iPodification

Tommy's pissed off about The Decemberists' recent album, The Crane Wife:

Colin Meloy's epic ornithophiliac triptych gets off to a rockin' start. But it drags, it's pretentiously out-of-order (in addition the normal baseline of Decemberists pretension), and what's up with combining parts one and two into a single track? Do the Decemberists really think they're going to single-handedly turn the tide against the ipodification of their industry? Cause, uh, they won't, regardless of how many Japanese birdfucking myths they reference. And given that, I'd prefer that they stop screwing up my meticulous playlist management.

This is totally true, but it's also bullshit. It is the very ipodification of the music realm that prevents the album's flaws from being a real problem. I find the 12:26, three song second track really annoying so I skip it when it comes on. The rest of the album is all very good and, thanks to "Sons & Daughters," I now really want to go build an aluminum house somewhere with plenty of room for my cinnamon storage. If you find yourself in the position of a Tom or a Catherine who can't find any new albums you like these days, you ought to consider the possibility that you're getting old and cranky.

Comments

hey, wait a second: i'm old and i'm constantly finding new music (whether in album form or otherwise) that i like. lose the ageism: the possibility is that you're getting cranky and fixed in your ways, which can obviously happen as readily to young people as to older ones (although, admittedly, is more typical of my chronological peers).

meanwhile, whoever tom is (i didn't click through), the paragraph you quote is evidence of why god put editors on this earth....

Posted by howard | November 15, 2006 10:22 AM

I suppose it depends what you mean by "ipodification". The ability to skip an unfavored track is a CD-era advance, not an iPod one. What Meloy is complaining about is his inability to rearrange all the songs to his liking (or put them on a playlist individually), which is what is prevented by lumping multiple songs onto a single "track".

Posted by right | November 15, 2006 10:32 AM

Prog normally gives me the dry heaves, but I actually like that second song... Colin Meloy in '08!!

Posted by RC | November 15, 2006 10:53 AM

careful, matt. soon my age and crankiness will start rubbing off on you!

Posted by catherine | November 15, 2006 11:02 AM

Catherine, with all due respect, anyone whose blog mentions her liking for older stuff, like Radiohead, has a lot to learn about old and cranky.

Glenn Miller might qualify as older stuff, but Radiohead?

Posted by rea | November 15, 2006 11:16 AM

well, older stuff more as in, they haven't released a new album in a while. but as it stands re: radiohead, i am actually really mostly a fan of their actual older stuff...like, um, 1995 and 1998. that's old, right?

Posted by catherine | November 15, 2006 11:20 AM

Well, I think those of us who group up in the 80s when all music sucked (some of it fun and enjoyable in a retro nostalgia sense but still mostly the suck) only listened to "Old" music but didn't really think of it as being all that old.

I have much less trouble finding new and interesting good music now than I ever did. Whether that's because there's more new good music, or I managed to move past a "set in my ways" period, or whether the internets makes it easier to find I"m not sure. Some combinatio presumably.

Posted by Atrios | November 15, 2006 11:34 AM

The self-aware pretentiousness is part of the Decemberists' charm, of course, but I must say that I thought their stage act was getting a little out of hand when I saw them at 9:30 last month. The faux-guitar-god preening, the Bono-videotapes-himself shtick, and the Hendrix-at-Altamont finale were a poor substitute for the good-natured fun of their previous tours.

Or maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | November 15, 2006 11:39 AM

Personally, I'm hoping the newly elected congress cracks down severely on lame, boring indie rock. There's too much of it. Protectionist quotas are neccessary. Death to boring boys and their boring guitars.

Posted by DRR | November 15, 2006 11:52 AM

Personally, I'm hoping the new congress cracks down severely on lame, boring, indie rock. There's too much of it. Protectionist quotas are needed. Death to boring boys and their boring guitars.

Posted by DRR | November 15, 2006 11:54 AM

Here's the thing: parts 1 & 2 of the Crane Wife are meant to be listened to together. Due to iPodification, if they were separated, they generally wouldn't be. This isn't because of the stubbornness of folks who refuse to pay attention to artist's intent, which is perfectly reasonable. It's due to the ubiquity of the shuffle setting.

Part 3 works on its own, but parts 1 & 2 complement each other. Putting them on a single track means that, even in the iPod age, they'll be heard as they were meant to by fans who appreciate the two together. Other fans can quite easily skip the track.

Posted by Nick | November 15, 2006 12:10 PM

Rea Wrote:
Catherine, with all due respect, anyone whose blog mentions her liking for older stuff, like Radiohead, has a lot to learn about old and cranky. Glenn Miller might qualify as older stuff, but Radiohead?

