new music: The Red Album

Aw jeez, Weezer. You just keep finding ways to get worse. Hrm...
Like with Radiohead, I have some specific history with Weezer (missing them in their initial popular run due to my middle school ignorance of popular music; discovering them years later when the Blue Album essentially soundtracked a terrific (magical!) summer stint at writing camp; one of my favorite concert experiences ever seeing them live before their big Green Album comeback; my first officially published music review being for the Green Album in Raleigh's now defunct Spectactor Magazine). I'll admit I gave up on following them pretty much beyond the radio singles after disliking the Green Album, and those singles didn't suggest I was missing much. The ones from Maladroit, whose names I can't remember right now, were ok but not essential, and the singles from Make Believe--the atrocious "Beverly Hills" and even more atrocious "We Are All On Drugs"--were more than enough to convince me that record's bad buzz was entirely warranted.
But I suppose I was curious for this one. First single "Pork and Beans" seemed to be getting good reviews, the cover art was goofy, there was talk of a proggy epic built around the "Shaker Song"--it all sounded like Weezer was going to be fun again. Even if they wouldn't return to heights of the Blue Album and Pinkerton, they would at least not be as soul-less as they were on the Green Album or singing about how we are all ON DRUGS.
But alas, the Red Album is bad enough to actually make me nostalgic for the bland pop-punk of the Green Album.
To be fair, there are a few decent moments. Opening track "Trouble Maker" is a good rock song, and there's even some nice lead guitar punch in the second verse. The aforementioned proggy epic "Shaker song" takeoff, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" exists, and though I didn't get much mileage from it (I'm really not at all nostalgic for lower school music class), it at least is fun and goofily endearing, and few parts of it have some nice classic Weezer guitar chug. Classic Weezer guitars also drive "Dreamin'", and it's pretty good.
The rest though is pretty disastrous. "Pork and Beans" is fine I suppose, but it strikes me as smug: Rivers Cuomo complains about having to write a hit and smarmily talks about getting Timbaland's help to "top the charts," but Weezer has been successfully topping charts for years. It all just sounds so disingenious coming from the guy who wrote "Beverly Hills" (though in its own way that song was equally as smug). Things only get worse with "Everybody Get Dangerous," which sounds like Weezer doing a shitty Red Hot Chili Peppers song.
For the first time in Weezer's history, the other guys come in to contribute songs-one each. Initially, I thought this would be an ok idea, as Rivers Cuomo clearly wasn't the font of inspiration that he used to be, and it seemed like one of the other guys might be able to more accurately nail the Weezer sound. But, nope. Hope vanishes pretty fast when guitarist Brian Bell's "Thought I Knew" starts: its got programmed beats and acoustic guitar. Individually, I like both of those things, but when put together as the prominent pieces of a song, it almost always leads to some of the worst music ever. Things get worse when Bell starts to sing in a nasty, nasally autotuned voice: the whole thing gives off an Uncle Kracker vibe. Bassist Scott Shriner (who is most certainly no Matt Sharp) sounds pretty much exactly like he looks on the album cover, which is to say, like an asshole. And the fact that, as a friend pointed out, his song "Cold Dark World" sounds like Kid Rock isn't helping Brian Bell out any. Drummer Patrick Wilson comes off best on his song, "Automatic"-it's completely unremarkable. The record is sequenced poorly too: all of River's songs (except the closing track) are at the front of the record, then we get the other guys' all in a row at the end. Obviously the songs were not recorded in this order (and Cuomos blandly sings the chorus of "Cold Dark World"), but the impression made on the listener is that Cuomos simply got bored or gave up and just left for awhile to go take a nap or buy a new couch or something.
The worst track by far, though, not just on this album but arguably in Weezer's history, is Cuomo's atrocious "Heart Songs." Listen, in concept, I'm okay with Rivers writing a salute to his own musical history, and all the guilty pleasure stuff he loves. Unfortunately, he does so fairly shittily and blandly, pretty much just listing names ("A cat named Stevens"-oy) or tossing out well-known lyrics ("it takes two to make a thing go right/ if the Fresh Prince starts a fight") until the big finish where talks about being inspired by Nirvana. What's worse than the lyrics is the horrible, horrible music Cuomos wrote to accompany his sincerity: instead of the droning guitar buzz and harmonica that accompanied this song's forerunner "In the Garage," we now get a mid-tempo ballad of acoustic guitars, canned strings, and simplistic keyboard melodies clearly set to "INSPIRATIONAL," and Cuomos sings the somewhat boyband-esque melody in a nasal whine that seems to have been borrowed from some shitty emo act Cuomos heard on the radio while driving to the studio. The whole thing sounds like an achingly sincere comedown after a big dance number on, I don't know, a Nick Carter solo-album or something. It's horrible, and genuinely embarrassing to listen to.
Actually, that pretty much sums up this record. Its tough to tell of this a result of the band not caring anymore and just doing what they want, or just not caring anymore and well, not caring. Either way, I'm done listening.

