As a sort of challenge to myself, and as a way to dig back into some gold mines, I decided to list and write a bit about my favorite songs by my favorite band, Okkervil River. Without further ado, the list:
30. “No Key, No Plan”
Black Sheep Boy Appendix
Perhaps Okkervil River’s most straight-forward song and certainly one of their most accessible, “No Key, No Plan” is the Appendix counterpart to “Black”, following the some driving drum/bass/keyboard setup but with more light-hearted lyrics that fit more into the ‘musician’s biography’ themes of The Stage Names. With lines like “You float up high and it isn’t a sin/and there isn’t a hell where we’ll be sent/it’s only now” the song is the closest Okkervil has ever come to an anthem and is has the stadium-sized keyboard lines to match. It’s sort of an anomaly in the Black Sheep Boy saga because of its carefree and pretty straight-forward lyrics that make it stand out as one spot of joy in an otherwise tragic story.
29. “Listening to Otis Redding At Home During Christmas Time”
Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See
A tragically overlooked song in Okkervil River’s catalogue, “Otis Redding” stands out as startling compared to the rest of the bands debut. It really fits in better with Black Sheep Boy’s material, starting of like many of Okkervil’s tunes, especially those on BSB, with just Will Sheff and his guitar but eventually building up to full band overlaid with a full string section. It does for the most part, however, lack the dark and antiquated tone of BSB, instead it has a homey quality that reminds of the fact that it is a Christmas song. Well almost, it’s more a forlorn love song at its heart, set at Christmastime.
28. “The Latest Toughs”
Black Sheep Boy
Jonathon Meiburg’s contributions to Okkervil River are often forgotten behind Will Sheff’s lyrics, compositions, and vocals but every once in a while his brilliant contributions become unavoidable for the listener to notice. On “The Latest Toughs” his background chants of “We were hiding from the sun/it was burning everyone” really steals the show. Well, for some of the time anyways. In other parts Sheff’s overlay of “We were hiding from the sun” after a massive buildup inspires chills as well as his lyrics for the entire song. They’re bitter, angry, dissonant, even for Sheff: “Ask for proof, because if you're dying to be led they'll lead you up the hill in chains to their popular refrains until your slaughter's been arranged, my little lamb, and it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands.”
27. “Dead Faces”
Down the River of Golden Dreams
“Dead Faces” is such a simple, lovely little song from an album comprised of simple lovely, little folk songs and bizarre, cathartic experimental folk songs. There’s not much mystery in the lyrics, as is the case with many of Will Sheff’s song, but it’s the beauty and poetry in the lines that give it is overpowering shine “Embarcadero Train Station's empty, and I just cannot believe how long it takes to go all the way home through the city. And everyone's looking - at least, it's nice to believe that everyone's looking.” The one feature of the song, musically, about the song that impossible not to notice is the clattering buildup of instruments to the stirring accordion melody, a high point in an album full of them.
26. “Last Love Song For Now”
Black Sheep Boy Appendix
Although Okkervil River isn’t especially known for their ecstatic jams, they’ve actually have a few of them, and “Last Love Song For Now” is, if not the best overall song, is at least the best jam they’ve written. From the very first moment you can feel the energy flowing that never doesn’t let up for five straight minutes. From a pounding rhythm and handclaps to rumbling guitar and blaring trumpet the band is in rip-roaring form, weaving a vibrant and intense cloth of excitement. Will Sheff’s vocals are aggressive but not entirely devoid of melody and his lyrics are full of cryptic imagery from the very start: “Love, take my sword from the slaughter. Melt it down into vapor, and my armor, too. I hear hot blood flap and flutter from your temple to shoulder, and all through you.” Which I all well and good, but in a love song? Only Will Sheff could make it work.
