Unknown Album - Track 01

So we're getting to that age when we start to pathetically reminisce about college years. I always thought all that "best years of your life" stuff sounded soul-crushingly sad, and I still think anyone who says that must have made even worse decisions than I did after graduation. For me, college memories always involve women interested in me that I never ended up dating. I could write a decently-sized book, and each chapter would be one of these college girls.

Anyway, I had forgotten about one of these girls until this afternoon when I happened upon a CD she burned for me. One of the folders in my mp3 collection was listed as Engine Down but the album was not recognized, so of course I had about 15 unknown tracks. If there's one thing I'm OCD about it's unknown tracks amongst my mp3s. I once had the misfortune of trying to find good music on my sister's ipod, it was like trying to differentiate between different colors of hay in a haystack, nevermind the needle.

"Oh Track 14! I love this song, by Unknown Artist!"

The point is that I had gone to an indie rock concert with this girl, Rose, in downtown Blacksburg. At the time I had been in college for over two years and the most "collegiate" rock I had been listening to was Radiohead. So Rose was, in way, ushering me into the shrouded world of hipster music.

After the show, we were pretty impressed with how well they pulled off the "rock band" look, which says more than enough about how much we liked the songs. Nevertheless, Rose wanted to buy their CDs after the show, but of course I'm too much of a cheapskate to do such a thing. You'd think being in a young struggling band myself would make me want to contribute, if only for solidarity's sake, but that would mean spending precious dollars. Now that I think of it, she was pretty generous to burn me a CD of their stuff, as there was no indication she was any better off than I was financially. Regardless, she did, and moved to New Jersey shortly afterward, thus depriving me of the opportunity to epic fail in trying to take the relationship any further. Probably for the best.

The punchline to all of this is that as I searched for which Engine Down album I had on amazon.com, I couldn't resist checking out some of the reviews to see where this band stood in the eyes of the masses. Here is the gem that I felt should be immortalized in my blog:

Product Description
Imagine it: the Mediterranean circa 1500 B.C., when Crete flourished in culture and life. The famous bull-jumpers performed their dangerous sport in utter bliss with no worries of death as the town square bustled with daily activity. At that time, it seemed like a utopia. And as this image floats by, Engine Down's music is the perfect soundtrack. This is music that transcends the toils of everyday life in our modern age, travelling through time and touching the rawest of human emotions. Explosive bursts of energy, lush guitars along with vibraphone and cello make this release stand alone as a formal digitally encrypted introduction to the innovative musical force known as Engine Down.

Great Albums #1

Inspired by Ebert's regular feature, "Great Movies," I wrote this blog with the same idea in mind--to honor a past work of art that deserves to be well known. It's also a protest against the death of the album brought about by mp3s and the general crappiness of artists everywhere. You could probably argue with my first choice, but I don't see any reason to go with obvious choices like a Beatles album. Plenty of other sites talk about those.

"Take these rings
Stow them safe away
I'll wear them on
another rainy day"
"Cheated Hearts"

Some artists are hard to dismiss even though they haven't done anything so compelling that you really love it. I guess this is what people mean when they say the latest new band "has potential." The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been like that for me ever since I came across the song "Art Star" while doing college radio. The gag was funny enough for me to still remember it and the song way catchier than necessary for any joke. But the intense screaming relegated them to college radio status only, and I had no reason to think I would see the again.

Since I love selling out for the greater good, I was happy to hear "Maps" on the radio and enjoyed it as an excellent pop song with a nice, touching chorus. The rest of that album, Fever to Tell, was hard to dislike, but I can't say it stayed in my CD player (remember those?) for very long. Over the years, I've learned to enjoy "Date with the Night" the most from that album, but the whole thing is marred by my experience of hearing them live and wishing there was a bass player.

I must have listened to Show Your Bones a couple times before I even remembered their Doors-like instrument setup. Unlike The Doors, there is no studio bass player here, at least as far as I can tell. I will feel pretty stupid if I'm wrong but all I hear is a gritty guitar sound with the guitarist playing low when necessary for majestic effect. And if anything, it sets their sound apart from similar bands, "both big and punk," as Robert Christgau put it.

