[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. This is the first installment in like a month that isn’t themed. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]
Records: Band of Horses’ Everything All the Time (2006) on black, The Ergs!’ The Ben Kweller EP (2002) on black, and Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (1975) on black.
Place of Purchase: BoH came from Repo Records (I think). Ergs! was an eBay find, although it was the first album that got me into the band circa 2006. Wish You Were Here was purchased at defunct comics/records/collectibles shop Legends in Plymouth Meeting.
Thoughts: Band of Horses may go down as the very last band MTV introduced me to. Well, actually it was MTV2’s Subterranean, but that’s close enough. The group went on the show to discuss their album and introduce their new video, a grainy black and white piece set to their extremely awesome song “Funeral.” “Funeral” remains one of the group’s best songs, all rocking and melancholic and what-not. Luckily, the rest of the album holds up too. “The First Song” never fails to pick me up, as does follow-up single “The Great Salt Lake.” Also this one of my favorite albums of the ’00s.
Oh man a theme is slightly emerging: The Ergs!’ The Ben Kweller EP was one of my favorite EPs of the previous decade. Tunes about girls and BK are two things I can get behind. I find it funny that the band broke up two years ago and is still putting out records. It’s even funnier because all of these songs were recorded before their send-off That’s It…Bye. We could be dining on Ergs! tunes for years to come and they’ll all still be older than an EP that dropped in 2008. This paragraph doesn’t have much to do with the EP, but what else can I say at this point?
I’ve been debating about launching a new column for this blog, tentatively titled “Asshole.” It’ll contain semi-ignorant generalizations about bands I don’t care about in the hopes of soliciting a discussion via the comments section. One of the subjects I’m mulling over is Pink Floyd. I tried to get into Floyd in high school, basically because that’s the kind of music my stoner friends gravitated towards. I picked up two of the group’s albums: Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. Dark Side was shit. But Wish You Were Here actually grabbed me. I find this odd since one of my biggest criticisms against the band is that their songs are really repetitive and sound the same, and Wish You Were Here’s songs are literally so, since most of the album consists of the nine movements that make up song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” Yet I find myself drawn to all of the synths and cynicism. I’m generally turned off by songs about how evil the recording industry is, but I’m down with tunes like “Welcome to the Machine” and “Have a Cigar.” Despite my criteria for what music I like, Wish You Were Here is the amazing exception. Any suggestions on where to go next?
2 comments:
Did someone say where to go next with Pink Floyd?
One thing to know about Floyd and "their songs are repetitive" is because Floyd is an album oriented band and they love themes and such, many of their albums will have that feel. You may be right that a lot of Floyd albums sound repetitive, but come on man. You listen to Punk Rock, one of the most repetitive genres ever. What's wrong with repetition? Maybe you just haven't trained your ear to hear the differences in Floyd. Also, Dark Side isn't shit. You just hear those songs too often on the radio to want to hear them in the album format, which is the only way to hear them.
ANYWAY, if you want something a little less repetitive, Meddle may be the album you want. Side A is chock full of delightful tunes and Side B is the side long "Echoes" which rules. Obscurred By Clouds is also more Jelone friendly as it's more succinct tracks and much more varied. If I were you, I'd stray from Animals if you don't like lengthy songs skewering socio-political structures via Animal Farmesque comparisons, but it's an amazing record if you can be down with 3 9+ minute tracks and two short bookends.
Paul - Not gonna lie, I was thinking of you when I floated that question out there. I'll check out Meddle next time I hit up a record store.
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