Okkervil River - The Stage Names

This was what truly moved me back in 2007 – the album that I still recall as my utmost favorite from the entire last decade. It’s especially significant for a tremendous amount of personal reasons but beyond that, it’s definitely one of the most gripping albums I’ve ever come across. With the imagery of the above hand in mind, it’s like the bitter struggle we battle through in life and about wanting more and more. I saw Okkervil River at Austin City Limits in 2008 and it was a surreal experience, one that will always be one of my fondest memories.

One of the major themes of the album is the band’s love for film and television. So in asking for a hand to take hold of the scene, the band requests having full control of their lives; to be able to manipulate fate, or whatever it is, to our own benefit. Will Sheff sings about how, “She rises up like a yawn, grips my heart like a claw, splits apart like a jaw, like an eye” and how we’d all love to just take control. There’s peace in the song, in realizing that we can longingly dream and want a “Love that is innocent, of that old cynical, covetous, cancerous vibe…and a beauty that annihilates all life.” I mean, that couldn't possibly be a bad thing could it?


I love how through the first eight songs you go follow this winding story that always seems to lead to some kind of broken soul’s despair. After everything is said and done, on “John Allyn Smith Sails” all anyone wants to do is go home. “And I hear the others all whisper, ‘Come home.’ I'm sorry to go, I loved you all so…but this is the worst trip I've ever been on.” Like their previous albums, the characters in Okkervil River’s music aren’t always the most cunning and dashing heroes but instead, battered and beaten lovers that never seem to get their way. Eventually the closure comes with sincere endearment, through the interpolation of the great Beach Boys cover: “I've folded my heart in my head and I wanna go home.” I could always relate to something as emotionally captivating as The Stage Names and call me an emotional, heart-on-the-sleeve bum but damn it, when it’s this good, who cares? – Bryan

Radiohead – Amnesiac

The thing about Radiohead is that no matter which album you turn to, they’re all so incredibly rich and diverse. We could argue over which one is the best, over which one was truly their breakthrough one, and other super-pretentious subjects but I don’t think you could really say one is more diverse than the other. I remember falling in love with their ability at re-creating themselves with every new album and it’s still arguably, their strongest trait: musicianship. Listening to so much Björk has gotten me back into Radiohead and it’s found me really digging deep; it’s especially fun when you can dig back into the music you first fell in love with and find even more gems.

So I’m probably going really left-field with this choice but “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” is, in many ways, a microcosm of what Amnesiac is about. The album that really is Kid A Pt. 2 (they should’ve just made one massively superb album of 16 tracks of the best of each): it’s stunning, divisive and impeccable. I love how loud it is and after the shining melody on “Pyramid Song,” it’s a brisk change of pace. But still, it comes back to Thom Yorke’s haunting voice, singing about doors. As much as some like to hate, there is always a point to Radiohead’s lyrics and they’re all amazing. Here he sings about the doors opening in our lives but he warns, “There are doors that let you in and out but never open…but they are trapdoors…that you can’t come back from.” Then they end it all with a smashing amount of killer noise? Sweet.


And I remember getting a burned copy of this album as a gift the summer before my junior year and I wanted to immediately throw it away because I hated the girl that gave it to me. Plus, Kid A was the one that opened everything, so I wasn’t entirely stoked to hear something else just a year later. But I sucked on to the last two songs of the album like no others before it. “Like Spinning Plates” drive and outpour of reverb, atmospherics and those menacing keyboards was some kind of magic. Some kind of euphoria that exploded into your stream (“My body’s floating down the muddy river”) of consciousness and then, after an intense set of four minutes, you get the painstakingly gorgeousness of “Life in a Glasshouse.” I mean, are you serious? First of all, it starts with that open cymbal stomp and piano clank and it’s an evident style shift from the darkness of before - it’s jazzy, there’s clarinet, trumpet and trombone, and the dynamics are sublime. My descriptions are becoming worse and worse I fear but I completely get the gist of saying, “Well, of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat” but we must be honest at the same time, “Only, only, only…if someone is listening in.” – Bryan

Björk – Vespertine

And still, even though I was entirely ignorant to the strength there was here, I wish I could’ve recognized much sooner just how special Björk really is. One of the many things I love about music is how dynamic it really is and how people can go through different sets of passions for it. I think I like Björk a lot but it’s always great to talk to an even bigger fan so as to find a different view on it and also, to be humbled. And now I've recently gotten into a swoon for her music that has merely intensified with every passing listen. I heard Vespertine is her best one; emotions are often behind the best of the bests and she was definitely passionate during these sessions. It’s still fascinating reading her lyrics and falling for them, over and over: “This time I’m going to keep me all to myself (She loves him, she loves him) and he makes me want to hand myself over.”

Listening to “Aurora” now, its utter beauty continues to amaze. Her music has always been neatly categorized as something in the electronic field but Björk – like many other great artists – is too complicated to fit into any one category. Initially I hear the gorgeous choral arrangement, the harp in the background ("I wish to melt into you") and through the jagged beats and fuzz behind her, her voice always seems to rule soundwaves. Here’s an old video (can’t believe this is almost ten years old now) of her singing the song just a few months after its release:


I don’t even think that to this day, she gets the full praise she probably deserves. I mean, just please watch this amazing video to “Cocoon” and tell me how it’s not beautiful. And besides that, her story and scope is enormous on this one: she’s entirely unabashed, open and she’s sexually spectral. Sometimes I just sit and listen to her voice on headphones and catch all of the intricacies she’s pouring out. It also happens to have some of the most romantic words of the past decade, this block especially:

"He slides inside. Half awake, half asleep.
We faint back into sleephood…
When I wake up, the second time, in his arms
Gorgeousness…
He's still inside me."