New music : American Princes

A couple years ago, in my post collegial search for employment, I interviewed for a PR job with Yep Roc Records. I didn't get it (no hard feelings, I was completely unqualified), but I was given a quick tour of the label's office and warehouse, during which I was given an album by a band called American Princes, whose new album Less and Less Yep Roc was about to release. I ended up really liking it: I went in expecting countryish indie rock, which was certainly there, but the band had some major post-punk influences too, and stylistically the album was all over the place: "The Replacements meets the Dismemberment Plan in My Morning Jacket's grain silo"I think I wrote in an email to Yep Roc further imploring them to hire me (they still didn't). In short, Less and Less was a pretty great record, and definitely one that has stood up fairly well, and that I return to pretty often.
Anyway, American Princes just put out a new album, Other People. I was psyched to see the band heartily endorsed in Noel Murray's great Popless column on the AV Club, but beyond that, they've been pretty ignored critically (at least where I'm looking). I was even more distressed to find that I couldn't find this record at a couple of different local independent record stores. Perhaps somebody at Yep Roc isn't doing their job so well . . . (call me guys!).
Its too bad, because Other People is pretty great. Its not quite as diverse as Less and Less, and their slight alt-country vibe has been scaled back some, instead with the focus now being on a more New Wave meets southern rock sound. Still, the band has three songwriters and singers, so things never get samey, and their execution remains excellent.
I highly recommend it.

On A Friday, pt. 2

Last Friday, the 9th, I went to see Radiohead in Charlotte.




I was a bit hesitant at first. I saw on Pitchfork or Stereogum or something that the band was playing there, but initially I didn't intend on going. Not sure why not. As I said, I wasn't as enthusiastic about Radiohead as I used to be, and I don't know, just wasn't inclined to do it.
Only after my friend Tradd offered me a ticket did I reconsider and go for it. I probably got screwed a bit for my hesitance-I paid 96 dollars for my ticket (thirdhand), instead however much it might have been had I bought it right from the band. But whatevs. When the offer came up, I was in the midst of a resolution to get out more and do more stuff and say YES, so I went for it.

The day of the show, I was much more excited than I expected to be. Last Friday morning, I woke up and it dawned on me that, yes, I was going to see Radiohead! I was about to do what I'd have given a toe for not too long ago, and indeed, something I thought I wouldn't ever do. For years, the band had been so prickly and toured so irregularly that I had already consigned them to my "oh well" file of acts I'd never get to see.
But by four-thirty that afternoon, I found myself on the way to Charlotte in the back of a big van with Tradd and three other dudes I'd never met before.

I'm not complaining here (really!) but it wasn't how I imagined I'd go see Radiohead way back when. Not sure how I pictured it-maybe as a date with a girl with glasses (my girl with glasses stayed home, alas), but it certainly wasn't in such a Dazed and Confused kind of way. Its just indicative, I guess, of the way things rarely play out the way you expect them to, not to mention how the public perception of Radiohead had seemingly changed in the last several years.

But anyway, on to the show! After a stop-off at Arby's (not nearly as gross as I remembered it being, though I was possibly aided this time by my wise decision to order a chicken sandwich instead of the horror that is the Big Montana), we got to Charlotte. The excitement was palpable.

Soon we'd be seeing Radiohead!

But first, there was traffic. A lot of traffic. About two miles of stopped cars traffic. All filled with other people on the way to the concert, because as best as I could tell, there was only one road to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre. Nice civil engineering there, Charlotte.

