For Those About To Rock

There was an interesting story this week on PRI's The World about how AC/DC's popularity in England rises and falls with the economy. Though AC/DC is never wholly unpopular in the U.K. (or anywhere, for that matter), it tends to rise to the top of the charts during times of economic duress. As evidence of this phenomenon, the band's new album, Black Ice, went to No. 1 across the pond.

It's a fascinating piece, and you can listen to it here.

As music critic Alex Petridis points out, there's something reassuringly predictable about AC/DC, and about hard rock or heavy metal in general. Maybe if we can't get consistency and straight talk from our political leaders, our banks or our bosses, we should at least be getting it from our music. Let's be honest: AC/DC isn't going to throw us a curve ball, change time signatures in the middle of a song, muddy up its chosen genre in the name of eclecticity or collaborate with a jazz singer for the sake of reaching a broader audience. In fact, despite all the rabble-rousing, posturing and fist-raising it tries to drum up, and despite its double-entendre-laden lyrics and thick riffage, AC/DC might be the least musically volatile band ever. AC/DC is safe; it will not break your heart. And who needs more heartbreak and disappointment in these difficult times? No one.

Petridis also mentions something I've always thought about AC/DC: that its success lies in writing the same song over and over again -- the very trait many of us deride in other artists but willingly accept from AC/DC, perhaps because that one song is so good. Why do we tolerate homogeneity in a hard-rock band like AC/DC but not from "artists" such as Beck or Kanye West or Sufjan Stevens, for whom we consider stagnation anathema to their craft? Stagnation suddenly seems appealing when most of the momentum (in economic terms) has been downward. With AC/DC, listeners can bask in the familiarity -- in the sameness -- and for a moment, it seems as if nothing has changed.

I suppose that AC/DC is fortunate to be one of the few bands we rely on for realness, or at least to represent realness. It's like domestic beer or Levi's: Every once in a while, people like to try on manifestations of toughness, grittiness and authenticity. Hard-rock music and its fans have always been derided as much as they are romanticized.

In tough times, even those who at some point felt above the fray -- or had only an ironic love of rock music -- turn to that which embodies steadiness and perseverance. In this case, I guess it's AC/DC and the like who are giving the people something solid as a rock.

Carrie Brownstein

2:12 PM ET | 10-30-2008 | permalink

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Skog Musik

Two young Swedes go into the woods and record a cover of "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by Fleet Foxes. Thus proving, yet again, that Scandinavia is a magical place to which the rest of us cannot relate.

For a past Monitor Mix discussion on cover tunes, click here.

And don't forget to add your songs to the Sounds of Victory/Sounds of Defeat playlist.

Carrie Brownstein

12:30 PM ET | 10-28-2008 | permalink

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Sounds Of Victory, Sounds Of Defeat

There's been a fair bit of chatter on blogs and in weekly newspapers about what songs we'll want to listen to if our presidential candidate of choice wins. Conversely, what might we put on to console ourselves in the event of a loss?

Keep in mind that there's more going on in this election than Obama vs. McCain. For one, California has Prop 8 on the ballot -- the most expensive ballot measure in the country, with both sides' spending totaling around $60 million combined. Plus, there are countless statewide, congressional and local races, the results of which might make Nov. 4 less-than-stellar for some of us, even if our presidential choice is victorious.

So let's compile a playlist: songs to get us through the euphoria of a win, the devastation of a loss and everything in between.

As for me -- and, yes, my views are mine alone, and do not reflect those of NPR or NPR Music -- if Obama wins:

The Chambers Brothers, "Time Has Come Today"

The Chamber Brothers' video clip below uses the radio edit of the song, but you should check out the nearly nine-minute-long album version; it's pretty insane. The Ramones' cover of the tune is equally magnificent.

Speaking of the Ramones...

The Ramones, "I Believe in Miracles"

Okay, so "miracle" might be the wrong word, but the profound sense of relief a lot of people will feel once this election season is over -- and especially, ahem, if Obama wins -- might feel pretty miraculous.

Al Green, "People Get Ready"

Curtis Mayfield penned the tune, but this is an awesome video of Al Green performing it. An obvious choice and an amazing song.

Buzzcocks, "Harmony in My Head"

One of my favorite songs -- I never tire of hearing it. The lyrics don't match the sentiment of winning, exactly, but the song lifts you up just the same.

