Currently Listening (March 2012)

I’ve played around with these Currently Listening posts for a while, generally operating under the concept of a musical journal of sorts. Just kind of a “here’s the music I’ve been listening to lately, both old and new, and both old and new to me”, with what the music familiar to me meant to me and some thoughts or mini-reviews of music new to me. Usually I do these every other week, taking pretty long breaks fairly often whenever I get bored of the idea. I’ve just taken such a long break in the feature, having not done one for a month. But now I wonder if maybe just listing every album I listened to this month would maybe be more interesting?

Well, let us find out! Using my last.fm, I’ve pulled together a list of every album I listened to in March, and made comments because I know how much you guys like my comments. Let’s see what we’ve got here.

1. Sioum – I Am Mortal, But Was Fiend
   My friend dated this band’s keyboardist for a bit. Am I allowed to say that now?
2. Bomb the Music Industry! – Get Warmer
3. Darren Korb – Bastion Original Soundtrack
4. Nero – Welcome Reality
   Clearly the month didn’t start off with a bunch of club music or anything.
5. Queens of the Stone Age – Lullabies to Paralyze
6. The Strokes – Room on Fire
7. Lupe Fiasco – Lasers
8. Metallica – …And Justice For All
   I love Metallica, but forget to ever listen to them, which is sad.
9. Portishead – Dummy
   This is the Portishead album I got last and have listened to least. It shows up again later, so clearly I put some effort into getting into it this month.
10. Muse – Origin of Symmetry
11. The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
12. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
    This was my first listen to Tallahassee ever, so expect it to show up a lot more over the rest of the month.
13. Lee Morgan – The Sidewinder
    About a month ago one of my best friends got really into jazz, and I thought “Hm, I enjoy jazz too, but do not know any of it. Much like electronic music. And dubstep. Um, let’s focus on the point again. Jazz.” and asked him to recommend some jazz to me. Sadly, I haven’t kept up with it and this one album was all I listened to this month, which makes me sad.
14. The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come
15. Passion Pit – Manners
    Also on the “I need to listen to this more often” list
16. Operation Ivy – Operation Ivy
17. The Pixies – Surfer Rosa
18. Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon: The End of The Day
19. Radiohead – King of Limbs
    I actually really like this album now. Haters gonna hate.
20. Radiohead – Kid A
    Although obviously this is way way way better.
21. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin
22. Ton-Taun – Circus Court
    The frontman was a friend of a friend of mine in college and I jammed with him a few times. That makes me happy.
23. Cage the Elephant – Thank You Happy Birthday
24. Talking Heads – More Songs About Buildings And Food
25. Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense
26. Talking Heads – Remain In Light
    You know what’s awesome? This album. Now you know.
27. Bill Eager – Another Life On Mars
28. Radiohead – OK Computer
29. David Bowie – Hunky Dory
    How is this the only Bowie I listened to this month? Oh, Jesus, this is a travesty…
30. Modest Mouse – The Moon & Antarctica
    First listen to The Moon & Antarctica ever. I was saving this because I kept hearing how awesome this album is, and I love Good News For People Who Love Bad News so much that I kept putting off this album, scared that it wouldn’t be as good as I kept hearing and hoping it would be. Sadly, it hasn’t sucked me in yet, but I remember taking some time to warm up to other Modest Mouse albums I consider my favorites, so maybe I just need some more listens.
31. Less Than Jake – Hello Rockview
32. Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Love Bad News
33. Modest Mouse – The Moon & Australia
    You see what I mean.
34. The Pillows – Little Busters
35. Portishead – Dummy
    Again, you see what I mean.
36. And So I Watch You From Afar – Gangs
37. And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – Source Tags & Codes
    I might have only listened to this because I had just listened to And So I Watch You From Afar. This is another album I keep meaning to listen to more and keep forgetting.
38. Bomb the Music Industry! – Album Minus Band
    This is the beginning of what was apparently a week of listening to Bomb the Music Industry! nonstop.
39. Bomb the Music Industry! – To Leave Or Die In Long Island
40. Reel Big Fish – Our Live Album Is Better Than Your Live Album
41. Bomb the Music Industry! – Goodbye Cool World
42. Bomb the Music Industry! – Get Warmer
43. Bomb the Music Industry! – Album Minus Band
44. Barenaked Ladies – Gordon
45. Barenaked Ladies – Everything to Everyone
    This was my first album. I’m sure I’ll muse about this on the blog someday with a post specifically about that, but it’s nice to go back.
46. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
    Once again, you see what I mean.
47. The Strokes – Is This It?
48. Bomb the Music Industry! – Album Minus Band
49. Toh Kay – Streetlight Lullabies
    I haven’t listened to this too much yet, but I absolutely love the idea of this album. Tomas Kalnoky, frontman of ska-punk band Streetlight Manifesto, does acoustic folk covers of his ska punk songs. It is beautiful.
50. Flobots – Fight With Tools
    Also in the “albums I need to listen to more often” list.
51. Barenaked Ladies – Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits
52. Adebisi Shank – This Is The Second Album By Adebisi Shank
53. The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
54. The Mountain Goats – Sweden
55. System of a Down – System of a Down
    After listening to this album, I tuned my guitar to Drop C and looked up some System tabs and you know what I learned? Most of it is nowhere near as hard to play as I thought it would be. I feel silly.
56. Metallica – Master of Puppets
57. The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas
    I love this album. Just so much.
58. Nirvana – In Utero
59. Nirvana – Nevermind
60. Nirvana – Bleach
    I didn’t actually listen to all of this last (first) one. I’m just amused that late one night I just decided to listen to all three Nirvana albums.
61. Fucked Up – David Comes to Life
    This is a really good album to write research papers too, because it’s so repetitive and just goes on and on and on, which sounds like criticism, but it totally works in this context!
62. Daft Punk – Alive 2007
    Guess how long it’s been since I listened to this? Too long.
63. And So I Watch You From Afar – Gangs
64. Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Love Bad News
65. And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – Source Tags & Codes
66. Black Sabbath – Paranoid
67. Broken Social Scene – Feel Good Lost
    This is also incredible working/reading/writing papers music, and I must remember this more often.
68. Sublime – Sublime
69. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
70. Barenaked Ladies – Stunt
71. Black Sabbath – Paranoid
    Is it weird if I think this is really good reading music?
72. Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
73. Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti
    Probably the Zeppelin album I’ve listened to least. Or at least it’s been a long time, so it actually feels like I’ve listened to Presence and In Through The Out Door more, which is weird.
74. Talking Heads – Fear of Music