25. “The President’s Dead”
Overboard & Down EP/The President’s Dead 7”
“The President’s Dead” is one of Okkervil River’s most accessible songs and in some ways it’s a novelty for them. It’s really more reminiscent 70s folk-pop than the rest of the bands work. The first two-thirds of the song are driven entirely by Will Sheff’s lyrics, since the music isn’t anything more than an acoustic guitar. The lyrics are a nonstop stream-of-consciousness detailing the reactions of a common man after hearing the news of a hypothetical President’s assassination. The song isn’t political at all but instead a commentary on America’s obsession with disasters and traged: “In the media tent where they spin and they slant, they just foam at the mouth and they champ at the bit. Those bloodsuckers can wait. Tell those vultures to cool it.” As well as our tendency to blow people out of proportion after they die tragically: “the early obits say he was a good man - you can’t argue with that. Not today you can’t. Not now you can't”. The whole song is a decidedly clever and relevant look at one of America’s worst faults coming from a band whose work is rarely outwardly focused, making that much more meaningful.
24. “Red”
Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See
“Red is my favorite color, red like your mother's eyes after awhile of crying about how you don't love her” and so began my love affair with Okkervil River. This is the first song I ever heard by them and the first song on their first real album; it’s also one of their most unique songs. At first it may not seem all that special but the structure of the song and the impersonal lyrics when compared with the rest of the bands catalogue shows it off as surprisingly different. There is a depth to this song that resounds the more you analyze the lyrics, in under four minutes it tells more several tragic stories all apparently told to the same person. The most tragic of these is made distressfully apparent with the lines like “I took a dancer home, she felt so alone. We stayed up all night in the kitchen doing my dishes, on and on until the dawn. She said ‘I know it's easy to have me, but I have seen some things that I can't even tell to my family pictures,’” that stands up with the saddest things Sheff has written, but I think it gets lost in the shuffle because people tend to see it as not quite as sad due to the fact that it isn’t told from a first person perspective and therefore loses some emotion in the delivery.
23. “The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion”
Down the River of Golden Dreams
There is a distinct feel to all of Golden Dreams songs, perhaps it’s because it’s the band’s only self-produced album, perhaps it was just what suited the songs best, I don’t know but whatever it is it clearly sets the songs from all those in the bands catalogue. What makes the songs work so well is that they are for the most part pretty simple, and instead of layering on the instruments and production, they let Will Sheff’s vocals and lyrics take center stage, while guitars, accordion, and keyboards simply give them a background. Sheff’s vocals are rather unique on this track; they stretch much thinner melodically. He stays singing when the song builds in intensity whereas in other songs he would scream or yell. It’s an interesting thing because it fits the lyrics well, in the song he’s a troubled man, but not and insane one like in “For Real” or “Black” and the vocals help to convey this.
22. “A Girl in Port”
The Stage Names
A live version of “A Girl in Port” was the first taste I got of the lyrical quality of The Stage Names and it’s safe to say that it’s one of Sheff’s storytelling triumphs. It really perfectly demonstrates his ability to tell a story clearly but incredibly artistically. It reminds me of the American Southern Gothic writers who wrote stories about boring things like living alone on an island, buy did it so brilliantly and beautifully that you could help but be entranced by it. Musically, the song sounds distinctly like the songs on Overboard & Down, comprised of acoustic, drums, bass, but really given flair by trumpet, piano, pedal steel, and even some of the bands signature mandolin. The song never gets crowded though, they all fit together perfectly paint of perfect background for Sheff’s lyrics.
21. “For Real (There’s Nothing Quite Like the Blinding Light)”
Black Sheep Boy
If you had to pick one song to describe what makes Okkervil River great; what their heart and soul is, it would have to be “For Real”. The psychopathic lyrics, the insanely contrasting vocals, the clattering drums, the crashing guitars, the spine-tingling guitar solo, all of it are what Okkervil River is all about. You might say that they don’t have any other songs like it, and that’s true, but it’s not how the song sounds that makes it that, it’s what the song represents. The songs demonstrates how the band pushes the envelope both lyrically and musically and struggle to do something actually different without losing their hold on what makes music great. The song opens with “Some nights I thirst for real blood, for real knives, for real cries. And then the flash of steel from real guns in real life really fills my mind. Then I really miss what really did exist when I held your throat so tight”, lines that hold up against some of the most disturbing ever written, and they’re make more so by Will Sheff’s screaming vocals and the bands spastic musical renderings, all of which come together and turn the song into a nightmare circus of violence and insanity.
