All I Wanted for Christmas

[trinityvixen]

Ironically, probably my most useful Christmas gift is actually my birthday gift: a digital camera. I spent time playing with it over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, taking movies of people opening gifts, pictures of my kitties, that sort of thing. I've nowhere near mastered all the features and I am still a hopelessly bad photographer. I guess I lack the imagination to stage shots, or something, but most of the ones I took were pretty standard. The one of Devin and I watching XXX I'm pretty proud of, really, seeing as it was just Vin Diesel on a bike on my TV. Oh well. The next step is to install software on my computer and download videos and pictures, followed closely by learning how to do the panoramic shots via stitching together individual shots. Should be fun.

I've also managed to watch most of my new DVDs by this point, though, since roommates are out of town still, I'm probably going to be allowed to watch more! I finished one disc of Invader Zim (wow, there were episodes I hadn't seen on it!), one of Sealab 2021 (woo! the "Predator" episode rocks so hard; it has my favorite line in it, "Great, Sparks, you fried the monitor and you're dead!"), Spider-Man 2 (that movie is still so "awww"), Elf ("You sit on a throne of lies!"), The Crow (which looks spectacular on DVD--they really cleaned it up, methinks), and am I missing something? Oh, still have to watch The Bourne Supremacy, and the special features, o'course. If I can find time around stitching and ta-dum! Playing video games.

For some reason, right before I left the apartment for Christmas, I played Dynasty Warriors 3 for the first time in ages. Sometimes, you really forget how good those things you used to enjoy really were. I played, very appropriately, Sun Shang Xiang, and finished off her musou level. In fact, this weekend was chock-a-bloc with activities from 'back in the day' (or, ones I hadn't enjoyed in long enough to qualify). On the train ride home, I listened to The Fragile's left side CD. It's funny how, while I knew that the CD was good, listening to it again blew me away. That is an album. You hear me, Jessica Simpson? Nickelback? Whoever the kids are listening to these days? From the start, the gentle but insistent intro of "Somewhat Damaged", to the sweeping orchestral finish with "The Great Below," that CD has nary a song out of place, and the emotions packed in the music are still incredibly potent. I came back to the apartment and immediately put on the right side CD, while playing video games, naturally, and just blissed out.

It's really nice to know that, although it takes Trent Reznor about five years between albums (and, excuse me, but I still think he's overdue for a fresh one, no matter this remix of The Downward Spiral or the live album nonsense), someone, somewhere, still makes albums. Not songs that they throw together so that you have to go through the pretentious crap or the boring filler to get to the one incredibly catchy or annoying hit song, but an album. There aren't many albums that I like all of the songs on; besides my triumverate of favorites, all stolen from my high-school Liz (Garbage, NIN, Depeche Mode), there are really only a few albums I like start to finish, or mostly like, and this is a problem for me. While I cave into the "I have this song stuck in my head, get it out out out" mp3 song-by-song flipping urge, I like to put on a playlist and just listen to a set, where I don't have to change the order, where every song flows organically into the next. That's why I like albums that have the entire piece in mind at the outset. You don't move from "Pilgrimage" to "The Great Below" without "La Mer" on The Fragile's left CD; you almost can't. It would be very hard to skip. I think that's why I so infrequently listen to the mp3s I ripped from that album--if you don't play them in order, they lose something.

The other albums I consider all-album worthy include Our Lady Peace's Clumsy where every song is addictive or distinctive in its own right, which is not easy; Smash Mouth's Astro Lounge, which might surprise some people who know it only for "All Star"--it's actually uniformly interesting, especially "Road Man" and "Stoned;" the Great Expectations soundtrack, which successfully combines Tori Amos with the Grateful Dead and throws in Scott Weiland and The Verve Pipe for good measure; Savage Garden's self-titled debut CD, again, crippled in terms of its aesthetic appreciation by people sick of "Truly, Madly, Deeply," or who thought "I Want You" was a bad pop rip-off of dance/house music; the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack, both of them, for having the 80s mastered, cornered, ripped from memory and displayed like new again; The Beatles' Sargent Peppar's Lonely Hearts Club Band which is an album in the way I say The Fragile is an album, where every song placement makes complete and total sense and without which the album could be just disorganized genius; The Matrix soundtrack for being one of the best in a movie, and best used in a movie without overwhelming it; STP's Purple because it was the best of their best, and because of the hidden track; Everclear's So Much for the Afterglow because Art still infused his music with cynical hope at that time and hadn't gotten too bogged down by being the product of abuse, neglect, and emotional terrorism at that point in Everclear's career; the Blade: Trinity soundtrack, which I'm going to assume no one will believe me because of indiscreet comments about Ryan Reynolds, but which everyone should really pick up--if I can appreciate the beauty and subtlety and even like the rap songs in it, anyone can.

