Artist: Passion Pit
Album: Gossamer
So far, when I’ve praised pop songwriters (e.g. Jon Lindsay) on this countdown, I’ve centered the praise on artists who, like the Beatles or XTC or Elvis Costello, produce unexpected melodies: songs that recombine the basic 12 notes in ways that feel catchy but are somehow new. Passion Pit don’t really do that. I’ll grant them I’ll Be Alright and Carried Away, and parts of Love is Greed and Where We Belong, but […]
In a few months, I will be moving to San Antonio, Texas…
My husband tells me we are expected in the Lone Star state the first week of August. This move will come after just 28 months spent in North Carolina. It will be my fifth move in six years. God willing, it will be the last time the Army will move my husband and me. Actually, I really shouldn’t complain about […]
Artist: Mountain Goats
Album: Transcendental Youth
John Darnielle (who alone or accompanied is the Mountain Goats) is my favorite folk songwriter of the current century, releasing a good-to-great new album every year and a half. He was an excellent lyricist as far back as the 1990s, declaiming away in a reedy voice over a hundred scratchy-sounding voice-and-guitar variants on the John Darnielle Fast Song and the John Darnielle Slow Song (Now With New Words ); kudos to you […]