Man Out Of Time: Music

Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books

I think music is the one field where “the decade” really is a delineator. I try not to extrapolate broader trends from my own experience, but this is one case where I think I’m just part of the new shape of things.

Which is to say, my music-listening habits were flat-out transformed over the course of this decade. The changeover to digital began in the 1990’s, but went bananas in the past 10 years. My iTunes library contains around 45,000 songs, incorporating my and my wife’s CD libraries, the songs I stole back when that was cool, and other friends’ libraries, copied in toto. In fact, that’s why I didn’t get an iPod for the first 18 months or so after their introduction; I was waiting for one with large enough storage capacity to handle my library. (Okay, I was also on a PC and hadn’t yet drunk the Apple Kool-Aid.)

Sure, my music library today is filled with songs I’ll never listen to — such as my IT manager’s collection of German industrial aggro-something (rock?) or my pal Fink’s collection of, um, every single thing that Robyn Hitchcock ever recorded — but with storage space plummeting in price, why not keep it all?

I tend to just set iTunes and my iPod to shuffle, so I can discover unfamiliar music or recontextualize music I’m familiar with, but that carries the downside of missing out on albums qua albums. Add to that the fact that I rarely sit still long enough to listen to a 40- or 50-minute collection of music, and I’m left in a position where I can barely think of ten albums that I’d put on a “faves of the decade” list. We can download everything, so why listen to a single collection of songs by an artist?

On top of this, I have to make the embarrassing admission that I really don’t know much contemporary pop music. I don’t listen to the radio, don’t go to a gym, and don’t have, um, friends. My only experiences with Kanye West were his two awesome ad libs: blowing up Taylor Swift (who?) at that awards show and The Greatest Live TV Moment Of All Time, when he declared, “George Bush hates black people” during a Katrina benefit broadcast.

Similarly, I’d heard OF Lady Gaga for a while, but I never heard a song of hers until an episode of Parks & Recreation a month or two back. (It was fine, but I’m putting her in the same boat where I keep John Waters and Andy Warhol, the S.S. Love It In Theory, Not So Much In Practice.) Of course, the snob in me would reply would be that contemporary music sucks and I’m not missing anything, but that attitude’s gotten me in trouble in the past.

On my trip to Los Angeles in November, I decided to turn off my 120gb iPod’s shuffle setting and listen to albums in their entirety. I’ve stuck with that since my return, doing my best to go through entire records over the course of my commute and on drives out to the train station to pick up my wife. I’m so used to randomization, to the infinite jukebox, that it’s a real test for me to just let an album go to the end. Maybe it’ll help me to slow down.

Favorite Albums of the Decade

Time (The Revelator) (2001) – Gillian Welch – I wrote about this (finally!) for this year’s 9/11 post, so go back there and check out what I had to say. This is my favorite record of the decade, hands down. Nothing else comes close. The 9/11 context is a big factor for my attachment this album, the same way other people find Kid A or Is This It to be The Album of the Decade. (I’ve never made it through either of those records, so hey.)

Boxer (2007) – The National – I stumbled across a song from this in my iTunes library in 2008 (not sure who I got it from), tried out the album, and fell in love with it. I’m no good at describing genres, so you’re outta luck. I tried telling someone it’s “this sorta mellow modern rock sound,” and that’s about all I can do for you. This album, with its not-quite-sensical lyrics, unobtrusive orchestral additions, and Bowie-esque baritone, has become a key piece of my traveling soundtrack. I tried some of The National’s earlier music but didn’t dig them: things were a little too harsh, too fuzzy, too hip rock-‘n’-roll.

