So based on only the first 2 tracks, I would say that the Decemberists have reached that saturation point, where the songs are thematically and lyrically redundant to prior albums and the instrumentalization just becomes increasingly "accessible." (Even a couple guitar hooks are ones I have heard them use before.) There is a difference between having a signature style and just recycling the parts of you that were great. There's only so much reprocessing that can be done before you go from recycled to biodegradable to atomically unstable.
Way to go, folk-rock Weezer. At least you made more than 2 albums before you started eating your own tail.
I remember being blown away by the Billy Liar single. Which I bought on a whim at a Media Play, based entirely on the sweet cover. I remember the anti-folk instruments with his reedy, overinvolved house-of-cards lyrical constructs, and voraciously hunting down everything of theirs I could get my hands on, and constantly being astounded by his storytelling prowess. Catchy and fascinating and nostalgic and moderately educational. Maybe I'm just being a snooty music nerd (only the first two albums are really good, y'know?) but I defy you to listen to "the King is Dead" stacked up against, say, "Picaresque" and tell me a) that the band is the same, and b) that (conversely) you can't hear lyrical and musical redundancies. I think that sentence may implode from it's own convoluted double-negativism, but my point remains.
(At this point in the review I'm 7 tracks in, so if my ire continues to escalate, bear with me.)
Sounds different -more "accessible" (read: sellout), but what they keep is just more of the same rather than part of the whole. It is pretty catchy and overall enjoyable, but it only sounds -to me- enough like the Decemberists of yore to make me want to listen to one of their real albums.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
some dreams
so i just slept for like 13 hours.
and i don't know if it was the length of sleep, or just that i knew i had the day off today so nothing else was in my head, or that the last thing i did before falling asleep was read patton oswalt's new book, but i had one of those infinite dreams? you know, the one's where your entire sleep is one continuous story?
and, apparently, we all dream every night we just can't remember sometimes, bla bla bla, but i NEVER remember my dreams. so not only was this an awesome dream, but i actually remember significant portions of it. here are a few gems:
I was traveling with a girl - i'm not going to say who, because by the end of it she had been like 5 different girls. but, you know. girl. dream. dreamgirl. and we check in to a hotel, and the room is a suite. and the room is a pirate-themed suite (i'm pretty sure the girl and i were not dating at this point, because there were two bedrooms, but that could have just been my mind illustrating how huge the suite was) and also INSIDE THE SUITE was a super funtimes gameroom which, by dream logic, was the inside of a toys r us. on their giant entertainment center/product display thing were: the complete transformers dvd set -inside an optimus prime head, and a new ninja turtles toy called pop-ups, which i played with for like 15 minutes, which had a turtle with hyper-elongated extremities, but the legs were spring-loaded so that you could put them in a wacky pose and then make them -you got it- pop-up. my extensive product testing revealed that the arms were posable at the elbow and wrist, but that they could also be collapsed into the shell, and that the legs were posable at the knee, because when the leg retracted the shin collapsed into the thigh, where the spring mechanism was. also, if you twisted the foot when collapsed, it would lock the leg. LATER IN THE DREAM i was thinking about the pop-ups REMEMBERING them from previously and knowing it was in a dream, but not knowing i was still in the same dream, and thinking how their heads should collapse into the shell, too, to make them easier to store and travel with.
so the next scene i remember, i think i was dating the girl, now? and we're in a class, together, apparently. and we're on some mission, or expedition, or something, and she has all of these plastic file cases on wheels and i have a cooler for some reason, and we're in this room and we're talking about the class and how i keep missing it and how does it work, coming back? how do i keep up and i say oh well i never really know what's going on, since i've missed so much at this point, so it's all pretty much the same to me. not understanding the 9th class is pretty much the same as not understanding the 3rd class, and how i'm probably just going to drop it, and then -in the dream- i start to panic and freak out because i CAN'T REMEMBER any of my other classes, so i assume i must be failing them, too. and i open the window to start stacking up her rolling wheel things on the train tracks we're going to be walking along, and i say wait, are we already checked in? we're here to stay, right, for the night? and she says um, no but yes. because i'm thinking rolling these plastic file things along the train tracks is going to be a pain in the ass and we should just empty the cooler into the mini fridge and bring THAT along the train tracks, because it will be easier over the railroad ties. then i start looking around the room and THAT's when i remember that we're not in a hotel this time, but in some friend's house, i don't know him, probably she does, but we're meeting the other members of our group here and it's for some school project or something, and i'm looking around at this guy's apartment (suddenly her no but yeah response makes retroactive sense) and he has a vintage ninja turtle (this one is mike) and it makes me remember the raph pop-up at toys r us earlier and how his head should collapse into his shell. and then the other 2 members of our group or team or geological survey or whatever it is arrive and they start to get settled in. girl is very concerned the one easygoing guy has forgotten the books and he's like "relax, they're right here" and pats his bag. and other guy is going down the hall to get drinks (apparently there is still a soda machine left over from when i imagined it was a hotel. also somehow i know that when he says going to get drinks he is referring to the soda machine and not anything else) and the easygoing guy says he doesn't know, whatever. and i say cherry coke, and if they don't have it dr. pepper and if they don't have that orange soda. and then i clarify that's easygoing guy's order, other guy. we (girl and i) already have drinks. presumably from the cooler i was lugging around. apparently easygoing guy and i are such good friends that i know his soda preferences inside and out. after other guy leaves to get sodas, easygoing guy is unloading his backpack and talking about how his printer wasn't working when he went to print out his stuff so check it out, he brought along a whole printer, which as he's pulling it out of the bag, is an ancient dot matrix printer, to go with his ms dos computer he is also pulling out of his bag and i ask why didn't you just store it on a flash drive and print it out at a staples or kinkos near here. you could have googled it before you left and stopped on the way here. and he says oh yeah.