Glenn Miller isnt old; its prehistoric ;) When I first read it I was saying "Steve Miller" in my head the first few times before I clicked onto the fact that you were referring to the Swing Jazz guy, not the annoying 70's guy. As for Radiohead, it does qualify as old in the sense that anything more than 5 years old is OLD in contemporary American society. Although in n a way the whole notion of old has been flipped on its head: Its not new and old, its more like IN and OUT, and whats in is generally a (warning, catchphrase) mashup of the old and the new, the bleeding edge and the recently rediscovered, with the only important chronological question being, "was it IN within the last 2 years" (which makes it IN, regardless of chronological origins), or was it IN in the 5 years prior to that (which makes it decidedly OUT).

Posted by Desmond | November 15, 2006 12:27 PM

If 'cranky' means 'has an opinion about what is good', I'm all for it. I won't speculate on what you mean by 'old'.

Posted by MattF | November 15, 2006 12:39 PM

just to free associate a moment, i believe in the "eternal now" of great music: Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines 1928 recording of "weatherbird" is as fresh today as the latest from jay z or TI; Glenn Miller, on the other hand, is a period piece (but his contemporaries Count Basie and Duke Ellington are forever young).

My "A list" playlist runs from the likes of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and Jerry Lee Lewis to Three6Mafia, Young Jeezy, TI, and Rilo Kiley, and they're all forever new (i don't include jazz in the A list because the swing sensibility, with its implied beat, is sufficiently different from the rock/funk/hiphop sensibility of stated beats that the combo would be jarring - at least to me).

As it happens, most of my chronological contemporaries are thrilled to pay big bucks to see paul mccartney; i'd rather see MIA with diplo (real example), so i'm atypical, but as i suggested above, that's a matter of taste and openness, not age.

Posted by howard | November 15, 2006 12:44 PM

Matt, your solution is no good. Part 1 of the Crane Wife song cycle is the best song on the album — I don't want to skip it.

Anyway, I'm not really bothered by the band's decision to combine the two tracks. It just seems a little naive and silly to me to inconvenience listeners in this way — and contrary to the spirit of a time when the idea that artists can (or should) retain control over how their work's consumed is seeming rather quaint (cue Petey).

meanwhile, whoever tom is (i didn't click through), the paragraph you quote is evidence of why god put editors on this earth....

Well, yes. But please don't draw any conclusions from that. It's just that night I didn't feel like carefully editing something I wrote for my personal blog — I was just trying to fulfill my "post something every weekday" goal in the midst of a 13-hour workday. Trust me when I say that I am capable of generating grammatically correct, ramble-free prose. I used to be, anyway.

Posted by tom | November 15, 2006 1:25 PM

Sheesh you young whippersnappers. I may be an old fart, but if I was this disturbed about a song or two, I'd just whip up Audacity and cut the songs apart. What's stopping you? You have the bits.

Posted by kvenlander | November 15, 2006 1:43 PM

In my day, someone like Prince could release an entire cd with no seperate song tracks. Just one long track for the entire album.

Posted by joeo | November 15, 2006 2:03 PM

tom, if my professional writing were judged by my quickie blog comments, i'd be in trouble too! i have every confidence that a friend of matthew's can write good prose: an editor would simply have reminded you of a few things you overlooked.

Posted by howard | November 15, 2006 2:10 PM

The Decemberists show I saw seemed to comprise the same three faux English folk-rock songs repeated for 90 minutes. It might even have been boring had it not been for Meloy's voice.

I would have thought any self-respecting iPod user would have discovered the relatively trivial way to shorten a track in iTunes before transferring it to the iPod. (Hint : Get Info/Options/Start time & Stop time).

Posted by ndm | November 15, 2006 2:22 PM

i kinda think the new Decembrists album is just kinda.. meh. that frikkn "Perfect Crime" song makes me wanna crush something small and furry.

i liked them much better when they were trying to sound like Neutral Milk Hotel.

Posted by cleek | November 15, 2006 2:23 PM

"their actual older stuff...like, um, 1995 and 1998. that's old, right?"

Heck, I've got stuff in my freezer older than that!

Posted by rea | November 15, 2006 2:56 PM

If you find yourself in the position of a Tom or a Catherine who can't find any new albums you like these days, you ought to consider the possibility that you're getting old and cranky.

Well, you know, back in the 80's when I was a kid and I walked through the snow to school five miles everyday, uphill! In both directions! people who were kids in the 60's often told me that the 60's music was better than the 80's music. At the time, because I was young and dumb, I thought they were all wet. With the benefit of hindsite, I can see that a great deal of 80's music sucked, regardless of any sentimental attachments, and you know what? A lot of 60's music really sucked TOO! Tastes differ, so de gustibus but the fact of the matter is, a lot of the music made today sucks, just like it did in the 90's, the 80's, the 70's, the 60's and the 50's, especially when you have to listen to the same shit all the time. (For instance, Boston or Journey doesn't suck so much when you hear one of their songs once every say, ten years.)

