I've been thinking lately about my Top Ten Albums of the year, and my Top Underwhelming Albums of the year, for no other reason then I don't reallllllly want to study for finals. I'm not planning on doing much with the information, and it's hard to make the Top Ten Albums truly fair, because some of the albums I played the hell out of this year are older releases, or playlists I made.

All this led me to realize that I tend to favor two sorts of albums- the first is thematic, with a few fist pumpers, that I listen to with my throat, feeling the vibrations from my speakers threading through me (New Pornographer's "Twin Cinema", the Arcade Fire's "Funeral", Menomena's "Friend and Foe"). The other is the album that I must listen to with headphones, that invariably strikes me as delicate or orchestrated (Jose Gonzalez's "Veneer"(/the Live Concert via RBally), the Cinematic Orchestra's "Ma Fluer", Benjamin Biolay's "Negatif").

I wonder why this is. One strikes me as poetry, the other as affirming.

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I've been watching those Take Away Shows, thanks to the link by Rachel. They're sort of amazing. And in some cases, almost make me cry (the sheer joy both of the kids and the musicians makes me want to pack my bags, grab my markers and hit the road. I swear I will one of these days. And I might be dragging my own kids-if that ever happens- along, I might be dragging a man-if that ever happens- but I swear, I'll do it.

Labels: music