an Idol" for the majority of my time there. I absolutely can't recommend this album any more.

I bought this album in early 2006, with the other NP's albums (at the time) as well as Cat Power's The Greatest and The Arcade Fire's Funeral. Is it the best album of this group? Maybe. I'd be hard-pressed to pick between Twin Cinema and Funeral, to be sure.

Plastic Ono Band

Today's Music That Jason Is Listening To is Plastic Ono Band, from John Lennon. Well, if you don't know who John Lennon is, I'm certainly not the person to tell you, so let's get right into the album.

There's no Yoko on this album, and unsurprisingly, it may be John's best solo work. This album has a number of songs that manage to be personal without being preachy, emotional without being whiny, political without polarizing. They're simply structured, but powerful. John gets a lot of range out of his voice, giving us the gentle "Mother" to open the album but going all the way to the absolute wail of "Do The Oz" to close. This is not an album full of radio-friendly singles, but more the kind of album meant to be listened to as a whole. The songs are great, though, to be sure. This is a genuine album, from a man full of talent and torment. If I had to pick a song to represent this album, I'd probably pick "Working Class Hero". There's plenty of piano, but it always accompanies John, who is the real star of the album. Other instruments appear, and there's even a choir on "Power to the People", but your opinion of John's voice will probably determine what you think of this album. But give it a shot.

John sings "don't believe in Beatles, just believe...in me." Well, John, I love a lot of the Beatles' music, but this album made me believe in you.

In other news:

My weekend was okay. Great at times but absolutely awful at others. Pictures forthcoming.

Long Overdue

...sorry about the tease. I promise to rant about more music this week, I swear.

A Twin Cinema Tease

Today's blog entry was supposed to be about the New Pornographers' album, Twin Cinema. This album is wonderful in every sense of the word; however, I'm too tired to properly blog about it so this entry will have to wait. Maybe tomorrow.

Descended Like Vultures

Today's Music That Jason Gave Up On Once But Kind Of Likes Now is Descended Like Vultures, by Rogue Wave. This is music that I found via BetterPropaganda and was able to borrow from the public library. I initially didn't care for it too much but after a few listens when I didn't have anything else I really wanted to hear, it has grown on me somewhat.

It borders on being emo/wuss-rock/soft-rock/lite/sap/whatever but has some pretty good songs. I suppose it's harmless indie rock, music that manages to be touching at best and cloying or whiny at worst. It's of a moderate tempo, and the singer seems to have a very clear distinction between the two types of voice he uses (lower, breathy voice, and higher, more nasal voice) though he doesn't really stand out as a great singer. I suppose the whole record is serviceable but nothing I can recommend buying; if you're really interested, you'd probably be best served to get the last two tracks, "You" and "Temporary". The songs themselves are generally fair, but they seem more like something that Sam Beam or Jimmy Tamborillo would have thrown out for being too simple or not having strong enough lyrics.

This music actually fit today's mood fairly well: I'm just tired enough that I don't want my music to scream at me or be intrusive in any way. Consequently, the soundtrack for today also included Iron & Wine, the latest New Pornographers album, and Belly's King.

In other news, I need to find some other stuff to listen to. To the library!

The Electric Version

Today's Music That Jason Will Save For Something Special is Electric Version, by The New Pornographers. I listened to this album last night while I was cooking and eating, and just had to write about it. It's an album that I might not always mention in the hierarchy of albums that will change the way you think about music, but it's wonderful. The songs start out great and just keep getting better; there's maybe one song (out of thirteen) on the whole album that doesn't really grab me, and that's only in comparison to the others. Why aren't you listening to this album? Why?

This is the second album from the NPs. Electric Version is a very fitting title; whereas the first album was more whimsical pop, with a sense of 'we-don't-know-what-this-is-but-there's-magic-here' exploration, this is an album that turns up the guitars and really gets down to business. It doesn't exactly rock harder than anything else, but it's has more volume and drive than Mass Romantic. This album still has all the hallmarks of a NPs album, though: clever lyrics, more pop music in one song than most albums, Neko Case, and so on. It's smart indie-pop, all kinds of fun to listen to, but far too good to be dismissed as radio fluff. These songs will hug you and not let go.