Simple Things / When It Falls / The Garden (2001 / 2004 / 2006) – Zero 7 – My go-to for chillout. I first heard their breakout single, Destiny, on the radio near the end of a 400-mile driving day in 2002. I was still 45 minutes from home, so I kept repeating the band and the song to myself. I stole the single the next day, fell in love with it, and bought the CD. I don’t love any of Zero 7’s first three albums on their own enough to put them on this list, but the combo of all of them has meant a lot to me this decade. I find their soul-chillout sound a lot more engaging than records by Moby, Blue 6, Photek, etc. Their sound evolved over the course of the first three records, with vocalists coming and going. Sia Furler is the mainstay/anchor for those albums. The fourth record, from which she’s absent, is a disaster.

Everything, Everything (2000) – Underworld – My affinity for Underworld’s pounding techno beats and chopped-up lyrics boggles my wife’s mind (as does their music), because of my utter lack of drug-taking and club-hopping. Still, something about their work utterly possesses me. Maybe it’s just a “this is who I could’ve been” if I had taken drugs and went to clubs. Everything, Everything is a live album and most of the songs are actually better than their album versions, bursting with a vital force that I didn’t even realize was lacking on their studio releases. Only one — Pearl’s Girl — fails to live up to the studio, for reasons that are too technical for me to get into.

Sea Change (2002) – Beck – One of my favorite contemporary writers told me he listened to this album incessantly to get over a heartbreak, just like I did. I later discovered that we may both have been getting over the same girl. Beck apparently recorded the songs to get over a breakup, too, but not with the same girl (as far as I know). This album is a change of pace for him: the sound is more acoustic, the lyrics are less non-sequitur-ing, and the overall result has a lot more heart than Beck’s other music.

Honorable mention

Give Up (2003) – The Postal Service – A friend of mine played me this record when I was traveling, so I picked up the CD before going home. When I tried to import it into iTunes, I discovered that I already owned the whole album, courtesy of a cloned library. That’s the only time this has happened; I swear. It’s a twee album, but what can I tell you? If you’ve made it this far in my blog, you know I’m a big geek.

Speakerboxxx / The Love Below (2003) – Outkast – Embarrassing admission: I’d never heard Outkast until this 2003 double-album. Then I heard Hey Ya!, was blown away, declared it the best pop single I’d heard in a bazillion years, and started checking out their stuff. I had no idea music like this was being made, and was flabbergasted by the stylistic leaps the duo was making. In part, this was due to my sad-ass racist stereotyping of hip-hop. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s recent post about Outkast’s album-to-album growth left me comparing it with the Beatles’ progression throughout the ’60’s. Outkast really made some remarkable music. Of course, I showed up just when the party was ending.

St. Elsewhere (2006) – Gnarls BarkleyCrazy was one of the greatest singles of the decade, matched only by the aforementioned Hey Ya! The rest of this album is awfully good, but I don’t find myself listening to it too often.

A Friend of a Friend (2009) – Dave Rawlings Machine – This was released in November 2009, so perhaps it’s too new for me to consider it a fave. But it’s the closest thing I’ll have to a new Gillian Welch album, it’s been on heavy rotation since I bought it, and a couple of songs will likely make their way onto my next Mad Mix CDs (yeah, I still make mix-CDs for people), so it’s at least an Honorable Mention.

I Was Only Just a Chorus Girl (2002) – Ari Scott – We dated for a while, and I still enjoy listening to her first record. It’s (generally) bouncy, catchy, piano-driven singer-songwriter sorta stuff.

Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books

Man Out Of Time: Introduction

Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books

I imagine “future generations” will consider the decade to begin with the contested election of 2000 and end with “man, they messed up the country so badly, people were willing to vote a black guy president.” Maybe they’ll take 9/11 as the thematic starting point instead. Whatever. What I’m saying is, I think the decade’s outward/historical manifestation is The Bush Years, but I’m hard put to understand what my inner/hysterical manifestation of it is.

As the decade progressed, I found myself writing less about politics, finance/business and international relations, and more about my own life. There was no changeover moment; it must’ve occurred to me at some point that there are plenty of other blogs to turn to for commentary on those topics. I still care deeply about those fields, and spend a lot of time reading up on them. Maybe it was my time with Montaigne that taught me about the value of looking inside to get a perspective on the outside. As far as I know, no one else is writing about my love, my dogs, my travels, my friends, my photos, my work, etc., except for my wife, and she focuses much more on my eats. So I’m my niche and welcome to it.

