Before They Were MP3s, 1998: #5 - Seven Mary Three - “American Standard”

I like lyrics. I enjoy any prose with rich texture and evocative language. Fusing great words with amazing music is a sure way for me to commit something - a thought, a feeling, a story - to my mind and heart. And then too, I love it when the lyrics are a little hard to parse, when they are inviting and yet challenging. Or even truly bizarre lyrics, with the kinds of phrasing that make you feel like, on the singer’s journey from A to B, you are on a rollercoaster instead of a railroad. In those cases, often I just enjoy the sound and the cadence of the words (The Dirty Projectors are an excellent example of this).

The point I’m making is, I care about the lyrics. Care too much, probably. If a song’s lyrics seem mysterious yet potentially decipherable, I will ponder over them again and again, trying to stumble upon the meaning. Which brings us to “American Standard,” the (as far as I can tell) freshman effort by Seven Mary Three.

For whatever reason, I think I’ve spent more time pondering these lyrics than just about any other CD I have, even though I would say this album is not even top 100 in terms of how often I’ve listened to it. Maybe they just have a gift for what I’ll call the “invitingly semi-scrutable.” This even extends to the album cover. A farmer is about to chop off a chicken’s head with an axe. Why choose this for a cover? Your guess is as good as mine.

Where's the (Philosophical) Beef? #2 - Connections

I have a lot of sympathy for the character Abed on the show "Community." In the world of the show, Abed presumably has Asberger's syndrom or something. He relates to the world predominantly through comparing it to TV, movies, and videogames. If he ever interacts like a normal human being, usually it is because he is impersonating a character from a TV show or movie. As for me, I don't generally adopt a persona to fit in, but I do find myself constantly comparing situations in life to fictional constructs, whether TV, movies, videogames, books, or song lyrics. I've been this way for a long time. When I wanted my dad to purchase a new computer for the family, in my mind I framed it as though my brother and I (and possibly some friends) were forming a party to go on a quest, ala RPGs or Dungeons & Dragons. When Anodos wakes the maiden from the marble in "Phantastes" and then she ends up with the knight instead, I applied it to a girl I liked at the time I read the book, a girl who was interested in someone else. And of course, as anyone who knows me knows, I love coming up with a quote from something that matches the current situation. And it is easy to do. As the Teacher said, "There is nothing new under the sun." Everything is like something that came before. I think my brain loves forming connections between things. Perhaps that is the way Abed's mind works, too. And Madeleine L'Enge had this to say of George MacDonald, one of my heroes: "[he] is the grandfather of us all -- all who struggle to come to terms with truth through fantasy. So I think for me, seeing connections to fiction in my real life helps me process what I'm going through.

Before They Were MP3s, 1998: #4 - The Wallflowers - “Bringing Down the Horse”

“There is no sin worse in life than being boring.” - Paris Hilton

I’ll say this: I don’t envy Jakob Dylan. It can’t be easy to be Bob Dylan’s son. Not only will you almost certainly fail to live up to your father’s accomplishments, but that father is kind of infamous for having a prickly, standoff-ish personality (and that’s putting it kindly). So a part of me wants to like this album more. But the above quote captures precisely why The Wallflowers have not gotten very much play time from me. “Bringing Down the Horse” is not a bad album, nor is it even the worst offender of the crime of “Every Song Sounds The Same” (hello, 3 Doors Down). However, there just isn’t much here that interests me, that grabs me. Every song on the record is highly competent Alternative Rock with a dash of twang, but most of it leaves me feeling so blasé. The music just passes through you, mostly without leaving any traces behind. It is the ruffage of Alt Rock.

So how about I just tell anecdotes about the songs or whatever crosses my mind as I listen? Okay? Okay.