20. “You’re Untied Again”
Sleep and Wake-Up Songs
The double punch of “You’re Untied Again” and “And I Have Seen the World of Dreams” are really the heart and soul of Sleep and Wake-Up Songs. The drifts in a sea of hallucinatory images and descriptions and the latter confirms the fact that it’s really all a dream. Lines like “And to some silent bird, I sang ‘have you heard that icicles hang from your feet?’ What passed as fine, you'll think back on that sometime; when in the darkness of the mine a few last diamonds lined your beam” convey this dream-like state but display it as somewhat real, like a phantasmagoric mixture of dreams and real things, something of an oddity in a mostly distressingly real Okkervil River catalogue.
19. “The War Criminal Rises and Speaks”
Down the River of Golden Dreams
Will Sheff’s lyrics could never be called light or shallow, he deals with some serious subjects and sometimes in some disturbing ways. “The War Criminal Rises and Speaks” is no exception, it’s graphic descriptions of a murder of an entire village of women and children is enough to shock anyone and it clearly takes the center stage of this epic song, but it’s really a common man’s feelings that are at the center of the song. In the way that many of Okkervil River’s song do, the music in the song is pretty relaxed and laidback while Sheff’s vocals and lyrics are clearly on the manic side. It’s a contrast that the band has used many times to great affect and this is no exception, it makes Sheff seem even crazier since the song itself isn’t at all.
18. “Just Give Me Time”
Sleep and Wake-Up Songs
Will Sheff has a rarely used but very clear talent for writing beautiful acoustic guitar melodies (see “In a Radio Song” and “A Leaf” among others) and “Just Give Me Time” is perhaps his best. The whole song is just him and his guitar serenading a lover and pleading for, well, time; but it’s not the lyrics that make this song stand out. Listen to how Sheff’s vocal melodies and the guitar melodies coincide and overlap before twisting around one another perfectly. There’s something unnerving in how perfectly it works, just listen.
17. “Westfall”
Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See
“Westfall” is probably Okkervil River’s best known song and one they’ve played and very nearly ever one of their hundreds of sets. It’s the song that everyone is yelling for during song breaks at live performances. It’s the song that people listen to over and over and that makes them fall in love with the band. But why? I think the reason is how Will Sheff and company relay primal urges in a way that we see and dark and beautiful but also deep down we know is evil. It allows us to taste what it is like to sink into manic evilness. Take for example how Sheff breaks into joyful “la la la’s” after describing the characters murder of an innocent that he killed for no reason. This isn’t a crime of passion, it has no motive, it’s just killing for killings sake. But see how he it’s also clearly stated that it’s evil later on, that’s where our sinking minds get redemption and we don’t feel horrible after listening to it.
16. “Plus Ones”
The Stage Names
By the time The Stage Names was being writen, Will Sheff had already be hailed as one of this generation’s best songwriters and with “Plus Ones” he’s not only solidified as the very best but is taunting the others with his skill. Really, only a genius would be able to reference so many old songs with numbers in them (plus one, of course) and still weave them into a coherent song. The joy in this is the songwriting and Sheff’s delivery, the music is pretty standard for Okkervil River and it does a good job of staying out of the way of the brilliant lyrics and Sheff’s perfect enunciation. The only way to really understand this song is to listen to it.
15. “A Leaf”
Julia Doiron/Okkervil River Split EP
“A Leaf” is an interesting little song tucked away on a little known and listen to EP. Musically it bears a resemblance to Golden Dreams in the way that it is rather simple but still beautifully composed. Only Will Sheff could follow a violent murder-ballad like “Omie Wise” with even more gore (“Jeremy Lee - at an ice-creamery on the evening of October 10 - lost 55 dollars and 70 cents, was shot twice in the chest and again in the head.”) and never sound like he’s forcing anything. The lyrics remind me of “The President’s Dead” in the way that they are outwardly focused and about the media vultures: “So lower your cameras and switch off the spot. You shouldn't be proud of the footage you got, because there won't be an end to the similar shots that have happened, are happening, and can't be prevented from endlessly happening again.” It’s interesting to hear Sheff, whose lyrics are introverted 99% of the time pleading with people to stop killing each other. It makes one wonder just how much of his seemingly endless genius we’ve yet to see.
