Entertainment For Lively Minds
I like you, but as a friend
Andrew Harrison writes of the new Depeche Mode album: “I found it easy to play over and over if hard to invest in, emotionally speaking.”
I know how he feels. I spent the early part of last week listening to Doves new album (Kingdom of Rust) on Spotify, eventually concluding that there was enough going on to warrant a CD purchase. It’s a very good record – more consistent than their earlier work, full of songs that reveal a bit more of themselves every time you listen. I will be playing it for months.
My problem is that, in common with Doves’ previous albums, I am struggling to form any kind of emotional bond with the material. I know that the band sweated blood for these songs. I can hear their passion and sincerity in the music. There are lyrical themes that should resonate with me. On paper this is an album that should burrow into my soul and put down barbed roots. And yet at the moment Kingdom of Rust is nothing more to me than a set of good tunes. It will probably never soundtrack any of my little victories or defeats. I am unlikely to ever find myself swept-up in a moment of unguarded hyperbole, in which I feel compelled to burden a complete stranger with the knowledge that one of the eleven tracks was the song that “literally saved my life!”
This troubles me: For as long as I can remember music has been a dominant power, often more important than the need to eat food regularly, or the complex social and cultural forces currently pressuring me to acquire a pair of trousers that don’t have a hideous gaping hole developing around the crotch area. Frequently the desire to listen to a particular album or song transcends being a simple want and becomes an urgent need, required for the preservation of sanity, or to define and thereby contain some wellspring of emotion that I don’t have the language to articulate.
In the past I’ve fallen head-over-heels for some awful music, written and performed by some terrible bands. By comparison, the songs on Kingdom of Rust are beautiful; they are interesting, they are articulate and they have depth. I have heard them many times over the past few days and I want to hear them again.
So why do I just like the album? Why don’t I love it?
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Only you know the answer to that one
Music and the enjoyment of music is different for everyone.
Personally I never get *that* deeply attached - not to the point where it's more important than food.
Oh no.
maybe you've grown up.
shit isn't it?
I'd blame it on Doves
Having listened to that record a couple of times myself, I can't help but feel I've heard it all before. Personally, I don't particularly like the record, but I think the reason it doesn't particularly resonate is because it's trying too hard. Whereas with, for example, Elbow, Guy Garvey can manipulate a phrase or set of words so that it sounds completely fresh and new, Jimi Goodwin doesn't say anything that hasn't been said before. So, whilst the themes will speak to you, the songs themselves aren't going to shed any light on a situation or tell you something you couldn't have worked out for yourself.
There's nothing wrong, however, with just liking an album. The albums that really speak to me, soundtrack my experiences and make me look at things in a new light are few and far between and arguably, that's how it should be. You seem to be having the same internal struggle as Damian Morris who reviewed the new Super Furries' record in the latest Word. His synopsis was all that songs individually are good, but they don't matter enough.
My response to both him and to you would be the same. While pop music can make us feel things we never thought possible and transport us to places we've never been, when it all comes down to it, it's just that - pop music; enjoy it for what it is.
4 years and this album?
I too got the feeling that I've heard it all before from them. Having taken 4 years to deliver a new record, I was expecting something really good and it just hasn't grabbed me. I think it just sounds too much like everything else they've done. Especially the song "Kingdom Of Rust", which sounds a lot like the song "The Last Broadcast" to me.
Cherry Ghost
I get the same feeling from this lot's debut stunner. And what a goal it was - beautifully pulled down and put away - from an overlooked little tireless midfield worker of a band. Yet, no leap, no air punch from me.
But then so much music seems like that to me these days. It's all kind of good. All what's not to like? Yet - connect, only connect. Not quite.
For me... it takes time to fall in love
I can skim over an album on release only to find that, 10 years later, I'm still listening to it on a regular basis and it's insinuated itself into the fabric of me.
A Question Of Time
I agree with Stimpy that for some albums, it does take time to let it get into your system. I'd also say it get's harder as you get older.
When you're young, you've had little relative experience of music - so it's easy for something that sounds fresh to your ears get to your heart. As time goes by and you hear more and more music, you get to the stage where "You've heard it all before".
If I only fall in love with one album a year, I'm a happy man.
Some albums just sound nice
but don't have any content. The Doves, a band I detest for being so amazingly dull, can create nice tinkly sounds but have nothing to say.
I have long felt that music is like drugs...
When you're young and new to music, the highs come thick and fast. As you get older it takes that bit more to hit those emotional buttons. Consequently, us older Word readers and bloggers can often seem cynical when faced with the 'next big thing' as we've probably heard something similar before.
Like backwards7, I have also been listening to the new Doves album and like it a great deal. And, like backwards7, it doesn't quite get there for me. This is in comparison to last year's Elbow album which very quickly became a much-loved favourite and an obvious album of the year.
Lighten up.
It's only pop.
Indeed...
As Andy says, "This is pop"
I felt the same way about the Bon Iver album
that came out last year. Whilst everyone was foaming at the mouth, I thought it was okay, pleasant enough, but not a patch on, say, any of Elliot Smith's albums, to which it was often compared. It's been "podded" and it's nice to hear a track off it when it pops up on shuffle. But if it didn't pop up for several weeks, or months, that would be fine, too.