Top 5, 2k5
I'm really swamped with studying right now. I have a paper about the Tower of Babel (more interesting than you think), and I have to read some Church History tonight, and somewhere in there figure out how to watch Game 7 of the Finals. So in lieu of a real post, I'll give you some links and another Top 5.
Quotes from Dr. John Hannah, my Church History professor from one of my classmates, Will Musings.
I literally was brought to tears yesterday when he talked about the process he went through to get his two PhDs. My favorite quote of his today: Hurry only leads to anxiety, and people who rush to arrive on time just get more time to wonder why they hurried for nothing.
Brooklyn Vegan's Top 5 of 2005My Top 5 of 2005, up to this point.
5. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
4. M. Ward - Transistor Radio
3. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
2. Cheyenne - I Am Haunted, I Am Alive
1. Spoon - Gimmie Fiction
You can buy these from Apple (except Cheyenne, which is at
Insound) by following the links from "Album is the Old Ipod."
Let me know your Top 5 favorites released so far in 2005 in the comments, people.
Road Album Top 5: #1
Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
Bruce Springsteen called the opening snare hit of "Like A Rolling Stone," the first track on Hwy 61, as a "snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind." It's more than that. It sounds like the closing of a car door on the roadtrip of a lifetime.
As albums go,
Highway 61 Revisited is one of the best ever. Rolling Stone named it
#4 of all time. Of course, though, you know that an album with "Highway" in the title has the road all over it.
The beats, like on
Automatic for the People are not consistently upbeat, and the subject matter isn't necessarily all about the road. Put this on in the car, however, and you'll see it's brilliance.
"If you're looking to get silly/You better go back to from where you came/'Cause the cops don't need you/And, man, they expect the same" - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.
There are some classics on this album: "Like a Rolling Stone," "Queen Jane Approximately," etc. The genius of Highway 61 isn't necessarily in the great songs, but in how ground breaking the album is as a whole. The single, "Rolling Stone," tops in at over 6 minutes, at a time when singles
never topped 3 minutes. The lyrics are all over the place: stream-of-consciousness, expertly crafted, messy, poetic, the kitchen sink.
Buy the album. Give it a few listens. It may not hit you over the head at first, but give it time and let Bob take you on the road with him.
"But the joke was on me/There was nobody even there to bluff/
I'm going back to New York City/I do believe I've had enough"
Oh, and by the way:
"Game: Blouses"
Road Album Top 5: #2 & Road Journal
Today was the marathon stretch of the 5 day road trip. So much so that I finished day five during day four.
In reality, this may have been one of the most ideal roadtrips I've ever done. Contributing factors:
1. I was in a caravan, but alone in the car. I pick all my own music, I talk on the phone when I want, but I still get face-to-face human interaction when needed.
2. Great weather. Important when your AC doesn't work.
3. One hour of sleep. Everything seems more dramatic when I'm flying on less than 3 hrs.
I'm not going to recap all the music I listened to all day (even though I could), but one cross section of my journey corresponds with my #2 All-Time Road Album:
Automatic for the People - R.E.M.
I have literally listened to this album every single time I traveled up 287 from Denton to Colorado through Amarillo from my first youth group ski trip in 8th grade until now. In fact, during high school I had a rule that I would
only listen to this album on the road between Colorado and Denton, and only at night. This album
defines this drive for me, and by that virtue alone, it deserves high billing in the Road Album Top 5. Not to mention the fact that it's a sublime album, start to finish, and is
the ultimate Night Driving album (
see RAT5#4) in my book.
After only one hour of sleep, I was in the mood for introspection. I was praying, I was thinking, a CD of every song I could fit from M. Ward's
Transistor and
Transfiguration of Vincent had looped a second time by mile 140. The pump was primed for contemplation. Into the CD player went
Automatic for the People.
"What if I ride/What if you walk/What if I drive to get off/baby" Michael Stipe muses on "Drive", song 1. Driving song, Roadtrip, Simple. I don't know if it was the sleep deprivation, but by the time "Everybody Hurts" was in full swing, I was seeing a connection between this album and the stretch of the road I was traveling, specifically, Chilicothe, TX to Quanah, TX - a mystical road. "No, no, no/You're not alone."
Mile 173.2: I pass a sign for Wisdom Rd. I passed over Wanderer's Creek three miles ago. "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" plays, and I see a sign for a landmark, "medicine Mound" - a inexplicable protruding hill, nine miles away. I held a crush's hand on the 9th grade ski trip bus, listening to this organ sing its melody. Gamble Rd. is next.
At Mile 200, "Nightswimming" reminds me of one of the last nights of the summer after high school graduation, where the moon was perfect, the weather was muggy, and we ignored all curfews and swam under the moon.