14. “Black Sheep Boy #4”
Black Sheep Boy Appendix
Although I’d never call Okkervil River country, they certainly flirt with it on occasions and never more obviously or as it happens, as effectively, as on “Black Sheep Boy #4”. The song is one of Will Sheff’s dense masterpieces giving us more of the Tim Hardin based hero/villain Black Sheep Boy. It also brings back one of Sheff’s favorite motifs, the mirror and drives home the Appendix’s theme of destroying and rebuilding. In some ways it’s a song for die-hard fans, because no matter how appealing the pedal steel and Sheff’s harmonica solo is, much of the greatness of the song comes from following the story and finding all the hidden messages, references, and analogies. Good thing for me I’m a die-hard fan.
13. “John Allyn Smith Sails”
The Stage Names
I’ve always loved black comedy and clever witticisms so it’s no surprise that “John Allyn Smith Sails” is one of my favorite Okkervil River songs. It’s really just Will Sheff playing around; this is perhaps him at his most playful. Being playful about a suicide may seem horrible but that’s black comedy, now isn’t it? The song is about John Berryman’s life and death. The first half of the song is pretty dark, references to his hatred of students and fading talent among other things are mentioned and lines like “From a bridge on Washington Avenue, the year of 1972 broke my bones and skull, and it was memorable” shows the approach Sheff takes on the story. The second half of the song is a version of the West Indian folk song “Sloop John B” which fits so perfectly into Berryman’s story (his father committed suicide: “I hear my father fall, and I hear my mother call, and I hear the others all whispering, come home”, he felt his best work was done: “I'm full in my heart and my head and I want to go home” etc.) and it’s used so wickedly in the context of the song and story that you can’t help but laugh at it, because the song is really one huge morbid joke.
12. “A Glow”
Black Sheep Boy
Putting a slow-burning, elegant little song like “A Glow” to close an album following the massive seeming album peak “So Come Back, I Am Waiting” is a gutsy call on Okkervil River’s part. First, it runs the danger of pushing the album into the “too long” stage and second it puts the song in a position to be either forgotten or ending the album on a sour note following what would be a perfect epic album closer. But thankfully, the band knew what they were doing and they chose one of their strongest songs to fill the part, and a perfect ending to a perfect album. The strings, the little solos, the meandering, mid-temp vocals are all perfectly suited as a reflectory track for the listen to enjoy while musing on the album. It brings everything together and brings it all to close, as a sort of lyrical and musical epilogue.
11. “Okkervil River Song”
Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See
Okkervil River’s “theme song” is, fittingly, much like the band itself: it’s full of mystery, symbolism, folky instruments, everything that has become a staple for the band for years. No matter how far they traverse from their roots, they never really can escape it. The song is full of reflection, “I stared into the water, and the water it stared back” longing, “I searched and stared but only the river stared back” escapism “With your hand inside my pocket, you whispered in my ear ‘We have come from ugliness to find some refuge here. With this bracken for a blanket, where these limbs stick out like bones, we have found a place where we can be alone’” depravity of spirit “They dreamed of nothing and got nothing in return” and awkward love “And I tried to tell you, as I kissed your hard dry lips, all the things I dreamed about. I touched your bone white hips.” all themes and ideas that come up often in the bands later work.
10. “(Shannon Wilsey On The) Starry Stairs”
The Stage Names B-Side
Of all Okkervil River’s sad and depressing songs, this one has to be the most so. Sure it’s not as immediately striking as some others, but this is a true story of a sad and depraved life that ended before the coming of redemption, and so it’s got the edge on all the others. The song is, as Will Sheff put it, a sequel to “Savannah Smiles” and a cousin to “John Allyn Smith Sails”. The former because it’s about the same person, porn star Shannon Wilsey, but set after; and the latter because both culminate in suicide. Unlike “John Allyn Smith Sails” however, the song focuses less on the actual suicide and more on the reasons why; the depravity of a lifestyle she can’t escape, the shame, all of it is made painfully clear by Sheff with lines like “I kept a warm safe place in my core, before I lost it” and “I'm alive but a different kind of life than the way I used to be”. Heartbreaking, and true.
