You know how sometimes you really don't like a band or musician and then there is one song that makes everything fall into place? A friend of mine calls that leveling up. You know you should like them, but every time you listen to them you just don't get it. It's not because the band isn't good—it is because your ears aren't at a high enough level to understand the band yet. That is how Bob Dylan is for me. I know I should like him. I respect him. I understand the influence he has had. But I just never feel like listening to him. I keep him around on my iPod for the day when I level up and finally get it.
Let's name songs that ended up being the gateways into liking a band or musician. Maybe we hated them until that one song made us listen to them in a different way. Maybe we liked them already, but one song turning that liking into an obsession. My first one is "Fire On The Mountain" by the Grateful Dead. When I first listened to the Dead I hated them. But my friend's band (the awesomely named Donner Party) covered this song I thought it was great. I went and found that song and eventually found the album American Beauty and I have liked the Grateful Dead ever since.
What songs helped you level up to a band?
TANGENT WARNING I'm still working on compiling some meaningful and worthwhile submissions for this list but in the meantime I'll say that I think I still need to level up with Wilco. They've never done it for me and this performance from Sasquatch that All Songs Considered is all gaga for is only confirming my disinterest. So if anyone wants to clue me in on what song I should listen to if I want to fully grasp the supposed genius of Wilco, let me know.
ReplyDeleteI just barely leveled up to My Morning Jacket today and last night. There are a few songs that are probably the keys to them opening up for me. A few weeks ago at Slowtrain I heard a song called Phone Went West. It is just a nice slow jam and I asked the person working there who it was and that got me thinking I should try them again. But then I didn't think about it again until a couple days ago when I was listening to the song Via Chicago by Wilco. I didn't end up liking the Wilco song that much but it got me in a summery mood and I wanted to give My Morning Jacket another spin. The next day I threw on the album Z and the first song, Wordless Chorus, had such a good groove that I have been listening to them all last night and today. So I guess sometimes it is a song by another band that actually unlocks the secret.
ReplyDeleteTitle and Registration is the song that made me get into Death Cab For Cutie. I really liked the version of it they played live, especially the organ breakdown near the end, and I went and searched out all their past albums after that show.
ReplyDeleteLoro >>> Pinback.
ReplyDeleteHmmm maybe the best I should hope for from Wilco is serving as a gateway band. We'll see.
ReplyDeleteI've realized part of what's tricky with offering up tracks for this list is you don't just want to throw out the song with no context, you want to tell the story behind it. So, pardon my slowness, but these need to come one at a time.
Re: Stacks - Bon Iver.
Everyone was so crazy in love with this new Bon Iver guy. It was the most genius and beautiful thing of the year. I got the album and every time I put it on it was nice enough and pretty enough but it was like I couldn't hear it. Driving around in my car, trying to watch for pedestrians and remember to use my turn signal, or having it in the background at work while I tried to figure out what BYU students really want, it seemed I couldn't even discern any distinct sounds or words or melodies. Turning up the volume didn't change things--it was all pretty but it was all a quiet mumbled blur to my ears. Silly me, I was listening so wrong. Eventually, months later, long after I'd given up my in-the-background trials of For Emma, Forever Ago, there was a night when I couldn't fall asleep. So I think, hmmm I need to listen to something pretty and light and easy and maybe a little boring. Ha! A little boring! But I chose that Bon Iver album, and for some reason I put it on shuffle, because I didn't know one song from the next anyway. And there in the darkness with no distracting sights or sounds, Re: Stacks was delivered straight into my soul with no outside filter, and for the first time I heard. And after those six and a half minutes of sheer beauty I thought maybe I better start the album from the beginning after all, and I listened to that thing that I'd tried a dozen times but I could finally make out what Justin Vernon was doing and saying and it was incredible, and instead of falling asleep I spent a couple hours listening again and again and repenting of just how wrong I'd been about For Emma.
