An addendum to my review of Baby Ghosts

As I was driving to Scouts last night with Dave and Caleb, we listened to Baby Ghosts again and I had some more thoughts about the album, some of which have been bouncing around in my head over the last week, but didn't end up in the review. I dictated as I drove, Dave wrote, and here is an edited transcript. 

(1) There is a horn on Oil/Sunshine that blares somewhere in the second verse which screws me up every time I am driving. Every time the song starts, I remind myself, "There is a horn two minutes in that will make it sound like someone is honking at you. Don't freak out. You're a great driver that never deserves to get honked at." Doesn't matter. I forget, the horn sounds, I whip my head around and start yelling, "What's your problem, you medieval..." and then I remember that I am a great driver and it's just a Baby Ghost.

(2) There are no (apparent) synths in the album and it just reminds me how synths now ride unchecked across the rock landscape, sucking the vitality out of bands and listeners alike. I think our generation failed in inoculating the millennials against synths and now they must suffer the same pains as the 80s teens. Bands like Baby Ghosts are the antidote. (OK, so on this one I really changed the transcript. As you can see, what I really said was: "Proves now better rock not use synths. Can't get energy." Doug speak like caveman.)

(3) Two female singers! How did I not notice that? 

(4) I am not convinced by your argument that sounding like Meg White is always a bad thing. Sure, she's awful in It's True We Love One Another, but she's really great in In the Cold Cold Night. Besides, the secondary female singer in Baby Ghosts sounds more like Fear of Men than Meg.

(5) The other day, one of my co-workers brought in some persimmons. One of the students claimed it tasted like a fruity pumpkin (good band name). I disagree. It tastes like sugary blandness.

(6) Don't write down everything I say, Dave! Just about the music.

(7) My greatest fear is that Baby Ghosts will lose their energy by adding synths and taking a long time to record more albums. They need to make an album a year like the White Stripes in their heyday. At some point, someone in the band is going to get it into their heads that they need to compose all their new songs on the marimba, and then it's all over.

(8) I can't listen to Cookies anymore. You mention it's the worst thing recorded. But could it be possibly worse than Beachball by REM? I don't think that's possible. I need you to explore this more.

(For the "primary source or it didn't happen!" crowd, here are the original transcripts)

I didn’t get into the details of this album as much as I have with other albums in the past—because I didn’t feel the album asked that of me.  I felt like the album was saying, “Kick back my friend and we will entertain you.  Don’t worry about the details.  Just have some fun.”  So that’s what I did.  And I can say that I do have a lot of fun listening to this album.  And, of course, I love that they’re from SLC. Baby Ghosts is a co-ed Oxford Collapse.  They remind me of each other so much.  The crunchy guitars, the all out thrill of the performance, the bombastic drums.  And I love it.  I love almost everything about this album.  However, after about three or four times through the album, I started to feel like maybe I was wrong; like I’d come in too hot—wanting to like it instead of actually liking it. 

I broke it down over the course of the next listen through.  I had no glaring problems with it.  Except I began to realize I didn’t like the one girl singer—the one with the softer voice.  I’ll just call her Meg (White) because she totally does add to the band but she shouldn’t be given the lead singer duties.  I basically skipped all her songs: “Crash,” “Hevy Hed,” “COOKIES”—which is probably the worst song in recorded history—“alien.edu,” and “Computers/Internets.” I don’t really like those songs.  But when I skipped those songs, or didn’t pay much attention to them, I was back to loving the album! 

I love “MSRPRSNTTN” a lot.  “Ghost Boyfriend.”  “Oh, A Surprise!” (I love the girl yelling “What a surprise!” and “Hiding in plain sight!”) and “Karen” (which, along with “Ghost Boyfriend” remind me most of Oxford Collapse.)

To me, staying power is the greatest test of an album.  And not only can I see myself listening to this album in the future, but this album made me go out and buy their first album and their EPs as well.  So…well done Baby Ghosts.  I almost lost you there at the beginning, but now we’re good.  We’re good.

Drums: 5

Voice(s): 4--keep Meg off the mic

Ghost themes: 2--lots of ghost references with these guys

Local Flavor: 5

High/Low (a statistic I just invented that measures the difference between the high points of the album in relation to the low points--the higher the number the better.  An album with a high High/Low shines in that the lows don't really bring the album down; an album with a low High/Low doesn't have the strength/creativity/energy to rise above it's own low points): 4.  Even though there are basically four or five songs on this album I'd skip right away, the other stuff totally makes up for it.