9. “Blanket and Crib”
Down the River of Golden Dreams
Will Sheff is well known for his aggressive, manic vocal deliveries and “Blanket and Crib” is one of his best performances. It’s a pretty short song, under two minutes, and it takes all of 30 seconds before Sheff is spewing forth insults and hollering about sharpening knives and other typical fare (typical for him anyways). The music is suitably crazy, with tinkling keyboard and acoustic are interrupted by aggressive rhythms, jagged organ, and triumphant horns. By the end of the song is an off-tilted mess of instruments, but it’s a beautiful mess to be sure. The song isn’t Sheff’s absolute best songwriting but it works so perfect with the music that it makes the whole song amazing.
8. “The Next Four Months”
For Real (There’s Nothing Quite Like the Blinding Light)
I one hundred percent understand why “The Next Four Months” was left off Black Sheep Boy. It wouldn’t have suited the album at all, I can’t think of any place it could have been inserted without messing with the album entirely. No, the band definitely made the right decision to not use it, but that it wouldn’t have worked on Black Sheep Boy doesn’t the fact that it’s one of the best songs the band has ever recorded, both musically and lyrically. The song is about two prescription drug addicts, their schemes to acquire it (“Maybe we could break your ankle, clean and unsuspiciously. An ER trip, a doctor's slip, and you could share your pills with me.”), and how their addictions ran and ruined their lives (“We're driving down the interstate, you're feeling great, you scratch your wrist, and we pretend your kids, your husband, all you left does not exist.” and “I know I’m weak, I don't deny we'll see our trial sometime soon”). Sheff uses many little tricks in his songs, some subtle, some not so, but this song probably has the best, as the song progresses the dosages in the chorus goes up (2000, 3000, 4000 milligrams etc) and as it goes up, the characters lives start to get a lot worse. It’s something that’s easy to miss but it clearly shows how drugs escalate from simple little experiments to full blown addiction that can ruin your life.
7. “So Come Back, I Am Waiting (Black Sheep Boy #2)”
Black Sheep Boy
This isn’t really any easy song to write about, it’s so huge, so grand, and so dense in its themes, lyrics, and arrangements that it would really take a verse by verse, note by note description to do it justice. And since the song is eight minutes long I don’t think such a thing would be possible, so I leave you with a short listeners guide to the song. 1. Don’t listen to the song out of order! At least not for the first time, it’s so much more powerful in its place. 2. Listen to all the instruments and how they work with lyrics, pay special attention to the piano line, it’s outstanding. 3. Read the lyrics, there some of Sheff’s best certainly his most intelligent (he uses the words “magisterial” and rhymes “bacterium” and “abecedarian”, yeah I had to look that last one up too). 4. Finally, go somewhere you love, thing about sad things, and listen to the last 1:40 of the song, and cry. I did.
6. “Seas Too Far to Reach”
Down the River of Golden Dreams
“Seas Too Far to Reach” is one of those songs that you listen to when you’re really optimistic and happy. You tap your feet to it, bob your head, and maybe even do a shimmy or something. The point is that it’s a happy song, something rare in Okkervil’s catalogue. Keys, organs, and mandolin all bounce about the song while Sheff sings joyfully about driving up to the country, being with friends, sleeping, and love. He even breaks out into an entirely not sinister “la la” session. Some of Sheff’s best poetry is to be found here, some of his best metaphors: “And with your body next to me, its sleepy sighing sounds like waves upon a sea too far to reach. But I'll gather up my men and try to sail on it again, and we'll walk and quietly talk all through the country of your skin, made up of pieces of the places that you've dreamed and that you've been.” And you can’t get much better than that.
