Took a look at myself and said "That's not me"

Stop Being an Asshole and Listen to Some Music:The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds


I listened to a lot of The Beach Boys when I was a little kid.

Not so much listen, I guess, as soak it in. I was too young to actively listen to anything. But my parents gave me a copy of their greatest hits on cassette, and I played the shit out of it.

To be honest, I don't remember any other music from when I was little.

I've had Beach Boys harmonies wired into my brain since roughly 1984.

That said, the greatest hits tape didn't have a lot on it from Pet Sounds. The songs on there were mostly of the "Surfin' U.S.A." vein. Bouncy, happy summertime music.

Pet Sounds is more about the awkwardness and melancholy of being young than the days at the beach.

"I feel so broke up. I wanna go home." Remind anybody else of being 17?

There are some heartbreaking monents here. "Caroline, No" stops me in my tracks everytime I hear it. It's just so...sad.

But those harmonies! One of the best arguments for the spoonful of sugar theory I've ever heard.

I'd probably rank this in my top 15 albums ever.

And I hate making top anything lists.

Every Occasion

Stop Being an Asshole and Listen to Some Music:Band of HorsesEverything All the Time





There is an island where musicians make irony-free music. They've been exiled there, but I imagine they quite like it.

"I like to think I'm a mess you'd wear with pride."

Make no mistake. This is not the "earnestness" of modern rock radio. The kind that sounds like it came straight from a box.

No, these musicians have hurt, and been hurt, and felt joy, and truly don't know how to express these feelings without music.

It often makes the buying public uncomfortable.

"If I'm lost it's only for a little while."

A few of us have contacts that smuggle their music into our lives.

The benefit of listening? To be able to feel that "Holy shit, that's exactly how I feel" exhilaration after the age of 17.

Band of Horses have seats on the island's parliament.

"Let's bury ourselves and go haunt someone tonight."

How many boys have you drowned?

Stop Being an Asshole and Listen to Some Music:Atlas Sound,Let the Blind Lead Those Who See but Cannot Feel


I don't believe in ghosts.

That doesn't mean that the idea of a haunted house doesn't scare the shit out of me.

You may have noticed that I hadn't posted in a while. My speakers took a shit(again). Listening to this album on my iPod, I realized that I just couldn't write about it that way. Having it fed directly into my ears just didn't seem right.

Let the Blind Lead... is about distance. Isolation. Hearing someone singing in the other room and walking in to find nothing but a rocking chair, still rocking.

The music could easily soundtrack an indie haunting film. And the lyrics, well, they're more interesing than I orihinally thought:

"Quarantined/and kept/so far away/from my friends."

Far from eloquent. But after repeat listens, I wonder if that's the idea. They're like the mourning of a child taken before his time.

Is this album a ghost story? Not sure, but it's chilling to listen to it as one.

I can't decide if I like it, but I find it fascinating.

So What?

You're Fucking Kidding Me:Miles Davis, Kind Of Blue





I don't even remember what she looked like. Just that she wore glasses that I found unbearably sexy.

When she told me she'd been listening to Kind Of Blue, I was even more intrigued. All I really knew about it was that it was a Miles Davis album, but still. She didn't say Godsmack.

I heard a few weeks later that she gave incredible blowjobs.

Then a couple of weeks later that she was a bitch.

Don't think I ever saw her again.

She's just that girl with the glasses that lisened to Miles Davis. I met her on the night I took hits from the bong with the ceramic dragons on it.

I don't think I ever got high with coworkers without some weird detail to make me laugh as the years have gone on.

Anyway, the girl.

Never got head from her.

Can't say, really, whether or not she's a bitch.

But I hope she still listens to Kind Of Blue. This is really good.

I'm so confused

Stop Being an Asshole and Listen to Some Music:Archers of Loaf, Vee Vee




I have a mystery to solve. Has anybody seen Encyclopedia Brown? Or maybe Angela Landsbury?

Why am I unable to sit through his album?

It's not bad, exactly. Just your standard guitar rock from the mid-nineties.

But, apperently it makes all kinds of "90s" lists.

So there are people who think it's great.

I can't get past track three.

Talked to a friend of mine about it, she's got the same problem I do with it.

Here's my theory:

Remember in the mid-nineties when MTV played a lot of videos? And a lot were kinda slow, mumbledguitar rock? "Post-grunge," I think they called it.

Remember how you used to treat watching those videos like a full-time job? One with a cruel boss that made you miss time with your family for work?

Fast forward 13 years. How tolerant of listening to a Sponge album do you think you'd be right about now?

Every night my dream's the same,same old city with a different name.

Stop Being an Asshole and Listen to Some Music:Arcade Fire, Neon Bible





Your fearless music blogger feels like shit tonight.

A small problem with no real emotional consequence has spiralled into my feeling like every problem in the world is my responsibility. And I'm coming out of my skin trying to figure out how to fix everything.

What does this have to do with Neon Bible?

In my late teens and early twenties, long before I'd gotten techniques(and pills) to make these times somewhat bearable, music was all I had.

Absurdly large headphones acting as a means of escape.

One of my most-spinned CDs during these times was OK Computer.

Yorke and Co. voiced my fears for myself, my family, etc. with a theatricality that felt like what I wanted to say but could never quite get it. It made me feel understood.

Had I been born five years or so later, I think Neon Bible would be in the running to be my OK Computer.

Stop. I am not talking about how "good" these albums are. Not putting them side by side and comparing.

Apples and oranges.

But they bothv seem to sum up the fears of a generation.

And they both sound great doing it.

If you're my age, give Neon Bible a few listens straight through. It's quite good.

If you're just learning how to really like music, and to buy cigarettes without giggling, you listen, too.

And realize that you're very lucky an album like this came along at the time it did.

To Cure a Weakling Child

Stop Being an Asshole and Listen to Some Music Vol. 13:Aphex Twin, Richard D. James Album





I know, I know. This isn't one of the "important" Aphex Twin albums.

To be honest, I don't remember why I have it.

Been listeningto it for a week, and I just can't think of much to say about it.

It's good. I like listening to it. But I don't feel like I'd ever say "Man, I really want to listen to that."

I've long had this problem with electronic music. I end up paying attention to how well it's crafted, not how good it is as a piece of music.

This album is cool. Both in the sense that it's interesting, and that I can't warm up to it.