I'm reading a book called Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved my Life, by John Sellers that has got me thinking about many things. It's an interesting book to me because the topic excites me; it's not the very best written, but it's decent. Beside the point. In the part I read at lunch yesterday he discussed what he has labeled as a "dinger," an album that lacks a song that you tire of in five plays or fewer.
This sat in the back of my mind as I entered work today. I spent about a third of my day bagging (putting annoying dried fruit, nuts, and random snacky stuff in ziplock bags, labeling them, and making sure it's the right weight). I must also add that this job has improved infinitely from last summer in that now we have a little boombox back there that even has a cd player. This morning I was in a mood for the Shins. I'd been listening to "New Slang" (as I am right now...definitely my favorite song of all time for the moment) for a large portion of the morning, and I was digging this Portland band.
I slid Wincing The Night Away (their newest release, from early 2007)into the cd player. I listened to it while bagging banana chips. It's a short album, with only eleven relatively quick songs, so it ended before I'd finished those two boxes of banana chips. So I hit repeat. I kept bagging more things. And hitting repeat.
After four times through the album it hit me. Wincing The Night Away is unquestionably a dinger. For the last month or so I had convinced myself that Bright Eyes' Cassadaga is Lacey Bitter's pick for the best album thus far in 2007, but today I decided that I've been in a bit too much of a Bright Eyes haze (no pun intended) lately. Not that the album isn't amazing. And I may take back everything I'm writing once I'm out of my Shins-24-7 phase. But I believe that Wincing The Night Away beats it by about 2%.
The album deters from the Shins' last two, which are quite similar sounding. Indeed, with both Oh, Inverted World (2001) and Chutes Too Narrow it is often difficult for me to decipher what songs come from which album and sometimes hard to tell the songs apart. Not that these aren't fantastic albums as well (Both received raving reviews, and indeed, Mr. Sellers himself named Chutes Too Narrow as one of 8 dingers in all rock music.), this one takes it to a new level. The Shins experiment with some things that I'm not sure suit the band perfectly, but the blend of it all works with this album.
This turned into an album review, which is not what I intended when I began writing what I thought would be a short post. I'm exhausted from a busy day at work.
I just wanted to declare that I'm a fan of any job that allows me to listen to the Shins at work. I'm going to college so I can find a job that pays me to listen to music. And go to concerts, preferably. Anyone hiring?
LB
Currently listening to: The Shins live in Boston 3-15-07 (Oh boy...the other exciting news of the last 48 hours: I'm discovering the world of music blogs, and most excitingly quality free music online. Last night I found this: http://www.bradleysalmanac.com/ where some guy has toooons of concert recordings. Including...several shows I saw (of course not the same exact show I saw as most of these are recorded in Boston, so the set list differs some, but not incredibly). He has great recordings of the Shins from the same tour I saw them on this winter as well as the Ben Gibbard show I just saw a month ago (as well as opener David Bazan). They're all excellent quality. This is definitely the excitement of my week. Go check it out if you're into free music or live music or music by good bands or simply cool stuff.
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