Sooooo...Music has been problematic for me of late. I am no longer buying music but just renting it and this continues a long occurring trend of “disassociation” from information about the music. It is a long way from the liner notes I grew up with when I could often find everything I wanted to know about the album. Who played on all the tracks, where they were recorded, who produced, who wrote. The lyrics often we all there as well as a “feel” that you were really understanding what the artist was presenting. You were delving deeper. It often provided factoids to pretentiously throw at your ever diminishing group of friends who tired of such “card tricks” but still. I miss them. CD’s provided the same information but in tiny impersonal print and when I started buying from iTunes the separation continued knowing less and less other than artist name and track name...finally arriving at streaming music where other people (or algorithms) curate play lists tailored specifically for the hundreds of thousands of similarly pretentious pieces of shit like myself who still like to listen to new music.
My brain had tired of the game, reading reviews etc… in order to go deeper. I was becoming a grazer. A little of this, a little of that…”oh that is pleasant”. Awful. But it happens. It is just a lot of work to keep up and with digital ALL the music in the world other than Prince and Bob Seger is at your fingertips. But no filter. No trusted sources other than NPR, No Depression and Lefsetz and that ain't much. Rolling Stone long ago became irrelevant. If it was not a major label release Jann Wenner wasn't having his folks review. But last year with Courtney Barnett and Wakahatchie I started to try and list again and as always when you listen, there is a LOT of good music out there and there is even some great music. Although I have my own peculiar tastes I will posit the Band Car Seat Headrest and their latest “Teens of Denial” is great.
The Pitchfork review is worth a read but to give you an idea of the grandeur of the songwriting and the angst:
“Teens of Denial is guitar-driven music filled with book smart lyrics concerned largely with depression, which naturally means that Toledo has been championed in some circles as an “indie rock savior,” whatever that means.”
I mean Pitchfork is too pretentious 90% of the time to gush. How uncool is that? But they nail this one. Will Toledo is the driving force behind it and in this heroin age he writes of denial, dysfunction and a personal dystopia that the sick and the lame (me) need as we thrash around with out brilliant, depressing, mundane, fabulous, perfect, disastrous and disappointing days.
If I’m being honest with myself
I haven’t been honest with myself
-Vincent
Now I have to be honest. I love songwriters who reference Van Gogh. I love clever word play and if you don't listen to lyrics than you cannot appreciate how brilliant this guy is. I always figure when I hear something like this that I am catching a guy who is peaking and it is a brilliant feeling. Most of them never become greats who crank out brilliant music for years. Their personal psychosis and their talent allow them to deliver a shooting star and then they thrash around but god help me I love the rush of feeding on his brilliance.
Every song has trite, clever chestnuts. I remember reading someone talking about alcoholics anonymous and saying the hardest thing is to give yourself up to the cliches like “one day at a time” but equally hard was realizing that those cliches tend to encompass huge and Biblical truths. In his upbeat song “Fill In The Blank” Toledo explains….
I’m so sick of (fill in the blank)
Accomplish more, accomplish nothing
If I were split in two I would just take my fists
So I could beat up the rest of me
You have no right to be depressed
You haven’t tried hard enough to like it
Haven’t seen enough of this world yet
But it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
Well stop your whining, try again
No one wants to cause you pain
They’re just trying to let some air in
But you hold your breath you hold your breath you hold it
Hold my breath I hold my breath I hold it
I could go on reading and quoting his lyrics all day but the bottom line is this a great lyricist who with his band sounds like the great Ray Davies of the Kinks. That is a distinctive voice and I don't think I have ever heard anyone and thought…”Ray Davies”. How cool is that. The atonal thrash that I love so much is Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Junior cacophony of brilliance and sometimes veers to the brilliance of my fave Built to Spill.
Buy this. Rent this. Stream this. Dream this. You need music and you need to be distracted and you need to be reminded that your pain is not suffered alone and that maybe your pain isn't pain at all. Thank you will Toledo. You can bleed for me anytime.
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