Now time for the top 5.
5. Polar Bear Club – “Sometimes Things Just Disappear”
This is another example of a band I discovered pretty much by accident. I was on the Bridge 9 website looking at vinyl and saw a couple records by this band. At the time I had a Rhapsody account and a lot of free time so I pulled up one of their albums and gave it a listen, I was hooked. Not only is the way the album is put together really nice, but the subject matter is great. Lately I’ve been losing myself in music a lot and it’s nice to have something relevant to listen to. Plus an band with a song titled “Eat dinner, bury the dog, and run,” has to be a good listen. It’s bands like this that make me want to be in a band again. It seems that they don’t take a very defined approach to things. Their one of those bands that’s hard to describe. Kind of like Rise Against, but really not. All I know is since I got this album it’s one of the most played things in my iTunes.
4. The Postal Service – “Give Up”
This is quite possibly one of the most amazing albums I have ever heard. I remember listening to this with Simon years ago and thinking “this is groovy,” then “Such Great Heights” would come on and I’d want to ship something through UPS for some reason and I would get distracted. This is another album I had forgotten about until I had rhapsody at my disposal. Got on a Death Cab kick and saw this is in the related artists and fell in love with it. Probably one of the most chaotic albums for me right now, just because of associations I may have with it. I’ve been on this thing lately where I can find music to relate to moments or moods, this fits a lot of moments and a lot of moods. I’ve talked a lot of times about doing a project like this with a couple close friends. Get a few drum machines, synths, and keyboards and just add tracks one at a time and see where it ends up. Probably be a mess, but it would be a beautiful one.
3. Jurassic 5 – Quality Control
This album reminds me of being a kid. I remember there was a while there when Yay was HUGE into these guys and every time I went into Zumiez (yes, I was a mall rat) to hang out he had J5 on. I have all their albums, and I love all of them, but this one is my favorite. This, to me, is what hip hop should be all about. Something worth a shit, not just talking about rims or other bull shit. This is a hip hop album you can skate to, drink a beer to, or mow lawns to. It just fits all occasions. I think Shane and I probably listened to it 3 or 4 times on our way to ALMS. Someday I will have a J5 inspired tattoo, I just have to find somewhere to put it. Best part about this album is, every time I put this record on, she wants to dance. Cutest thing ever. Makes me smile to think about it, even in the worst of times.
2. MuteMath – “Armistice”
Is what got me into this band is the drummer. I won’t even lie. Davin showed me some videos on you tube one night and I couldn’t give a shit less about the rest of the band, the music, none of it. The dude running around a record store playing on the pipes and then using his right hand to play the kick drum…it could’ve been bjork and I would have been hooked. Courtney picked up this album for me on the cheap when a record store in Pocatello went out of business. I opened it, ripped it into iTunes, and then didn’t really listen to it a whole lot until recently. One night I was sorting through some stuff and had the iPod on shuffle and something grabbed me, so I looked, saw it was the song “Backfire” off this album so I decided to play the whole album through and give it another listen. I think I ended up listening to this album about 30 times in the span of a week. With all the stuff that’s been going on lately in my life, this album made me feel like I wasn’t completely crazy. That somewhere, at sometime, someone else had held the same emotions I was holding.
1. City and Colour – “Sometimes”
I don’t honestly remember how I discovered this album or City and Colour in general. I’m pretty sure it was a night I was just going through rhapsody on an alexisonfire kick and this was a related album. This is everything I loved about alexisonfire doing everything I love in music. I love folk style music. I love music that has an identity and a certain organic element to it. I love music that gives you the weird shivers inside every time you hear it. It’s almost like every time it comes on is the first time. It’s a first kiss, first date, first long drive kind of album. If you separate yourself from the fact that every track on this album is heartfelt, and look it from a purely artistic standpoint it’s mind boggling. There’s some tracks that you would be hard pressed to believe they’re done on one guitar. You look at the tunings and chord structures and it makes your brain melt a little bit. This is one of the few albums I have in my collection (another is “Bring Me Your Love,” also by City and Colour) that stimulates every part of my being. It makes me want to write music again, it makes me want to paint, it makes me want to do something. That’s why this is my number 1 album of the year. All the other albums have associations or emotions attached to them or applicable to scenarios. This is an album that I can listen too any time, any where, doing anything. There are good memories as well as not so good memories tied this album. And every time I listen to it I want to create.
That’s it for my Top 10 albums. I may do a couple more Top 10′s. This has been a lot of fun, and it’s been cathartic to be writing, anything.