Carrie Brownstein

3:03 PM ET | 10-27-2008 | permalink

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This Is Thriller

On Sunday afternoon, I joined some friends at an event I didn't even know existed in Portland: The Zombie Walk. This being Portland, a lot of the zombies didn't look much different from the crusty/hippie punks one sees around town, but there were crucial differences. Below are images and video from the day. The zombies' "attack" on the Light Rail and on Nordstrom's department store were especially gruesome. I was reprimanded for photographing the latter by an onlooker who described the incident as "vandalism," but I think what she meant to say was "zombie vandalism." I'll let you decide for yourself.

And, just for fun, here's Misfits, (barely) performing "Astro Zombies" in the early '80s:

Carrie Brownstein

10:15 PM ET | 10-26-2008 | permalink

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Sunday Sharing

"So It Goes," by Nick Lowe/Rockpile, is one of my favorite songs. A friend put it on a mix tape she made me for my 21st birthday, and I've been putting it on mixes ever since.

Carrie Brownstein

3:21 PM ET | 10-26-2008 | permalink

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The Specials

Last Saturday night, I saw Jolie Holland play at the Doug Fir in Portland. I'm a fan of Holland's work, but had yet to see a live performance. Yet this post is not going to be a review of the show; what I want to discuss instead is the idea of special guests.

Holland is currently touring with a handful of talented Portland-based musicians. But her guitarist, bass player, and drummer constituted only a few of the tentacles in what was to become a multi-limbed musical beast. With guest backup singers, as well as an accordionist and trumpet player, very few songs were presented without the aid of a guest.

I've seen the special-guest issue from all sides. When I toured with my band, we occasionally had musicians join us on stage. From a musician's perspective, bringing friends up to play on a song you've played thousands of times -- or to augment a cover tune in the set -- not only kills the tedium of tour, but also infuses the song with a new dynamic, a fresh energy. Guest players add texture to the song you've always wanted to hear in a live setting; sometimes, their contribution helps you fall in love with the song again, or at least hear it in a new way. On the most basic level, it's fun -- the song feels communal and shared.

I've also been a guest, which is a much more precarious position. When my band opened for Pearl Jam, we would often join them on stage during their encores. In these instances, I felt like a homewrecker, intruding on fans' love affair with the band: We were destroying the moment and killing whatever imagined version of the song fans had in their minds. (My image of us as ruinous was largely corroborated on Pearl Jam message boards, though it wasn't a feeling shared by all of their fans.)

I should mention that, on that same tour, we all went to see U2 on a night off. Bono invited Eddie Vedder up on stage to sing a song, and even then, I didn't get the feeling that 100 percent of the U2 fans wanted to see him up there. Which goes to show you that, for the most part, fans want their songs played their way. In other words, no guests, because a guest -- no matter who it is -- changes the song.

As a music fan, I agree. A lot can go wrong from a fan's perspective. If you don't like the music of the guest, then you definitely don't want them on stage with the band you're there to see. And even if you do like the guest's music, it can be the wrong song or the wrong time -- it might be the song you've been waiting years to see performed, and all of a sudden it sounds different. Even worse, the performance can start to feel insider-y: too much about the musicians, not enough about the audience. The more guests there are on stage, the more it's just a big jam session that the audience didn't get invited to.

Then again, guests can bring the magic. They might bring to life a sagging, uninspired show, or they might push an already incredible performance into another stratosphere. Personally, when I'm in the audience, I like one or two carefully chosen guests, usually on cover songs, or maybe taking over a verse or solo on one of the band's own tunes.

There are countless ways -- including bringing on a special guest -- that a band changes a song in a live context. These adjustments might not produce the version of the song we wanted to hear, but if we wanted the predictable version, we would have stayed home and listened to the record.

So, do you prefer special guests, guests under certain circumstances, or none at all?

