I listened to the Arcade Fire's second album last night with my eyes closed. What an incredible album! I already knew that I loved this album, but I haven't ever enjoyed listening to it as much as I did last night. There's a ton of lush instrumentation going on and everything fits together incredibly well.
I rarely listen to music alone. I usually just put it on while I'm in the middle of doing something else. But really, when an artist creates something, they expect that you will appreciate it with undivided attention. As a result I don't think I've felt the complete emotional resonance of this album until last night.
I haven't played Neon Bible since it came out, but I was reading "Popless Week 2" on avclulb.com, and was inspired to listen to it.
Popless just recently concluded. It was a series of editorials where the author, Noel Murray, stopped listening to new music for an entire year and only listened to the catalogue of music on his iPod, in alphabetical order, removing stuff he feels is redundant or that he won't listen to.
I would like to condense the amount of music on my iPod, but every time I try to delete something I can't bring myself to do it. I keep wondering if I'm about to delete an album that I'll end up coming to appreciate in the future even though I don't like it right now. As a result, I have about 45 gigabytes of music, much of which I will never listen to. Do I really need 500 Sam Cooke songs? Definitely not, but which 25 do I keep? There are 500 to choose from! The problem is, 500 songs is too much for me to listen to so I don't listen to any of it.
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I find myself in the same situation with my iPod. With bands like Blitzen Trapper, who I downloaded to criticize more than anything, I find myself strangely drawn in when their music comes on but not necessarily impressed. Whenever I want to make room for new music on my iPod, I refuse to delete Blitzen Trapper.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the biggest problems with having an eclectic taste in music is that you want to learn more about the music you're listening to, who inspired them, what went each track, and sometimes what critics have obsessed over them in the past. In reading about bands like Animal Collective or Deerhunter, I don't always make the immediate connection with their appeal and their sound. I just assume they all started playing their choice of instrument and this is what came out. When I begin to take in their history and read about the evolution of shoegaze or electronica, I hear about these choice cuts from these albums and artists that make their music easier to develop a taste for.
Someday I may like Blitzen Trapper when bands that take too much influence from Pavement in their late career but aren't Pavement make perfect sense to me stylistically. But for now, it's the tracks I listen to half of after King Khan and the Shrines' "Welfare Bread" before changing it to The Velvet Undergrounds' "Sunday Morning".
Neon Bible is an incredible album and I pretty much love anything Arcade Fire produce. The amount of effort they put into their music is really mind blowing.
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