How quickly it made me want to purchase their other work: 5--immediately

Final note: Coincidentally, you recommend Oxford Collapse AND Baby Ghosts to me and they remind me so much of each other.  Props to DMC.

Album Review: Maybe Ghosts by Baby Ghosts

As Elf Power never said, "Context is king."*

After the Dissolution of Grantland (or The Day the Internet Died), I consoled myself by listening to downbeat French and Spanish-language bands. (My torpor could not be adequately expressed in English, apparently.)

Also, I had been listening to a podcast recommended by my brother-in-law called Song Exploder where bands break down one song layer by layer. And what surprised me is how the process of making many of these songs seemed so cold. Someone playing some beat on a drum machine, running it through some processor, listening to it on a loop for 5 hours, and then piecing it together with other samples and loops they have gathered from various musical charnel houses. All processed in white sterile laboratories while wearing white perfectly tailored labwaistcoats. 

One day, I happened to glance at my Spotify feed and saw that a friend of mine who has musical taste that I respect was listening to Baby Ghosts. Baby Ghosts! No one's afraid of a baby ghost! A baby ghost just mournfully cries and, if you have enough children, you always feel like you are hearing mournful crying from somewhere around the house. You can sleep through a baby ghost. You can't sleep through a toddler ghost that gets right in your face while you are sleeping and then whispers: "Daaaaaad! Daaaaaaad! I have to peeeeeee!" So, with all of this carefully thought through before listening, I was expecting something more twee.

Baby Ghosts is not twee. Not that there is anything wrong with twee (although usually there is).

The energy and passion just flow out of the album right off the bat and never let up. It's probably a little sloppy and a little off-key but because it's done with such energy and life, it doesn't matter. It makes me feel ten years younger, makes me want to get on a plane and go see them live, to go stand in a crowd of Provo hipsters and jump up and down while they all fold their arms and barely nod their heads and give me dirty looks. 

Here are my top four songs with the reason why expressed in the form of a question.

Which song would Baby Ghosts play to defeat Scott Pilgrim and Sex Bob-Omb in a Battle of the Bands? Oh, A Surprise! 

This song rules. It feels like it is going to explode or fall off the rails at any moment. In the chorus, the lead singer is at the top of her range but she is really going for it regardless of if she might not make it but she does make it and it only works because she went for it. Scott Pilgrim wouldn't have a chance.

Which song's lyrics do I want to see scrawled on Megan and Colette's bedposts when they are teenagers? MSRPRSNTTN

My mind is in here/what can your airbrush do with that? 

If they don't scrawl it on the bedposts, maybe we can put it up in vinyl lettering around the living room.

Which song do I want Megan and Colette to quote when they are sitting at the table and letting out their frustrations about being nice to guys? Ghost Boyfriend

I never wanted commitment/I just wanted to visit/but I can't be nice/lest you think I'm a ghost in love

Which song seems like something that two hipsters who are falling in love sing together in the car and when they sing it and stare into each other's eyes while singing realize that the lyrics are the opposite of what they want to have expressed? Oil/Sunshine

Don't go taking all my light, my life, my sunshine.

I freaking love this chorus. And this song encapsulates how the lead girl singer ranges from Sleater-Kinneyeque yelping to Fear of Menesque singing.

I like almost all of the other songs on the album. The only one I am on the fence about is Cookies. The words "cookie" and "treat" shouldn't be sung at all unless by a toddler ghost that is singing a creepy nursery rhyme that portends someone's death.

Ratings:

Would I see them in concert? Yes

Would I wear a shirt of theirs? If it featured the crying cat, yes

Would I kill for them? No

Would I play them if the Three Mels (Blanc, Brooks, and Torme) asked me my opinion on what was hot on the music scene? No, it would be too dangerous to disappoint the three Mels.

Would I play them if the Baldwin Brothers (Alec, Stephen, and Daniel) asked me what was hot on the music scene? In a tiny ghost's heartbeat.

Grade: A

*I think the words Elf Power never said were "invisible men have beat me black and blue" but that's my interpretation of their meaning.