Carrie Brownstein

5:48 PM ET | 10-23-2008 | permalink

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Five Songs That Could Save A Life

From BBC News, Oct.18, 2008:

Bee Gees hit could save your life. US medics have found the Bee Gees' 1977 disco anthem, "Stayin' Alive," provides an ideal beat to follow when performing CPR on a victim of a cardiac arrest. A University of Illinois medical school study said it contained 103 beats per minute, close to the recommended rate of 100 chest compressions per minute. Dr. David Matlock said many people were put off performing CPR as they were not sure about keeping the correct rhythm. He said CPR could triple cardiac arrest survival rates when performed properly. The study by the University of Illinois College of Medicine saw 15 doctors and students performing CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) on mannequins while listening to "Stayin' Alive." They were asked to their time chest compressions with the beat. Five weeks later, they did the same drill without the music, but were told to think of the song while doing compressions. The average number of compressions the first time was 109 per minute; the second time it was 113 - more than recommended by the American Heart Association, but better than too few, according to Dr. Matlock. "It drove them and motivated them to keep up the rate, which is the most important thing," he told the Associated Press. A spokesman for the American Heart Association, Dr. Vinay Nadkarni, said it had been using "Stayin' Alive" as a training tip for CPR instructors for about two years, although it was not aware of any previous studies that tested the song.

With that in mind, here are some other life-threatening situations that can be avoided through the power of song:

1. Choking

When called upon to deliver the Heimlich Maneuver, it would behoove one to think of Edwin Starr's soul classic cum protest song, "War." "War!" Starr exclaims (in your head), and you place your hands on the choking, gasping, blue-in-the-face person's diaphragm. Then, pause for a few beats while you gather your thoughts and visualize success. When Starr shouts "HUH!" simply thrust as hard as you can -- in time with the music -- and the chicken gristle, peach pit or braised carrot will go flying. "War" also works in conjunction with a hard blow to the victim's upper back.

2. Cougar or Bear Attack

When confronted by a bear or cougar while hiking, camping or mountain-biking, don't leave your survival up to chance. We all know that freezing, making yourself look bigger, maintaining eye contact and backing away slowly are the correct survival methods in this situation. But most people decide, wrongly, to run. However, many survivors of bear and cougar attacks have one thing in common: They all reported humming the tune "Suite: Judy Blues Eyes" by Crosby, Stills & Nash. It helps to hum the tune out loud, but only the end. (Yes, the "do do do do do DO DO do do do do" part.) When the bear or cougar retreats in response to this life-affirming melody, Crosby, Stills, Nash & You have won.

3. Fire

When you're in a house, apartment or forest fire and you're sitting there, on fire, trying to recall the sequence known as Stop, Drop, and Roll, it helps to have the song "A Horse With No Name" by America in your head. There is no scientific proof thus far as to why this works, but it really does help. God Bless America the band.

4. Falling From Rooftop While Retrieving Shuttlecock

Nine out of ten rooftop falls happen because of poor badminton skills. The birdie or shuttlecock lands on the roof, you valiantly go to retrieve it, and Bam! Game over, followed by a trip to the hospital -- or, worse, the morgue. Amateur rooftop climbers will be excited to learn that slipping-and-falling prevention begins and ends with the song "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Retaining word-perfect memory of at least one verse of this song helps you balance as you navigate the shingles. No more will you be embarrassed that you know the line, "Cosmo says you're fat / Well, I ain't down with that," yet not a single line of Yeats. So proud you will be thanks to Sir Mix-A-Lot. So proud and so alive.

5. Suffocation From Dry Cleaning Bag

Next time you're joking around, trying to entertain your friends with a plastic dry-cleaning bag over your head, and you start to sweat profusely from all of the physical comedy, and you inhale the bag -- first just a little but then a lot, thus shutting off oxygen -- with your remaining breath, put on "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell. That's right, it is a trick. That song totally doesn't fit with your dry-cleaning-bag-over-the-head-routine; you're forced to quit pre-asphyxiation. Joni Mitchell kills the mood, but somehow rescues you from the brink of death. Again.

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If a song has saved your life -- literally or figuratively -- by all means, please share.

Carrie Brownstein

8:19 PM ET | 10-18-2008 | permalink

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The Big Tapeover

The other night, I was sitting around in a motor home with a pink boom box and some cassette tapes. With me was a friend and local Portland DJ who goes by the name DJ Hostile Tapeover. Different from his other DJ persona -- the one called Tiny Vinyl, who spins only 7" singles -- Hostile Tapeover plays cassettes and cassingles, mostly '80s rap and a genre known as freestyle.

