music

I know I am encroaching on territory where I am no expert, but with all the new music that’s come out recently I’ve been thinking a lot about music lately.

Here are some of those thoughts:

#1 – Some bands can only do “their” thing. Snowpatrol has the market on relationship songs. Their last album was, for sure, a break up album. All about lost love. I could see how people loved it because everyone knows that feeling. This new albums starts with another love ballad. And they nailed it. What Snowpatrol knows is that everyone wants to be worshiped. Tough to pull of the worship-love ballad without being cheesy, but he’s done it. Every woman would love to think that someone in the world loves her enough to watch her sleeping in the morning as the sun “rays tangle up around your face and body.”

#2 – That leads to my second thought. Usually when I hear a new album, there is one song that I crave and I will keep listening to the album just to come to that song again. With Snowpatrol, it’s that first song. With Kings of Leon, it’s the whole album. With The National, it’s “Slow Show.” Usually, though, that craving wears off and that’s when I stop listening to the album in favor of the new craving. I’ve come to understand that what qualifies a really good album is when you continue to crave it. Only two artists fit into that category for me: Ryan and Patty.

#3 – And recently Ryan has shifted. He’s still creating great stuff, but he’s written more albums than I can keep up with recently and none of them (in my humble opinion) are nearly as good as Gold and Heartbreaker. I haven’t listened to Easy Tiger in ages. And, don’t get me wrong, when I put it in it’s really good, but I don’t crave it.* Patty Griffin, though, is another story all together. I always crave Patty. Any album. Some I like more than others, but I play Patty at least once a month to get my fix.

*as a side note, I am liking Cardinology so far. More and more each listen.