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NOW PLAYING: The Dismemberment Plan – “A Life Of Possibilities”
I’ve been listening to a lot of The Dismemberment Plan lately, specifically their 3rd album ‘Emergency & I’ (1999). It’s a brilliant album, one that isn’t a classic because of its influence but because it perfectly captures that timeless early-20’s, post-college anxiety of dealing with the everyday mundane of early adult life. Work is boring, all your friends are somewhere else, you don’t know what you want to do with your life, etc. The album opener “A Life Of Possibilities” details that fear of having too many options and no sort of direction, and singer Travis Morrison’s shakey voice reads like a mindreader telling me everything that I’ve always felt but never wanted to admit outloud. The whole album is great, but this song to me is the grown-up equivalent to Blink-182’s “Going Away To College”. And like Blink, Morrison knows that nobody likes you when you’re 23.
#music #nowplaying #dismembermentplan

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NOW PLAYING: Neil Young – ‘On The Beach’
Picking an objectively “best” Neil Young album is impossible, since a lot of his albums are great in their own ways. However, ‘On The Beach’ (1974) might be his most essential album. It’s the perfect blend of the electric rock (“Walk On”) and Americana singer-songwriter (“See The Sky About To Rain”) that only Young could pull off. The real highlight, however, is album closer “Ambulance Blues”, possibly my favorite NY song. At nearly 9 minutes, it’s impossibly cryptic, and it’s so soft and sweet sounding that it’s heartbreaking when you look at the lyrics and realize what he’s singing about. Young is a weird artist, and this album is the right amount of weird to make it, in my opinion, his best album.
#neilyoung #nowplaying #music

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NOW PLAYING: Jamie xx – “Gosh”
You might know Jamie xx (Jamie Smith) as a member of The xx and for his Gil-Scott Heron sampling album (2011’s excellent ‘We’re New Here’). But today Jamie has finally released a proper solo album (‘In Colour’), and “Gosh” is the obvious highlight. It’s a strange summer anthem if there ever was one. It begins like any typical electro-pop song via Caribou or Disclosure, but at the 2min mark it turns into something special. It’s hard to describe, but to me it’s like hearing LCD Soundsystem for the first time and realizing that electronic music can offer so much more than just a beat or a drop. Expect this song (and this album) to be on my best-of-2015 list.
#jamiexx #nowplaying #music