So it could be they're old and cranky, or you could be just young and dumb. The music industry IS called the music industry for a reason; they turn out product. And product, after awhile, all starts to taste the same.

max
['There's your cynicism for the day.']

Posted by max | November 15, 2006 3:13 PM

Also, Glenn Miller stinks. There is only Count Basie.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | November 15, 2006 3:58 PM

The heavy implication here is that anyone who's not old and cranky will like the Decembrists.

Sorry. I like plenty of recent music, but the Decembrists have whiny vocals and mediocre melodies.

Posted by Mr. Noah | November 15, 2006 4:06 PM

Come on, Matt. You don't like the Island? Don't you get a kick when he pulls out his "pistol" AND his "saber?" I mean, I know Harvard philosophy probably limits its symbolic training to logic, but if you can't appreciate his saber, then may your Wizards be damned.

I've got my wife wanting to listen to Rush and ELP based on the weird synth riffs on the Island. Give it another chance.

Posted by Garrett | November 15, 2006 4:34 PM

In addition, the separation of Parts 1&2 and 3 was apparently Chris Walla's idea, according to some random interview in one of the music magazines under the pile of other recyclables. So now we can talk about how Death Cab is oh so pretentious.

Posted by Garrett | November 15, 2006 4:36 PM

The Decemberists are just an awful, awful, AWFUL band. This isn't about being old and cranky, it's about having taste. You'd have to be a political journalist to think such a lame band is somehow cool; they're the modern Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians...

Posted by guy | November 15, 2006 6:00 PM

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that one can be a Decemberists fan and not like "The Island". Aside from the poppy sea-shanty songs with gloomy lyrics, the over-the-top proggy song cycle is the major Decemberist oeuvre. "The Island" does this arguably better than any song since "Odalisque" on the "Castaways and Cutouts" album. If you listen to "The Tain", you'll see this was there from the start.

As for Neutral Milk Hotel, I have to say that I respect the music more than I enjoy it. I feel the exact opposite about the Decemberists - flawed but hugely enjoyable. They are not the modern Edie Brickell and New Bohemians - they're the modern Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Posted by Brian | November 16, 2006 12:20 PM

The modern Squirrel Nut Zippers? Please. That honor would have to go to Andrew Bird, who incidentally used to be a member of the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Decemberists are way too whiny in a "Green Day Ballad Power Hour" sort of way for that title.

Posted by Desmond | November 16, 2006 2:03 PM

By modern Squirrel Nut Zippers, I didn't mean that they work in the same genre (the Decemberists don't work in the New Bohemians arena either).

What I meant is that they're both immensely enjoyable bands that have some real technical limitations. The Zippers and the Decemberists are both a lot better than their musical chops should allow for. I don't think this is hugely controversial - both bands are terrific, but each have been faulted on the technique side. (This being a relative thing - any one of their members is far more talented than I am.)

I, personally, prefer a little bit of looseness/sloppiness in technique than the perfection achieved by amazingly talented studio pros whose songs fall flat.

Posted by Brian | November 16, 2006 2:31 PM

I gotta say, I love the new Decembrists album... Yankee Bayonet is just a perfect pop song, written a million times before, but carried off with just the right amount of pretentiousness. Ha.

As to 80s music, what are you people making fun of? There was some great material back then. And a lot more that SUCKED BIG DONKEY. Oh lord, I grew up then, and used to say that "radio was good until 1984." Now I don't know what I was thinking.

As it is, if it sounds good, play it. Open ears = open mind. Me, I'm into the previously named Decembrists, Death Cab, Radiohead (OK Computer forward...), Zippers (grew up knowing some of them, it turned out), Prince, and also free jazz, John Zorn's Masada song book, Sonic Youth, La Monte Young, Robert Ashley's operas, the cold blue music label, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Dude, it's just taste. My iPod is a vicious warzone of musical styles, living in peace and harmony.

Isn't that the joy of the iPodification of the world?

Posted by mainemc | November 16, 2006 8:20 PM

Oh, one last thing. I actually like the Decembrists BECAUSE of Yglesias. Man, he wrote about the last album so often, I had to go out and get it. Loved it. Thanks, this is what the blog world does: you read about the politics, hear an album, share it with the babysitter (not kidding) and next thing you know, she's sharing it (and Death Cab and White Stripes) with her friends.

Who you callin' old and cranky?! Ha.

Actually, I'm a mid-30s professor with a taste in music far more radical than my students. At their age, I didn't know what to do with free jazz or radical avant-garde, either.

Posted by mainemc | November 16, 2006 8:22 PM