Some people love music. Some people don't. Some need to know what a song means. Some will make up their own meaning. Some people know music. Some just know how it makes them feel.
I own up to my own ignorance of actual music. By actual music, I mean notes, scales, clefs, arpeggios, minor keys, arrangements and any other technical minutiae that belong to the crafting of song. For me, and I believe for many, music is more about the invocation of emotion and feeling than the attributes of composition. So, for me, The Pixies, Shania Twain, Stephen Sondheim, Ace of Base, Lil Wayne, and Lou Reed are on an equal playing field. I leave myself open to any genre and as a side effect have learned to ignore no form of music based on what I know about it.
So what Lil Wayne is soaked in codeine?
So what I feel let down by Andrew Stockdale?
Does Billy Joe's eyeliner make me love the Jesus of Suburbia medley any less?
For all the good my visceral love of music does me, it also has a major downfall: impetuousness. Every few years- a half decade or so- my musical tastes migrate drastically. Gone are the days when crunchy, heavy metal guitars thrill me. No longer does bass-thumping, gangster rap make me feel invincible. I can barely listen to MXPX now. And as much as I hate to admit it, Coheed & Cambria and Jack Johnson are starting to stale. Instead of mourning these bygone musical eras, I remember them by, every once and a while, reverting back to these bands and songs for a glimpse of what I was feeling then.So, what am I feeling now? In the summer of 2008, I moved to Kansas City with my fiance. I worked an easy but un-fulfilling job and knew no one in this town. I idled my time with Wii-playing, some writing, some Netflixing and I dove headfirst into a brand new musical addiction- The Avett Brothers.
For so long I had turned my back on anything resembling country music (this being a by-product of hearing only the soulless, pop-country of the late 20th century). Acts like Jack Johnson, Patrick Park, and Neko Case helped lure me into the realm of acoustic, folk songs. The Shins- "Gone For Good" almost did as much by itself. Hell, I relinquished my foolish boycott of Simon & Garfunkel because I could no longer resist their allure. I was primed for something raw and true and the Avett Brothers delivered more than I could bargain for.
2008 was the summer of The Second Gleam EP. 6 songs so heartfelt and pure and so completely disarming that it left me dumbstruck. "Tear Down the House" and "Murder in the City" both felt like they were written for me during the summer of 2008, a time of consternation, change and confusion. I could do nothing but listen to every song this band had ever recorded just to hear what else they knew about me.
Emotionalism was the album that served as my entryway into the Avett Brothers library. Specifically "Paranoia in B Flat Major" with its melancholy tune and puzzlement with the singer's present state. What I loved the most about the Avett Brothers is the range of styles they employed, often switching moods and styles mid-song. Their propensity to declassification became more apparent as I moved backwards in their catalog.
Four Thieves Gone plays out almost like a mix tape. As if a group of guys got together with their instruments but couldn't agree on what kind of album to make so they just played what they felt like playing. And while that my sound disconcerting and contrary, it blends together into a whirlwind of genuine emotions. "Talk on Indolence" flies from an aggressive introduction, full of isolation and vitriol into a confession of male inadequacy and booze fueled debauchery. It's that kind of honesty, applied to every song, that makes the Avett Brothers so special.
Their newest effort, I And Love And You is their most cohesive album in sound and their most mature. There are no "Pretty Girl" songs and it seems as if they, or producer Rick Rubin, decided that a piano should be an essential part of their line-up. Irregardless, as a young adult, with (hopefully) the majority of my life ahead of me, with the most intense feelings anger, love, sorrow and hope yet to come, I can't help but attach myself to I And Love And You. Listen to "Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise" and "The Perfect Space" and try to not take stock of your own life, using those songs as a watermark. It's impossible.
I don't know what I'll be feeling in another 5 years or for that matter, tomorrow. Although I realize I may not be as attached to the acts I am right now (Split Lip Rayfield I feel you slipping) in the future, I'm determined to follow my gut. As long as the Avett Brothers continue to play and sing from theirs I'm sure we'll meet in the middle.
Listen to something and feel something. That's all. And that's all I want.
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