Son Volt - "Medicine Hat" (live)
Eleventh Dream Day - "Bearish On High"
Rhett Miller - "Question"
Les Savy Fav - "Reformat"
Bright Eyes - "Smoke Without Fire"
First of all, I think today's set of randomly shuffled music was pretty great. Eclectic, yet had nice flow; and although there were no "hits," there were a lot of very solid songs. Among them this quiet, folksy song from Bright Eyes (which incidentally includes guest vocals from M Ward, who is also on today's playlist). It so happens my friend Paul, sent me this blog post the other day: The Ten Most Annoying Singers. On the list is (wait for it)... Conor Oberst, aka Bright Eyes. Ridiculous. Celine Dion, Scott Stapp, Michael Bolton - - fine, but Oberst? He does own a sort of sensitive guy whine, but it doesn't sound like "he's swimming back to the womb for protection from this hard, harsh world" as the blogger writes. I have other issues with Conor, just not his singing. Namely how inconsistent his music is. I thought (still think) his breakthrough album I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning was pretty great. Whereas the simultaneously released Digital Ash In A Digital Urn was a travesty. The latter was his electronic album, and it showed why Conor should really stick to the roots rock sound. (Incidentally, my wife got into I'm Wide Awake and actually went to see him in concert - - without me. The result? A set almost exclusively of songs of Digital Ash, with not a single song she recognized, that was also extremely loud and, she thought, damaged the hearing of our then unborn child.) But even when he's doing what I think he does best, it is still not always a success. The follow-up to I'm Wide Awake, Cassadaga, was also rootsy, but not nearly as good. And if you go back and listen to some of his older records they are extremely uneven. So I think he has talent (and, yes, a decent voice), but he's clearly not a young prodigy who will be the savior of music, as many headlines suggested just a few years ago.
Thelonious Monk - "Misterioso"
Johnny Cash - "Breaking Bread"
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - "Pangea"
Is there a better name for a band? And SSLYBY is no novelty act, they are a solid indie pop group. So where did the name come from? When he was 17 years old, drummer Philip Dickey coined the name because, as he says, "there were 2 girls who would watch us practice and I wanted to make them laugh." Nice.
The Walkmen - "All My Life"
M Ward - "From A Pirate Radio Sermon, 1989"
Just a good excuse to post this (with Yo La Tengo, awesome):
The Beatles - "What Goes On"
Death Cab For Cutie - "Tiny Vessels"
And then I got to work.
Today's Stats
Total songs listened to: 12
Total minutes of music (approx.): 47
Song with the most previous plays: "Pangea" - 6
Miscellaneous factoid about my trip to work today: Sun shining = good. People warmed by sun and packed into subway cars = bad.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I read in an interview once that Oberst did that shaky thing with his voice b/c he couldn't hit all the notes. He seems to have gotten that annoying habit out of the way as evidenced on recent records.
"Smoke without Fire" had to be one of my favorite songs of last year. It's so haunting and M Ward's performance is so good.
Hey, SSLYBY is from Misery! Apparently, they didn't get a good review in Pitchfork.
Dude, Conor Oberst is the most annoying singer ever. Grow a pair of testicles!
Just kidding about that last part. I thought it would be funny to see it written out -- and I was right.
I once bought an Okkervil River CD that was labeled "Bright Eyes for boys".
Is that the acoustic version of "Medicine Hat" from the Son Volt best-of? Good one if it is..
Post a Comment