The Hazards Of Love

If you're anything like me, your listening tastes slide back and forth between exploring new music and sinking into stuff you know and love. I know that financial constraints keep me from the first option more than I'd like, but I try and hear stuff I've never heard before. And sometimes, there is a happy medium - a band I know and enjoy, doing something more ambitious and unique than they have before. It's almost like a new band entirely. Sometimes their changes lose me a little - like with Coldplay's and Ray LaMontagne's newest efforts. But sometimes, the band is The Decemberists. And sometimes, The Decemberists release a prog-rock concept album that is currently the greatest thing I have to listen to, and sometimes it is entitled The Hazards of Love.

That doesn't happen all the time, though.

This is the best concept album I have ever heard. This is perhaps the best example of story-telling I have ever come across in musical form.


Here's a very brief plot summary:
William is found as an infant by the Forest Queen, who saves him and turns him into a shape-shifter. He meets and falls in love with Margaret in the forest, but the Queen's not cool with that. A Rakish Man abducts Margaret with the assistance of the Queen, William saves Margaret, and they are together forever.

Here are some musical highlights:
A Bower Scene - The first hint towards how heavy the band is going to be. If you've historically listened to The Decemberists, be warned that this album has a heavy-metal flavour, and it's not afraid to use it.
Isn't It A Lovely Night? - There aren't many songs in the band's canon that compare to this one for saccharine sweetness. But I am at heart a sentimentalist, and if you don't feel the love between the star-crossed, you won't feel much of anything - it's a love story, people!
The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid - It's got harpsichord, it's got hopefulness... and then. Oh, then. We get our first chance to hear the sorceress Queen. I've established that she is villainous, and the guitar riff is badass enough to underscore that - but it pales in comparison to the chilling, eerie vocal power of the Queen. To put it in terms of Disney villains, she sounds like something that Ursula and the Queen of Hearts would have nightmares about. Close your eyes, and she might look like the Queen from Snow White, but the size of Jafar-as-Genie.
The Rake's Song - This is the album's most radio-friendly song, which explains its being the single. As far as character sketches go, I don't know how Colin Meloy does it. The Rake is so callous, brazen, and sneering, you'll want to punch him out but you'll be afraid he'll knife you if you try. Let me just say that he kills children. You're welcome.
The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing - The Queen is back, and I have a weakness for how raw her musical themes are. If you know my listening habits, you'll know I don't listen to heavy metal - maybe Sabbath, in infrequent doses. But if you want or need to headbang, crank this shiz up. And you won't be able to NOT rock out.
The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!) - Don't listen to this just before going to bed, and for GOD'S SAKE, do not listen to this just before going swimming. Those kids that I talked about? The dead ones? Um... they're back. Give your imagination free rein and let yourself go mad. Just a side-note: waltz-time is the best way to sound creepy as hell.
The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned) - Lyrically wisftul conclusion to this love story - while my first instinct is to look for a big, theatrical ending more suited to the epic nature of the album's internal tracks, I'm suddenly reminded that this is a love story. If I had human tear glands, they may very well activate at this point.

Musically, The Hazards of Love breaks out of The Decemberists' usual weaponry. Guitarist Chris Funk channels Yes! axe-man Peter Howe, and Jenny Conlee wails on the Hammond organ like she pulled a Rip van Winkle at a Deep Purple concert, and woke up in the studio. The guitars are crunchier and more effected than I have perhaps ever heard on a Decemberists record. I am nothing but impressed that these geek-rockers can pull the metal stuff off when they need to.

Yes, the blogs (not this one, but the... y'know, reputable ones) and reviews are calling this album a prog-rock effort. And I can understand where they're coming from, I suppose. It is characteristic of progressive rock to weave songs and albums into large, overarching storylines. But when I think of prog, I think of bands like Rush, Coheed & Cambria, and The Mars Volta - namely, those with heavy metal influence throughout. What The Decemberists have done is take those heavy colourations and dress them with the folk-rock sound they have been perfecting for years. There is no denying the lyrical prowess of frontman Colin Meloy. The plot of this album is sort of dense and definitely poetically worded; it might take you a few listens to get the finer touches. This goes back to the point I made at the outset; when a band can give me what I've always liked about them, but somehow twist it so that I get new and different meanings all the time, then they have earned a fan.

I give this album 10 cloven-hooved satyrs out of 10. And I'm giving you all 2 days to buy the album and listen to it in its entirety, whereupon you shall return here and tell me what you think. Go here! Go now!

