Summary and Evaluation
The last page of the liner notes to Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago” reads “Recorded by Justin Vernon in the hunting cabin, Northwestern Wisconsin, November, December, January 2006, 2007.” That line hints at the remarkable story behind this album. After a series of disappointments and losses (including the break up of his former band), Vernon went off by himself in the midst of winter to a cabin in rural Wisconsin. Using simple recording equipment, Vernon recorded the album by himself. The mood of “For Emma...” conveys the experience of someone who has spent a long time alone, grappling with disappointment and yearning. Vernon does use dubbing equipment to raise his falsetto up a notch, creating at times a sense of almost unbearable need.
The repetition of certain lines explode with longing as in the song “Skinny Love.”
“I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
now all your love is wasted?
then who the hell was I?
now I’m breaking at the britches
and at the end of all your lines
who will love you?
who will fight?
who will fall far behind?”
This is a terrific album to listen to when one if feeling sad. Anyone in the midst of free-fall, whether a teen or a twenty or thirty-something--will be able to relate. Bon Iver captures the mood perfectly and takes it up a notch.
Why Included?
I love the music of Bon Iver, find it soulful and a perfect backdrop for reflective periods. A friend who teaches in Massachusetts told me that the band is popular with her high school students, and so I decided to include it.
Summary and Evaluation
The Postal Service’s album “Give Up” is a collaboration between Jimmy Tamborello of the electronica band, Dntel, and Ben Gibbard, lead singer and guitarist of the Seattle based band, Death Cab for Cutie. The album blends the techno-savviness of Tamborello with the moody, emotive singing of Gibbard. The album has numerous upbeat songs, including “Such Great Heights” a song that touches on the rad feelings of being in love, a departure for Gibbard whose is best known for writing emo break-up songs. (Death Cab for Cutie’s album “Plans” is a great one for listening to after a bad day. The album always gives this listener the immediate feeling of being understood after trying and failing.) This album has been popular with young adults, especially the angsty types, for years now.
This album is most famous for being an incredible act of collaboration. Tamborello and Gibbard scarcely knew each other before embarking upon “Give Up” together. While they admired each other’s work, they didn’t get a chance to work together because they lived at opposite ends of the west coast, Gibbard in Seattle and Tamborello in Los Angeles. Still, they embarked upon the project together sending the music back and forth through the U.S. Postal Service (hence the name of the band “The Postal Service”). The album was finished within five months and rocketed to the top of the charts within weeks of its release. However, all was not well--the U.S. Postal Service ordered them to cease and desist with their use of the band’s name! They resolved their problems with the U.S. Postal Service when they agreed to do promotional work for them, trying to enliven the younger generation to the joys of old-fashioned snail mail.
Why Included?
I love the story of collaboration between these two artists and find it pretty inspiring. This album was popular among some of my students a few years back, and so I decided to include it.
Vampire Weekend’s self-titled album came out in 2008 to great acclaim. The peppy, highly danceable album was released on XL Recordings and was produced by band member Rostam Batmanglij. All four band members, Batmanglij, frontman Ezra Koenig, Christopher Tomsan and Chris Baio are Columbia University graduates and their nerdiness sometimes creeps through in the wordplay and elaborate rhyme schemes in some of their songs. In their second album “Contra,” they manage to come up with an impressive rhyme for the word “balaclava.” In the song “Horchata”, Koenig sings, “In December, drinking horchata, I look psychotic in my balaclava.” Critics have made comparisons to Paul Simon’s “Graceland” with their music’s African influenced beats, but I’m not sure I can hear it. I do know that their songs are endlessly addictive and fun to dance to.