On this blog, we've spent a lot of time discussing the merits and demerits of vinyl, MP3s and compact discs, but little energy has been spent on tapes. So it wasn't until we were in the trailer, rewinding a Company B cassette, accidentally rewinding the wrong side (remember that?), that I was fully brought back to the wonders -- yes, wonders -- of cassettes. The drawbacks are obvious: the wear and tear, the breakage, the warping, the wobbliness. Not to mention the laboriousness of finding the track you actually want. (Hey, the cassingle fixed that, didn't it?)

But the benefits of tapes cannot be understated. For one, the sound of loading and unloading a cassette is really satisfying. It's like when you're a kid and you're pretending you're a grown-up at work in an office. Everything about cassettes and cassette players sounds official: the clicking, the whirring, the big buttons... It's like you're launching the Space Shuttle every time you hit play.

If you have any doubt that your MP3 player is making you dumber, go to Goodwill and buy a tape machine. Within minutes, you'll feel like the rocket scientist you were pre-Internet, pre-iPod. It's ironic, I know. But the more buttons there are, the smarter you'll feel. It boils down to this: With a cassette player, you have more to do; it's kind of like having a job. And, let's face it, people need jobs right now, or at least they need to feel like they have one. I'm not going to go so far as to say that manufacturing cassette players and putting them in the homes of Americans might solve our economic crisis and the subsequent malaise. But the sense of productivity they deliver is quite satisfying.

So, what about those tunes we listened to that night on the boom box? Well, here they are in a very post-cassette context: YouTube!

Company B's freestyle hit "Fascinated." A classic. It brought me right back to junior high.

Expose's "Come Go With Me." You'd be surprised how many hits this freestyle band had. Remember that one song from the '80s? There is a 1-in-5 chance that it was by Expose.

"Point of No Return."

"Seasons Change."

Feel free to share your own thoughts on cassette tapes. And I'm curious: How many of you have never owned one?

Carrie Brownstein

2:06 PM ET | 10-17-2008 | permalink

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Rock Stars Continue to Spread Peace and Love

This video provides a nice footnote to our rock star discussion of last week:

And here's the story:

LONDON (AFP) - Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr has told his fans in a bizarre online video message to stop sending him fan mail as he is too busy to sign or read it, and it will only be "tossed". "This is a serious message to everybody watching my update right now. Peace and love, peace and love," the musician said. "I want to tell you please -- after the 20th of October do not send fan mail to any address that you have. Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October. If that has the date on the envelope it's going to be tossed. "I'm warning you with peace and love I have too much to do. So no more fan mail, thank you, thank you, and no objects to be signed. Nothing." Fans of the former Fab Four can, however, still get their Ringo fix with a Ringo Starr bag, "perfect for groceries, the beach or any other daily activities", sold on the website alongside a Ringo hoodie or t-shirt.

Carrie Brownstein

1:00 PM ET | 10-14-2008 | permalink

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Unearthed

The other week, a friend sent me a link to a 1989 tour diary written by Tobi Vail. A member of the '90s rock band Bikini Kill, Vail has always been a historian and documentarian of sorts -- the kind who retains information in the same way an antique store does, with a fascinating mixture of excess, ordered chaos and rare finds. The tour diary documents the adventures of one of her first bands, The Go Team -- different, I might add, from today's Go Team! from the U.K.

Whether or not you're familiar with an artist, or even like it, looking back on firsthand accounts of the touring life illuminates the in-between and the interstitial. Diaries both glorify and bash the quotidian; they breathe life into a fan's often made-up perception of a band, a scene or a city. Diaries connect dots and raise hopes, but they also shatter illusions. Touring is mundane and filthy as much as it is glamorous and otherworldly.

In my last post, I discussed the death of the rock star. Tour diaries, depending on their candor, can either cement or diminish a musician's status in a fan's mind. But I think the potency of tour diaries and documents exist separate from the music. I find them interesting as their own form of expression.

A quote from Tobi Vail's 1989 Go Team diary:

I wanted to go to Macdougal Street and Washington Sqare park and see where Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo lived. I wanted to climb the fire escapes of Greenwich Village and live life like the pictures of Jack Keroauc and all the cool girls in the beat history book whose names I don't know but who must've written cool poems too. We walked around for the whole day until I had blisters on my feet and we had to take the subway to an art museum that was showing the Andy Warhol retrospective. Wow. The party at Linda's was nuts. We got in a fight with Mike McGonigal from Chemical Imbalance. We wanted to dance to the new Madonna record. He kept putting on Jad Fair and the Shaggs. Hey, we love that music, but the new Madonna record just came out yesterday and we wanted to dance. All these east coast people showed up with dyed hair, big shoes or boots and black clothing. Tammy Rae was there and some people from Pussy Galore. We played with Galaxie 500, who are so boring but really nice.

