Kodi Arfer / Wisterwood

People of PMS: I'm going to listen to an entire Interpol album

Topic List
#001 | willis5225 |
I once characterized one of the stages of grief (following Denial that you're in Canada) as "Anger that you own an Interpol album." I have never gotten past track four of this album because it's so whiny and self-indulgent. I am going to share this odyssey with you all.

Also, for reference's sake, I got the album at a 2-for-one sale at which I bought the Avril Lavigne album "Let Go" and enjoyed that substantially more.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#002 | willis5225 |
I'm part of the way through the first track, "Next Exit," which I assume is some poorly-thought-out Sartre reference that doesn't go anywhere.

I don't hate it, except that the chorus is "We ain't going to the town / we're going to the city / we're going to trek this shit around" and then some stuff that I get to angered to listen to entirely. And I checked the liner notes. It's "Trek." I have no idea what this could possibly mean unless they're using some neologistic idiom that they themselves made up (note: that means that it's unintelligible to everyone ever). And you can *guess* what it means. But why would you?
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#003 | willis5225 |
Second track: they're clearly only playing five chords. I get that that's the appeal, but still. Backup vocals have unpleasant nasal quality.

Backup vocals, upon further consideration, are just the lead vocals through an extra filter. Willis Smash.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#004 | willis5225 |
Second song's bridge: we're down to three chords.

I don't hate the chorus; again, it lacks a certain amount of context, specifically the amount of context it would take to make sense. It sounds like it's about a failed relationship, which failed because the narrator had no desire to consummate the relationship and the girl refused to forgive him for some wronging.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#005 | willis5225 |
The third song is called "Narc." I discover now that I have been confusing the second and third tracks for several years, imagining them to be the same song.

I'll occasionally wake up in the morning with a song stuck in my head that I haven't heard in years, which applies to this album as well as any others, and I have only now become aware that these are different songs. Not like a Coldplay album where you can argue that there's some kind of Leitmotif thing at work, or like a Jethro Tull album where there's *supposed* to be only one song, it's just really clear that they don't know enough chords to vary them sufficiently that the progressions don't bleed into one another.

They are now using the guitar as a percussion instrument. Also, the bass is only functioning as percussion. I mean, they're playing the same chord over and over again at a regular interval without a variation in rhythm. I mean, they're using them as bongos.

Also, the vocals are functioning the same way.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#006 | willis5225 |
I think this might be the farthest I've gotten. "Take you on a Cruise" is the name of the track.

The opening lines contain the analogy "You make money like Fred Astaire." I can't fathom what this means, because the man certainly did well for himself. I'm out of ways to call this music bland, so now I'm nitpicking lyrics that I don't have the time to nitpick properly.

I didn't realize that this was a different track from the previous two (the first track, in fairness, remains distinct in my mind). I'm a little worried that the entire rest of the album will be variations on this vague dissonance that almost constitutes a compelling melody.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#007 | willis5225 |
I now regret this undertaking and wish sincerely to do something else. But I am committed.

The tempo picks up for the next track, but the guitar still alternates between two chords for the first minutish. It's headache-inducing. I'm not even mad anymore. Just uninterested.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#008 | willis5225 |
This is called "Not Even Jail." There was a bit about prison in one of the earlier tracks, so this might be thematic continuity. Also, the style of sleep-inducing overproduced vocals and repetitive droning guitar is back, providing irritational continuity.

The droning (there's no other way to describe it) melody reminds me of the store at which I bought the album, at which I later shopped with a girl I cared a great deal for, so I'm melancholy, which I guess is the idea, but that was a momentary flicker of recollection that disappeared in the time it took me to describe it and can't be attributed to the song. It's not even emo. It's just boring.

In fact, it's just intrusive enough that trying to focus on that memory and the ones around it is possible because there's this really annoying drum machine that keeps interrupting me.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#009 | willis5225 |
I assume I must be on another song now, because it's been forever and these aren't making an impression on me. No, wait, same one.

Okay, now we're on the same one. Okay "Public Pervert" is utterly indistinguishable from one of the earlier ones. I think "Narc"? I don't know. Oh my God. They're clearly different songs, but so nearly the same song. Oh man.

