outside of silver lake, i am the biggest fake

on august 31st, "i'm having fun now" by jenny and johnny drops. i suggest that you scrape together your pennies and purchase this album.

jenny and johnny is the new project of the beautiful and talented jenny lewis and jonathan rice and it is everything that i was hoping it could be. both have solo recording careers, and lewis was one half of the indie sweethearts Rilo Kiley.

i admittedly adore jenny lewis, so i have a hard time finding anything that she does to be bad, but i also dont have to fake liking anything she does to remain true to my fan-girl roots, either. "im having fun now" has 11 tracks, and theres only one that i have any feeling other than love towards.

generally speaking, im a big fan of songs that sound like they were recorded on a carousel ride (kevin devine's "carnival" and eisley's "treetops" come to mind) but "while men are dreaming" fails to excite me in the same way. i love the actual music, and i never have anything bad to say about jenny's voice, but the two combined in this song just dont do it for me.

there are also several stand out tracks on the album. "my pet snake" is probably going to be my favorite song from this summer, and thats going up against some tough competition, as ive fallen in love with a lot of new (or at least new to me) music this summer (stuff like the gaslight anthem, mumford & sons, phoenix and the avett brothers comes to mind). its really catchy; the hook is something else, and did its job immediately. the lyrics are poppy and singable, as well as intellegable and applicable. its always easier to connect to a song when the lyrics could have been written by the listener themself.

i keep taking this cd out of the stereo in the car to try out something else (today it was the weepies new album) and i keep finding myself thinking "damn, i really want to hear scissor runner RIGHT.NOW." so jenny and johnny find their way right back in.

on a five star scale, id give this album four and a half stars. its only flaws are "while men are sleeping"'s lack of ability to hook me in, and the fact that the damn cd just isnt long enough.

this is definitely something you need to check out.

an introduction

i like music. thats probably not even a fair assessment of how i feel about it. i live for live shows and album releases and driving around with a new disk for the first time and getting to know the songs and learning how they feel.

i make up my mind about a song within the first five to ten seconds. at this point in my life, i know what i like and i know if im going to like something within that short period of hearing it. sometimes songs surprise me. other times, i will revisit and album years later and discover that i am missing out on something pretty fantastic. (take the arcade fire's neon bible, for instance. i HATED it when i first heard it, even after listening to the whole thing. i was on a road trip with a friend about a year later and he played that disk, and something about it or me changed, because i knew i couldnt be without it after that.)

im stuck in life. i dont know what i want to be doing with myself, but i know that its not making hoagies for people. my one passion is to talk about music, so i figured id start a blog. maybe people will read it, maybe they wont. i cant say, though i hope that they do. but at least ill be doing something proactive, and ill have an outlet to share things that i think are worth sharing.

i just filled out a stupid facebook "note" on the top 15 albums that will stick with me forever, so ill repost those albums here...that will be a good jumping off point for the kind of music that i like, or at least for where my musical tastes evolve from. im very much all over the place with what i really like, but my listening habits tend to be within the same genre for an extended period of time. lately, all i want to listen to is the gaslight anthem, mumford & sons, jenny and johnny, and she & him. i am absolutely anticipating the bad books album, and i love what ive heard so far. my favorite bands are (in alphabetical order) brand new, counting crows, death cab for cutie and five iron frenzy. my favorite song of all time ever is "59th street bridge song (feeling groovy)" by simon and garfunkel.

anyway, heres that list of 15 albums:
1. crosby, stills, nash and young~so far

2. men at work~business as usual
3. brand new~deja entendu
4. further seems forever~the moon is down
5. death cab for cutie~transatlanticism
6. alkaline trio~maybe ill catch fire
7. iron and wine~the creek drank the cradle
8. the starting line~say it like you mean it
9. taking back sunday~tell all your friends
10. five iron frenzy~upbeats and beatdowns
11. counting crows~august and everything after
12. quiet riot~metal health
13. the gaslight anthem~the '59 sound
14. weezer~weezer (blue)
15. journey~greatest hits