I apologize for being late with the post again. I am so sorry I didn't post yesterday. I was 3/5ths done with the post yesterday, and Eric and I decided to do a marathon walking expedition, about 3 miles. Then we got to our destination and I realized I had the wrong bus schedules, so we ended up walking part of the way home, then Eric said he wanted to go shopping, so we took a cab to the mall and spent several hours there. Then we decided we wanted to go out to a nice place for dinner...cue midnight and I'm in a wraparound dress that was threatening to not be wrapped around anymore, I was exhausted, freezing, sore and smoking the heck out of hookah. Cue one a.m. and I was asleep.
I had been thinking as I was on my marathon walk that I've been having difficulties for several months now getting the Five Songs post together on time. The main problem is it takes a long time to research and write about five songs. I have to figure out all the websites, find and upload photos, structure the blog post (I do have a template that I made, but I keep forgetting to use it) and the hardest of it all, attempt to write a paragraph on each song that doesn't make me sound too amateurish, uninformed or hackneyed. I succeed part of the time, and I'm sure I fail part of the time.
It takes me half a day to do all that (a whole day if I take breaks to do other things). It's really starting to get to me, and I know if I want to write more reviews and articles, it's going to be impossible to keep up the pace with all that and a full-time job.
So, I started thinking about shortening the blog post--probably by posting only three songs at a time, instead of five. To avoid seeming silly or confusing people, I will probably need to change the name of the post from "Five Songs I'm Loving This Week". I suppose I could be mean and keep it, but I think I'd probably end up looking the most foolish. Anyhow, I have to think about what I want the new name to be and think of if there are any other ways to tighten the process for me. I will be doing that this week, and I plan to debut the new format next week.
It'll still be me--Miss Lola from Jacksonville, but hopefully I'll be less irritated, exhausted and more on time. The name of the blog will still be Cerulean's Love of Music, of course. Only the name of the post will change.
Anyways, I really appreciate everyone who clicks on my blog and I love knowing that people are listening to what I post and that I may be having an effect on people's music interests. I hope you keep reading my blog and listening to my podcast. Doing all this for over two years has helped my writing, helped my confidence about my writing and given me something to do that's worthwhile, and that's for me--not some company I work for.
Anyway, I'm going to keep doing it for as long as I can--I just need to do it a little differently.
Five Songs I'm Loving This Week
Spoon, "The Ghost Of You Lingers"
Spoon, out of Austin, Texas, has shown themselves to be one of the best rock bands of the decade, with such perfect songs as "I Turn My Camera On", "The Beast and the Dragon", "The Way We Get By".
Of course, they've been around since the 90's, but they've just reached prominance recently, with the release of their 2005 album "Gimme Fiction". Spoon became the darling of the blog circuit and were featured in one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction. There's a lot of anticipation over their upcoming album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Will it be as near-perfect as the previous one? I don't know. I know I really like the first song from the new album I've heard, "The Ghost of You Lingers". I adore the urgent piano motif that almost completely constitutes the track. Spoon's known for loud, pounding piano, but not this one. This is subtle to the point of almost disappearing. It's encouraging to know they're not following a template, and it bodes well for the new album coming out July 10th.
Website
Myspace
Spoon
Brighton, MA "Bet You Never Thought"
"I bet you never thought it'd be like this". Those words can be used to acknowledge that everything is falling apart or that everything is going better than it ever has. I, of course, prefer the latter. Then again, without the former, would we have so many emotionally resounding songs? I'm not sure what singer Matt Kerstein means would ever be like what, partly due to his wonderfully mumbled and jarbled voice, which gives the song a touch of disappointment and melancholy. Also, the lyrics kind of give away the intention:
"You've cut yourself from existence
for the sake of tradition
just to be alone..."
and the lyrics go on to be even graver and damning. Okay, so not happy and optimistic. Eh, hopelessness makes the song more dramatic, anyway. Lyrics like the following fill me with a heavy listlessness:
"and with your soul 'neath your feet
your hitting the streets in search of a collective sigh
I'll bet you never thought it would be like this"
Yet, I will always listen to these songs no matter the level of contentness, because we all need to remember what that sadness feels like, so hopefully we can excise it from our external life.
Website
Myspace
Brighton, MA.
Fields, "If You Fail, We All Fail"
I've posted a song from this band before; previously I posted "Brittlesticks", from their 2006 EP From The Village. Just goes to show you how much I like their songs. If I'm posting a band twice, it means I really like them (or I've forgotten I've posted them before, which hopefully with the new supplements won't happen as often).
"If You Fail, We All Fail", from their newly released debut, Everything Last Winter, has a bit of a shoegaze glaze over it, but it's got a very vibrant, high-reaching and un-shoegazy guitar line which just grabs me. It reminds me of some of the early 90's bands I loved like Lush and Galaxie 500, but with a bit of Cocteau Twins intertwined. I remember feeling completely enraptured by those bands' songs. I get a little bit of that feeling with this song.
Website
Myspace
Fields
Shannon Wright, "St. Pete"
She says "There's no fight left in me", but I don't believe it. She sings with conviction and a lot of determination. She sounds like she would be willing to fight for something, but I'm not sure what--the meaning of the song isn't immediately graspable from reading the lyrics alone. It sounds like maybe someone else is saying they have no fight left in them:
"And you said it sad and so playfully
I wish God would make things clear
‘Cause there’s no fight left in me"
Whomever said that sounds kind of defeated. The singer even refers to the Floridian streets as "defeated". A bleak view, but with the kind of power and strength she puts into her voice and lyrics, I doubt anyone around her is surrendering. I'm guessing with the mention of Florida, the St. Pete she's referring to is St. Petersburg, Florida. What that has to do with anything isn't clear at all in the song, but that's cool. It's such a cool song I'll make up a reason. Maybe she's upset because she hasn't been able to go to the Salvador Dali museum. Maybe she got waylaid while on a quest to retrace Jack Keroac's life and she's still determined to finish.
Website
Myspace (Fan's Myspace)
Lyrics for St. Pete and other songs
More songs from Shannon Wright
Shannon Wright
Meg Baird, "Do What You Gotta Do"
The only influence listed on her Myspace is "songs taped off the radio", and I can understand that. I remember as a kid changing the dial on my mother's travel radio late at night, hoping to find something I'd remember for the rest of my life, something special that I could keep forever. Well, my mom's travel radio only got AM radio, so mainly I got weird late night talk radio shows. This could go a long way towards explaining my personality now; particularly why I liked The X-Files and The Lone Gunman so much. Anyway, I spent nights trying to find a song like this on the radio, and if I had, I would've gone to sleep peacefully and woke up desperately wanting to know what the song was and who performed it. I would've driven the radio station crazy. Luckily, I don't have to find out what the name of it is; thanks to the magic of the internet I do already know. I also know I hope some kid is out there listening to internet radio late and night and comes across this song. How lucky for that kid.
Website
Myspace
More info on this site
Meg Baird
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