I want to get more music like NIN--not in terms of genre, perhaps, though I like that music, but more in terms of the flow. I want to get more music, period, but full-album music. I'm okay with it not being all-songs-bleed-together-and-connect-the-writer's-emotional-narrative, but I want an album that I cannot live without, one that will hook me at the first, keep me until the last, and have me distracted by everything that comes inbetween. Anyone have suggestions?

Comments

[viridian.livejournal.com]

You have excellent musical taste.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I agree. I've stolen loads of music from you. I think I should get to listening to them, then. I know I still have all of Ten, and I should just go buy Joshua Tree, seeing as now I own one U2 album and must cave and buy them all. They're one of *those* bands--the kind where they're pretty good all around and you can't buy one album without getting the rest. Sorta like Madonna--I almost bought Ray of Light, but then I'd have to buy her other stuff which is all pretty fun and good.

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

Do you know anythng about How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb? I've heard mostly bad-ish stuff about it, but some good and was curious. Also, I've been informed by many that Elliot Smith is the shit and I remember you having stuff.

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

Oh, and BSD and Ben will try to convince you to get the U2 album Pop, claiming that it's their best. Do not believe them... though the album has one amazing keeper in Wake Up, Dead Man. Also, The unforgettable Fire is nothing too special; apart from the well-known singles, only Indian Summer Sky is worth listening to (but this is all just my opinion).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

On "How to Dismantle...": The problem with this as an album is that the undeniably catchy "Vertigo" is the first track on the CD. I've not gotten far past it as a result. It's an AWESOME track, but as a result, the rest is kinda forgotten. "All Because of You," the other single, is pretty good, and I've yet to listen to many of the others carefully.

On Elliott Smith: When he died, a new album was just cut, and a reviewer made some comment that the new album finally justified his success, saying that he possessed too little talent, especially as compared to similar-sounding artists like Badly Drawn Boy, for example. I think this is overly harsh. Smith was a great talent. I saw him live, preceded by Grandaddy, another group/singer supposedly better than him, and they were nothing. Elliot Smith has a sound that's instantly recognizeable and inexplicably sad even when the music isn't. I recommend "Figure 8" the album I have, "XO," or the "Good Will Hunting" stuff. "Miss Misery" from that last one always moved me; another good movie one was "Needle in the Hay," which almost makes me cry since a) it's quite clearly a suicide note from a man who very likely committed suicide, and b) it's from "The Royal Tennenbaums" when someone DID try to commit suicide.

For a newcomer to Elliott Smith, it may be hard to disociate his tragic life from his music, and I could see one arguing that it is his death that loaned his music such emotion. However, I think that's belittling him and denying the talent he obviously had. Some tracks by him to check out include "Son of Sam," "Lost and Found," "I Better Be Quiet Now," "Say Yes," "Biggest Lie," and all the ones mentioned above. Like with Nirvana following the loss of Cobain, Smith's work is revealing, spreading wide open his pain, and 20/20 hindsight makes you wonder that no one noticed. And pain, just like it was for Kurt, was Elliott Smith's muse. It's good stuff, 'the shit' indeed.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I can copy some of the U2 albums for you if you're short of funds. (I have all non-live albums since War on CD, except for Zooropa, and you can do without Zooropa anyway.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Well, that would be lovely. I've got plenty of discs you can use, or I can reimburse for the ones you use. On the subject of Zooropa, though, I listened to the title song, and it wasn't bad...but avoid the album?

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

You may like Zooropa if you love Bono singing soprano. I loved "Some Days are Better than Others," and thought the title track was OK, but didn't care for the rest of the album. Tastes may differ, though.

I'll start with Achtung, Baby, see if you like it, then move on to the others.