Two Quick Notes

1. The King is Dead Update: "January Hymn" is really killing me right now...in a good way. I'm totally in love with this song. I just listened to it 19 times in a row on repeat. "Maybe it will all come back to me," is the best line. What is it about the question of coming back? How can humanity be tied so ubiquitously to the concept of return?

2. Anyone out there remember Nirvana? I listened to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" today for the first time in maybe five years. Epic. Freakin epic. I wanted to round up my daughters and mosh. Nevermind kills.

The Decemberists: The King is Dead...and I wish I was, too, when I listen to this album (man, that's lame).

Here’s how I see it going down:

The Decemberists are driving in a van somewhere in Missouri when the engine throws a rod. The band members walk to the nearest establishment—Randy’s Roadhouse—to use the telephone to call a tow truck (because none of their cell phones are charged, obviously). While they wait for the truck, they throw a few back. And then a few more. And then a few more. And then someone puts a Willie Nelson song on the jukebox. In a drunken slur Colin Meloy yells, “What’s so special about this guy? He’s no better than me. I can do that!”

And so it began.

The King is Dead is a painful experiment by the most popular anglophiles in America. It makes me wonder: At some point in our lives do we all rear our heads and attack our starting places like the snake eating its tail? I’ll never know why The Decemberists took this turn; frankly, I don’t care. I’ve never liked more than two or three of their songs; one—“Red Right Ankle”—if I’m being completely straight. And the thing that kills me is, there’s not much difference between “Red Right Ankle” and these songs. However, I think if they’d stuck to their MO and done their thing they could’ve slipped some (two) of these songs on their albums and they would’ve been amazing. But, all together they suck. It’s like, you think it’d be so awesome to have a box of doughnuts for dinner. But, you do and instead it makes you sick to your stomach and hate the doughnuts. If you just had spaghetti and salad and then had one doughnut, your dining experience would’ve been awesome.

The Songs:

“Don’t Carry it All.” Best song on the album, I guess.

“Calamity Song.” Let’s say someone sat your best friend down on a chair across the table from you and said, “You can have this (pointing to your best friend)…OR (and they get this gimmicky smile on their face)…you can have this…” and they set down some other guy who's dressed in similar clothes as your friend, and kind of looks like him, but is a total stranger. Which would you chose? Your best friend. Every freakin time. Not the look-alike stranger. I mean, he’s your best friend and he’s sitting right there!

“Rise To Me.” Last summer I visited a friend in Colorado. He and his wife took us to this dinner-and-a-show place set on a ranch. We had bad steak and listened to four guys play country western music for an hour. As individuals they weren’t bad musicians. But the songs were utterly forgettable. And the whole time I was thinking, “This is so sad. These guys need to get real jobs.” That’s how I feel about this song. Utterly forgettable.

“Rox in the Box.” Meloy channels Linda Ronstadt circa 1975. Worst song on the album.

“January Hymn.” I started out hating this song; it was just one of the doughnuts in the “box of doughnuts for dinner” scenario. But, it’s better now.

“Down By the Water.” This sounds like an outtake from their first album. Even though I’ve never heard their first album, nor do I know the title.

“All Arise!” I want to burn this song down. More dinner theater. Very bad dinner theater. Sounds like Kenny Rogers on a bender. And I hate that stupid violin.

“June Hymn.” This one is like a photograph I stumble across from my high school days. It reminds me of my Simon & Garfunkel period. Naïve, wide-eyed, trying-so-hard-to-be-poetic. I like the chorus up until, “panoply” then it just collapses under the weight of its own pretension.

“This is Why.” This song is the theme song for the new CW television series based on Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. The part (at 3:46 in the track) where he sings “So come to me…come to me now. Lay your arms around me” is played over and over during the slow motion climax of every episode. And every time the credits rolls. And on every commercial for the show.

“Dear Avery.” This is a song NBC hired James Taylor to write and sing on the season finale of 30 Rock over an ironic video montage of Jack Donaghy’s missing his wife, Avery, who’s been taken by the North Koreans.

Intangibles:

1. Two songs mentioned above that could’ve been successful on other Decemberists albums? “Don’t Carry it All” and “January Hymn."
2. Random thought: Country western isn’t Americana.
3. How does the album make me feel? Like I’m about to do the Boot Scootin’ Boogie with a bunch of 50 year old drunk folks dressed in jeans with red and blue checkered handkerchiefs around their necks. I hate that feeling.
4. Who would like this album? My mom. She’d put it into the mix with Jim Croce, Kris Kristofferson and Gordon Lightfoot. Seriously. She totally would.
5. If this would’ve been The Decemberists first album would they have made it? NO.
6. How did this album influence my opinion of Conor Oberst? It made me realize the man’s a genius. He’s not perfect but he does what he does incredibly well.
7. What did I learn from listening to this album? Snakes shouldn’t eat their tails.
   

Grades:

Tone: 1/5 I like a little less polished sound.

Voices: 2/5 Am I the only person who thinks Meloy sounds like a kindergartener?

Music: 4/5 There’s never been a doubt that The Decemberists have a lot of talent in this area.

Lyrics: 1/5 PP&P (Painfully precious and pretentious.)

Intangibles: 2/5

Final: 10/25 Not good.