The first two songs of Courtney Barnett’s new album are very similar. Fast, streamlined, heavy on bass and drums, lots of lyrics more spoken than sung. Approaching Song Three, I wonder if we’ll get more of the same or if we’re in for a stylistic shift.
I’ve heard great albums that hit basically the same note throughout, and great albums that land all over the place. I don’t even have a preference for one over the other. But it’s always interesting to find out which kind of album a new one is.
Continuing my in-blog discovery of Courtney Barnett’s debut studio album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, we arrive at track #2, ‘Pedestrian at Best.’
I was unsure about this song during the first verse but it won me over halfway through the second. It’s similar to yesterday’s track in its sound and approach, and again I get an Elvis Costello vibe. I think it’s the intellectual word salad mixed with the punk-lite music.
Over the years I’ve chronicled a couple of albums in full (Frank Sinatra’s Watertown and Ben Folds Five’s self-titled debut), both records I adore and know by heart.
Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to try something different (and potentially dangerous). I’m going to post a new album, song by song, experiencing it for the first time as I write about it. If it turns out to be a turkey, we could all be in for a dreary 11 days. But I’m optimistic that it will go better than that.
The Head and the Heart are a band I expected would become a favorite of mine based on the first few songs I heard. Maybe they still will.
The Seattle indie band’s sophomore album, Let’s Be Still, has a great acoustic sound in the same vein as Mumford & Sons and Fleet Foxes — that whole hipster folk rock throwback thing. These days that feels a little obvious, but it’s still a great sound.
Despite Maroon 5’s bevy of hit singles since Adam Levine took to his red chair on The Voice, I don’t believe they’ve ever topped their debut album.
2002’s Songs About Jane is alternately jazzy and muscular, a sleek and sexy song cycle that delivers from its first note to its last.
The band’s recent music is no less catchy but perhaps a bit too polished. Levine and company have become master pop craftsmen — there’s little doubt that a new Maroon 5 song will stick both in your head and on the charts — but their music lacks the sense of adventure that typified this record.
Meet Me In Montauk 