5. “Another Radio Song”
Black Sheep Boy Appendix
A friend of mine recently told me that he loved Black Sheep Boy but he couldn’t get into the Appendix and I told him that he’ll get into it as soon as he moves on from caring about the individual songs to caring about the entire album and its story. “Another Radio Song” is loaded with so many of Sheff’s motifs that there is nearly one every other line. Gardens, mirrors, cedar, things living in radios, missing children, mountains, and curtains are all mentioned in many of Sheff’s songs, especially those pertaining to the Black Sheep Boy songs. Near the end of the song Sheff unleashes a fiery barrage of lines, delivered with hoarse, rapid fire vocals that chill you to the bone, like all Sheff’s writing they are more poetry than lyrics and just as good read as heard “Bless this tiny alley; we have fallen, from tall buildings we have fallen through the air into a garden sweetly smelling of the softest sleeping flowers (now they sit under the sidewalk, now they're waiting for the shining of some future sun to show us all that brings you beauty and all that gives you pleasure)” musically the band mixes an aggressive rhythm section with a subtle touches like strings and piano. A perfect mirror of the songs lyrics verses their delivery.
4. “Black”
Black Sheep Boy
“Black” continues Will Sheff’s never-ending series of songs about horrible things and horrible people. The song is a tale of the after effects of abuse to a woman, told from the perspective of the woman’s future lover and set to an aggressive drum, bass, and keyboard arrangement. The lyrics make clear how much hate the narrator has for the abuser (“But if I could tear his throat, and spill his blood between my jaws, and erase his name for good, don't you know that I would? Don't you realize that I wouldn't pause, that I would cut him down with my claws if I could have somehow never let that happen?”) and one might think that these feelings would endear him to the abused, but by the end of the song the narrator is pounding on the door of the his love (whether figuratively or literally I don’t know) and begging for her to let him, but even in his pleas he states the very reason she’s shutting up him out, his obsession with something that she’d rather forget and move on from: “Oh Cynda Moore, don't lose me now, let me help you out. Though I know that I can't help anyhow, when I watch you I'm proud. When I tell you twice before that you should wreck Oh Cynda Moore, don't lose me now, let me help you out. Though I know that I can't help anyhow, when I watch you I'm proud. When I tell you twice before that you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours, you want no part of his life anymore. And it'll never be the way it was before, but I wish that you would let me through that door. Let me through that door, baby.
3. “Love to a Monster”
Overboard and Down EP/The Stage Names B-Side
Speaking of horrible people, “Love to a Monster” is about a guy who is probably the biggest jerk in the world. (Before we dive into the song, it’s important to note that although Will Sheff often writes in the first person, very few if any of his songs are autobiographical, he is a storyteller, so any thoughts you have that he might be psychotic or misogynistic should be quelled) The narrator apparently starts writing a letter to an ex-lover that is so full of bitterness and hate, I was shocked when I first heard it. First towards his ex-lover: “Yeah, so here I go, just exploding the hope we'll be speaking some day, years from now, seeking friendship and understanding. Yeah, I hope you get angry, and hurt, and have the hardest of landings. And I hope your new man thinks of me when he sees what a number I did on you.” Then after the letter is over, towards other women: “I grow tired of this song. Turn my eyes to the blonde in the bleachers. She's a lovely young creature. I think she's seeking adventure. I think she's ready to see that the world isn't so sweet or so tender. I won't break her, just bend her, and make her into my new ringer for you.” And finally towards the rest of the world: “But I'll fight off the spring; I don't want lovely things, I don't want the earth new.” Ouch.
