As is evident from the sudden drop-off of frequent posting to this blog, I’ve been way too busy to update for the past few weeks – for those of you unaware, I just started library school last Tuesday and it’s an accelerated semester, so things have been Mad Crazy in the Tongs camp. So, I’m not really “up” on what’s been going “down” (lol) in the music world recently.
But I’ve still been listening – perhaps even more now that I’m walking to and from and sitting on the train all the time. Here’s a handful of songs that aren’t particularly new to me or anyone else and that have surely been reviewed extensively before now and blah, blah, blah, whatever, but I’ve just been liking them a lot lately, ‘kay?
Animal Collective, “Fireworks” and “Grass”
I loved the moments on Strawberry Jam and Feels that, for serious lack of a better term, felt ooey-gooey. “Fireworks” is this caramel-centered little nugget of drunken sonic craziness; it lopes playfully like a guy in a dinosaur costume at a kid’s birthday party. “Grass” is intoxicated on summer love, like the band’s later song “Summertime Clothes” from Merriweather Post Pavilion; with its sing-songy, sunny, swaying rhythm, it’s like the musical equivalent of trying to walk through dry sand on a hot day. When I hear both of these songs, I’m always bursting at the seams to join in and sing along with Avey Tare’s wide-eyed, childlike ramblings – whether or not I’m surrounded by a subwayful of fellow commuters.