the end
and i don't know if it was the length of sleep, or just that i knew i had the day off today so nothing else was in my head, or that the last thing i did before falling asleep was read patton oswalt's new book, but i had one of those infinite dreams? you know, the one's where your entire sleep is one continuous story?
and, apparently, we all dream every night we just can't remember sometimes, bla bla bla, but i NEVER remember my dreams. so not only was this an awesome dream, but i actually remember significant portions of it. here are a few gems:
I was traveling with a girl - i'm not going to say who, because by the end of it she had been like 5 different girls. but, you know. girl. dream. dreamgirl. and we check in to a hotel, and the room is a suite. and the room is a pirate-themed suite (i'm pretty sure the girl and i were not dating at this point, because there were two bedrooms, but that could have just been my mind illustrating how huge the suite was) and also INSIDE THE SUITE was a super funtimes gameroom which, by dream logic, was the inside of a toys r us. on their giant entertainment center/product display thing were: the complete transformers dvd set -inside an optimus prime head, and a new ninja turtles toy called pop-ups, which i played with for like 15 minutes, which had a turtle with hyper-elongated extremities, but the legs were spring-loaded so that you could put them in a wacky pose and then make them -you got it- pop-up. my extensive product testing revealed that the arms were posable at the elbow and wrist, but that they could also be collapsed into the shell, and that the legs were posable at the knee, because when the leg retracted the shin collapsed into the thigh, where the spring mechanism was. also, if you twisted the foot when collapsed, it would lock the leg. LATER IN THE DREAM i was thinking about the pop-ups REMEMBERING them from previously and knowing it was in a dream, but not knowing i was still in the same dream, and thinking how their heads should collapse into the shell, too, to make them easier to store and travel with.
so the next scene i remember, i think i was dating the girl, now? and we're in a class, together, apparently. and we're on some mission, or expedition, or something, and she has all of these plastic file cases on wheels and i have a cooler for some reason, and we're in this room and we're talking about the class and how i keep missing it and how does it work, coming back? how do i keep up and i say oh well i never really know what's going on, since i've missed so much at this point, so it's all pretty much the same to me. not understanding the 9th class is pretty much the same as not understanding the 3rd class, and how i'm probably just going to drop it, and then -in the dream- i start to panic and freak out because i CAN'T REMEMBER any of my other classes, so i assume i must be failing them, too. and i open the window to start stacking up her rolling wheel things on the train tracks we're going to be walking along, and i say wait, are we already checked in? we're here to stay, right, for the night? and she says um, no but yes. because i'm thinking rolling these plastic file things along the train tracks is going to be a pain in the ass and we should just empty the cooler into the mini fridge and bring THAT along the train tracks, because it will be easier over the railroad ties. then i start looking around the room and THAT's when i remember that we're not in a hotel this time, but in some friend's house, i don't know him, probably she does, but we're meeting the other members of our group here and it's for some school project or something, and i'm looking around at this guy's apartment (suddenly her no but yeah response makes retroactive sense) and he has a vintage ninja turtle (this one is mike) and it makes me remember the raph pop-up at toys r us earlier and how his head should collapse into his shell. and then the other 2 members of our group or team or geological survey or whatever it is arrive and they start to get settled in. girl is very concerned the one easygoing guy has forgotten the books and he's like "relax, they're right here" and pats his bag. and other guy is going down the hall to get drinks (apparently there is still a soda machine left over from when i imagined it was a hotel. also somehow i know that when he says going to get drinks he is referring to the soda machine and not anything else) and the easygoing guy says he doesn't know, whatever. and i say cherry coke, and if they don't have it dr. pepper and if they don't have that orange soda. and then i clarify that's easygoing guy's order, other guy. we (girl and i) already have drinks. presumably from the cooler i was lugging around. apparently easygoing guy and i are such good friends that i know his soda preferences inside and out. after other guy leaves to get sodas, easygoing guy is unloading his backpack and talking about how his printer wasn't working when he went to print out his stuff so check it out, he brought along a whole printer, which as he's pulling it out of the bag, is an ancient dot matrix printer, to go with his ms dos computer he is also pulling out of his bag and i ask why didn't you just store it on a flash drive and print it out at a staples or kinkos near here. you could have googled it before you left and stopped on the way here. and he says oh yeah.
the end
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