2. “A Stone”
Black Sheep Boy
Anything I write would be insignificant compared to this: “And I think I believe that, if stones could dream, they'd dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know. And when that queen's daughter came of age, I think she'd be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago.” I think that sums up why the song is awesome…
1. “A King and a Queen”
Black Sheep Boy
Where does one begin to describe his favorite song of all time? Within fifteen second of hearing it for the first time I loved it and by the end of the song I was so awestruck that I had to go back and listen to it again. And again and again and again… So much so that I shamefully ignored the rest of the album for a while because I only wanted to listen to this song. The guitar line, the divine trumpet, the perfect mandolin touches, Will Sheff’s crooning, the lyrics… every single part of this song is perfect. The song is the best overall lyrically and musical the Sheff has ever writing. The instruments create an appropriate amount of melodrama mixed with a fairy tale quality that matches the lyrics perfectly. I don’t think there’s much more I can say about the song. It’s a perfect song 9 times out of ten when I hear I tear up. It’s the epitome of beautiful and helpless love: “But the best thing for you would be queen, so be queen. You're all that I need. Though I know that it never can be, I'd be pleased to post your decrees, to fall at your knees, to name all your streets and to sit down and weep when you're carried back through them and set down to sleep, and to lie by your side for sublime centuries (until we crumble to dust when we're crushed by a single sunbeam.)” I’m listening to it now and tearing up, such is the power of music that makes it the best art form and one of God’s greatest gifts to man.
Every thing about Menomena seems so fun; their name, their album titles (I Am the Fun Blame Monster is an anagram of "The First Menomena Album") and their upbeat drum n' bass driven pop all exude a sunshiny experience, that's a gross over simplification of the band. Menomena's music has a strong trip-hop influence in it's construction of beats and bass, but non of the sampling or turntablisms of other trip-hop artists. Instead they fill their songs with various instruments, sometimes it's pianos, sometimes it's saxophone,guitars, keyboards, or various combinations of them. The album is strong the whole way through, but it's the nine-minute closer "The Monkey's Back" that brings it all together, mixing things you've heard throughout the album with funk and jazz, a sort of chilled out New Orleans trip-hop-pop track that sums up the whole albums eclectic fun.
With their first two albums, This Adultery is Ripe and March On Electric Children!, The Blood Brothers produced some solid, well executed hardcore punk, but with Burn Piano Island, Burn the Bros push themselves so beyond any of their contemporaries and and predecessors it's not even funny. The album signals a major shift for the band, and from this point on they continue to push the envelope and be way ahead of the curve. Their are two things I absolutely love about this album, the lyrics and how much groove the whole thing has. The Bros are at their best when their being weird, sarcastic, and critical: "Happy birthday gelatins smearing bruises on your chin. There's cake but no mouth, conch but no sound, glossy skeletons boyfriends but no friends." Each song has it's own little touch the set it apart from the rest, whether it be a funk bassline, piano, or angular rhythms, each song is it's own piece, something neigh unbelievable for a punk album.
It may seem unbelievable but I think Aaron Weiss became too perfect a songwriter on this album. There's just so much here, so much substance, so much detail and depth, so many references that one easily becomes overwhelmed by even the first song. This album is a couple years old and I still haven't gotten completely through all its meanings. The albums is really about changes; lyrically it changes to a much more overt deep spirituality, musically the band has shifted from the cold, dark sounds of Catch For Us the Foxes to a warmer, almost summer album, although the albums got it's share of thunderstorms like any summer does. Other notable changes are the addition of a better bassist, giving the band already exceptionally tight sound a boost and the use of guests, including Psalters, Anathallo's horn section, and emo founding father Jeremy Enigk, although mwY outshines all of them easily.
Pop is a tricky thing, no matter how catchy the beat or how awesome the hook is, nine times out of ten it's substancless, both musically and lyrically. Goldfrapp is that one in ten, and they've never sounded better than on Supernature. The album is like Black Cherry taken to the max, overloaded beats and polished up with a glistening sheen. Alison Goldfrapp's vocals are a pitch perfect and as silky as ever while Will Gregory's beats and synths are creative and strong without being inaccessible in any way. The best part of the album is how they mix in other styles all under the production and unified sound, glam and electroclash abound and can be found in almost every track while other styles as differing as new wave and cabaret pop up here and there. Supernature isn't everybody's favorite album, and I think it's because it challenges the listeners view of pop, but does it so subtly that it's easy to miss what exactly it is, if you're not on your game.
