The arbitrary line

Sometimes XPN and I are on exactly the same page when it comes to albums we love. But sometimes I hear the hype, hear the album, and then wonder if we are hearing the same thing. Such was the case when, by chance, I ended up with a copy of the Dirty Projectors' latest, Bitte Orca.

When I look at the separate parts that make up the sound of this album, it seems like something I would want to listen to. Odd time signatures, impressive guitar playing, tight harmonies, string sections... all things I like. Yet somehow when they're combined here, it's just too much. It doesn't sound like music; it just sounds like noise. (Useful Chamber, in particular, feels like an assault on my ears.) I find it unlistenable, yet it made Featured Album of the Week and found its way onto several Best of 2009 lists. So what's the deal?

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a post devoted to bashing the Dirty Projectors. That would be easier, but it would also be pretty low. There's no point in verbally eviscerating a band just because they're not my cup of tea. But listening to that album got me thinking about what as listeners we look for in artists, what draws us to one and pushes us away from another. For instance, here are some characteristics that are determining factors for me:

-I really admire musicians with technical skill. However, I really hate it when I feel like a musician is doing something just to show off their technical skill.

-If a musician does something unusual instrumentally or vocally, it's cool and innovative. Unless I don't like them, in which case it's just a gimmick.

-The lyrics are the most important thing, except for when the music is the most important thing.

-If someone gets clever with lyrics, it's intelligent and I like it. If someone gets too clever with lyrics, it's pretentious.

-I like music that has genuine feeling behind it, but not so much feeling that it's emo (whatever that is).

...Okay, so that last one was a little bit of a joke, but for the most part these are all true. Is this list arbitrary and contradictory nine ways from Sunday? Yep. But when I look through my iTunes library, which ranges from Simon and Garfunkel to My Chemical Romance, it doesn't seem all that surprising.

What does your list look like?

You know you're a musician when...?

Hello, internet. Long time no post. I've been busy with school and so not playing much lately. However, I figured that as long as I wasn't playing I might as well listen to other people play, so I've been catching quite a bit of live music at XPN's Free at Noon shows over the last few weeks. If you're in the Philly area, these shows are every Friday and also, as you may have noted from the name... free. So if you're like me and, well, everybody else in the country right now, trying to save money, scoot on over to one of these. It's a great way to find out about new music. (Case in point: Bell X1. Saw them a couple of weeks ago and wound up snagging a copy of their new album, Blue Lights on the Runway, which they very nicely signed for me.) And if you don't like what you hear, then at least you haven't wasted money on a ticket, right?

I've noticed recently that in certain hands anything can become a musical instrument. (If you're a drummer or you know one, you probably already know that a steering wheel is one of these things.) A couple of weeks ago I went to the mall with one of my friends and her younger sister. We stopped in Sephora to help said sister pick out makeup for the prom, and I figured I'd pick up a couple of things I was running out of while I was there. They were playing the sort of nondescript, booming gym music they always seem to play in mall stores, and while we were standing in line I absentmindedly started tapping the box I was holding against my palm in a kind of syncopated beat. You can take the instrument away from the musician, but you can't... never mind, that doesn't quite work, but you get the idea.