Buy the album! (AKA, why The Decemberists "Hazards of Love" is a modern marvel)
Nothing drives me more crazy in the music world than someone deciding whether an artist is "good" or not based on a few singles they picked up here and there. There has been a slow slipping of music being forced on us, and as one who deeply appreciates the power of choice for the individual, I'm still not convinced that it's good for the general populace.
Lets take it back a couple of hundred years. For the rare population who was able to consume music, they had little say in it. Unless you were king, pope, or the financier of a particular event, you didn't get to decide what was going to be played next. You didn't get to custom order your favorite tenor to sing a particular piece. You got what was playing, and you LIKED it. Hearing music was an event to be remembered that you could later tell your grandchildren about. Depending on your era, you had Bach or Brahms forced on you, and that was that. But the lack of choice and availability meant you had to SAVOR the music being played, cherish it for what it was, and often times with little basis of comparison. Over time, that changed. First in tiny "piany" bars where people could actually request songs, then onto recorded music. But then came the CD, the final sign of the coming musical apocalypse. You could buy an album, and actively NOT listen to 9/10's of it. Even when cassette players were blessed with search functions, you would still occassionally land on the rest of the tape. But CDs offered us the chance to actively ignore everything else. This sadness was forever trumped by the power of the MP3 and the ability to not even buy the whole album, just the one track.
Don't get me wrong, I think technology is great, and the ability to consume music is at an all-time high flexibility. But it has it's problems. Like babbling people with tiny brains declaring that Nickleback is their favorite band ever because they bought a track where the lead singers says "spank my ass". And the avoidence of the full album experience.
Which brings me to my favorite recent discovery, The Decemberists "Hazards of Love".
I had bumped headlong into a couple of Decemberist toons over the years, including "Sixteen Military Wives", which was a catchy single, but I wasn't sure how I felt about the band.
But I didn't think about it much after that. Until I saw them on Craig Ferguson. Then Letterman. Then Leno. They played music from their new album "The Hazards of Love", and quite brilliantly, they played a different song each time. And not once did they play the only real single on the album, "The Rake Song". It tricked me into buying the whole deal, and I'm glad I did.
It is a musical opus with a traceable storyline (something the band does frequently, I hear). The best I can make out, and the way it works out in my imagination, it's about two lovers who are kept apart my his controling (and MAGIC!) mother, and her psyco-obsessed stalker (who has previously killed off his own children). It's an adventure, with beautiful musicianship, killer vocals, and a heartwarming yet tragic finish.
So do yourself a favor. Enjoy a full album, and then tell me how great a band is. In the meantime, I'll get you started on the "Hazards of Love" the same way I did. Take it away, Craig...
Posted by Jason McCormick, who hasn't figured out his posterous yet... Hmm..
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