For Every Season

I realize I have yet to write much about what I think of a particular disc—hmmm, could it be that I am a bit nervous about not being cutting edge enough for this crowd? Well yeah, but here it goes anyway (kinda).

I didn’t actually ever have any Old 97’s in the collection until I picked up their recent effort Blame It On Gravity—although I had different cuts from my days of getting CMJ every month (CMJ, where I just learned that Boy George has been denied a visa for his US tour because he allegedly "chained up" some Norwegian dude who came to his place for a “photo shoot.” But I so digress.)

I don’t know why I never did more than dip my toe in with the 97's, because this disc is just a bunch of fun—which means I am looking for suggestions of where to go in their discography next. The music is definitely has great rock beats with that country twang hanging around and plenty of tracks have their own particular sound--cha-cha, tango, swing, etc.

The lyrics are, on one hand, light-hearted with nice hooks, but on the other hand they aren’t superficial. The Rolling Stone review captures this mix of upbeat songs with serious/dark lyrics best with this from lead singer Rhett Miller:

"Strum it on a Telecaster/Sing it like a train-disaster song," sings Miller. It's a perfect mission statement from four Texans raised on the Beatles and Johnny Cash in equal measures, whose shiny melodies, and fatalistic character studies, do their forefathers proud.

Favorite first lyrics are from track two “Dance With Me”

He takes your hand, tenderly
He whispers sweet surrender
Nothing is how he feels
About girls like you with your flip-flop smiles and
Your big blue eyes on vacation

Dance with me into the ocean
Roll with me into the sea
Don’t tell me the world is in trouble
Do you want to dance with me?

This tune exemplifies to me why the album is a great pick up for the summer—a sort of escapism that acknowledges larger issues out there, but let’s ignore it all for a while and get lost in this music—yeah, I get that the song isn’t quite about that, but I am talking about the experience of listening to this disc (or at least mine).

This brings up another issue for me which is the idea of music being seasonal. I am wondering if others think about music that way. I definitely listen to certain music at different times of the year. I think this album resonates more with me for having picked it up as summer started. Not really sure I can articulate why that is, but I know it is true.

I tend to listen to more rowdy stuff in Spring and Summer and tend to be more jazz and classical oriented as we move through Fall and into the Winter. I suspect for me it has to do with my strong orientation to the academic calendar, but even that doesn’t hold perfectly. Of course, there are exceptions to that (and obviously mood has a lot to do with that), but it is a phenomenon I am acutely aware of in my listening habits and I am curious if any others have a pattern of music listening that you see as tied to time of year, weather, etc.?