it's about the music.

Music has recently re-entered my life. I went to my first band practice in over three years, and of course it was embarassing playing solos like an awkward boy fumbling for the right words the first time he talks to a girl he's admired from afar, but after the whole process was over I kind of realized that music, unlike nearly everything else, has unlimited positive potential. Nothing bad can come from endlessly practicing, from creating sounds so effortlessly, stringing them together with the soft push of fingertips, from creating something that is all the more powerful because there are no words involved, just feelings, pure emotion, resonating from within.

O.K., so my talents arent exactly Coltranesque, and it's likely you're not going to feel anything all that special if you heard me play. The point is, I guess, I'm at a point now where the most important thing for me is to fill my hours with things that keep my mind above water and with plenty of air, and I guess it feels pretty good to be both doing that and creating art, something that I'm always hesitant to do, for some reason.

On another note (get it?), there's an album called "You Forgot it in People," by Broken Social Scene, and like good music, it's difficult to put into words what it's all about. Emotionally it's been a tough few weeks, but this album, for whatever reason, came out of nowhere for me and, in the span of 13 songs, adding up a little less than an hour, forced me to laugh, cringe, pine, relax, be filled with passion, be filled with self-doubt, and in the end, wonder, if life imitates art, as some say, whether it's at all a coincidence that all of those things can happen while listening to the same album. I don't think it is.

So in my new obsession, I read some reviews of the album, and one in particular really was very powerful. I kind of subscribe to the notion that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture," but I realized recently that a really good review can make listening to an album an even more transcendent, meaningful experience.

Some snippets that I particularly enjoyed:

"...Case in point: Broken Social Scene. No one wants to admit that they like a band that goes around calling themselves this-- a band who, judging from their artwork, stands around all day looking pensive, crouching, and feeling the music in dramatic grayscale...I already had them pegged! How could they not be the most unimaginative, bleak, whiny emo bastards in the whole pile?

I don't know. But this disc is nothing like you'd imagine. Not even almost. I've been over it again and again looking for some cause, some reason, anything, that would compel a band with this much unfiltered creativity and kinetic energy-- a band without even the slightest suggestion of tear-stained poetry or bedroom catharsis-- to fall victim to the worst possible Vagrant Records cliches. I can't find it. All I know is that when I press play, and this disc whirrs to life, it inexplicably sheds its crybaby facade and becomes... sort of infinite."

"...the holy grail for people like us is the record that combines outright experimentation and strong hooks, something that engages us mentally while appealing to the instincts that draw us toward pop immediacy.

This kind of music shouldn't be hard to come by; it's just that not many artists are able to perfect that balance.

Broken Social Scene have, and even made it seem effortless. I wish I could convey to you just how perfectly this record pulls off that balancing act, how incredibly catchy and hummable these songs are, despite their refusal to resort to pandering or oversimplicity."

Here's the link to the review:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/15682/Broken_Social_Scene_You_Forgot_It_in_People

I won't copy-paste how it ends, because it gave me chills the first time I read it, and it does every subsequent time (yes i've read it a few times.)

So I guess the underlying message here is that you do yourself a favor and find this album, some way, some how. It kind of spans every emotion one can use to react to music. I realize this is becoming kind of hyperbolic, but if you listen to this album and don't feel anything, for God's sake, check your pulse.