Saturday, September 25, 2004
(1:05 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
What I'm listening to lately
There are different kinds of music listeners. Some, like Robb, are musically omnivorous, promiscuously shifting from one style to the next, equally attuned to the entire spectrum running from ultra-indie to just shy of mainstream. Others, like Adam Robinson, are purists, carefully cultivating strong opinions about which widely acclaimed bands (Radiohead, Wilco) they will officially reject -- Nietzscheans for whom music is something to be overcome. Then there are music listeners like me: cautious creatures of habit, seldom innovative or risk-taking, tending to get stuck in ruts for months at a time. At first glance, one might be impressed at my music taste, especially if one looked at my mp3 collection -- until you realize that these are the same things I've been listening to for the last two years.I was the one out of my high school cadre who "discovered" Radiohead by randomly asking for OK Computer for Christmas after reading a reference to it in Rolling Stone's review of R.E.M.'s Up in the grocery store breakroom. Aside from that, I have consistently ripped off Mike Schaefer, then more recently Robb, Jesse, Justin, and Monica in forming my music taste. I just don't have time to do the research it takes to keep up with this shit -- and you'd be surprised how few indie bands swing through and play at Pauly's in Kankakee. (I actually hate driving for more than ten minutes at a time, so I don't take advantage of Chicago even though most stuff is less than an hour away, given the way I drive.) The Chicago radio market is very disappointing in terms of exposing one to innovative music -- the best I get is WXRT (93.1FM), which sometimes plays Coldplay.
With all that in mind, here is what I've been listening to lately:
- Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted. I have managed to keep up with Pavement scholarship, and there seems to be a distinct divide between those for whom Slanted and Enchanted is a favorite and for whom Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is the favorite. Like Robb, I at first found the lo-fi aspects of S&E to be distracting, but after further intensive listening, I'm going to have to come down on the side of the S&E partisans. It is both more consitent than Crooked Rain (which, we must admit, seriously falls off in its second half), and more energetic. The stylistic diversity on S&E also holds up better under repeated listenings than that of, say, Wowee Zowee, which one starts to suspect is made up of three kinds of songs repeated in a cycle (though "Grave Architecture" is surely the greatest triumph of the Middle Pavement, just as "Spit on a Stranger" is the apotheosis of the Late Pavement).
- Godspeed You Black Emperor!, f#a# (at home), Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (on the way home from CTS). The latter is the most enduring musical staple of my life -- for a year and a half now, I have listened to the first disc of that album and part of the second nearly every time I have come home from Chicago. The former, however, is musically superior. That's all I have to say about Godspeed -- it's one of those kinds of bands, like Sigur Rós, where everyone agrees with me that they're good, but, come on, not transcendentally good.
- Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I can understand where Summerteeth partisans are coming from, though, as with Radiohead fans who prefer The Bends, I think they are ultimately incorrect. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot can be very bland in spots, and "Heavy Metal Drummer" is deeply annoying to me. At the same time, three of my favorite songs in the world right now are "I am trying to break your heart," "Jesus, etc.," and most importantly, "Radio cure." I am an American aquarium drinker, damn it! (By the way, if you, like me, tend to put the lyrics to whatever song you're listening to as the subject line for e-mails, make sure not to listen to "I am trying to break your heart" while e-mailing with a girl, because it can take you down roads you don't want to go down.) I listened to A Ghost Is Born a lot when it first came out, but I got really tired of it really fast. The most enduring song for me is "Hummingbird," but the rest of them I can basically do without.
- Gillian Welch, Revival. For Gillian Welch, I'll break my rule of never listening to anything like country. Monica gave me a burned copy of this album a couple months ago, and it was such a refreshing change of pace from my constant diet of aggressively overprocessed rock that it quickly became one of my favorites. The New Yorker did a profile of her a couple weeks ago, not available online (it's in the issue with all the ships in front of the New York City skyline if you happen to be in a library), and it was really fascinating. "Annabelle" is probably the standout track on this album. The only complaint I have is that I wish her music weren't so aggressively sad -- it seems the best she can muster is a feeling of not-total-hopelessness. Still, the performance is always very emotionally charged and convincing.
- The mix CD Adam Robinson made for me. I have no idea of the titles or artists for any of the songs, but it's pretty cool. I especially like the piano-based song where the lyrics start out, "I am New York...." Adam, if you could e-mail me a track listing, that'd be cool.
- The mix of mp3s Robb sent me. I should really burn it on a CD, but I don't have a burner and the networking setup in my house doesn't work very well. My favorites are the songs by Belle and Sebastian (to my infinite discredit, the first song by them I'd ever heard) and Hayden. The Animal Collective song on there is also pretty cool, though I think a big part of that is the brilliant video that Jesse played for me (it's called "Who Could Win a Rabbit" if you want to try to track it down -- probably the best video in the history of videos).
- Pedro the Lion, "Magazine." I just mean that one song, which is basically the only Pedro I've ever listened to. For some reason, it seems very important to listen to it dozens of times in a row. I feel like I'd ruin it if I put it in the context of the album or especially of Pedro's entire catalogue.
