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 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.