I Just Wanted to Prove Wrong the People in my Head, the Ones Who Told Me I’d Be Better Off Dead

Tuesday. Man, it's 3:30 already and where did the time go? I have a pretty good guess that it slipped away somewhere between my 4 different teleconference calls, getting the pre-website upload spreadsheet done and dealing with all of the other junk that has flown across my desk and/or jammed my email inbox today. But I'm not going to dwell on negativity and complaints. I have new music to discuss.

So, one good thing about school being back in session is that the local college radio station is off of robots and back to having live DJs program the music again. The quality of the play lists increase significantly when school is in session. Anyway, I heard a song played on the station a couple of times and it kind of got stuck in my head. Out of curiosity I looked it up and now I coincidently have a copy of the album. The song is called Tire Swing, the album Remember That I Love You, and the artist Kimya Dawson.

After some research, I found out that Ms. Dawson is a member of the Moldy Peaches, another band that I never heard of (but will probably check out now). They have been categorized by the powers to be as "anti-folk" which supposedly is a fusion of punk and folk. I don't know about that. Sounds mostly folk to me, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. What first caught me about Tire Swing was its infectiousness, but after subsequent listens I began to pick up on the whimsical and very clever lyrics. She kinda reminded me of Joanna Newsom without the distinctively warbly voice. However, as the album progressed, the lyrics became less whimsical and more dark and emotional. An excellent example would be The Competition. This track is painfully powerful in lyrics yet juxtaposed with the "simplicity" of the folk music accompaniment. What I at first found to be a fun, clever album took a completely different tack with me. I appreciated it on a whole new level. I really dug this one and I recommend it to others who can dig the "anti-folk" sound. Definitely good stuff.