"Watch the road and memorize/This life that pass before my eyes/Nothing is going my way" Mile 205. As the final note of the final song plays, I turn my blinker on, and I pull into the McDonald's. It's 9:45am. McGriddles, check. Bathroom break #1, check.
Road Album Top 5: #3
Adam Carroll - Lookin' Out the Screen DoorAdam Carroll is a singer/songwriter living in San Marcos, TX. His songs are in the vein of artists like Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, and Butch Hancock. While he isn't widely known outside of Central Texas, his new album,
Far Away Blues seems poised to put him on a larger stage in the next year.
Lookin' Out the Screen Door, Carroll's debut, isn't a typical road album, with road beats throughout and themes of travel or distance weaving through the album. Instead, Carroll paints pictures of characters and stories in various locations throughout Texas and Louisiana. Instead of the beat of an interstate highway,
Screen Door travels on well-worn country roads, making stops at every bar and barbecue along the way, visiting themes of friendship and love, sin and redemption, and loss and regret along the road.
This is not to say that
Screen Door doesn't have it's moments where the road has a front seat in a song or two.
Racecar Joe follows an old racecar driver through a stream-of-consciousness jaunt through the travels of his twilight years.
There's restless dreams
There's oil fires
There's broken drill bits
And blown out tires
There's all-nude stripjoints
It's a holy road
He's seen 'em all
Racecar JoeIn
Amanda's Song, Carroll muses,
I'm driving and I'm dreaming
Stopping at the same old place
Thinking 'bout the way that your dirty blonde hair
Never hides your pretty face...
See neon making magic
From the inside of a bar
See a statue of the Virgin
From the dashboard of a carThe last three songs form somewhat of a road trilogy that deserve consideration in their own right in the Road Song Pantheon.
Girl With the Dirty Hair includes conversations with locals in a Galveston bar with both the stillness of a lonely bar and the beat of a pickup hitting the road.
If I had me some sense,
I'd be five years gone
Everyone I used to know
They just moved on...
I thought to myself
I'd have did it all by now
I got stuck in Galveston somehow
She's twisting and she's turning
She won't leave me alone
But the girl with the dirty hair said she'd drive me home.
The album closes with
Rosemary's Song that begins and ends
"On the world's last steam train/lookin' out the window/watchin' all the life go by..."All in all, this album has been a welcome companion in times when the traveling wears thin, and I'm just ready to be home with people I know and love again.
Stereogum dared to ask the question,
"What's the Worst CD You Ever Bought?" today.
It made me wonder what your worst CD purchase is.
I took one of the commenter's suggestions that there have to be ground rules:
1. You have to have actually
bought the CD. You can't claim other people's bad taste as your own, you freeloader!
2. The age of consent for pop music purchases: 15. I bought some real junk in Jr. High. We all did. I want to know what you bought when you actually had your wits about you.
I'll go first. My worst CD purchase was probably
"The Sign" by Ace of Base
Your turn.
Road Album Top 5: #4
David Gray - White LadderFor #4 on the all-time Road Album list, I decided to go with a proven great in an underappreciated sub-genre of Road Albums: Night Driving Albums. During the more reflective quiet of a midnight drive through nowhere, you need an album that adds to the mood. The heavy beat of the white lines turns into a soft, almost inaudible, pulse.
You know the story: In 1998, after three albums that met as much critical acclaim as commercial indifference, David Gray retreated into his home with the last of his record contract money to record what became
White Ladder. The album reflects the isolation of the recording process, and on a dark night, you can let the opening beat of "Please Forgive Me" carry you to your destination. By the time the second version* of "Babylon" comes on, I'm in deep concentration.
When this album had just come out, one of my roommates and I would go drive "the Loop" around Austin(Mopac to 2222 to 360 to Bee Caves and back to Mopac) and listen to
White Ladder at midnight. I have too many memories associated with this album to list.
Here's a version of
"Please Forgive Me" Live in San Francisco 5/22/01.
*Usually, I find it a weak move to include two versions of the same song on an album. Wilco does it on Being There (Outta Sight/Outta Mind) and Summer Teeth (A Shot in the Arm (Alternate Take) - incorrectly labeled "In A Future Age (Alternate Take)), The Flaming Lips do it on The Soft Bulletin (Waiting for a Superman). Actually, that's a list of some pretty strong albums, though. I would have more of a problem with it on White Ladder if the rest of the album weren't so strong and "Babylon II" wasn't so much better than the first version.
Blogging on the Road
Tomorrow, I'm leaving Austin for 6 weeks for Ft. Collins, CO. Looking forward to sustained human contact again, but I'm not looking forward to a few things:
1. Altitude adjustments. Drink that Water!
2. Leaving my girlfriend in Austin, when she
just moved here.