And that seems to be it. That was probably not even close to an interesting read, so I still need to tweak this feature, I’m guessing. I actually already have a new idea for it, but I’m going to wait to implement that until the next time, which will hopefully be sooner.

So to wrap things up with something that might be slightly more interesting, I’m gonna pick five songs from all of that that I want to share with you. Yes,you!

The Mountain Goats – “No Children”

This is such a fantastically bitter song about a bad relationship (technically marriage but I wanna make it universal). The combined hatred for the other person and self-loathing is delicious. It’s impossible not to sing along. I’m going to a Mountain Goats concert in less than a week, and if this is not played, I will be super sad. (Dear John Darnielle, If you are reading this, YOU ARE AWESOME. That doesn’t have much to do with what I hope you play in London, but YOU ARE THE BEST.)

Black Sabbath – “Paranoid” & “Iron Man”

I was going to pick one of these songs, then I found a video where they play both of them, so I was like yay I don’t have to make a decision yayyyy. It’s kind of funny how tame the video is now, but I imagine the special effects were probably a bit more metal back in the day. Like I wrote earlier in the post, I kind of think this makes for really good reading music. But I could just be crazy.

Bomb the Music Industry! – “Does Your Face Hurt? No? ‘Cause It’s Killin’ Me!”

Bomb the Music Industry!’s first album is way better than I remembered it being. DIY punk at its hyperactive, pissed off best.

Toh Kay – “A Better Place, A Better Time”

Of all the Streetlight Manifesto songs to get the “fast and crazy ska punk to soft and tender acoustic folk” treatment on the album, this is easily the song most deserving of it. I’ve written about how emotional this song is and how it never fails to hit me before, and hearing it like this sounds like it should be sadder, but I’m not totally sure it is. Amazingly enough, the ska punk version makes the song’s tale of trying to help a loved one contemplating suicide infinitely more desperate between Kalnoky’s pained screams and the horn section’s sense of warning. Interestingly, his softly sung vocals in this version aren’t what sounds hurt, but instead it’s the acoustic guitar that primarily carries the sorrow. But most importantly is how well the song works. Transitioning radically from ska punk to singer-songwriter folk doesn’t sound like the easiest thing in the world, and it’s a testament to how powerful this song is. If you get nothing else out of this post (which I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t; look at this mess), just listen to this one song.