I thought for a while about what my favorite song on this album would be. Maybe "July Jones", the penultimate and likely darkest song on the album. (This is the first NPs song I found, and I listened to it seven or eight times that day.) Any one of the first seven songs is a good choice - "From Blown Speakers", "Loose Translation", "Chump Change", "All For Swinging You Around", "The End of Medicine", and "The Laws Have Changed" are all marvelous. The album closer, "Miss Teen Wordpower" is great too. I don't suppose I really have to rant more about this album - it's just filled with wonderful songs.

In other news:
I had strange dreams last night. Also I went to sleep with a shirt on and woke up shirtless; I have no idea where the shirt is. I looked for it for like ten minutes this morning and could not find it. Strange days indeed.

Last night I also made pizzas on pita bread. Pesto, prosciutto, feta and parmesan cheeses, and some hot sauce. I wish I had used some tomatoes but the end results was still incredible. I'll be thinking about it, and hearing Electric Version in my head all day:

Go, don't stay, just throw it all away
There is you and then there is your body

Barrel of a Gun

Today's Music That You Should Listen To More Often is Revolver, by none other than the Beatles. Well, you know plenty about the Beatles, at least you should, so let's get right down to business.

This album features some excellent songwriting, to say the least. A wide variety of instruments are featured; in particular, the sitars and "Eleanor Rigby"'s strings stand out. One thing I like in particular is the varied tone of the album. Some songs are happy and boisterous ("Good Day Sunshine", "And Your Bird Can Sing"), some are somber and dark ("I'm Only Sleeping", "Eleanor Rigby"), some are even kind of snotty and political ("Taxman"). The songs themselves are marvelous, but as a whole they offer a glorious listening experience. The only song that seems out of place is "Yellow Submarine", which would stand out on any album on account of its "Ringo" status. (I do wish the album had more Harrison songs but I generally say that about any Beatles album. George was generally weirder than John/Paul). I think my favorite song is "Tomorrow Never Knows", which is just strange and complex enough to be really interesting.

[Warning: cursing follows, if you're actually reading this]

Probably the best endorsement I can give to this album is that even the cheery songs like "Got To Get You Into My Life" and "Here, There, and Everywhere" don't piss me off. I mean, it's not like you're unfamiliar with the Beatles, but why not find out why they're so revered for yourself? And to think, this album came from the braintrust of the 1960's equivalent of a boy band. At least then, the 'band' part of the term applied, unlike the dancing-and-sometimes-singing fucktards that were all over the place five or ten years ago. But seriously, Revolver is a good album for almost anything, except for maybe sleeping or feeling bad about yourself.

In other news:

Yesterday I was only moderately sore from capoeira. I'm sure tonight will be worse, though, or at least I hope it will.

Destroy Rock & Roll

Today's Music That Jason Really Shouldn't Like But Does, Kind Of is Destroy Rock & Roll, by Mylo. I don't really know anything about this group/artist/kitty, so I'll just talk about the music. It's a CD that I found at the library after getting a recommendation from an online music source.

The music has been best described, I believe, as "Daft Punk meets Fatboy Slim". It's very much electronic dance music, but catchy, easily the kind of stuff I'd play if I had a house party and the guests were just too rowdy for regular Twister. It's not quite what I'd prefer to work out to, though some of the tracks are upbeat enough for it; enjoying this music takes a fine balance of actual appreciation and ironic appreciation. Still pretty interesting after having listened to it off and on for the better part of a year now, which is probably as much of an endorsement as I can give this album. Favorite tracks are "In My Arms", "Zenophile", and pretty much anything but the title track, which is really just an awful four minutes of rock name-dropping. I generally skip that track when I listen to this album, which, given that I haven't for a while, might be later today.

In other news:
Yesterday sucked hard enough to make up for three and a half days of fun weekend. But I did have a very good capoeira class last night, and it's also not yesterday any more. Today is going to be a better day.