Monthly Archives: April 2010

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Song of the Day #642: ‘These Are Days’ – 10,000 Maniacs

As this turned into an unofficial theme week about expectations, second impressions and the like, I figured I’d close with an example of a second impression album. That’s a case where you’re already a fan of an artist but you don’t immediately warm to a new release at first, only to return to it down the road and discover that it’s actually quite good.

This is closely related to the situation where you like one album by an artist so much that you can’t bring yourself to make time for a new one. My wife does this all the time. Over the years, when presented with a new album by Josh Rouse, Fiona Apple, John Mayer, Tim McGraw or some other favorite, she might give it a cursory listen but her basic response is “I already have the [artist name here] album I like, why do I need a new one?”

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Song of the Day #641: ‘Bad Romance’ – Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga could potentially be a second impression artist for me, because the first impression has not been a very good one. More likely she’ll remain one of those acts, like Lil Wayne, that critics and fans alike fawn over while I scratch my head, not getting it.

Let me clarify. I get the GaGa-ness of Lady GaGa — her outlandish style, the Marilyn Manson meets Madonna thing she has going on. It’s her music that I don’t get.

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Song of the Day #640: ‘Please Don’t Leave Me’ – Pink

Yesterday’s post on Marah touched on a favorite topic of mine: the impact of expectations. But it was also a good illustration of another phenomenon I’ve encountered over my years of music listening: the second impression.

Sometimes an album just doesn’t hit me during my first listen, or even my first few listens, but weeks, months or even years later I’ll pick it up again and find that it really gets to me.

One of the best examples is Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which went from a shoulder-shrugger to one of my all-time favorite albums after a long break.

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Song of the Day #639: ‘Barstool Boys’ – Marah

Wholehearted recommendations are a funny thing. Yesterday I wrote about the anonymous man who steered me toward track three of a Tom Petty album. Today I’ll talk about a recommendation by a person I’ve never met but whose opinion I value greatly.

Nick Hornby, author of the best book about music and fandom I’ve ever read (High Fidelity) and one of my very favorite writers of any sort, released a few years ago a collection of columns he’d written for literary magazine The Believer. The column is about books (each month he lists the books he bought and the books he read the previous month, with the lists seldom overlapping) but, as he is Nick Hornby, he writes a lot about music as well.

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Song of the Day #638: ‘Flirting with Time’ – Tom Petty

I should do a Tom Petty theme week one of these days. He’s written some incredible music during a career that’s spanned four decades, making him more than worthy of the spotlight. But today I’m focusing on a Petty song from his most recent album in order to tell a tale of an encounter in a far off land.

OK, it wasn’t that far off a land… it was Chicago. Alex and I were there for a wedding, enjoying a weekend away from the kids. Whenever I’m in a new city, I always make a point of tracking down the best record stores I can find, whether they’re local and eclectic (like Amoeba Records in San Francisco) or big chains. On this trip, I found myself in a Virgin Megastore downtown (or maybe it was Tower Records… either way, it’s probably closed down by now).

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