As there were no options, we waited it out. Scalpers walked up and down the shoulder. People hopped out of their cars to go pee in the woods, or would run into a gas station to get drinks, only to come out a moment later and find that the traffic had moved, and they'd have to run to catch up (though of course, by the time they got to their cars, the traffic was stopped again). Time passed on and on, and before long it was a bit before nine o'clock, about when we guestimated Radiohead would be taking the stage.

Eventually, we got up to the parking lot, and with the van windows down, we could tell the concert had indeed started. "There There" was playing in the distance. We took the first space we could find, and hurried in, while the band played "Airbag."

We had lawn tickets and . . . I'm a small club kind of dude I think. I mean, we walked down as close as we could get to the actual amphitheatre area, but I still felt incredibly far away, and the sound was never quite loud enough to really envelope me in the way a concert should.

As always, I had some issues with the crowd. I mean, for the most part it was fine (huge though, I can't remember the last time I was a concert where so many people seemed packed in so tightly). I, however, almost always have the bad luck of finding a nice spot to stand right next to someone who MUST DANCE in the most dramatic way possible, and with the least respect for anyone else's personal space. Usually its a hippie girl, but this time, it was a dread-locked white dude who bore a suspicious resemblance to Zach de la Rocha. Rarely do I so wish to be in the possession of a taser than I do at a crowded concert. Anyway, lil' la Rocha may or may not have been with another group of jumping, near moshing morons a few feet away, who were led by some hyperactive kid who, after every song, shouted "I hope they play 'Just!'" and then proceeded to shout that chorus. As terrific as it would have been to see "Just" played live (it's a killer song), I was hoping pretty much the whole time that the band would not play it (they didn't). Slightly less annoying were the couple behind me, who seemed to be on a first or second date; the dude kept telling his girlfriend what the song was within a few seconds of it starting, but was completely wrong every time.

Anyway, the show then! I do have to say Radiohead's stage set up and lighting were pretty incredible. A fairly standard but excellently light display accompanied every song, and cameras were trained on each band member, their images projected behind them so that their video images became an essential part of the lighting effects. The best visual moment was on "You and Whose Army," in which all the lights and cameras cut out, except a camera mounted on Thom Yorke's piano, so opening quiet part of the song was performed with Thom's eye staring at the crowd. Thom hammed it up, drawing back and sneer-smiling, and it was pretty damn great.

The set list was . . . ok. Reasonably diverse selections, though the focus was on newer stuff. I was pissed to miss "There There" and "Airbag," but did get plenty of other good stuff. "Idioteque" was incredible-not much different than the album version, but still near perfect. "Optimistic" was introduced as an older song (sort of, I guess) but it sounded great. The only selection from The Bends was "Planet Telex," but that was a major highlight: loud and anthemic, with a nifty purple and yellow light show to boot. It was a good choice, since that song sounds much more in keeping with their newer stuff than say, "Bones", while bringing in some of the big guitars and solos that defined their 90's era. New song "Bangers and Mash" sounded great, and the too brief moment when the almost suffocating tension and reserve in "Morning Bell" lets loose was executed perfectly. The underrated "Where I End and You Begin" was a monster, fast and intense. And "Paranoid Android" was a hell of an awesome and crowd pleasing choice.
Still, the band seemed a bit subdued overall. Part of it may have been being out on the lawn, but the setlist had a pretty large number of ballads and mid-tempo stuff. "Nude" and "Sail to the Moon" back to back? "Sail to the Moon" at all? "Reckoner" seemed like a bit of an odd choice for a set closer too, but that may just be me, since I'm pretty lukewarm on that song.

Anyway, after the show we found our way out of the auditorium (whose staff was kind of enough to give out free cups of water), and I decided against sinking 40 bucks into a t-shirt (which seemed to be some kind of polyester-esque fabric that may not have been flattering on my doughy frame) or a Radiohead sheet (which just looked like dark tie-dye). We hung out playing frisbee in the parking lot for awhile while the traffic cleared, then went on home.

And that's all I've got right now.

PS-being far away made it tough to for me to figure out what parts Ed was playing. Still worried about that guy!

On A Friday, pt. 1

Radiohead were the first band I loved.

Or at least, the first band I loved obsessively. Certainly the first band I loved whose music I sought out myself.

