Song obsessions are those songs that we listen to on repeat. I noticed that my obsessions are often a week long. I also thought that other people might have similar obsessions. I’ve collected a panel of a few like-minded individuals and gotten their “song obsessions of the week.” Quite often it’s easy to explain why the song is good; it’s much hard to explain why we’re obsessed. Maybe you’ll become obsessed with one of these.

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Adrian (me):
J Tillman - Jesse’s Not a Sleeper (mp3) (buy)

I’ve been listening to this whole album, Minor Works a lot and a lot of it has been running through my head, so if it was at all reasonable, I’d post the entire album and call it my songs obsession for this week, but it’s not.

There’s something about the harmonic + melodic + lyrical turn that happens right at the line “Jesse try and get some sleep” that gets this song stuck in my head more than the others.

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Keith:
the Montgolfier Brothers - the World is Flat (mp3) (buy)

When flipping through the used cd section, have you ever discovered an insultingly cheap copy of a much beloved record? Soon followed by a crushing feeling of pity mixed with anger that such a life-changing piece of art is sitting in some dingy store with a price-tag less than a small
cappuccino? What do you do in those situations? Me, I buy the disc and force it upon a friend. Such was the case at Reckless Records a few weeks ago, when I happened upon The Montgolfier Brothers’ genius 2nd disc The World Is Flat. This title track follows the course of a relationship from the naïve joy over sharing routine events to the sad conclusion of legal intervention, all without ever changing its tone.

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Andy:
Denison Witmer - Little Flowers (mp3) (buy)

I found “Are You a Dreamer” at one of my local record stores, the one that’s notorious for pricing tons of excellent albums in the $1 bin. I’d known Denison’s name for a while, having bought a lot of stuff from Burnt Toast Vinyl, but I hadn’t really heard anything by him.

Little Flowers is the first track on the disc, and for the first minute or so, it’s pretty standard singer-songwriterish fare. Then the banjo (by guest Sufjan Stevens) kicked in, and that grabbed my
attention for sure. A few bars later, when the drums hit, I knew I was in love - it’s the brushed drumming with the ultra-loose snares, which I hadn’t really heard on any album since Stevens’ Michigan.

Of the 12 or so discs in my glove compartment, I keep coming back to this one, and this song.

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The lesson this week seems to be: go to used record stores and check out the bargain bins.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 8:33 am Posted by adrian in mp3s, song obsessions. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.