Before They Were MP3s, 1998 - #3: Third Eye Blind - “Third Eye Blind”

Third Eye Blind’s self-titled album is essentially the epic conclusion to the trilogy, “The First Albums I Listened to Obsessively.” In terms of number of nights a CD played while sleeping, 3eb (short for “Third Eye Blind”) is the clear winner, by a long shot. Savage Garden and Duncan Sheik came early in 1998, but once I got to 3eb in late spring or early summer (I forget exactly when), it quickly supplanted its predecessors. I remember memorizing the lyrics, agonizing over which songs were my favorites, and just generally being a rapid fanboy. More than that, this is the first album where I noticed my marked preference for “deep cuts,” for songs that didn’t get radio play. Sure, I liked other songs on “Duncan Sheik” better than “Barely Breathing,” but by the time I got “Third Eye Blind,” it wasn't just a slight preference. I was already sick of “Semi-Charmed Life” and “How’s It Gonna Be?" before I even heard the album. (“Jumper” had yet to hit the airwaves, which would go on to set some sort of world record for overplayed “message” rock.) How did I become a huge fan of a band when I was sick of their two popular songs? I don’t remember exactly, but I think my exposure to the CD came through my brother by way of one of his friends, or possibly our friend Nathan. Either way, it wasn’t long before I saw the light, and learned the key lesson that what you hear on the radio might have little to do with what the band actually sounds like most of the time.

Where's the (Philosophical) Beef? #1 - LOST ending

This will be a short post. I wanted to come up with some clever take on a show that aired this week, but nothing really inspired me. Plus it is late and I'm looking to get a good night's sleep prior to the start of the work week.

I re-watched the LOST finale today. I enjoyed it the second time almost as much as the first time. Much has been made of LOST's failure to provide answers, and this is certainly true in regards to the science-fiction elements of the show. Why the show's creators felt the need to go so far into sci-fi in seasons 4 & 5 that it confused and alienated viewers not into that genre, then didn't bother to work any sci-fi into the end game, is beyond me. But whatever.

Before They Were MP3s, 1998: #2 - Duncan Sheik - “Duncan Sheik”

If I was an actor, I’d be a method actor. I have to feel something to express it well. Case in point: in high school, forensics was a “sport” in the fine arts milieu, where you read poetry or prose or acted out scenes from a story. The most ambitious / pretentious young adults invariably landed on the “farrago” category, which meant you selected and read an assortment of short pieces of prose or poetry on a theme. So naturally this is what I did my junior year, around the same time Duncan Sheik’s self-titled album came out. My theme was “love” (original, right?). However I was trying to explore different kinds of love, from the angry passion of Heathcliff, to the self-deluded “love” of the narrator of “My Last Dutchess,” to the sweeter of love one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The interesting thing was, the quality of my performance of each of those pieces varied wildly depending on my emotional state. Awash in emotion over the crush who keeps breaking my heart? Nailing the Byronic hero. Giddy with possibility as she suddenly gives me fresh hope? The bard came out ahead.

Before They Were MP3s, 1998: #1 - Savage Garden - “Savage Garden”

If you suspect that I am burdened with an abundance of pride, my first album selection for review out to dispel you of that notion. Yes, the first album I have chosen for this feature, the first album I remember listening to obsessively, is none other than “Savage Garden,” a mostly forgotten album of syrupy pop music, by a band whose singer’s gender was not immediately clear to me from voice alone. Having this album as a starting point isn’t very masculine, nor does it lend me the music snob cred an album like “Led Zeppelin II” might, but what can you do? Like romance, we don’t really choose what music we fall for, and sometimes we make mistakes and we learn from them. That said, as easy as it might be to feel embarrassed about once liking this album and to sweep it under the rug, the purpose of this column is listen with open ears, and to turn back time and revisit the memories of days gone by, days when I listened to this album constantly. And perhaps it won’t be as hard on the ears as I’m expecting.

Upcoming Features...

I've finally come up with a use for this blog. I'm going to use it to keep me writing regularly. To that end, I've come up with two regular "features" I'm going to start posting.

The first feature, "Before They Were MP3s", will feature reviews and reminisces of old albums I own. I've been a huge lover of music for a long time, and it will be fun to dust off some old albums and see how they hold up a decade (or more) later. I'm going to do the reviews in the order in which I became familiar with the albums, not necessarily in release order. I'm starting with the year 1998, the first year I remember the excitement of buying a new CD and listening to it over and over again obsessively. I'll do two posts per week, tentatively on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Sundays will be dedicated to my second feature, "Where's The (Philosophical) Beef?" This is just a chance for me to expound on some of the philosophical ideas I encounter though pop-culture. In other words, this will mean me watching an episode of 30 Rock and trying to mine some sort of spiritual meaning out of it. I think this could be really entertaining, at least in the train wreck kind of way.