Are We the Same?

At Christmas, pretty much the only thing I asked for was as usual money and/or gift cards to buy more music. Amazon, iTunes, etc. Did pretty well. Actually, great. Ended up being able to purchase 18 new albums.

Now for me, this is 'kid in a candy store' time. Sadly, I never have time to listen except at the end of the day, and I usually last about 5-10 minutes before I crash. So it takes a while. But it's a wonderful feeling for me, knowing that I have SO
MUCH new music that I can't actually remember all I got.

Now, this process is often quite fascinating. Because often the new music jogs my memory of other things I haven't listened to for a while, and sends me running back to the archives to rediscover old forgotten music. And often the stuff that barely made the cut to be purchased ends up being the unexpected gem.

So, to be specific, because I know you care: Here's what I ended up getting, sorted more or less by category:

Prog Rock:

Spock's Beard - "X"
The Flower Kings - "Back in the World of Adventures"
The Flower Kings - "The Rainmaker"
The Flower Kings - "Flowerpower"

More Traditional Alternative/Rock:

Ed Kowalcyzk - "Alive"
The Tragically Hip - "We Are the Same"

Post-rock/Post-metal:

Mogwai - "Mr. Beast"
Explosions in the Sky - "How Strange, Innocence"
Sigur Ros - "Agaetis Byrjun"
Russian Circles - "Enter"
God is an Astronaut - "The End of the Beginning"
Caspian - "The Four Trees"
Jonsi - "Go"

Other:

The Album Leaf - "In a Safe Place"
Tristeza - "Dream Signals in Full Circles"
A Northern Chorus - "Bitter Hands Resign"
Esmerine - "If Only a Sweet Surrender to the Nights to Come Be True"
Ulrich Schnauss - "Goodbye"

The "Other" category blurs into the post-rock somewhat, with the exception of Ulrich Schnauss which is electronica. So. Diverse list. And I've been through a bit of it.

But the fascinating thing is that I can't seem to get myself to stop listening to the Tragically Hip album. "We Are the Same" blows me away. And The Hip have always been just barely on my radar. I have a lot of their albums because their stuff is always INTERESTING, if not always rewarding on a strictly musical level. Lyrically, Gord Downie has the same ability as Michael Stipe at his best - using words to create a affecting image that just burns itself into your brain and sticks with you. They do it in different ways...Stipe's imagery is, to me, more poetic and abstract, whereas Downie often paints a clear picture, almost a prose narration of a situation, suspended in time, and brimming with uncertain meaning. For me personally, I think 2 things kept me from really connecting with the Hip the same way I always have with R.E.M. For one thing, being such a consciously Canadian band, often the Hip's specific images and references are lost on me, and require research and digging to understand (much like with Midnight Oil's Australian imagery). But also, I just never thought the music was on the same level as the lyrics. With R.E.M. almost every song is interesting enough musically to be a good instrumental. My understanding is that's the way they write - songs are only given to Stipe once they're fleshed out and interesting enough to stand on their own in a sense. That's where, at its best, the richness of R.E.M.'s music comes from. With the Hip...I was never blown away by the compositions. Oddly enough, part of the appeal to me was the intellectual lyrics thrown into sharp relief against a somewhat pedestrian musical backdrop, like reading a philosophy textbook accompanied by classic rock instrumentals. At its best, it worked very well, but it wasn't fully satisfying.

But this album, wow. And it's not so much that the music is better or that it's brilliant now, but this is the first album of theirs where to ME everything actually seems like a unified whole - deep, rich, and complete. Everything belongs to and complements something else. It's a really satisfying listen, beginning to end.

And I read that a lot of fans hated it - too mellow, too soft...and I suppose if that's where you're coming from I can understand the hesitation. After all, when Bob Mould put out "Modulate" I had some soul-searching to do - was this techno stuff even still really the same person? What it came down to for me was asking if this was still a Bob Mould song, now that it had a backbeat instead of a wall of guitars? Did I love the songwriting or just the sound I had become accustomed to? Once I could recognize the writing beneath the sound, the choice was easy. On the other hand, I had to sadly walk away from Poi Dog Pondering after "In Seed Comes Fruit" because they had fundamentally altered and watered down their songwriting at the expense of the new sound.

But back to the Hip. "We Are the Same" does sound different, but it's clearly still the Hip. My goodness, "Frozen in My Tracks" is quintessential, and it's not what I would call gentle. What they've managed to do is finally fulfill their own sound's potential so well that they transcend it. And for me, the final effect has been that I am going back, relistening to the older songs with new ears, and they all make a lot more sense to me now. This album has managed to do something amazing - it has clarified their entire back-catalogue for me. And moved them up on my list, to where right now today, I could say they are one of my favorite artists. Top 5? Let's see how that looks:

In no particular order:

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers
Glen Phillips
The Flower Kings
R.E.M.
The Tragically Hip?

Hmmm...

I think a lot will depend on the next album. If the next album sounds and feels more like "In Between Evolution" and "Music@Work"...then I guess I'm missing the point here and it will still be just a band I listen to on the perimeter of my musical universe.

This was an unusual post, but maybe gives people an inkling what goes on in my mind when I'm listening to stuff. Take it for what it's worth. I gotta go work.