I had kind of a weird musical upbringing, in that for most of my childhood and early teen years, I just wasn’t that interested in music. I mean, I liked it, but I couldn’t imagine sitting in my room alone listening to something, and when I was in the car with my mom (where most of my early music listening happened), we listened generally to what she chose-namely older r & b (lots of Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin), adult contemporary pop (again usually with some r & b lite attributes, like Jon Secada or something), and for some reason, British synth-pop superstars Erasure. We also listened a lot to Electronic, a mostly forgotten synth-pop collaboration between Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr, which I dug a lot (it remains worth a listen), though at the time I had no idea of its two principles’ significance.

Furthermore, I didn’t have any older siblings to pass things on to me, though I do remember being in the car once with my cousins Desna and Max when they put on the Gin Blossoms’ (still great) “Hey Jealousy” and being kind of blown away by the sheer rebellious audacity of a singer talking happily about being chased by the cops.

Anyway, back then, I also wasn’t the type of kid to listen to much music socially, mostly because I was a weird, introverted only-child who was mostly content to spend most of the time alone (though not unhappy). That combined with the fact that my mom had an odd no-MTV policy made it so that listening to whatever was popular at the time never really entered my world.

I mean, I did sneak MTV sometimes, and I was at least somewhat aware of what was popular and cool (I did have friends, if I didn’t usually do much with them outside of school). I remember really liking Oasis, and thinking Bush’s “Glycerine” was great, and I liked Blues Traveler and Live a lot too. But it wasn’t until I was about fifteen, and facing soon driving myself around and having that independence that the notion of choosing my own soundtrack for my life became a possibility.

By that time, I was watching MTV much more, and could easily have gotten into what was popular then (what was popular in 1997-98? Had nu-metal begun its rise to prominence?). But I was already something of a young elitist, determined to find music that struck me as different than most of the stuff I was seeing on MTV. This led me to . . . Dave Matthews (come on, what other band on MTV back then had a violinist and saxophonist? Also, to be fair to myself, none of my friends at the time were listening to Dave Matthews, at least as far as I knew. Poor naïve Josh thought Dave Matthews was such a rarefied choice that upon seeing a Dave Matthews sticker on the car of a major crush, he believed it was a sure sign of a future connection!)

Of course, actually listening to the Dave Matthews CD I bought (Before These Crowded Streets) was luckily enough to push me away from that scene, and even better, my dedication to finding things that were different led me other weirder and more interesting stuff, like Portishead and Pulp. And Radiohead.

At the time what drew me to Radiohead, I guess, was the videos. Back then, the videos for "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" were getting semi-regular rotation, and I liked them immediately. "Karma Police" remains one of the greatest music videos ever shot, I think, and the videos for "Just" and "Street Spirit" are classics as well (I liked it at the time, but I haven't seen "Paranoid Android" in years, though I suspect it might not have aged as well).

Anyway, I got Ok Computer, and loved it, and pretty soon after I picked up The Bends. (I actually never got around to buying Pablo Honey--I think I convinced myself that it was something juvenile and unnecessary). And suddenly I, whose previous strongest musical likes were hitched to the Sega CD classic Lunar, had a favorite band. I would take long drives on weekends just to listen to the albums. I was drawn online, and started looking for reviews and media about Radiohead, wanting to find out more and more, wanting to figure out what it all meant. I watched footage of the band on TV, playing at outdoor festivals in England, thrilled as all hell that the live version of "Creep" replaced the mild adjective "very" with the much more rockin' "fuckin'." I developed an odd obsession with Ed (which remains), worrying that he didn't get enough to do. I watched the misery inducing / joy snuffing / sunshine murdering tour documentary Meeting People Is Easy and convinced myself it was good. I wore a t-shirt that said "We hope that you choke" on it to school, and was mildly rebuffed by a history teacher.

I felt cooler listening to Radiohead-not only was this loud, angry, and rebellious music (well sometimes--"My Iron Lung" got a lot of play), but it was smarter and more interesting and dare I say it, more profound than all the nu-metal everybody was listening too. Thom Yorke didn't just yell about his pain like, I don't know, Jonathan Davis or something, he spat out lyrics about chemical reactions and polyeurethane! The band members weren't a bunch of bald, tattooed mooks, but thin, artsy looking dudes, dudes who looked cool in a very particular way, like I wanted look.

And most importantly, for the most part I was the only one listening to Radiohead, at least amongst my own group of friends. I knew some older kids were into it, and there were a few guys in my class who were into Radiohead and Limp Bizkit (they claimed to appreciate Wes Borland's guitar effects), but for the most part, I felt like listening to Radiohead was something that made me stand out, that made me different (of course, later, in college, it became apparent that every Radiohead fan--and there are A LOT at college--felt the exact same way). And what can I say--it added to the appeal.

