Monday, February 7, 2011

Choral Disaster

After much fretting, I've realized that I can't avoid my biases. I'm going to embrace them. I’m supposed to like Bruce Springsteen. I don’t. I hate The New Yorker. I won’t apologize for either.

This is how the Invisible Hand of Andrew works as it favors some albums and dooms others. I'm all for it.

Mountains' "Choral" is well done. From what I can tell, the musicians are good. But it bored me, even on the 3rd listen. It bored me to the point of writing short sentences. Others in this contest might find the music stunning. Or gorgeous. I can't listen actively, there are no songs that I think, "Oh yeah, this is that one at the beginning (or end)," and it doesn't work as background music. It doesn't grab me, but my biases (not necessarily its quality) are at fault. So be it.

The songs from "Natural Disasters" fell neatly into two groups. In the first group were those with a catchy baseline that may still be running through my head (check out “Ruckus”). I have not been able to escape “Come and Get It” all week...I catch myself nodding to it. Though the vocals aren’t a style I usually go for, and I don’t listen to more than a few of the tracks at a time, I keep returning to them.

“Spider to the web” typifies the second group, with the same melody-running-through-my-head tunes but gentler vocals. My decision would already be easy were it not for “New Parade.” My reaction to it can only be described as “Holy crap. Lions!” I’m taking the over on the times I’ve played it at 20.

Dwight wins. The contest was not fair.

4 comments:

  1. post rock is now post death match

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  2. Do Makes are still in it for the moment, Karl.

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  3. I listened to Moutains - Choral when I saw this match up and decided that I would've felt fine losing to this album.

    But I feel better beating it.

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  4. I like Mountains.
    But I like Dwight too.

    ReplyDelete