It also lets us focus on very majestic pop choruses without them becoming overbearing and this album has one after another of those. The first track is the single, and is fine, but then the second track is even heavier with a catchier guitar riff and you start to wonder why they chose such a boring single. By the time you get to the amazing centerpiece, "Cheating Hearts" at track 6, there has been no ballad or "boring" songs at all. Every song 'rocks' without the album becoming monotonous.

In fact, when I was still listening to that sixth track over and over, I started skipping over the last few because they start out slow-paced and I figured it was the usual compulsory ballads at the end of an album. When I would listen to the whole album at once, though, I started wondering where the boring songs were? Turns out on this album under 40 minutes they may start slow but they always develop into something interesting.

Plus, not only are they classy enough to keep the album length down to the length of a commute, "Turn Into" is the perfect album finisher. Moderate rock with intriguing, touching lyrics, halfway between upbeat and poignant. While Karen O singing "Can't say why I kept this from ya / My those quiet eyes become ya" helps make the song great, when the drummer comes in the song rescues itself from just another slow song on to end an album. It turns into a song that makes you think about how excellent all the songs were on this album. Maybe the album format will survive after all.

Doubts about Oscar madness

Well it sure has been a while, folks! Much has happened in the world since I last blogged, and almost none of it has anything to do with me. Today, though, I want to talk about the Oscars!

Though I did not watch or even realize they were going on (this weekend was dedicated to watching season one of Dexter in one go, and crawling into fetal position for hours as a result), I just saw on rogerebert.com that Slumdog Millionaire "swept" and took the prize for Best Picture. I saw this movie, and was a little surprised it won in such a way as it has crazy non-Oscar content such as languages other than English, lead characters and situations in a completely different country, and no big sweeping deep meaning for America like Forrest Gump or something.

I checked the list of nominees and am now less surprised as the other nominees don't look amazing--David Fincher winning Best Picture, yeah right. But upon reflection, what Slumdog Millionaire had that was essential was exactly what bothered me when I saw it--a big, happy Hollywood(or in this case Bollywood) ending.

The whole movie is a series of unfortunate events in the life of an Indian kid that probably understates by a good margin the reality of living in a poor country. But overall it feels real and pretty uncompromising about living in the streets--the kid's brother gradually becomes a gangster out of desperation in an entirely believable way. Then all of a sudden, somebody decided it would be cool to win an Oscar, so true love emerges out of nowhere and everyone starts dancing at the end. And yes I realize the terrible song-and-dance number at the end is an homage to Bollywood and the choice of ending is part of that, but the rest of the movie is nothing like that whatsoever and it's very jarring. I walked out feeling nothing where an hour earlier I was feeling involved and stimulated.

A week ago I saw a film entirely on the opposite end of the spectrum, with an ending that adds a huge layer to the entire movie without taking anything away. Plus, it makes complete sense. Maybe the Academy voters had trouble with a sugar-free ending that provokes thought because Doubt was not even nominated for Best Picture. I suppose people will always choose sweetness over tragedy or even mild ambivalence and ambiguity.

I had to push my friend to see Doubt over some silly French romantic comedy--yes, I was with a girl. I know it's better to choose light fare for a casual outing, but I simply don't see the point of denting my tiny student budget for two hours that tell me nothing about life or anything and probably won't even make me laugh. Seems pointless, when there are so many amazing movies I've never seen that I can just download for free.

No, this Meryl Streep flick was not light fare to say the least, but we were never bored and even though the ending closes the story we still talked about it for half an hour afterwards. For me, if a movie gets you to have a real discussion that isn't small talk then it has succeeded.


The point is that movies that win Oscars are like McDonald's. They're the easy way out, or the choice when you have no other choice like on the highway with no other food in sight, but you feel slightly disappointed afterwards. Movies like Slumdog may make you 'feel good' while watching them, but I felt much more content when I got home after Doubt.