Conceptualizationalization (Like A Billion Points In Scrabble)

When's the last time you listened to a concept album? Do you know what a concept album is? Ok cool I'll tell you (captive audiences are the best audiences).
A concept album can be loosely defined as one with a theme carrying through the whole album - musically, lyrically, whatever. From there you can go in a couple of directions, with both - ahem - concept-album concepts... being popular these days. Here's how I would break them down:
Theme-based: The songs on the album could be as different from one another as on any other album, but be connected in even just one way. Maybe each title has a different state name in it, like Ray Charles' Genius Hits the Road in 1960. Or the band could be adventurous in the styles of song contained on the album, while the lyrics hint at a consistent idea - in the case of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, there is a lot of reflection on (Brian Wilson's) state of mind. There is a general sense of connection without being too restrictive to expression.
Story-based: I would consider these to be more aggressively creative. Rather than a vague commonality, this sort of concept album is dedicated to telling a story. The narrative is the driving force, and all aspects of the creative process are focused on propelling it. My favourite example of a plot-driven concept album is Pink Floyd's The Wall - it's dark, theatrical, and almost makes up for Roger Waters being a dick during the whole process.

So, I am so good at outlining what I want to get around to talking about, that I don't think I'll get around to the real point of this post until later. My friend Andrew inspired me - so if it doesn't pan out it's his fault.

The Decemberists. Hazards of Love. Coming up.

Listen to this in the meantime - for no reason whatsoever.

EPIC!

So, after listening to my roommate play "Go The Distance" on piano last night... I found the music video. And watched it at least 3 times. And felt so inspired to achieve something that it was a shame that it was 4 in the morning.

I don't know what it is about that song and others - seriously, I just watched half of it again after finding the link. I can't stop.

Sure, the lyrics are inspiring - if there are any, and the music makes you want to get up and DO shit. Here are some examples for when you're done reading. But the lyrics are also pretty kitschy, cliche, whatever you want to call it. And most of the time... the sentiment is fake.

Yes, old-movie guy. Fake like your credit rating. Happy Depression!

That is to say, the composers often aren't working from personal experience, reflecting on a monumental challenge in their life and deciding that an orchestra best suits their achievement. I don't think the band Europe has been to space.

But I guess that's a bit unfair on my part. However, I shall pose the question to you. Should an inspirational, you-can-do-it song be inspired by personal experience? Or is it alright to know what inspires people, and set that formula down as needed?
That'll do, Hercules. That'll do.

The Web Generation

First of all, if you know the person who invented exams, sit them down and have a good long chat, and ask them why. WHY?!

Now that that's out of the way... if you have a Twitter account, or maybe you've noticed on Facebook or elsewhere, that Ashton Kutcher and CNN's breaking-news feed are currently racing to see which will be the first to reach 1,000,000 followers. And it's going to go right down to the wire - follow the race here if you're so inclined. It's slow-motion suspense, amazing stuff. Besides lending strong credence to Twitter being the new fad, this race is also saying something else. Something that I think is more positive.

Here is Ashton talking earlier tonight about what he's apparently trying to say with this popularity contest. He's not the most eloquent speaker, and he still sounds like Kelso to me -

- but that's the point. He's not reading from a teleprompter - not only that, but he's right. Twitter's letting people filter their news for themselves, firsthand. You don't have to watch televised broadcasts or listen to syndicated radio or read newspapers anymore (though seeing those go under saddens me). Hell, you don't even have to follow CNN's Twitter feed if you'd rather go somewhere else. These social-networking sites are, like it or not, going to figure very heavily in the future of public discourse and information-sharing. I'm not saying you should get your news from Ashton Kutcher or, God forbid, Miley Cyrus, but you can choose. I could go into how this might be a bad thing - if you ask me to, maybe I will, O dedicated masses of readers. Just... if you're interested in the future of media and how the world is going to communicate, keep an eye on this story, it could be pretty significant.

But wait a minute, what does all this have to do with music? I am, after all, a one-trick pony here at Audiophonics, Inc. Well, in the spirit of this social-networking explosion we have on the Internet these days, I was directed to check out the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. And I was fully blown away.

Please watch this video before checking out the channel above. Yeah, I linked them in the wrong order - deal with it : )

I'm not going to say much, because I've talked and talked so much already. Just watch the videos on the channel - start at the beginning if you'd like. It's inspiring, it's impressive, it's a great song, and it's just about the best union of music and the Internet I have ever seen.

Enjoy!