I really like listening to lots of different kinds of music. I have my tastes, of course, but I'm always on the lookout for recommendations in genres that I might not traditionally listen to.
My listening style is...holistic. I usually need to listen to an album three or four times before I actually start to enjoy it. A few more times after that, if it's genuinely good, I'll start to
love it. I like to listen to albums as a piece, assuming (sometimes wrongly) that there must be some artistic decision behind the specific order and pace of the songs. And when I find an album I love, I can listen to it over and over again, sometimes for weeks on end. That can be very tiring for those around me, and I do eventually get tired of it myself, but that's just how I like to listen.
This approach leaves me very susceptible to
earworms, which forms a feedback loop that keeps me listening for as long as I do. To give you some insight into the music that's formed the soundtrack for my life this past year, here are my
TOP TEN ALBUMS SCOTT LISTENED TO IN 2013-2014. Note that this list has nothing to do with the release date for the album, although a few
were, in fact, released in the past year. It's just a rundown of stuff that's been in my head. In no meaningful order, I'll present the first five today, and the second five tomorrow. Read, listen, and understand.
1. THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS - CHALLENGERS
I'm something of a
former fan of the NPs. I don't care much for their first album, but the next three represent something of a crescendo of awesomeness to me. The most recent two, I find to be mostly forgettable poppy nonsense, but something about
Challengers hits a sweet spot between meditative and catchy that grabs me and just won't let go. The opening track, My Rights Versus Yours, seizes your attention and sets you down a
very specific path. Admittedly, much of the album is hushed and brooding, but it breaks out of that in Myriad Harbour, a magical fusion of the lyric, rhythmic, and melodic. And it finishes on the highest of high notes; Go Places, Mutiny, I Promise You, and Adventures in Solitude start playing the album out in powerfully sad acrimony until The Spirit of Giving steps in to put you to bed with the soothing hum of understanding and forgiveness. It's an enchanting album.
Even Todd thinks so, but he and I rarely disagree. It's the first New Pornographers album I stopped listening to, and that makes it the best.
2. BLACK PRAIRIE - FORTUNE
"What got you into bluegrass?" the wife asked me when she heard me listening to Black Prairie. I gave her a funny look and told her that I'm
not into bluegrass -- I'm into The Decemberists, and BP is at least 80% the same people. Although it gets off to a kind of droning, repetitive start with The 84, the album soon picks up pace; the highs are high, their lows are low, and they prove they don't always need Colin Meloy's earnest whine to carry forth the same emotionally intensity. Perhaps the lyrics aren't as whimsical and thematically impactful as The Decemberists, but comparing Black Prairie to their progenitor band is a fool's errand. There's a unique sound here, and it's kind of like a fiddle with wings. It's fast, it swoops, it soars, and though it isn't perfect, you cannot help but hear it. Be Good.
3. THE SPINTO BAND - BIBA!
The Spinto Band have long been one of my favorite groups; I've seen them perform three or four times, and they always give me the feeling of a band that punches above their weight; I can't, for the life of me, understand how such an excellent group hasn't yet made it big. That's why I was really happy to see them doing a soundtrack for a movie, even if it was a mostly unknown indie documentary. To score this enigmatic exploration of experimental democracy, the Spintos turned out a sometimes rambling exploration of new world themes; southern twangs, Caribbean drums, and Hawaiian lullabies mingle together into something full of heart and humor. It's an album that can't quite believe it exists, and never lets you forget that it's getting away with something wonderful. On top of that, it's probably the least entrancing of their major albums! Vote with your ears.
4. DISNEY - FROZEN
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Click here to...who am I kidding. You already have a copy of this.
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You didn't think you were getting away without this, did you? Yes, the Frozen soundtrack was trapped in my head for a greater part of the year, and I was much the happier for it. I've never been ashamed to love, and sing along to, the great Disney songs. "The Princess and the Frog" was Disney's first foray into consciously reclaiming the glory of the past, but for many people, its self-conscious pandering to tropes fell flat. I was overjoyed to see Frozen sidestep this problem by instead choosing to deconstruct those tropes, and the music is no exception. In fact, it exists in large part as a
direct reaction to the musical leitmotifs so entrenched in Disney and other films, and calls them out on their staleness through its thoroughly modern lyrical sensibilities. Of course, the melodies are fun too! And, if you think you've heard it all, perhaps it's time to listen to some of the
songs that were cut from the film. Their removal had nothing to do with quality, but actually a major change in the plot that rendered several of the songs unusable; nevertheless, they're excellent! Especially see More than Just the Spare and Life's Too Short for examples of the quality of songwriting that Disney can afford
not to use in their movies. That might give you a sense of how great this soundtrack is, both as its own work and as a response to historical Disney music as a whole. I ain't kidding. Listen up.
5. ANAMANAGUCHI - ENDLESS FANTASY
I'm pretty new, as a listener, to the world of chiptunes. Anamanaguchi provides the perfect introduction, since they merge traditional rock instrumentation with the beeps, bloops, and sweeps. This album in particular also brings in a sort of club vibe that would normally distract and dismay me, but coupled with the 8-bit harmonizing, I'm able to appreciate what can make that sort of music great. The only fitting way to describe this album is a "tour de force" -- it
never lets up, and it will, at times, overwhelm you with the musical ingenuity and complexity underlying every song. Yes, some are better than others, but it doesn't do the band justice to play them out of order -- each builds on the prior, culminating in a glorious statement of universality and oneness that brings me to tears. It's not just music; it's an entire culture, a way of life, somehow meaningfully condensed into 74 minutes of joy. What are you waiting for?
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