You can read the rest of the diary at Punk Rock Tour Bog.

These days, a lot of artists keep online tour diaries and blogs. Blitzen Trapper has been documenting its adventures, while Vancouver's Ladyhawk teamed up with Fader in order to write about a recent tour of Europe. Neko Case often keeps an online travelogue.

Finally, while pondering the topic of tour diaries, I went back and found something I wrote for Magnet magazine in 2003:

We fly into Oslo, exhausted but eager for a few days without moving. Tour is all about moving, about momentum, despite the fact that your body wants to stay still. Stillness is the enemy of tour; it allows time for wanting, and there is no wanting on tour because there is very little that you can have. Or rather, what you are allowed to want is what is right in front of you: sounds and sights and tastes and smells; a good meal, a great show, a firm bed. But you can't want something back at home, or back in the last city you were in, because it's not there or it's already gone. A camera that was left in a mess of sheets, a book that you forgot in a cafe you don't know the name of. What you have is right in front of you. It's what makes tour alluring and it's what makes it devastating. We play the Oya Festival. The stage looks out over the river and the city. Bright and clean. We are plagued by technical problems again. This time, I lose my composure and a water bottle goes flying. I don't feel punk rock. I feel like a big baby. I think about all the water and beer that's been thrown over the years, the guitars that have been smashed, the blood that has been drawn and spilled. All the temper tantrums. All the babies playing rock 'n' roll.

Carrie Brownstein

4:51 PM ET | 10-13-2008 | permalink

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The Death Of The Rock Star

A commenter on my review of the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show provided a quote by Cave. From an Esquire interview:

"The more information you have, the more human our heroes become and consequently the less mysterious and godlike. They need to be godlike. It's something to lift us out of the commonplace and the mundane. And in the information age, they're becoming less and less godlike. Everyone is able to make music these days. Everyone can take a crack at it. To me, that equality has diluted the power of the rock star. The rock star is dying. And it's a small tragedy. Rock stars have blogs now. I have no use for that kind of rock star."

Nick Cave is right: The death of the rock star is upon us -- if it hasn't happened already -- and no one seems to care. Most "rock stars" I know are reluctant stars at best, trying their hardest to assimilate with the masses rather than exist as a separate entity. They move outside of media centers, they drink in dive bars and listen to their friends DJ, they host barbecues, they play solo for local charities, they volunteer in soup kitchens, and they take their kids to school. Yes, rock stars are truly just like us. But do we want them to be? Or do we even care?

Perhaps the current era of the reluctant rock star began with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. They ushered in the macro genre known as "alternative," in which part of being outside the mainstream was to continually grapple with and engage in a dialog with the notion of fame. But sometimes conversation kills the mood. Certainly, the most extreme and iconic examples of rock stars never (publicly) doubted the decisions to drive cars into pools, sleep with groupies and do copious amounts of drugs. Only in retrospect did we hear of regret. Today's rock stars are too exposed: We know their every move and every thought thanks to the Internet. Therefore, reflection follows too closely on the heels of an act of carelessness. Maybe we want to bask in the inanity of others for a while. We don't want to know that they messed up; we want to think that there are those among us who live by a different set of rules. Otherwise, what do we dream of when we dream of escape?

For another example of the death of the rock star, I go back to something I discuss often on this blog -- the conflation of art and commerce. With commercial radio and music television nearly extinct, music is often given the light of day via advertising. Yet giving songs to commercials doesn't elevate the artist or the song; instead, it puts them amongst the commonplace and the mundane. A rock star selling cars? Peddling soda or video games? It doesn't matter whether you agree with the politics of that decision. If rock stars were selling something most of us didn't use or couldn't afford -- like a new line of private jets -- maybe that would be better. Instead, it makes Coca-Cola more of a rock star than, say, Jack White.

Maybe the death of the rock star is due to the fact that brands are the new gods and musicians merely the preachers. As for us fans, we're just the church choir, hoping that there's still value in what we've chosen to worship.

