It feels like it's been forever since I've updated, but I think it's only been a week. Every time I've sat down to write something it's felt like there's been fifteen other things I should be working on (and usually there actually have been about twelve).
Anyway, some thoughts from my morning commute:
1. Real Estate's new album Days could not have come out at a better time. Smart marketing for it to appear just as the weather took a turn for the cooler (and it's pretty cold here today: there was frost this morning on my walk to the bus stop)--I would not want to listen to this album in the summer, but in the fall it sounds just right. In a lot of ways, Days seems like it could fit into the category Nitsuh Abebe describes in this article on "indie" as the new "adult contemporary:" it's fairly slick and well-crafted (that most damning of adjectives); I could play it for my parents and I doubt they'd find much fault in it; it vaguely sounds like a lot of other music that people would describe as "pleasant." There are certainly enough potential ways for Real Estate to seem dull: they really only trade in two or three emotions (nostalgia, yearning, resignation) and only deliver those emotions in about two styles (jangle-y and breezy). Hell, when they change key it's a pretty big deal. I can't help but love the band, though. They remind me of early R.E.M. (to pick a famous example--"It's Real" wouldn't sound out of place on Reckoning [in fact, I often pair it with "So. Central Rain" in my mind for some reason]) and The Postage Stamps (to use a not-so-famous [read: not famous at all] example; check out "The Ocean" and tell me it wouldn't fit right in). The high point on Days for me, and at this point it's a strong contender for the high point in their career, is "Municipality:" despite seeming so laidback and straightforward, the song captures a kind of vaguely haunted and slightly wistful vibe that I'm a sucker for. There really isn't the sense of mystery that made R.E.M.'s early stuff so fascinating, but there's a delightfully human aspect to Real Estate that no amount of increased studio polish can quite mask. I don't think Days is going to be my pick for album of the year (it wouldn't seem right somehow--it's just so unassuming), but until winter hits it's the perfect music for the weather.
2. "Ray of Light," a song I've long had a bizarre fascination with (I'm convinced that there's a way to use the video to introduce the concept of postmodernism to students), sounds (and looks) like "Big Time Sensuality" (either version) with the fun and the sensuality taken out. I know it's supposed to feel and sound sexy, and it does a great job at providing a reasonable facsimile of a sexy dance track, but it's because the song tells me it's supposed to feel and sound that way (as opposed to say, this, which to me does a great job of striving for the same thing as "Ray of Light" but also of being incredibly fun thanks to those neon synths in the chorus) that it ends being neither, really. It also helps that both Bjork and Karen O are not "good" dancers--the seeming transcendence that their dancing communicates at key moments seems much more genuine than Madonna's dancing throughout "Ray of Light." All that being said, it's a great song.
And another thought from later in the day:
3. Julie London's "Cry Me a River," which came on in the barbershop as I was getting my hair cut, isn't too far from something that could've been on Third. I wouldn't be shocked to hear it coming out of either "Small" or "Hunter," and even after "The Rip" it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. Actually, the more that I think about it, a cover of this song might result in something that fits nicely between Portishead and Third--I'd at least be more interested in it than "Chase the Tear."
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