About a year ago I started running three miles a day, four or five days a week. Maintaining that pace requires the right listening material — I’m not able to run in silence.
But as much as I love music (see: this blog), it doesn’t help me run. I don’t get lost in the songs, but rather find myself waiting for each one to end. Music actually drags out the process rather than quickening it.
If there’s one album in my music collection of which I could never tire, its R.E.M.’s 1985 classic Fables of the Reconstruction. I think that’s in part because I have no idea what most of its songs are about — or even what Michael Stipe is singing in half of them.
Reading over the lyrics of ‘Kohoutek,’ I realized that despite hearing and loving it hundreds of times I had never really paid any attention to its words. Because they don’t matter… not really. What matters is the sound and the feel.
It’s been ten years since David Byrne put out what I would consider a real David Byrne album. That was 2004’s Grown Backwards, which went off on a few tangents but was mostly the sort of tight, quirky, literate world pop album he’d released four other times since 1989.
Those five albums — the kind of David Byrne records I adore — are (chronologically) Rei Momo, Uh-Oh, David Byrne, Feeling and the aforementioned Grown Backwards.
Winding down this week of critics’ picks, I have to say so far I’m more impressed by the Billboard Top 10. Sure, I had to put up with Jason Derulo, but I also got Ariana Grande’s ‘Problem’ (Song of the Summer!), Ed Sheeran’s ‘Sing’ and several other gems.
The critical faves have been annoying or boring for the most part.
But I have high hopes for this last entry, based solely on the band name and song title.
Damon Albarn is a new name to me, but it turns out I’ve been at least passingly familiar with his work for nearly 25 years.
Albarn was the frontman for the British pop band Blur, probably best known for ‘Song 2,’ the “woo hoo” song. He later formed Gorillaz, a “virtual” band that was made up of rotating musicians but always represented as cartoon apes.
Meet Me In Montauk 