of Montreal have a pretty large discography [8 proper albums, 7 compilations albums, 5 EPs, 12 singles, ok this is just overkill, anyways...] so picking my favorite seems like it would be a difficult task; could it be the early lo-fi acoustic of the first albums? The dancey rock of Sunlandic Twins? The twisted disco-pop of Hissing Fauna? Nope, Satanic Panic in the Attic is easily my favorite of Montreal album, from first to last it exudes such a undeniable charm of perfect indie pop. Kevin Barnes, who essentially made the entire album himself, is really on for the whole album, his lyrics are as witty as ever and his arrangements are pure genius in some spots. Take "Will You Come and Fetch Me" for an example, Barnes keeps the rhythm section going, but goes hyperactive with the other parts, jumping from string section, to pop, to glockenspiel, to harpsichord, within seconds of each other. This shouldn't really surprising though, since Barnes has always been ADD, he just turned it up a notch this time, if that's possible.
Sometimes I wonder is Dan Bejar knows what the heck he's writing, or if he just writes at random. As a lyricist he owes a lot to the stream-of-consciousness, rapid delivery of Bob Dylan, but Dylan is relatively decipherable, whereas Bejar's lyrics seem like they have a really deep meaning, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what they are. They sure are fun to listen to though. Musically, the band loses a lot of their Pavement-worshiping distortion and get a more laid back, David Bowie playing the blues sound, though the aforementioned Pavement-isms are still there, to be sure. Combined the lyrics and music are perfectly suited to Bejar's bizarre but enchanting voice. In fact everything on this album just plain works, there's nothing tried that does not succeed, and that's the best description of the album I can give.
Yo La Tengo have always been a really diverse band, and each of their albums has had a variety of sounds to it, but on their eleventh(!) full length album, they take this facet to a ridicules extreme. The opening track "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind" is a nearly eleven minute noise jam that's mostly guitar solos while the very next track, "Beanbag Chair" is driving horn and piano pop song, which is in turn followed by a quiet chamber pop track, then a 60 motown sounding tune, then a dark love song, then male/female vocal duel over bluesy pop, then a psychedelic organ stomp, and that's just the first half of the album. The aforementioned opening track and the closing song "The Story of Yo La Tango" (not a typo) bookend the album perfectly, and the latter is one of the best songs the band has ever written, it's another epic length noisy jam, but it's much less abrasive and more tuneful than the former. The whole album is a sonic adventure spanning decades, styles, and moods.
To me, it's a testament to the talent of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter that a group as goofy as Daft Punk ever became popular, let alone the huge status they have now. I mean let's face it, the name, the logo, the robot helmets, and even in some cases the music doesn't exactly scream hipness. Perhaps that makes them endearing, I don't know, all I do know is that Discovery, and in fact most of Daft Punk's music, freakin' grooves. They know how to make dance music unlike any other current electronic group to the point that I don't think there's a single person in the world who could listen to one of their songs and not like it. I mean, how can you not fall in love with world's greatest vocoder solo, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"? Or the band that actually put a vocoder solo in their songs? I rest my case.
I've always viewed Jónsi Birgisson's voice more as another instrument then as conventional lead vocals. When he's singing in a not made up language, I still have no idea what he's saying, but that's no different from the hundreds of other non-English language artists, except that Birgisson has a voice unlike any other. He uses his extremely high range as a magnificent solo instrument that can float above the band's arrangements, which they can make joyous, such as "Hoppípolla", dark and organic like "Sé lest". It's often said that the band's sound reflects the landscapes of their home country of Iceland, and never is it more so than on "Sæglópur", which builds with piano and drums until it finally explodes with Birgisson's bowed guitar that sounds exactly like what I think it would sound like inside a volcano. But that's the kind of trascendent quality all of the band's work has.
The words "experimental jazz" might bring dread into the hearts of some, but rest assured, this isn't anything remotely like Kenny G jamming with The Mars Volta, since I think that would bring about violent death for anyone who listened to it. No, Triosk isn't smooth meets pretension, it's instead and album that has it's roots, and owes much of it's sound to the great jazz trios but also throws a large amount of samples and beats into the mix. There is a strong representation of electronics in this album, but unless you were looking for it specifically, you wouldn't notice it wasn't natural to the song. Everything that's electronic on the album is completely organic sounding and is best described as the band itself says like "throwing broken glass into a piano".
