Friday, September 27, 2013

Thick As Molasses

Something I've always found a little daunting is getting into a very established artist well after the fact. You constantly hear how great somebody is at something and obviously think "Well, if these people, whose opinion I respect, think that this is deserving of my time, then it probably is." Did I just use that many commas? I guess I did. Anyways, the whole scenario I just mentioned is always most relevant to me when people talk about a band/artist endlessly, but I've never listened to them. I guess that Greatest Hits albums are meant to sort of solve this problem, but listening to a greatest hits record never gives you the same sense of excitement and infatuation that comes with falling head over heels in love with a band's full-length.

So the problem I'm presented with is that I want to get into a band, but don't know where the best place to start is. I'm fairly sure I'll like them and usually am at least familiar with at least what they generally sound like, but I just have no idea which album to listen to first and (lightly) stress fear that if I pick the wrong one, then I will never properly have that first "Oh my god, this is the best listening experience I've had in forever! I can't believe how perfect this band is at what they do!" experience*.

Another thing that is relevant when considering what I just said is that semi-often, not all of the time, I have an unpopular opinion about what I think is a band's best album and get really into the records that nobody else likes (See: Against Me! White Crosses, The Stereo No Traffic, The Weakerthans Reconstruction Site^). Please do not take that as me acting self-important, it's just an honest expression of my taste. I'm a bit of a weirdo and nobody I know likes all the same bands as me. BUT, because of this I worry that if I look up reviews and pick the album that is the best reviewed, it might not coincide with the era of the band that wold best suit my taste and therefore not get me as into the band as I could be.

What all this leads to is a sort of haphazard strategy of sometimes looking at reviews and sometimes just going off hearsay and sometimes just leaving it alone when it comes to music.

However, one thing that I think I can claim from all of this is that a little bit of that anticipatory feeling I refer to in the first endnote is preserved and that feeling of me being alone with a collection of songs and just being consumed by them still exists. I know that this is silly of me to say and probably seems a little dumb, but the idea of downloading a giant endless catalogue of songs and systematically and exhaustively going through everything and THEN making a call about is best seems a whole lot more dumb to me.

So, I recently decided that I should probably give The Mountain Goats a chance, given all that I've heard about them*. Whereas many reviews said I should start with Tallahassee or Nine Black Poppies the first proper full-length Zopilote Machine no specific reason. I sure am lucky that I still grasp at adolescent experiences that no longer apply to the music world, because that complete listening experience is something I got as soon as I turned on Zopilote. As soon as the song below started, I knew I was going to be in love with the album and it hit me square in the feelings in the best possible way. It was also one of those weird cases where you hear a release and instantly know that you will be listening to it for a long time.


I feel like a lot of people really like and romanticize the idea of an artist having a lot to say, but not being able to find a band, so they just hastily record themselves with an acoustic guitar to get their message out there and the songs are so powerful that it doesn't matter about the almost complete lack of instrumentation or terrible recording quality. This was the case with Against Me! This has been the case a lot recently, as almost every band dude has set out on a solo career that involves just him and an acoustic guitar. The problem with this is that it almost sucks. Unless you are the absolute best at writing songs, it's going to sound boring. Fortunately for The Mountain Goats, John Darnielle seems to be pretty close to the absolute best at writing songs.

*Wow, remember when I thought that including endnotes would be better then endless sidebars? What a good idea that was Tim! Basically the problem I mentioned above doesn't exist anymore, with downloading. While I am kind of disappointed that the experience of anticipating an album, going out of your way to pick it up and then it surpassing your expectations and just rocking your world doesn't exist anymore, the fact that more or less all of the world's music is readily available to you if you own a computer is astonishing and amazing. Go out and look for some new things to fall in love with. You owe it to yourself.

^I'm not silly, I know that everyone loves The Weakerthans and that everybody loves all of their output, but Recon is my favourite of all their releases and I've found this to be an unpopular opinion among everyone that I've spoken to.

*Greg's line where he mentions The Mountain Goats and how influential they were in The Menzingers putting out the supremely excellent On The Possible Past acoustic demos was especially important in me forming an opinion on the band. I instantly started to think that if The Mountain Goats are anywhere near the emotional rawness of that Menzingers release (they are) then I would love them.

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