Now Hear This

"I've got reservations/about so many things/but not about you"

In my mind exists an ever-growing list of my all time favorite, play-it-to-death over and over again albums (MATFPITDOAOAA's, for short). Ever-growing in that there's always room for more, but there may be (and often are) several years between additions.

Today I hit play on Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, from 2002, which promted this post. It's been 4 years, easy, since I've listened to it. Now, tons of ink's been spilled about this album, both with regard to how awesome it is and about the difficulty in making it and how that affected on the band. What I'd like to talk about here is how the music that reaches the level of MATFPITDOAOAA makes me feel and how it fits into my life.

To start, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has the requisite "approximately 90% of the songs are fucking equally awesome (even if some are more awesome than others)", which is the first of the increasingly elusive criteria for my list. Of its 11 songs, I'd say 10 are on that level--the 11th was in shouting distance but the dissonant noises that eat up the last minute or two of the song are just too much, harshing the warm-cool breeze, stoned-immaculate, front-porch vibe so much that I have to click next, and I HATE clicking next. I'll sit through a lesser, mediocre song, but not I can't abide a mellow-harshing of this nature. That said, 10 of  11 is 91%, dude.

Next come its lyrics. It's here the album never slips up and is just exactly perfect. Hitting the Venn diagram bullseye among literate, abstract, clever, and emotionally revealing, I can't shower enough praise. Such lyrics are key to burrowing into my consciousness, their waves and particles interpenetrating mine, doing so by being memorable without being explicit, like the dreams you have in the morning after you're already sort of awake.

After the lyrics comes musical consistency. I don't know how to write about this, really, other than to say the all the songs sound the same--but in a good way. I guess this is the magic of production. The wistful, slightly detached vocals and the burbling digital noises that simmer just below the surface together make an otherwise (mostly) straightforward roots-rock album sound out of time and timeless. The overall effect this album has on me is intoxicating. No matter what song is playing, the album is playing, dig?

The real kicker, the one that separates great albums from the ones that are actually part of my life, is supremely subjective--what's going on in my life while the album is uploading itself. I listened to this album while Jenn and I moved into the house in Echo Park. Warm mid-summer nights in this strange new ancient house, windows open, all dark wood beams and strange embellishments. Stuff still in boxes but the music moved right in. She and I were riding high--we had walked over to the landlord's house around the corner, prepared to tell him, no, it just wasn't right--we didn't really have the stuff to fill it or suit, we thought. As we walked up his porch steps we looked at each other, thought "Fuck it!" and told that crazy bastard we'll take it.

I'll close with a bit of the ol' chicken-and-egg: did the album become more special because of the circumstances under which I experienced it, or did what I experience become more special because of the music I listened to?

Yes.