(Also, there’s less chance I’ll offend someone with an, um, off-color joke like the one in the first sentence of this post.)

Still, with all the decade-mania going on, I thought it would be interesting if I wrote about movies, books, comics and music for a “decade-retrospective” post. Trying to assemble my own lists for each category — “favorites,” mind you, not “bests” — was more daunting than I expected. I keep a running list of the books in my life, but not those other art forms, so much of this has to be painted from memory.

(I considered adding TV as a category, but realized that the drop-off from The Wire to whatever came in second was too steep.)

Compiling lists — fun though it is — hasn’t helped me reach a deeper understanding about what this decade “meant,” but I’m fine with that. I’ve spent almost seven years writing here and maybe that’s the story in itself: digital distribution has transformed the way we experience/consume all forms of art and how we share our thoughts with others. I’m not going to wax rhapsodic or elegiac about Facebook, Twitter, Kindles or iTunes (okay, a little about iTunes), so much as writing about some artworks that were created or published in the past 10 years and why I like them.

Welcome to my Virtual Memories. On with the show!

Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books

What It Is: 12/28/09

What I’m reading: As is my wont, I did plenty of reading while visiting my in-laws for the holidays. I read Hadji Murat from Pevear and Volokhonsky’s new translation of Tolstoy’s stories, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Everyman, and started Winesburg, Ohio (Note: these were all via my Kindle; no carrying tons of books around on trips anymore). What’d I think?

  1. Tolstoy: Loved the new Hadji Murat and I’m glad P&V turned their attention to Tolstoy’s stories; I can’t wait to tackle Ivan Ilyich, The Kreutzer Sonata and a few others that I’ve only read in Garnett or Maude translations.
  2. Dog, Night, Curious: I enjoyed it, but didn’t think it was Novel of the Decade-level good, which a pal of mine contended. I’m down with “autistic Adrian Mole” as a narrator, but maybe I found the kid’s quirks too similar to my own “one step away from Asperger’s Syndrome” to be entertained.
  3. Dying Jew: Loved it, and was happy it didn’t turn into “elderly dying Jew is still a lion with the ladies.” Rather, starting at the lead character’s funeral and going back through past episodes of his poor health (and some of his sexcapades), Roth manages to convey our universal through the filter of this singular, never-named man (who’s Jewish and from New Jersey).
  4. Winesburg: I was going to start Roth’s next novel, Indignation. I knew it was largely set at a college named Winesburg, and that this was a nod to Sherwood Anderson, but, um, I’ve never read Anderson’s book. So I started that, knowing nothing about it. Seriously. I wasn’t even sure when Anderson was writing, and looked that up this morning (it was published in 1919). As it turns out, Winesburg, Ohio is written in the form of interconnected short stories. Who knew? I’m enjoying the heck out of it, and will report back next week.

What I’m listening to: OK Computer, Spirit of Radio, Oblivion with Bells, Boxer, and other comfort food.

What I’m watching: A bunch of college bowl games. Not my thing, but when in Rome. Also, I watched Three Kings on the flight down. Need to write about that this week.

What I’m drinking: Not much. I never really drink when I’m visiting the in-laws. Although we did have a nice Riesling that Amy’s pal Riece brought over.

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Living it up with their girlfriends, Ruby & Willow. My pal Jason texted to let me know that he & his wife got home one evening, and only two of the dogs were waiting for them in the living room. They panicked, wondering how two of the dogs had escaped (and why the other two stayed). Then they discovered that My Boy Rufus had gotten locked into their bedroom along with their dog Willow. Amy & I figured he pulled some variant of the “oh, we must be out of gas” trick, or invited her upstairs to look at his etchings. But since he has non-functioning genitalia, it was no harm, no foul. Anyway, they seemed to have a great time at our friends’ place.

