I'm utterly gobsmacked by how good the new Ted Leo album is. Before this I didn't really listen to Ted Leo. I liked Me and Mia (I mean, who doesn't? Who couldn't?) but his albums left me feeling a little lukewarm. The Brutalist Bricks reverses this trend completely and I'm finding myself thinking about it a lot. This song, Bottled in Cork has been the first "song I'm addicted to" that I've had in a couple months, where every time I get in my car it's the song I specifically seek out to listen to because I like it that much.
There's a couple cool things about the album, one is that it doesn't start off with its strongest songs. Most albums blow their load in the first four tracks, putting the best song in the second place, but that's not the case with Brutalist Bricks. Heck, I'd say one of the weakest tracks on the album is track two. The album just gets stronger and stronger as it goes on, and past the halfway mark you're finally hit with some of the best songs on the album. It's surprising, and, dare I say, absolutely genius. Instead of petering out, this album ramps up, and by the time it ends you want more.
Ted Leo is playing at The Troubadour on Saturday. Despite not being a fan, I went and saw him play near the end of summer last year and he was fantastic. The guy lives and breathes music. He's like the pop-punk version of Bruce Springsteen, giving his all every show and never letting up. Ted Leo is something that needs to be witnessed, and I'll be at his show Saturday (Ted, if you're reading this, please get me, my girlfriend, and my fan of yours friend on some sort of list, just so we can be sure to get in, please!) rocking the fuck out!
My god! I do not want to like this song but there is so much good about it that I can't help but listen to it. There is very little "pop-punk"/Jimmy Eat World sounding bullshit in my music collection (Green Day is the only other?) because for the most part it just makes me feel embarrassed, for myself, especially when I hear an actual (the only) Jimmy Eat World song out in public somewhere because I'm like "Hey this is catchy, wait! Is this Jimmy Eat World? OH MY GOD IT IS! AAAAHHH!"
But this is not Jimmy Eat World.
Did Jimmy Eat World write a song about eating disorders?
No, that was Silverchair.
We were driving back from San Diego, me and a group of three other friends, pretty late and tired, and I couldn't find anything on the iPod that satisfied the mood of the car. Musically we had a metal head who would like more kinds of music if he'd only listen to them, a raver who listens to The Arcade Fire, and a typical KROQ child of the early late 90's (NIN, Tool, etc). I figured that this song was already kind of a guilty pleasure, so I put on just to see what would happen.
It was perfect! It woke us up, everyone seemed to rock out to it (including the KROQ child air drumming the whole thing and the metal head going "at least these guys are good!") and it picked up the lazy tired pace of the drive (it's amazing how sometimes 80 mph can seem slow when you're doing it at the front end of an hour and a half drive back home) back up to optimistic highs.
Things I like about this song: the lyrics are great and emotive even if you don't know the song is about eating disorders (and is more enjoyable if you ignore that fact). The verse he leads off with is great: it's the easiest to understand and easiest to relate to. (Not only is it stupidly easy to relate to "I went outside and even though it was warm I was cold" but the tone of the song in the beginning is anxious and restrained and totally matches that sort of odd 'why am I not in tune with the world?' moment.)
"If you believe in something beautiful, then get up and be it!" makes me want to rock out and vomit on myself at the same time whenever it is sung. Inspirational music is for pussies! I'd prefer lyrics that go: "If you believe in something beautiful, then it's probably because you've seen it and it has left you behind while it has gone on to better things and now you spend all your time reflecting on how you will never be satisfied."
\m/ indie rock \m/
There's a lot of other stuff I like about this song (mostly dealing with his vocal and the various non-words he uses to great effect) but for the most part I just like that it makes me feel good. I listen to so much music that is kind of seemingly designed to drain you of energy if you're not paying attention to it, so it's refreshing to be slapped in the face by a song that is like "GET DRUNK, SKATEBOARD!" even though I don't drink or skateboard.
(The rest of this album kind of sucks. None of the songs have the variety of this one, which is probably why it's their 'biggest hit'. A lot of the songs seems to be constructed all around one single musical premise [like "this song has a cool beat" or "this guitar hits these three notes over and over again the whole song"] where this one was constructed around being an awesome song.)
I've been super skinny my whole life, just naturally anorexic levels of skinny and I'm pretty self-conscious about it (I won't say that I look at my skinniness as soul-crushingly as some people look at their fat, which makes sense because fat people are gross) and I'll never understand why someone would want to vomit or starve themselves to the point that they would be as thin as I am. I don't think it's attractive, but then again, I've never been fat, so I don't know.
Maybe one day I will be fat and I will be like, "Hey! Puking!"
It will be easier than diet and exercise I bet.
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