It wasn't to last forever, of course, my love affair with Radiohead. As much as I loved The Bends and Ok Computer (and the awesome Airbag / How Am I Driving? ep, which I was thrilled to discover at a Borders one fateful day--"A Reminder" remains one of my favorite Radiohead tracks), I needed other stuff to listen to also, and Radiohead actually proved vital in leading me to new things. Sure, I already had Portishead, Pulp, and Eels from MTV and MTV2, but it was on some Radiohead fansite that somebody compared Blur's just released 13 (an underrated, excellent album) to Ok Computer. So I picked it up, and that opened up a world of Britpop greatness (Oasis, The Verve, Manic Street Preachers, Mansun, to a much much lesser extent, Travis). Then, a little later, after I'd moved to North Carolina and started eleventh grade, I kept reading about this band Pavement, whose latest album was produced by Nigel Godrich (and even featured Jonny Greenwood on harmonica!). So I checked that out, and suddenly found myself an indie rock fan. (This went down about a week before Pavement played in Raleigh, on what would be their last tour. If I had just found that album a tiny bit earlier!)

Pretty soon, Pavement supplanted Radiohead in my mind as my favorite band. I was as pysched as everybody when Kid A came out in 2000, but it didn't occupy nearly as much time in my CD player as those earlier albums (though I do think that Kid A is the band's greatest achievement). And then when the weak and generally pretty boring Amnesiac came out a few months later, my former favorite band was suddenly fallible. Old news even.

I continued to love Radiohead as I went to college. I even had a Bends era poster on my freshman year dorm room wall, though this was partially in response to my roomate's Boys' Gospel Choir poster (don't ask). But at a time when lots of my peers were discovering Radiohead for the first time, for me the magic was already gone. Was that in part because by then lots of people, lots of my peers even, were Radiohead fans? Yes, maybe, I don't know.

I still bought and liked the ridiculously titled Hail to the Thief. And I was online with everybody else last year downloading In Rainbows (I paid five dollars!), which I liked, though not as much as lots of other folks. And I'll probably get whatever the band puts out in the future. And when a Radiohead song comes up on my Ipod, I usually enjoy it (unless it's "Knives Out"-as I cleverly thought to myself at the time, its Radiohead aping The Smiths, and coming up with something that misses everything that's good about either), even if the glass-breaking guitar solo in "Climbing up the Walls" doesn't blow my mind like it once did. The fact remains that my Radiohead fandom was pretty instrumental in making me the music obsessive that I am today, which is a pretty big part of who I am today. So that's worth something, I think.

coming soon-the second part of this Radioheaderific postathon, in which I discuss seeing Radiohead live in a context as far removed from my original experience with the band as possible!

New music round-up!

(Well, new to me anyway.)

The Wedding Present- George Best Plus (bought from Amazon.com)- There may be no sound in pop music I love more than a speedily strummed electric guitar, especially when the guitarist seems to be just repeatedly playing one or two chords. I like a bendy and squealy solo plenty, but I love some speedy strumming. The last minute or two of the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On" is a pretty prime example. Or more recently, Clap Your Hand Say Yeah's "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth." Anyway, I ramble about this because The Wedding Present, at least on this, their debut album (appended with some early eps, I believe) is all about the speedy strumming. So much so that even I get a bit sick of it by track 10 or so. Still, individually, just about every song here is good. David Gedge doesn't have a ton of vocal charisma, but the band has a lot of energy. A definitely worthy purchase.

Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes) (bought from Amazon.com)- Last winter or fall or whenever, I took up Paste Magazine's "pay what you want" subscription offer (I think I paid five dollars, so yeah, I'm a chump). It's a decent magazine, if not a bit too NPR (i.e, boring) at times. The promotion CD's that accompany each issue are frankly pretty boring too, filled up with pretty blah singer-songwriter stuff and mid-tempo acoustics, though there's usually a good track or two that I dig enough to make the whole thing worthwhile. First, it was Bon Iver (admittedly, a mid-tempo acoustic singer-songwriter, but still so good!), then the other day, I was so struck by Cloud Cult's "When Water Comes to Life" I prompty went on Amazon and ordered a copy (along with The Wedding Present, and Something Else by the Kinks, which aside from a perfectunory run through "Waterloo Sunset" I've not yet listened to). Anyway, a paragraph in and now I'm at the album- its good, occasionally gorgeous, and occasionally irritatingly precious (like the grating Kimya Dawson songs on the Juno soundtrack). Album's like this tend to be growers for me, though, or rather, I like them fine until I happen to listen to them at just the right moment (often on a long lonely car ride up to visit family in Pennsylvania), and they absolutely wreck me. I can definitely see that happening with this one. On the downside, this has some HORRIBLE cover art. Seriously, I was embarrassed to have it sitting around my apartment.

Evangelicals- The Evening Descends (snagged from my best-friend Carlos)- Sometimes I feel like I go through so much new music because I'm always looking for that one album that just grabs you and hits perfectly, and its this one for me right now. Holy shit, its good. Seriously, "Midnight Vignette," "Skeleton Man," and "Party Crashin'" have become the soundtrack to my spring, and the rest of the album is solid too (especially the unintelligble, shouted chorus of "Paperback Suicide"). The weird, haunted house sound effects (I love the crazy-loud buzzing simulating heart palpitators on "Party Crashin'") and the weirdly out of nowhere bits of melody and hooks that show up for a second then vanish without a trace (there's like three great hooks that show up in the second verse of "Midnight Vignette") add the album a weird ramshackle charm, and demand relistening. But its the songs themselves, the writing, that is great, and there is no moment I've heard lately that's more cathartic (probably since "John Allyn Smith Sails" on Okkervil River's The Stage Names, my favorite album of 2007) than the end of "Skeleton Man."

Shufflin' and Shimmyin' (minus the shimmyin')

(In which I ape The Onion AV Club's "Random Rules" by putting my Ipod on shuffle and writing about the first 5 songs that come up.)

1. "Reflections After Jane" by the Clientele- I downloaded a couple Clientele songs a couple years ago when Strange Geometry was getting a lot of buzz, and I'll admit I never got a whole lot further than great "Since K Got Over Me." I do find their stuff pretty, and love the reverby haze and mood of it all, but its a little boring. This one if from Suburban Light, and though its pretty, I can't imagine giving it much time, or being inspired to seek it out for a listen.

2. "We Cannot Lose" by The Futureheads - I actually quite liked The Futurehead's somewhat derided second album. Sure, it lacked the massive, sugar rush energy and mondo harmonies that made their debut so much fun, but the more restrained performances and the production actually showed off the quality of the band's songwriting, which on the first album tended to get a bit overwhelmed by all the huge guitars and "OH OH OHs." This is the closing track of that second album, and its a pretty good, upbeat Futureheads song, which like all of their best stuff, has a bit of an eighties New Wave vibe to it. Still, I've gotta admit, I'd probably like it better and be more excited about it if it was recorded in the style of the first album.

3. "The Lucky Ones" by Kevin Drew - For all intents and purposes, this Kevin Drew "solo" track is a pretty good Broken Social Scene song, as its got a ton of BSS people on it (plus Spiral Stairs!). It's catchy, and fun, and the Scott Kannenberg guitar bit at the end is pretty cool, and Leslie Feist sounds nice oohing and aahing in the background. It goes on a bit long, but it sounds like everybody is having so much that you understand why they maybe didn't want it to end.

4. "I Need You (For Someone)" by The Jam - Call me crazy (or don't, whatevs), but Paul Weller sounds a lot like Bob Pollard to me. I guess it should be the other way around, but I heard Pollard first, so there you go. This is good song, hooky and sweet, with some particularly nice bass parts. I don't listen to The Jam much, but I usually at least moderately enjoy them when I happen to hear one of their songs.

5. "My Moon, My Man" by Feist - I like Feist a lot. I do, and don't begrudge her the success she's had (though helping my step-mom buy "1, 2, 3, 4" on Itunes was . . . weird), and this one of the best songs from The Reminder. Feist sounds equally mournful, distressed, and sexy, and the percussive piano line is pretty killer. There's even a nice little guitar part thrown in. The thirty seconds or so of ambient sound that close it out don't really work out of the context of the album, but its tough to begrudge it that (especially since on the album, they lead into my favorite Feist song, the absolutely devastating "The Park").