I just saw a picture of one of my less favorite cousins with some girl on my facebook feed. I clicked saying loudly to myself "oh man, does he have a hot girlfriend? Because that's all I can take." As it turns out, he doesn't. She is weird looking.

Where before the guitar was jarring and unpleasant, it's now cacophonous. Yet, they're still playing a single chord. Okay, they're now doing the same thing with two or three chords laid one on top of each other. It's irritating. I hate it. It's not like God Speed You Black Emperors or Frank Zappa irritating. It's a five-year-old banging on a keyboard in the same spot every three seconds with perfect timing irritating.

Oh, boy, now for the crescendo it's getting dissonant. I'm fascinated by your use of dissonance. It pisses me off, Interpol.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#010 | willis5225 |
Okay, I think this was released as a single. "C'mere." Let's look at the lyrics:

"The trouble is. You're in love with someone else/ It should be me. It should be me."

Are you kidding me? I withdraw all credibility that once existed for you guys as subtle lyricists; all of the stuff you said earlier that made no damned sense? It was senseless. "You're in love with somebody else / it should be me." Get the shit over yourselves.

Oh, and calling your girlfriend "little girl?" Creepy as shit. Someone put these assholes on a sex offender list. They should have to go to every house in the neighborhood and explain "ma'am, I'm required by law to inform you that I'm a member of Interpol. Please don't let your children near me or the kind of people who believe me talented."
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#011 | willis5225 |
Oh man. Only two tracks left.

This one is also irritating, but I can't quite articulate how. I've been drinking pretty heavily to dull the pain.

I should also point out that the ball bearing on my laptop's fan finally went pretty well completely earlier today, so there's a terrible screeching noise constantly. It's less irritating than most of the songs on this album.

This one ("Length of Love") is a rare exception, both because the fan picked up velocity and because it's a little quiet. It's merely obscenely generic and not malsonorous. There's a bit of what sounds like an idiot playing a theremin, but that's to be expected, because these guys are indie as hell.

Redacted. Somewhere around minute three the chord that the lead guitarist plays grows irritating in rapid and ceaseless repetition.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#012 | willis5225 |
Oh thank the Lord, the last track.

Who the hell likes fuck this purposefully dissonant? From the very first moment, it's just unpleasant. It's just grating. And, again, not like Philip Glass "grating on purpose to make an artistic point," which is also really, really stupid, but distinctly rhythmic but with notes that oughtn't be played together. They're paired with artless vocals, and not in a Tom Waits sense, because at least Tom Waits was totally sincere about it. These are artless and passionless. It's a pleasantly bland artlessness, which contrasts nicely with the... pointy guitar (there's no other word for it; the guitar is staccato and higher in pitch than the rest of the entire ensemble, so it's like letting one's arm fall asleep and then beating it with a bat covered in broken glass, but aurally) but has no other real redeeming values.

There. Done. I shall never listen to this entire album again.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#013 | Digitalpython |
Aer you sure the music isn't some sort of less-than-lethal weapon devised by an international peacekeeping organization, say for instance, Interpol?

Disclaimer: Digitalpython makes no claims of knowing what the hell Interpol is, band or otherwise.
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Then I'm going to make sweet, sweet love to my instruction guide for Paper Mario: TTYD - Power of 3
#014 | Ocarinakid2 |
Man, I can't believe you don't like Evil. Also, just to disagree on a whole, what a good album!

You should do Weezer's Pinkerton next. Most songs sound the same, real simple guitar parts, and very straightforward, very self indulgent lyrical content. Or just other Interpol albums. The first one is also great. Third one is hit or miss.

Also: better music has been made with less than five chords.
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Ocarinakid
#015 | willis5225 |
^Weezer exercises more variation in their technical simplicity. These guys spam the same chord over and over again without variation. Their idea of a bassline is a drum machine hitting the same drum and a bassist playing a single chord without syncopation.
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Why is it whenever a flame war starts, people always go after the user names? For christ's sake, this is a message board, everybody's name sucks.
-Gold Wyrm
#016 | Ocarinakid2 |
Yeah, but they play Slow Hands in that one commercial with Josh Hartnett. Dreamy.
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Ocarinakid