5 CDs a Week, week 3

CDs of the week, in no particular order:

1. Travis, The Invisible Band
2. Beck, Odelay
3. The Decemberists, The Crane Wife
4. Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous
5. Modjo, "Chillin'" single

I tried something a little different this week with the picking--I let O pick the last CD. Now, the way I've been picking is basically reaching in the drawer with most of my CDs while looking away and grabbing one at a time, or going to a pile in another room and closing my eyes and picking one. This time I thought it might be interesting to see what Oliver picked out. His approach was to look through and find one that he thought "would have a good story," so he picked out Beck's Odelay. Funny thing is, I don't really thing I have a story for it. Nothing too memorable, anyway. That's not to say that it wasn't a fantastic album. With "The New Pollution", "Where It's At", and "Devil's Haircut", that's a fact that's hard to deny. Plus there are a lot of other great tracks on the album. But I have no real memories, no crazy stories associated with it. I loved listening to it again (and again), but I thought it almost weird that there was nothing that I felt like I HAD to write about Odelay. I guess that, in itself, is a story. We make all sorts of associations with songs, albums, sounds and smells and tastes with some time in the past, but then there are things that just don't really do much to jog a memory. Is that a bad thing? I don't necessarily think so. There are still memories to be created, and even though a album came out 14 years ago, that doesn't mean it couldn't create new memories. Also, holy cow! Odelay came out 14 years ago?!?!? I had just finished my first year of high school! I think I need a minute to get over how old I'm feeling right now...

...Okay, that's better. Onward we go!

The Crane Wife was an album I picked up at Repo Records on South Street one summer weekend, I believe while I was hanging out with the lovely Heather when she graced the city of Brotherly Love with her presence one weekend. Both of us being music connoisseurs (albeit maybe with slightly different tastes), we HAD to stop in any record store we came across on our journey up and down the street where all the hippest meet. I don't even think I was going to get anything, but I happened upon the CD in the racks, and it was shortly after it was released, so with every purchase they were giving out posters promoting The Crane Wife. Who's going to pass up a free poster, right? It just sweetened the pot for me. I made the purchase and then had to deal with carrying the poster around for the rest of the afternoon without it getting wrinkled or torn. There's a downside to everything. The CD itself is, in my opinion, some of their better material. It's definitely better-produced than their previous works, and I feel that they better explored the melding of old-world sea shanty-esque stories with modern music. My favorites are probably "Sons & Daughters", "O, Valencia", and "The Perfect Crime". Listening to it a few times this past week reminded me how much I enjoyed listening to it in the first place as well as how many songs on the album I really like. Sometimes, that kind of reminder is needed, and appreciated. Oh, and the poster? Still never put it up on the wall, but I do still have it!

Another South Street buy was Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous. No, I didn't get it at the same time as The Crane Wife, but I remember being in a small record store looking through shelf upon shelf of CDs and finding that. I can't remember exactly why I wanted to get it--I don't know what song it was that I had heard and the reasons I wanted to get it, but I was happy I picked it up. The song I keep finding myself belting out is "Does He Love You?"--it's catchy enough on the first listen to find youself singing it afterward. Also, I couldn't believe that two of the band members were one of the girls from Troop Beverly Hills and the guy who played Pinsky in Salute Your Shorts.

I picked up Travis' The Invisible Band not on South Street, but on Haight Street in San Francisco. I wandered over to Amoeba Records with Jonah one of the days I was there and grabbed a few CDs--their used CD section is stellar. There were a few songs on The Invisible Band I was familiar with, most notably "Sing" and "Slide", and overall I think this whole album is pretty solid. The video for "Sing" was pretty memorable for me, watching a room full of upper crusters getting into a food fight, complete with a monkey dancing around! That's my kind of dinner party!

Sometime when I was home from a break in college my freshman year, I was up late watching MTV (maybe MTV 2, when either one of them were still playing videos), and I saw the video for French duo Modjo's "Lady (Hear Me Tonight)". I loved the sound of it, and I hadn't heard of the group before, so I thought I'd check out Best Buy next time I was there to look for their album. But lo, they didn't have it. Weeks later, no dice. A year might have passed, and while I wasn't obsessed with it, I still checked whenever I went into a CD store, just in case I could find it. Fast forward to the summer of 2001, and Becky and I took a day trip to New York City just to walk around and enjoy ourselves when we strolled into an HMV store, and I thought about checking, just one more time, to see if they might have anything by Modjo, and BINGO! They had CD singles for both "Lady" and "Chillin'", another song that I had heard by then. I was so giddy and bouncing around about the find. Those songs are so great to put on when you want to dance a little or need a little pump-you-up music. Both singles also have acoustic loungy versions of the songs, you know, for those moments you want to chill out instead of dance.

This post is going up a little later than I normally plan for, and I'm a bit tired tonight, so hopefully there aren't too many typos on the original posting--I'll make any edits in the morning when I'm more awake and my eyes are refreshed. Until next week, happy listening!

Battery Tally: Only one set this week. Total for project: 4 sets.