2008 Woodie Awards
'Tis the season to listen to somewhat glum music
By: Peter Valelly, Arts Editor
Issue date: 11/2/07 Section: The Arts
- Page 1 of 3 next >
My friend Dave from high school once noted that as summer turned to fall, he just couldn't help but start listening to "darker music," and he suspected the same was true of everyone. This sounds like a simple formula, an easy one to disprove. But there's something to it - each fall at Mac, the carefree vibes of summer steadily fade, deserting us in the flat, increasingly frigid Midwestern environs where we all spend two-thirds of the year.
Even shimmering summer anthems seem, come fall, to take on a languid and portentous quality. Some of the records that have become my personal soundtrack this fall - Spacemen 3's gloriously ethereal "Playing With Fire," for instance - could just as easily suggest the sunburnt lethargy of late summer, but with the seasonal shift the music's qualities have become totally inseparable from the steady descent into winter transpiring all around me.
This affective quality in music isn't necessarily related to anyone's particular mood or disposition, a malaise of the listener himself or herself; it is, instead, teased out by nature's own drowsy demeanor, by the inevitability of fall as the precursor to the long, hard winter ahead. The music responds not to our mood but to our own assimilation of nature's changes.
So what have I been listening to lately? Well, the new Radiohead record has been a favorite since its release early in the month; the hypnotic plea "Reckoner" acquired particular resonance during this October's rainier days. More generally, my whole summer of hip-hop jamz and pop-R&B delights, detailed in my first article of the year, has fully disintegrated, giving way to indie melancholia. A whole slew of sad songwriter types has nestled its way into my most played records of late, from autumnal stalwarts (Nick Drake) to recent rediscoveries (the Eels, John Martyn) and brand new favorites (Elvis Perkins, Jim Guthrie).
But sullen singer-songwriterly ennui isn't the only way to soundtrack your fall. After all, it's the season of Halloween, too, so there's plenty of room for playfulness. A friend of mine recently made the very, very appropriate decision that it's the time of the year to bust out your Misfits records, and to this I would add apocalyptic garage punkers the Mummies (note the appropriately spooky name).
Even shimmering summer anthems seem, come fall, to take on a languid and portentous quality. Some of the records that have become my personal soundtrack this fall - Spacemen 3's gloriously ethereal "Playing With Fire," for instance - could just as easily suggest the sunburnt lethargy of late summer, but with the seasonal shift the music's qualities have become totally inseparable from the steady descent into winter transpiring all around me.
This affective quality in music isn't necessarily related to anyone's particular mood or disposition, a malaise of the listener himself or herself; it is, instead, teased out by nature's own drowsy demeanor, by the inevitability of fall as the precursor to the long, hard winter ahead. The music responds not to our mood but to our own assimilation of nature's changes.
So what have I been listening to lately? Well, the new Radiohead record has been a favorite since its release early in the month; the hypnotic plea "Reckoner" acquired particular resonance during this October's rainier days. More generally, my whole summer of hip-hop jamz and pop-R&B delights, detailed in my first article of the year, has fully disintegrated, giving way to indie melancholia. A whole slew of sad songwriter types has nestled its way into my most played records of late, from autumnal stalwarts (Nick Drake) to recent rediscoveries (the Eels, John Martyn) and brand new favorites (Elvis Perkins, Jim Guthrie).
But sullen singer-songwriterly ennui isn't the only way to soundtrack your fall. After all, it's the season of Halloween, too, so there's plenty of room for playfulness. A friend of mine recently made the very, very appropriate decision that it's the time of the year to bust out your Misfits records, and to this I would add apocalyptic garage punkers the Mummies (note the appropriately spooky name).
Be the first to comment on this story