It’s been a long time since the beginning of this blog, which is now well into it’s third year. I just realized not too long ago that the 500th post was coming up fast, and wouldn’t you know it, here it is. In a celebratory fashion I thought I would write about ten of the albums that I’ve listened to over the years that have changed the way I listen to music. I have three criteria for this list: These albums must be albums that came out during my lifetime (that means no collections or retrospectives), the albums must be albums that I discovered myself through word of mouth or research and the albums must be albums that I listened to almost religiously. Here is the list in chronological order:
1. Moby – Play (1999)
As I made my way through adolescence I found that I didn’t particularly enjoy the knuckle dragging pyrotechnics of heavy metal gone pop acts like Metallica despite how hard I tried to like it. I must have listened to Reload three times expecting for something magical to overtake me. I was searching for something more intelligent, something with more energy and sound experimentation. Something with soul. I discovered Moby amongst all the techno acts that my brother was playing back to back with the Metallica discography. There was something present in his music, a simplicity and an energy that was satisfying and stimulating. It was Moby who made me realize that creating music wasn’t out of reach for me. I began to look to Moby for guidance both musically and stylistically. Because of him I started listening to Joy Division/New Order. Granted I went to a highschool where hardcore music was the accepted norm, so you can imagine those fights over the CD player. To further compound how awkward of a teenager I was, I even looked to the cover of Play for fashion tips. I established my wardrobe as a collection of dress shirts, dress pants and running shoes. That’s right, I looked to a balding man in his late 30’s to help me create an identity. Moby’s Play album had all the right ingredients for teenagers to like him I, think. He had the pop singles (Porcelain, Southside) and the crazy dance songs (Bodyrock, Machete) and the emotional introspective tunes (Guitar Flute and String, My Weakness, The Sky is Broken, etc.). His songs ran the full gamut of emotion that should be able to soundtrack the mundane disapointments and victories of a teenager’s life. They did for me anyway.
2. Spoon – Girls Can Tell (2001)
I discovered spoon by watching Austin City Limits on PBS. It was a chance encounter since I didn’t even know that Austin City Limits even existed two week before. I was seeing which channels I could get on my 13″ television from my room. Lo’ and behold a music program! The week prior to the airing of the Spoon concert (which was followed by Ben Kweller) David Byrne made an electric appearance on the program, thus beginning my addiction to all things Talking Heads/David Byrne. So I knew the program was on the level. Looking back it made perfect sense that Spoon would play Austin City Limits because they are from Austin Texas. When I was watching Spoon play their songs I noticed that they had crisp clear pop song structure and they incorporated the piano up front! I was so impressed I began searching for their music anywhere I could find it, and the first album that I ran across was “Girls Can Tell”. The album is a hit from beginning to end with such emotionally charged hits as “Everything Hits at Once” and one of my favorite songs ever, “Anything You Want”. In short, Spoon showed me that music could be raw and gutsy with a good riff, some sweet beats and no pyrotechnics or a mullet.
3. The Postal Service – Give Up (2002)
The Postal Service was an important step in the evolution of my musical taste. When the emo explosion hit my high school I was staying as far away from it as I could. I was venturing into New Wave territory, exploring Gary Numan and New Order records. That was my line into the Postal Service, that the electronic element of their music was so prevalent, and the samples were ingenious, swirling strings and atari-ish clinking samples. It distracted me from the overly saccharine and emotional vocals of Ben Gibbard and Jenny Lewis until I could get adjusted to them. This was the first time that I could forge common ground with the emo kids. Who were much more reasonable than the aggro-rock kids at sharing the art-room radio. This great combination and reconfiguration of emotional vocals and experimental electronic production sent me in a whole new direction in my search for new music. I looked for years for other musical artists that sounded “Postal Servicey”. This led me to find the excellent Jimmy Tamborello led projects Figurine and DNTEL, Lali Puna, The Notwist, Plastic Operator, The LK, The Burnside Project and Helicopters. Even though it’s been six years since the Postal Service arrived on the scene, their songs and musical compositions are just as potent. If the little hairs on your arm don’t stand up on the beginning of “Such Great Heights”, you might want to check yourself for a pulse.
4. Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
I discovered Interpol through music researching on Amazon. The bajillion comparisons to Joy Division initially led me to listen to them. Personally I don’t think they sound anything alike at all. Interpol has a much more lush sound, while Joy Division was very raw, even at their most atmospheric. Ranting aside, Interpol reaches out with their sound and just envelopes you. the chiming guitars, insanely nimble drum and bass and the hypnotic vocals of Paul Banks grab you and threaten to never let you go. I often find that whenever I listen to them I end up playing them for hours and hours. The inventiveness of their guitar solos on “Roland” and “The New” are still immensely powerful. Whenever the solos kick in I imagine some kind of gravity inversion where everyone on a New York City street suddenly starts floating or something like that Rhapsody Commercial.What makes them even better is that in between these incredible shows of musicianship their songwriting abilities embed each number into your cranium. To top it off, thier video for “PDA” still stands as one of the best music videos of the last ten years. Furthermore their shoe gazey guitar heroics led me to look for more NYC based bands with similar chops. Like…
5. stellastarr* – stellastarr* (2003)
stellastarr* is a band that formed out of the Pratt Art School in New York City. Being one interested in art and music that caught my attention immediately. I first heard about them when I was researching music on Amazon. The tagline of the review said “Sounds like Interpol Kidnapped David Byrne!” I thought to myself “Interpol? David Byrne? This has got to be good!” I looked up some of their songs and sure enough the combination of sounds in stellastarr* were a mixture to rival peanut butter and chocolate. The album opens up with thick layers of delay and atmosphere, warranting the Interpol comparisons, as well as revealing the vocal talents of the group harmonizing and highlighting the low to high yelps of frontman Shawn Christensen. Although proficient at this haunting style of music, stellastarr*’s real strength is party starting propulsion. Once the firecracker that is the track “Jenny” lights off the raw energy takes over and anyone with eardrums will immediately be hooked on stellastarr*. From there the album drops in pace a bit for “A Million Reason” which is a kickin’ song and is followed by the track that stellastarr* made their name with. The bouncy relentless juggernaut that is “My Coco”. If you haven’t heard this by now, what are you waiting for? There is one more peak of freak out dance party goodness in the volcanic eruption of guitar melee in “Somewhere Across Forever”. The album winds down a bit from there before a second wind of sweaty exuberance ends the album on “Pulp Song”, which finds all three vocalists screaming the album to sleep. If you’ve got to go out, go out with a bang, and stellastarr* does that in a big way on their debut album.
