My CD collection was rifled through pretty effectively by my niece Taylor, as I mentioned in an earlier post, and I’m now putting it away. Y’know – sticking the discs back in their cases, then filing the discs back in alphabetical order. It’s an immense pain in the rear, but I’m discovering more stuff she discovered while she was here. For instance:
I had not realized the Orange Peels had as many albums as they do until I had to put them all away. This is one of my “claim to coolness” bands, since I knew many current and past members (Bob Vickers, John Moremen, even Allen Clapp and his wife Jill Priess) before they were in the Peels, and I interviewed Allen for BAM Magazine way back in 1994 when he had an Orchestra (although not a very large one). None of this was needed to convince Taylor, apparently, who dug these out without one word of encouragement from me. I stuck “Back in San Francisco” from So Far on my wife’s iPod, and she may have heard them there, but I still marvel at the way Square nailed me, just based on its sound. Producer Jeff Saltzman (another pre-Peels friend) left the effects off Allen’s vocals and instead focused on the instruments, a sort of backwards production that gave it an immediate, fresh and honest feeling. It didn’t hurt that the songs were great, too.
Another stack of disks belonged to the New Pornographers – Twin Cinema, Challengers and Electric Version were all scattered on top of my aquarium. Not much needs to be said about them, but allow me to add my two bits to what’s already been scribbled: “Jackie Dressed in Cobras” is the only song I can think of that sounds like both a collection of random snippets and segments and a coherent song at the same time. Simply genius.
And, of course, there was a big, steaming pile of Fountains of Wayne to put away. Actually, I caught Taylor blasting Welcome Interstate Managers on her brand-spankin’ new Apple laptop; I heard something strangely familiar emanating from the Mac in the sort of tinny, choked sound that you hear from other people’s earphones when they’re busy messing up their hearing and realized it was “Mexican Wine,” followed by the wonderful “Bright Future in Sales.” Since Utopia Parkway and Out of State Plates were also left strewn about, I imagine a lot of other songs are now blasting out of her Colorado State University dorm room.
As I said earlier, this was all pulled from the collection by an 18-year-old who grew up overseas, with minimal exposure to the commercial dross foisted upon our stateside youngsters. I consider this a successful experiment, to wit: leave a teen in a room full of power pop and limit her access to peer pressure, and soon you’ll have a power pop convert. You don’t even have to lock the door behind her.
Filed under: Power Pop, Rock | Tagged: Fountains of Wayne, New Pornographers, Orange Peels
