52 in 52: Week 12 - "Her Majesty, the Decemberists"

Week of 12/28/14 - 1/3/15

Album from 2003

Since I've already passed most of their albums, and I'm sitting here waiting for their newest to come in the mail today, I bought "Her Majesty the Decemberists" by the Decemberists from 2003 and decided to write about it. It's probably the Decemberist album I'm least familiar with, which I think works perfectly. I don't already know the songs too well to the point where I'm biased by how well they've stuck in my head, but I've heard them at least once before, and I know the artists well enough to still write about the music.

Also, apparently "Welcome Interstate Managers" by Fountains of Wayne has never been released on anything but CD.

52 in 52: Week 11 - "A Ghost is Born"

Week of 12/21/14 - 12/27/14

Album from 2004

What I didn't exactly realize when I started this was exactly how hard it was actually going to be to go out to a store and figure out when each album was released and which one I wanted to buy and if I could write about it. What I've been doing is writing down a short list for each year and then figuring it out when I get to the store. It's also a little weird because it seems like there was a time after vinyl was "useful" and before it was "retro," and so there are plenty of things, like albums from 2004, and I'm sure this will be a bigger problem in the late '90s, that never got released on vinyl, and if they did, they are somewhat rare and pretty expensive.

52 in 52: Week 10 - "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning"

Week of 12/14/14 - 12/20/14

Album from 2005

So I was pretty busy the last two or so weeks, what with it being the holidays and all that stuff, but I did manage to buy an album released in 2005, and even wrote up a little something about it.

Hey, at least these are starting to get a little cheaper the further back in time I go. I got "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" by Bright Eyes for less than $15, and that seems like a good enough deal for me. Bright Eyes can be pretty hit or miss for me. Of the eight Bright Eyes studio albums, "Letting Off the Happiness" and "The People's Key" are pretty forgettable, "Fevers and Mirrors," "Lifted, or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground," and "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" are somewhere in between, but this album and "Cassadaga" are all-timers (I know that's only seven; I realized that I really don't know their first album "A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997" well enough to pass any judgement).

"Wide Awake" contains all the hallmarks of the Bright Eyes catalog, or it could even be said that this album is the reason that a lot of these things are seen as hallmarks; sarcasm, satire, anger, beauty, politics, quivering, loneliness.

52 in 52: Week 8 - "Free Life"

Week of 11/30/14 - 12/6/14

Album from 2007

"Free Life" by Dan Wilson is one of my favorite albums of all time, and Dan Wilson is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. The guy just know what he's doing. He's like if a slightly-lesser Elton John had a baby with a better lyricist than Bernie Taupin (and somehow that baby acquired exactly all of it's parents music skills). He writes perfect melodies stuffed with beautiful, clever, heartbreaking, and hopeful lyrics.

 

Nobody carries this album. I've never seen it in any store. I ordered it online. It's weird how few people know Dan Wilson. His music can be sort of hard to find. But you should still find it.

52 in 52: Week 7 - "The '59 Sound"

Week of 11/23/14 - 11/29/14

Album from 2008

In my very first post, I briefly lamented not choosing "Get Hurt" by The Gaslight Anthem for the 2014 album. I didn't mind as much though, because I already have 2008's "The '59 Sound" on vinyl and it's a much more full and complex album than the band's newest.

Fallon and his band used to get a little grief for being a Jersey band that "ripped off" Bruce.

52 in 52: Week 6 - "Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl"

Week of 11/16/14 - 11/22/14

Album from 2009

Since this project has been really draining on my wallet, I decided to use another album that I already own. I've been rationalizing that these are all things that I would've bought eventually anyway, which is true, but in such a condensed period of time, it can be a little taxing. Anyway, the two albums that I own from 2009 are "Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl" by Van Morrison, and "Aim and Ignite" by fun., and since I just did fun.'s second album three weeks ago, Van Morrison it is.

52 in 52: Week 5 - "Lonely Avenue"

Week of 11/9/14 - 11/15/14

Album from 2010

This week, of the list that I made when I went out shopping, I decided to get the only one I hadn't listened to at all, not even a little bit. So this write-up of "Lonely Avenue" by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby is of a complete first listen.

It's a little bit weird that I've never listened to this album before. I'm a fan of Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five, and I own mp3s of all of his music and have listened to all of it, and know most of it pretty well. He's not an all-time favorite of mine, but he's a pretty damn good songwriter and listening to his music is a great way to pass the time.

52 in 52: Week 4 - "Collapse Into Now"

Week of 11/2/14 - 11/8/14

Album from 2011

There was a bunch of stuff I thought about writing about this week, but I'm still somewhat limited by the fact that 2011 is still relatively recent, and anything from that year is going to be somewhat pricey, and there aren't going to be as many in actual stores. If I'm going to spend more than $15 on a record, I'm going to do it for one that I actually want to own.

