IFS, you've won me over. I'm starting to dig We are beautiful, we are doomed.
Hardly surprised, but very glad. This is the natural reaction to the record. Honestly, I'm starting to have to split hairs, between the two records. I am in a continuous state of critical re-evaluation, so a "score" that I give a record, today, may be noticeably different, in another month or year. Because of that, I'm reticent to quantify my love for these records.
Still, the pull is strong, in the wake of so enjoying this weekend's gig. I think that I feel pretty confident about putting
Holy On Now, Youngster... at 9.1, and
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed at 8.999999. I'm trying to factor in the post-show afterglow, here, so I could be under-compensating, if you know what I mean. For me, the problem I have in rating these two records so highly is that it sort of stiff-arms perspective. I rigorously critique (not criticize, mind you, but critique) art, and if I went with my heart and said, "Oh, yeah! Ballin'-ass albums! Easily in the 9.5 range!" then that means that they're probably
BOTH among my top 20 records of all time.
At the moment, that feels right! Really, it does! But I know for a fact that "The End of the Asterisk" is a relatively weak track, to my ears, and no record that high above a 9.0 has a single weak track. Maybe a few less strong tracks, sure, but not any weak ones.
Youngster... feels like it's going to stick with me for years to come (and is probably, then, closer to the mid-range 9s), at the very least, as I'm still listening to it several times a week, more than a year since the leak and almost two years since I first heard half of the songs on the mo'fucker.
Beauty vs. Doom benefits from more explosive highs, rather than the measured intensity of the debut, and while I can't imagine it, right now, I all the same know that such records have, in the past, tapered off, for me. That's how it usually goes. I'm looking at you,
All That You Can't Leave Behind. I'll be very curious to see how this all shakes down, in my brain.
I've repeatedly quoted from and linked to that PopMatters review of
Youngster..., and I think that I'm willing to stand by it--If we're not talking about
Hold On Now, Youngster... in 15 years, it'll only be because the band will have subsequently topped it. That sounds right. And it
feels right, for me, when I say it to myself about the new album...but it really doesn't
sound right, at all.
I've never seen a show in Madison before. I imagine I'll get around to it eventually though.
), a lot of the artists I see don't ring a bell. You're right about everyone "liking" music, but not everyone loving music too. A lot of people I know cannot fathom why I'm spending my college education on becoming a professor in popular music and culture, but to me, it's what I love, and I can't imagine NOT doing it. Oh, and I have a sticker on one of my notebooks right now that says, "music keeps me sane." It's so true...I don't know what my life would be like if I didn't have music.
