Friends, as I continue this list of my favourite albums of the 00's, I find it necessary to share my recent blogging hang-ups with you. I went a good few months without posting to this very blog. I suppose I was bored, unstimulated, lazy, a mild alcoholic, intimidated by the plethora of other blogs in existence, stymied by the verbose reviews on Pitchfork, more interested in surfing Asian porn, more interested in my other blog, kind of homosexual (the gays just don't blog, it's a scientific fact. That Perez guy is a phony).
Anyway, to my point... The internet can be a fantastic resource. If used properly it can provide one with a googolplex of information, music, pictures of celebrity nipple slips, news, pirated movies, shopping, overpriced resale tickets to see Muse at the ACC, and videos of people hurting themselves in various ways (both sexual and non-sexual). However, the internet is also a farce. It gives too many people an anonymous voice where they can express poorly thought out, poorly researched, and just flat-out inaccurate opinions and "facts." There are far too many music blogs. Though I do not label my blog as simply one of the music review/leak assortment, the musical aspect does account for 75% of my posts. What is the purpose of my blog? Is it simply lost in a sea of malcontent or does it soar above the pack, on some type of sky metaphor?
Guess what, assholes? I don't fucking care. Fuck you all. This blog is for me. I don't care what you think of it. I don't care if my grammar is not impeccable. I don't care if you think my taste in music is lame or passé or predictable or mainstream or too "out there" or just right. Chomp on some sweaty testicles.
Let us carry on with my list...
At The Drive-in - Relationship of Command
It is such a travesty that these Texans called it quits at the start of the decade. The two offshoot bands that rose from the ashes of At The Drive-in's demise never quite satisfied me. Sparta started off with potential, if only because their first album, Wiretap Scars, sounded like a duller ATDI, mostly due to the fact that Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was not in the band. Then with each subsequent album their sound began to morph more towards a fairly generic "alternative rock." As for The Mars Volta, I feel as though I am supposed to respect what they do. They are so progressive. 12 minutes songs, multilingual lyrics, an ever-growing band size, far-out lyrics, mild psychedelia. I can't wrap my head around them. Each album has one or two songs I can tolerate and I suppose the rest require some sort of accompanying psychedelic drug. Not for me.
One could say, I suppose, that ATDI pioneered the new post-hardcore scene that emerged in the 00's. Their swan song, Relationship of Command, sounds commonplace amongst the Thursdays and Brand News of the mid-90s. But wait. It came out in 2000, a good few years before post-hardcore found melody and hooks. Yes, Thursday's Full Collapse came out in 2001 and certainly is an influential album, but it wasn't until 2003's War All The Time that the band began to understand the power of a proper melody and slightly more coherent song structure.Relationship of Command has plenty of melody, plenty of hooks, but also plenty of screaming, meandering song structure, surprisingly effective spoken word, occasional synth, surrealist lyrics, a strong political stance (but not in an overt Rage Against The Machine manner), unorthodox guitar riffs, and spastic tempo shifts. It is like listening to the future of music that never quite manifested itself. Yes, a few bands have lived up to the future that ATDI laid out, specifically Brand New and to a lesser extent Thursday (Common Existence really was bad), but other so-called post-hardcore bands really missed the mark and squandered what ATDI set the groundwork for.
Tegan & Sara - The Con
Completely changing gears from At The Drive-In, another one of my favourites of the decade is twin sisters Tegan & Sara's The Con. Despite each sister writing her own songs on the album separately from the other, The Con finds both on the same wavelength. There is a natural flow to it and you barely notice which sister wrote/sings each song. Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla adds an excellent level of production on the album, as the additional layers of percussion, synthesizers, and vocals at his behest help to create a fuller sound.
The Con is still propped up by the folky song structures that the twins have always used. However, it also incorporates plenty of "indie rock" touches, specifically in regards to layered guitar riffs and background synth. Furthermore, the album utilizes a fair amount of experimental percussion, with lots of stop-start rhythms and unconventional drum lines.
Unfortunately, The Con appears to be a diamond in the rough in terms of Tegan & Sara's musical catalogue, as follow-up album Sainthood pales in comparison. Regardless, it is a beautifully haunting album crafted by two adept and intelligent young women.
Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
Let's get a few things straight. This is an immature album. What were once profound lyrics to me at 17 are almost laughable teen drama to me now. Regardless, I will still stand by this album. Sure, there are gaps in Tell All Your Friends that send it horribly off course. The last three in particular weigh down the album, especially the out of place pop rocker "You're So Last Summer." Everything about that song makes me cringe. The title. The sucky tune. "Boys like you are a dime a dozen." Gah. Also, closing track "Head Club" is an uncomfortably forced way to end the album. It is as if the band specifically wrote that song as a way to close the album in an "epic" way, but it is so artificial and strained and leaves one unsettled, with its cheesy repetitive chant, "Don't call my name out your window, I'm leaving." Also, don't get me started about the production quality. There is that constant faint buzz in the background on every single track.
I suppose this album sums up teen angst. And guess what? There is nothing wrong with that. It typifies how you feel at that age. Sure, in retrospect it is fucking ridiculous and trivial, but the fact of the matter is that those ridiculously intense life or death emotions are really what you feel as a teenager. You really want the girl who dumped you to get in a car accident. Or at least you think you do because you are too immature to actually think of the consequences of such a tragic event. It just feels right in the immediate present.
I realize I sort of wrote off Brand New's Deja Entendu for the very reasons I am heralding Tell All Your Friends as fantastic, but comparatively, once I realized how much more Brand New had to offer, it caused Deja to take a bit of a backseat.
Even when I saw Taking Back Sunday a couple of years ago and was far past my irrationally emotional angsty period, I still felt a rush when they played "Cute Without The 'E' (Cut from the team)." For those three minutes I was a teen again as I sang along, actually feeling a connection to such inexperienced sentiments as "Why can't I feel anything from anyone other than you?"
The fact that I could feel that way again, if only for a few minutes, proves how strong of an impact Tell All Your Friends had on me and, I can only assume, many others.