So I made a list of albums from 2011 that I would both like to own and would like to write about: "Thank You, Happy Birthday" by Cage the Elephant, "Augustana" by Augustana, "Wasting Light" by Foo Fighters, "Collapse Into Now" by REM "Yes and Also Yes" by Mike Doughty, "The Whole Love" by Wilco, and "Birdy" by Birdy.

Of the two that I was able to find actual copies of, "Collapse Into Now" was much cheaper than "The Whole Love" (which was over $25), so this week I'm going to write about the last REM record.

52 in 52: Week 3 - "Some Nights"

Week of 10/26/14 - 11/1/14

Album from 2012

I sort of stumbled upon this weeks record. I was actually at the record store trying to get a new needle and I happened to see "Some Nights" by fun. sitting out in front. Now, this is yet another one that I already own the CD of, but it's not one that I've listened to obsessively, and not one that I particularly love, which I thought would make a nice contrast from the last two weeks, when it maybe felt like I was gushing a little too much.

I can deal with overexposure, and with bands that I like becoming more than just a personal thing, and to some extent I can deal with bands trying to tweak their sound a little to appeal to a larger audience. It's just when all of those things coincide with a step down in quality that I'm not as forgiving.

At this point, I'm sure plenty of people have heard from their indie-rock hipster-kid friends that fun. like, totally sold out, man, and that they used to be, like, way better. And it's basically true. Their first album, "Aim and Ignite," was fantastic, and one of my favorites. I was excited about another album, and I even remember being excited when I heard "We Are Young" in that Super Bowl commercial, saying things like, "Hey that's fun.!" and "they're totally going to blow up now, it's going to be awesome." And they did, which I love. But they lost the oddly specific sound from their first album that was part of the reason it was so great. I actually didn't expect to like them. I was a fan of Steel Train and the Postelle's, who were opening up for fun. on their first tour after "Aim and Ignite," and I wasn't planning on staying. A friend told me to stay, that I'd like it. And my immediate thought when they stepped on the stage was that this friend didn't know me too well. I mean, Nate walks up wearing the skinniest of skinny jeans, Jack's got these huge-rimmed glasses, their name is a total grammatical nightmare, with all lower-case and a period at the end which are clearly only there to be contrarian, and perhaps to let their name stand out from actual fun, but in the end, I bought the CD right there at the merch table by the end of the concert.

52 in 52: Week 2 - "Southeastern"

Week of 10/19/14-10/25/14

Album from 2013

I went looking for a 2013 album this week. I didn't have one in mind really until I got to Jack's Music Shoppe in Red Bank, NJ, which is one of my go-to spots. For some reason, once I got there, I really wanted to get Jason Isbell's "Southeastern." They didn't have it. So I went to the rest of my regular spots, places in and around Asbury Park, the Howell Record Store, and even a couple of places further away that I know carry new albums. It wasn't anywhere. I know it wasn't an especially popular album or anything, especially around here, but I was still a little surprised that I couldn't find it anywhere. Whatever...anyway, I ordered it from Amazon (for $14, not bad). Now, I don't expect to be writing about things that I set out looking for a lot. I expect to browse and find something from each year, but it's a little bit harder with much newer albums, since they haven't circulated much and found time to end up in used stacks.

For those who don't know who Jason Isbell is, he's a country/folk/alt-country singer/songwriter and a former member of the Drive-By Truckers. For those of you who don't know who Drive-By Truckers are, don't worry, we'll talk about it.

52 in 52: Week 1 - "Somewhere Under Wonderland"

Week of 10/12/14 - 10/18/14

Album from 2014

When I was deciding which album to choose for the first week of this little adventure, I had a couple of options. See, I wanted to get it done as soon as possible, so I decided to pick a 2014 album that I already owned, and, for this time, at least, skip the process of going to a store to pick up a new own. So, basically, it was between "Swimming Time," by Shovels & Rope, "Somewhere Under Wonderland," by Counting Crows, "Get Hurt," by the Gaslight Anthem, and "Lights Out," by Ingrid Michaelson. Now, as much as I would like to talk up a band that's still relatively new and unheard of like Shovels & Rope, and talk about how I just saw them three times in the past week, and as much as I'd like to examine the distinct difference between Ingrid Michaelson's new album and her past music, and as much as I'd like to write about a local (for me) band like the Gaslight Anthem, it's gotta be Counting Crows.

52 in 52: Introduction

Hi, my name is Matt, and let me tell you a little bit about what I hope this series of posts will be.

I am both an aspiring writer and a huge music fan/collector. I was born in 1991, so while my iPod has 20,000 songs on it, and I have an entire wall of shelves for CDs, I haven't had much experience with actual vinyl albums until this past year, when I received a record player as a gift and I began browsing stores, and buying records.

The pitch for this series is: one record a week, released in a different year reverse chronologically, for 52 weeks. The first week will be something produced in 2014, the second week something from 2013, and on and on until we get to one year from now and it's something from 1962. Now, I don't own many, so mostly this is going to be me going out to a store once a week, finding a record released from the year in question, and then listening to it.

This first week's will be up soon.