The Charm of the Highway Strip

Today's Music of the Day is the Magnetic Fields' The Charm of the Highway Strip. This music came to be a part of my library via eMusic, after having A) enjoyed Distortion to a fair degree and B) also having heard some Magnetic Fields on the radio last weekend. There is something of a minor travesty here, in that the only radio stations in this entire state that would likely play songs by the Magnetic Fields are underfunded college radio stations. Unfortunately, this blog has its roots in musical opinion, much more so than championing causes, however irritating, that are minor in the face of any sort of social injustice.

Anyway, Charm of the Highway Strip was released in 1994, and probably was neglected due to the remnants of grunge still dominating popular music. Charm is very much out of its time period; some of its songs have a wistful-yet-synth-heavy 1980's sound, something that would probably seem to be derivative of, say, Simple Minds, were the vocals and lyrics less contrasting with the overall sound. Other songs seem to be more in line with cheery, electronic dominated indie-pop (perhaps 'twee' in some cases). Thankfully, the instrumentation is moderately diverse - there's plenty of synth here, but strings are sprinkled, and a banjo even shows up - and, more importantly, Stephen Merritt's lyrics and vocals carry the album.

Merritt's yawning, semi-operatic vocals give the album something of a self-contrast. The bright instrumentation is balanced well by his dense baritone, which probably had even fewer peers in 1994 than it does today (not many, that is). The lyrics are fairly well-developed, and also earthy enough that the album's title seems apt (a theme that Merritt would carry through later years). A glance at some of the song titles would support this notion fairly well: "Crowd of Drifters", "Lonely Highway", "Born on a Train". This is electronic poetry for an open road, even if the emotions and the sound don't always seem to agree on a single direction.

Personally, I found this album to be fairly enjoyable. The sound doesn't lean on its 80's roots as strongly as many acts would a decade or so later, and the themes here are mature enough to warrant some attention. Would I recommend it to most people? I'm not sure. The Charm of the Highway Strip isn't exactly unforgettable, but it's certainly interesting.

In Other News:
It's the weekend and I don't even care if I do anything fun or am social. A little downtime is welcome, after all.

I still haven't decided if buying a digital television is worth the money or not. Maybe I'm just cheap.

If you haven't heard the Rural Alberta Advantage's album Hometowns, it's probably worth your time to look up. Full review is forthcoming, but my early opinion is very positive.

Distortion

Today's Music That Jason Would Like to Get to Know Better is Distortion by the Magnetic Fields. I wish I knew more about the Magnetic Fields because I don't really have a solid grasp of what exactly their 'sound' is. The last album, I, was a polished, sweet-sounding pop-album with lots of piano and strings; sometimes it was interesting but mostly a little too contrived for me. Distortion is a fair departure from that.

Distortion sounds very much like Brian Wilson songs performed by Sonic Youth. If you took the vocals out and put them over strings, they would be pleasant and well-harmonized; the instruments are hazy and very much lifted from a dirty 1992 band. All together it is kind of a strange combination, that being something like 'happy grunge'. But as a whole, it works. The songs seem to be wistful and peppy enough in their vocals to prevent the fuzz from making the album too melancholy. The album kind of makes me long for a period in time (if not in my life) that I'm not even sure really ever existed.

In Other News:
Thank goodness it is Monday. The mayhem of the weekend was pretty fun though.

I

Today's Music That Kind Of Fits The Bill, I Guess is I by The Magnetic Fields. Again, no history lesson, let's get down to business.

This is sort of a pop record, I guess, but certainly an unconventional one. First off, the singer is a baritone, something of an anomaly. Second, there are only strings to back him up. All acoustic strings, mind you, no electric guitar, no drums, no synthesizer, thankfully no vocoder. The album manages to be hazy and dreamy, sometimes a little too pretty but usually interesting. It doesn't exactly move me, though, and doesn't rock at all. It is upbeat, and I'd have to say I prefer it to anything I've heard by The National at this point, a group I would consider something of a peer to MF due to the vocals alone. I manages to be a number of things, but it doesn't stray far enough from its roots to really be revolutionary; it seems to be an album more interesting in concept than execution. Still, it's not a bad listen, just not anything I would see myself spending hard-earned money on, not when there are albums out there by Low and Sigur Ros and Explosions in the Sky and so on.

In other news:
I don't have to be anywhere or do anything this weekend, just make a pan of brownies sometime between now and Monday. Should be fun.