3. Four words: 800 miles, no a.c.
I tried to get the a.c. fixed on the hybrid today, and nobody would touch it. Boo.
But! I've got lots of time on the road to absorb some music (
the Hold Steady, some
Daniel Johnston,
Death from Above 1979, etc.) and enjoy some great old favorites.
Since I'm going to be in four different places in five days, I'm going to try to blog for the next five days and list my Top 5 Road Albums. The Road Album cannot be a mix CD. The Road Album (TRA) cannot be a pre-produced compilation (like, say,
American Eagle's Rockin Roadtrip Summer '03 Mix). There is a possible exception for Greatest Hits collections. TRA
can however, be an album intentionally written with travel in mind, which means that it can (but doesn't have to be) named after a road (like Route 66, or something... that's foreshadowing, btw). This also means that albums including the themes of air flight or train travel or sea passage are not disqualified from this list.
That said, here's #5, from Austin, the beginning of the journey:
The Joshua Tree by U2.
What can I say that hasn't already been said? This album cannot be topped in U2's discography, and with good reason. Irish boys fall in love with the American West, and write songs rich with the spirit of the desert and the pulse of the open road.
The album's opener, "Where the Streets Have no Name," opens with the Edge's infamous guitar riff that moves into the song like an oncoming car appearing out of a mirage. All of a sudden, the beat is there, and the album never lets up again. For my money, I don't know of a better starting four than Joshua Tree. "Streets Have No Name" leads off, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" on deck, "With or Without You" gets to advance a runner into scoring position, and "Bullet the Blue Sky" at cleanup. I defy you to name a better lineup on a Road Album.
...and we're only at #5!
Come on Feel the Illinoise!
"Steven A. Douglas was a great debater/But Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator"
I'm telling you right now, go ahead and
pre-order the new Sufjan Stevens album, Illinois. You'll thank me later. It's $10 from the
Asthmatic Kitty website, and they'll go ahead and ship it to you immediately, even though it won't be officially released until July 5.
Just in case you wanted a preview,
"Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step Mother" (follow the link to download).
Also, in NBA Finals news:"What did the five fingers say to the face?...
Slap!"
But seriously, I hate the Spurs.
Actually worth linking
Randy's Blog:
Attack of the Blog!I like when the 60 year old Chinese lady almost touches "Grand Central Station".
Brace Yourself
I had a long roadtrip yesterday from Austin to Baton Rouge. No A.C. in the Hybrid right now, but one modern convenience I like to avail myself of in lieu of refrigerated air is a burned CD or two. This time I burned the two newest albums I was excited about getting last week:
X&Y by Coldplay, and (I know I'm a little behind on this, but...)
Cold Roses by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals.
Coldplay's good. I really am into it. The music snob in me didn't even want to like it, but I just do. Live with it.
However, Cold Roses didn't sit well with me at all. At first listen I honestly thought it was a little vanilla. Some are saying this is his best ever. Strong words. For my money, I think that
Heartbreaker/Demolition/Gold would be one of the Top 10 albums in music history if you took the high points and left off the junk (like the whole second half of
Gold).
I might kick myself for saying this later, but you know what they say about first impressions...
My Roommate Might Be in Coldplay
Think he'll get me tickets sometime?
The Phœnix Suns
A little something you might not know about the Phœnix suns:
In addition to being the less despicable team playing in the Western Conference finals, they are the only team in the NBA with a Greek diphthong in their home city name.
Go Phœnix! Beat San Æntonio!
Update: Lœsers.
On a related note
Apparently, Coldplay's new single, "Speed of Sound" debuted on the British charts at #2 behind a Ringtone. Read about it
here.
Uh... ok.
Jibberish
I've been spending lots of time at home lately. I've been reading for my summer classes, especially Church History.
I love the stories of the early church. Guys back then really took Jesus seriously, and it showed in their community - loving and holy. Community with such single-mindedness seems very foreign now. We seem to care a lot more about "being ourselves" than being holy. What if "being ourselves" and being holy were the same thing?
With a lot of alone time, I've had good diversions: leaks of the new coldplay (
stream,
torrent, and
slow,
annoying download),
the new-ish Ryan Adams, and the new
White Stripes.
Also, I pass the silence with various outbursts of Jibberish-speak to myself. I wish it weren't true. I have three basic Jibberish languages:
1.) Fake Spanish-sounding Jibberish
2.) Fake Japanese-sounding Jibberish
3.) General exclamitory Jibberish
I wanted to post an mp3 of "The Longer I Lay Here" by Pedro the Lion. If you have it, listen to it while you're reading this.