Carrie Brownstein

2:21 PM ET | 10- 8-2008 | permalink

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In Name Only

We all have bands that we've secretly never heard. Major artists, cult heroes, Grammy winners, key figures. We know enough to be able to say their names, maybe even to recall their hometowns, to remember a fact from an article or the image of an album cover. Yet we don't really know these bands, perhaps not like we should. For music snobs, as some of us are, it's hard to admit that these bands aren't part of our aural landscapes, our vocabulary -- at least not beyond a fleeting recognition.

One band that comes to mind for me is Galaxie 500. I know the names of each band member. I have seen later incarnations and projects. Yet I don't think I could name a song title or recognize a single tune. I imagine there are other bands, those we feel we should know but really don't. This, I might add, is different from those bands we feel we should like. Instead, these are artists we honestly have never heard beyond a track or two; at best, we only know the hit songs. Artists that tend to end up in this category include Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, My Bloody Valentine, Minutemen, Soft Machine and even Bob Dylan sometimes.

In fact, this phenomenon is particularly prevalent the more famous or popular the artist is -- to feel like you know the music because you know what eked into the Top 40 or onto a film soundtrack. Then, all of a sudden, someone puts on Thin Lizzy or Bruce Springsteen at a party, and unless it's "Jail Break" or "Dancing in the Dark," you're out of luck.

There's nothing wrong with these gaps in our musical knowledge, nothing to be ashamed about. Yet I've sensed real shame from people -- red-in-the-face embarrassment. "Who is this?" they'll ask, expecting the answer to be some new and up-and-coming band, when the answer is simply "Led Zeppelin" or "The Who." And it's true, it's worse when the answer is someone obvious. Personally, I feel braver admitting to gaps in my contemporary music knowledge than I would to huge blank pages from the year 1972. Why is that? I suppose a few years out, the history books and the critics have aided in cementing a list of crucial suspects, which, despite their own faults, certainly makes the task of learning about music -- or knowing what we should learn about -- less daunting.

I recently saw an interview with author Rick Moody in which he's asked about evasion and confabulation. "I'm the kind of guy who lies about having read Henry James' The Golden Bowl," Moody says. So I will turn the question to you with regard to music: What kind of liar are you? Or, if you are a truth-teller, what will you admit to not really knowing?

Carrie Brownstein

12:04 PM ET | 10- 6-2008 | permalink

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Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

At last, the strangeness and suffocation that constitutes a 95-degree day in Portland has left. For a long time, I can only hope. Cloudy skies and rain are in the forecast. And, until those also become oppressive, I'll have nothing to complain about. That's one whole gripe-free month. (A curious trait of Pacific Northwesterners is that we prefer the weather mild and are thus tormented by extremes. We complain about anything on either side of meteorological mediocrity.)

This splendidly benign and bland moment is the perfect time to line up my winter soundtrack. I've got Blitzen Trapper's Furr on repeat, a Nick Cave mix CD in my car and the new album by Wilderness -- called (K)no(w)here -- awaiting further, more considered listens.

Gone are the summer mixes full of motivation and promise, groove-filled and sultry; M.I.A, Music Go Music and T.Rex are on hold until spring. Now is when I rediscover Wilco's A Ghost Is Born, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Neko Case's Blacklisted and The Go-Betweens' 16 Lovers Lane. In fall and winter, the music must elevate. It doesn't have to cause elation the way it does in the summer months; it merely has to give lift to my head on dreary mornings. I also seem to prefer a tune analogous to the weather -- an enhancer rather than a contrast: The Jesus and Mary Chain over the Ramones, Bon Iver instead of Of Montreal.

Perhaps one's musical taste can be translated into a specific season, the way someone will ask what color palette looks best with your skin tone. You're either a spring, summer, fall or winter. I think somebody once told me what I am, but I don't recall the details except that I look bad in pastels. Thinking back, I didn't actually need anyone to point that out. (Even at a young age, I had already intuited a bad relationship between myself and light, buttery yellow.) Similarly, with music, I'm quite certain that I prefer darker sounds. Sure, summer jams conjure bare feet and green grass and drench every moment with sunlight until life is an even, no-lines tan. But even though fall and winter music might leave a less searing impression, it takes a certain kind of magic to keep you warm and distracted from the cold.

So, what's the best music for those fall and winter months?

Carrie Brownstein

1:55 AM ET | 10- 1-2008 | permalink

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