Where I’m going: Nowhere! I’ll go to the office one day this week, but that’s about it! (oh, and our neighbors across the street invited us over for a New Year’s get-together with a bunch of other neighbors, so we’ll drop in on that)

What I’m happy about: See above! And, being home, where I have my familiar coffee, gin, bed and the ability to curse like a sailor. Which is to say, I like seeing my in-laws, but it sure puts me out of my element in a number of ways.

What I’m sad about: End of another year, blah blah blah.

What I’m worried about: Well, I wsa worried that there’d be all sorts of crazy new regulations on our flight back from New Orleans on Sunday but, outside of a pat-down after the metal detector, there wasn’t anything new.

What I’m pondering: What I’ll read and write (and record?) in the year ahead. Oh, and whether I should update to this blog template.

Blogbreak!

I’m taking this week off! I just finished our 430-page year-end issue, so I’m taking a break from everydarnthing! No Unrequired Reading, no wacky literary recommendations, no etc., etc., amen!

Come back next week for my big-ol’ decade-end post and a special New Year’s edition of Unrequired Reading!

And have a happy Christmas, my Christian readers!

What It Is: 12/21/09

What I’m reading: Gould’s Book of Fish and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

What I’m listening to: Lots of random iTunes shuffling. I was really busy last week, putting together our big Contract Services Directory print edition. Like, 14-hours-a-day-at-my-desk busy.

What I’m watching: Liam Neeson going bad-ass in Taken, Bottle Shock, and our annual tradition: Bad(der) Santa.

What I’m drinking: DH Krahn & Q-Tonic. Hmm.

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Not being happy about the snow we got on Saturday.

Where I’m going: Louisiana, for Christmas with the in-laws!

What I’m happy about: Finishing that year-end issue (later today).

What I’m sad about: Having to leave the doggies while we’re away.

What I’m worried about: That they’ll gallivant and debauch with the two female greys whose owners will be taking care of them.

What I’m pondering: The ironies of a) having a mid-day blackout and b) nearly burning the house down during the Festival of Lights.

Dog Tags

I’ve been putting in 12-14 hours a day in my home office this week, laying out our big Contract Services Directory year-end issue. Since Rufus & Otis can’t leave my side under any circumstances, I had to move one of their beds in here. All of which is superfluous buildup to the following photos, which illustrate what can happen when two greyhounds decide to flip into their “cockroach” pose at the same time. They play tag:

Ru should have little stars and birds circling around his head, he looks so knocked out.

What It Is: 12/14/09

What I’m reading: I’m catching up on some novels I read earlier this decade, for a “faves of the decade” post I’m working on. Moo-hoo-ha-ha-ha.

What I’m listening to: A Friend of a Friend, Genetic World, and The Garden.

What I’m watching: Jersey Shore! Duuuuude!

What I’m drinking: I didn’t drink much this past week. Amy had to work late often, and by the time I got her home from the train station, it was nearly bedtime, so I didn’t partake much. I do recall having a Desert Juniper & Q-Tonic at one point.

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Getting their holiday (Christmas and Chanukkah) pictures taken. Otis also got to go on his first Sunday greyhound hike up in Wawayanda State Park. Amy had a headache and couldn’t go, and I didn’t want to bring both boys on the hike, since it’s not too easy to walk ’em together, so I just brought our new boy, who got along great. And the other grey-hikers told me they’d walk Rufus, so I shouldn’t leave him home next time. Also, Ru & Otis are trying to convince me to sell my 2003 Honda Element and get this new model.

Where I’m going: Nowhere special.

What I’m happy about: Being in good shape to finish the print edition of our big-ass, year-end Contract Services Directory this week.

What I’m sad about: The Debt To Pleasure was published in 1996 and thus isn’t eligible for my faves of the decade list.

What I’m worried about: The grippe.

What I’m pondering: Whether I should post this incredibly NSFW link. Because it’s NSF many other aspects of our lives, too.