Whats in your CD player? part 3 (originally posted by snookl
Interpol. [i]Turn on the Bright Lights[/i].
Oh, to be pale, wan, morose and British in the 1980s. There were just so many options open back then, musically speaking. If you were romantic, sad and watched [i]Giant[/i] while reading [i]De Profundis[/i], there were the Smiths. If you were fond of 60s-style flourishes and lots of symbolic references to Jesus and water, you had Echo and the Bunnymen. If you were miserable, had a penchant for makeup and liked small furry felines, there was the Cure. And if there was no hope for you whatsoever, and life was like some Kafkaesque nightmare, you could always turn to Joy Division.
Interpol are, without a doubt, derivative of all the above, and of Joy Division in particular. But, damn, if it ain’t a fine album. It eschews, mostly, the starkness of Joy Div’s sound, aiming more for a more textured and lush approach, which works surprisingly well, and provides a nice balance to the emotional distance present in the lyrics. Top-shelf songwriting all ’round, and an incredibly assured piece of work. It’s been out a month, but I’ve really not given it a shot until last week, and it’s proving to be my favorite debut album of the year.
It’s currently in the #2 slot of my car’s 10-disc changer, accompanied by this line-up:
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (self-titled, been out a good while, but I’m in the mood for their sound — it’s the best album that the Jesus and Mary Chain never made)
Joy Division, [i]Heart and Soul[/i] (box set compiling all of their recorded output, save perhaps for some of the stuff on [i]Still[/i])
Echo and the Bunnymen, [i]Crystal Days: 1979-1999[/i] (box set, doesn’t cover everything, but a more in-depth sampler than [i]Songs to Learn and Sing[/i], with rarities and a disc of vintage live material, actually just listening to discs 2-4)
The Cure, [i]Bloodflowers[/i] (the best Cure album since [i]Disintegration[/i], apparantly their last, and thankfully shedding the radio-friendly tendencies of [i]Wish[/i] and [i]Wild Mood Swings[/i])
–Aleck