Hey readers, you might have noticed that I have added a new feature to the blog: a dedicated Spotify playlist!* My last post about music sort of inspired me to do this (that, and I listen to way too much of the Cracked podcast). I’m planning on adding 1 or 2 new songs per week, depending on what I’m listening to at the time… or, if I’m in a bit of a dry spell, I’ll throw in some long-time favourites. Hopefully it’ll act as a good catalyst to at least make a post on a fairly regular basis, if only to explain my newest additions.
With that said, I think I’ll definitely make it a custom to explain my choices. For my first song, I wanted to do “Run” by Project 86… but unfortunately, their self-titled album it was the only one not on Spotify, much to my irritation. If you have read the blog before, you might know that the blog’s name comes from the lyrics to that song (even though the line itself is never even uttered in the actual recording, oddly enough). With Spotify dropping the ball though (or, more likely, BEC Recordings), I figured I’d just go with another favourite P86 song instead to make up for it. I ended up going with my current favourite, “P.S.” It’s an extremely dark and somewhat experimental song that exemplifies their sound on Drawing Black Lines (IMHO, easily their best album). I’m kind of sad that P86 have moved further away from this sort of dark content with each successive album, but that’s more of a personal gripe. Rumour has it that the title stand for “Porn Song” or “Porn Sucks”, and deals with pornography addiction and/or abuse (the Japanese section apparently is largely made up of the girl begging someone to stop hurting her). Anyway… I don’t know what else to say about it. It’s an awesomely dark song, I love it.
Song number two is one that I have been really getting into recently, “Escape from Midwich Valley” by Carpenter Brut. I heard it through the Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number soundtrack, but it apparently also appears on the Carpenter Brut EP I and Trilogy albums. In any case, this is the sort of electronic music that I’m really digging at the moment: slow and steady build-up before it just lets loose. I haven’t finished Hotline Miami 2 yet, but for some reason this is really striking me as a fantastic end credits track for that sort of screwed up story, and am hoping that I end up predicting this one correctly. I’ll have to check out Trilogy on Spotify sometime soon to see if Carpenter Brut’s stuff is all this enjoyable.
And finally, for my third song I felt like I was basically honour-bound to include my favourite song in the initial batch for the playlist. As a result, we close out with Anberlin’s “(*Fin)”. Ever since I first heard this song, about 7 or 8 years ago now, this song has been a top 3 contender for all-time favourite. For a while there I would have put “November Rain” ahead of it, but in the last couple years, “(*Fin)” has come ahead as the clear favourite for me. The song is just fantastic from top to bottom, building and building upon itself until you don’t think it can get any more epic. Children’s choirs are hit-or-miss in rock songs, but they really help here. The stand-out section of the song though is the last few verses where Stephen Christian just belts out full of emotion. As if this section wasn’t amazing enough, it gets even more impressive when you discover that he freaking improvised that whole section on the spot. Holy crap.
Lyrically, the song really resonates with me as well. There’s a few different, but related ways you can take it, but in a nutshell it is dealing with people of faith who think they’re doing good but are actually causing harm and turning people away with their actions (eloquently expressed as being “the patron saints of lost causes”). It’s just such an incredible song from top to bottom that I just had to get it out there as soon as I could.
I’m also extremely bummed that I’m never going to get to hear this song live now. Anberlin went on a farewell tour last summer to end their career on a high note. I was going to see Anberlin’s last Canadian show with my brother in November, but that was the day that the snowpocalyse hit. We were worried that the weather was going to keep us from making it to Toronto, but we succeeded despite the odds… and then discovered that the band was trapped under 2 meters of snow in Buffalo. Sad times all-round…
Anyway, thanks for reading. I’m already trying to figure out how to narrow down the songs I want to post next, so hopefully this will get me posting more!
*On the off chance that you didn’t notice, it’s on the right sidebar below the post archive.