- Bryan

Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

A lot of my posts are on-the-fly, almost random listenings that I just happen to play at the time. Often, I’ll go grab a record from the other room and blast it and write up a few words on it. But always – no matter how spontaneous it is – I try to make it somewhat decent. This album was the one that I guess you could say really made Of Montreal. They had already developed a strong repertoire before it but Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? really cemented them as a band to be reckoned with. And why not, it was everything you could have hoped for in the early cold months of 2007.

You see, this was well before Radiohead’s album and before all the other monster albums of 2007. And although it came out in January, it continued to be remembered as one of the best albums of the year – listening to it now, it’s still spectacular. I was always partial to “Cato as a Pun” for its ever-so-blunt lyrics. Hissing Fauna… was a break-up album – a kiss-off to Kevin Barnes’ then-ex – and this song hit home. “And don’t say that I have changed…because, man, of course I have.” And in the end you just want to be left alone, “is that too much to ask?”


I would almost feel entirely mis-informed and almost, wrong, if I didn’t post about “The Past is a Grotesque Animal.” I know it’s probably the safe pick but it’s also that pick for a reason. A torrid, over-ten-minutes-long song that details a broken relationship that is nothing but despair and bitterness. “Throw it all in my face, I don’t care. Let’s just have some fun, let’s tear the shit apart” – the entire song is filled with one-liners. My personal and on-line signature was always, “things could be different but they’re not,” and eventually, he would repeat the line for good measure. It’s really one of the finest songs of the last decade and one of the most memorable, for me, for variously personal reasons (“I’m all, all unraveled. No matter where we are, we’re always touching by underground wires”) but it’s absolutely worth it, too. – Bryan

Björk – Post

A noticeable hater from the beginning, my love for Björk took a long time to flourish. Although I was generally encircled by fans of her music and she was time and again recommended to me, I in no way took a liking to any of her music. She was someone that I had to work through and it really wasn’t until 2004’s Medulla, that I finally began to appreciate her music and now, well, I love everything she’s done (minus Volta). So I was a late bloomer to what’s probably my favorite of hers, Post. Plus, somebody really cool reminded me about her and well, that’s where we’re at.

I love how “It’s Oh So Quiet” flexes back and forth in just about every aspect: loud to quiet in seconds, duple to triple meter switch on a dime, blending the jazz and rock she is fusing with the juxtaposition of strings vs. horns, her sudden jolts in the fashion of her screeching yells. And yet, for some people, those same aspects could be the kind of stuff that turns them away from such beauty. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder and Björk is beautiful to me, here is the official video to this song, directed by Spike Jonze:


Later on in the album she gets intensely into the sci-fi space of the spectrum. If we ever wanted someone to communicate aliens, I’d always assume it be Björk to represent us. It’s about the indifference and ‘in limbo’ feeling we have when trying to decipher our feelings. Some consider it games and others live their lives this way but in the end, we all want love in our lives. I love how she sings, “As much as I definitely enjoy solitude, I wouldn’t mind, perhaps, spending a little time with you…sometimes, sometimes” and then later demanding, “Where’s that love you promised me?” Ouch…so anyway, I think this music is awesome, hope you do, too. – Bryan

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (Pt. 3)

One of the very first things that really sucked me in to this album was its diversity. I don’t think that any of the songs sound like any of the other songs on the album – I hope that makes sense. But on a song by song level, they all sound so dissimilar from each other and yet, they paint this cohesively illustrious picture. Here's a couple more to check out. (if anyone is actually listening to this stuff, please let me know.)

This one is “Modern Man,” which is, essentially, about living in a world where everything is losing meaning, where nothing seems to make sense and where you just kind of sit there, stagnant, against the current. He sings about breaking the mirror and changing the cycle and how it all “Makes me [him] feel like, like something don't feel right.” The connections are everywhere, with the best lines coming when he’s offering the youngsters advice: “Maybe when you're older you will understand why you don't feel right…why you can't sleep at night now.”


I made a copy of this album for my mom and she’s been avidly listening to it. She’s even called me a few different times while in her car and I hear various different moments playing in the background. She mentioned a song about living in a city with no children and then said, “But the one after it, the one with that awesome sound in the beginning? Well, I love that one so much.” For me, it’s even something that she can listen to it but love a song off it? Here is that song, “Half Light I,” singing about “hiding the ocean in a shell,” and I won’t ruin it by saying too much, expect that it’s absolutely gorgeous: - Bryan

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

I’m definitely not a metal guy and I definitely have a hard time finding music that I actually enjoy from that genre. But I’ve always been a firm believer in finding the ‘classics’ – the so-called ‘greatest albums of all time’ – and finding a way to love them, if not appreciate them at least. So when I finally came across an overpriced vinyl copy of this album – which is in much worse condition than I had originally thought – I immediately jumped on it. Still not a metal fan, or even much of an overall Ozzy fan but Paranoid most definitely changed the game in heavy rock/metal music and this album, is still a great one.

One of the things I liked about it when I first heard it years back was how there were these massive hits and then other blissful, not-that-well-known, doozies. “Black Caravan” always stood out for its heady, Pink Floyd-like transcendence. After the crazy opener and before the explosive big-namer, the band took a break for a breezy, Latin-infused, almost jazzy experience with this song. I like the YouTube comment: “It doesn’t even sound like Ozzy” but maybe and especially in this scenario, diversity was key.


And regardless of where your tastes lie, these were some awesome musicians back in their days. Bill Ward’s soloing on “Rat Salad” is still a genuine showcase of skillful musicianship; instead of blasting our ears off for the whole album Ward eases in and out of his solos with sublime results, while Tony Iommi riffs in between. The latter’s solo work is downright marvelous on the aforementioned song, too. – Bryan