The Calendar Hung Itself - Bright Eyes
ReplyDeleteThis one is huge. It turned an artist I could. not. stand. into one of my favorite acts of all time. Bright Eyes had put out two albums* before Fevers and Mirrors, and an enthusiastic friend had forced a handful of songs from them down my throat my first semester of college. They were hard to swallow. That voice made my skin crawl, that level of despair took me from 0 to miserable in 6 seconds or less. I couldn't stand listening to a man wallow. My enthusiastic friend was foolish, though, for neglecting Fevers in Mirrors in the sampling he gave me. I meant to shut the possibility of Bright Eyes out of my musical life. But somehow the next semester the bad taste left in my mouth wore off, and I decided to give this other album a shot. First track--surprise surprise, some long droning thing that was a confusing dissonance of spoken words and noises-not-quite-music. Seemed like Bright Eyes was up to his old intolerable tricks. Second track--actual surprise, it was kind of pleasant. Weird. Third track--holy crap. Knocked me out. Suddenly without warning I was feeling feelings and dancing dances I'd never known before. I was desperate to sing along but I didn't know a word. I couldn't move forward in the album, I just had to hear that thing one more time, one more time, one more time. It changed how I heard every over-emoted word that Mr. Oberst sang, changed how I heard any song that anyone else dared to write for years to come, changed how I knew what it meant to be your sunshine, your only sunshine, changed how very deeply skies could be gray, and gray, and gray.
*While these two albums do include songs that wiser-me now loves dearly, I still contend that there is some truly awful garbage on there. He improved.
Keeping with my theme of only mentioning artists that start with B--
ReplyDeleteZebra - Beach House.
I'd listened to and been utterly bored by the first two Beach House albums. Then Teen Dream came out. Then I listened to the first track on it. Done.
Speaking of My Morning Jacket... This performance on Letterman was a bone-crusher:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4HvIwhDRsM
sweet candy moses! amazing!
ReplyDeleteAlso,
ReplyDeleteOver the Hills and Far Away is the song that got me into Led Zeppelin. Thanks to Liam for putting 'er on a mixtape.
I am in the process of leveling up to The Decemberists (I know, I know). I watched the Tiny Desk, after not being impressed for years, and something hit the music bone in between the clavicle and the sternum. And now I am very excited to see them in Newport.
ReplyDeleteRadio Cure by Wilco. Honey, I hope you can.
I hope Newport levels you up all the way. How did you like that show? Aside from me yelling at total strangers.
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer: I've done a lot of leveling up the past few years. But all of the leveling up started when I leveled up from strictly east coast rap straight to metal via Dave Matthews Under the Table and Dreaming. An unlikely gateway, I know—that's how leveling up works sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe Full List (insofar as I can recall):
It's in our hands > björk
Introducing Palace Players > Mew
Ramble On > Led Zeppelin
Heartbeats > the knife
Communion Cups and Someone's Coat > Iron and Wine
I Might Be Wrong > Radiohead
Diplomat's Son > Vampire Weekend
Store Bought Bones > Raconteurs
Maps > Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Deep Red Bells > Neko Case
He Hit Me > Grizzly Bear
Any Day Now > Elbow
End of Line > Daft Punk
Looks Just Like the Sun > Broken Social Scene
Little One > Beck
Imitosis > Andrew Bird
Also Store Bought Bones for my Raconteurs leveling.
ReplyDeleteThe Needle Has Landed > Neko Case
Ready, Able > Grizzly Bear
Never really had to level up to Iron & Wine, Radiohead, Elbow, Beck, or Andrew Bird. Although seeing Andrew Bird live will level up anyone.
AGREED
ReplyDeleteIron and Wine bored me for at least 3 years. I was too busy writing papers to Lateralus.
ReplyDeleteI think I listened to Our Endless Numbered Days on repeat for the whole time we lived in the Cube.
ReplyDeleteI want to hear more about this best coast rap --> Dave Matthews --> metal. Go on.
ReplyDelete