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May 15, 2009
The Steeliest of Dans, the Juniorest of Boys
I can't remember when I heard this track for the first time (maybe near the end of January), but it has stuck with me for five months, and there is almost nothing that sticks with me for that long any more, that demands so much attention. I don't think a week has gone by when I haven't listened to this album (Begone Dull Care) or this track. It's hard for me to pin down exactly why that is though--it's surely superficially catchy (viz. the music-box tones that oscillate throughout the track; that deep, systolic percussion), but it's also intensely thick (there have got to be like sixty fucking instrumental tracks on this thing, the way the loops interact with each other is unbelievable--they're like those submarine rivers that run along the bottom 90% of the ocean: dense, powerful, circulative). A lot of my affection for this song centers on that gut-punch at 2:43, when Greenspan sings "Don't say goodnight/No/don't say goodnight" and that lovesick bass rolls into the foreground. The two halves of this song are like two different versions of the protagonist in transformative teen movies, e.g. that first part = good, but shy and unsure, then second half = showing up at the prom with sweet, cosmopolitan hair, total fuck-what-everyone-else-thinks-I'm-amazing confidence, and improbably hot dance moves. This song almost makes me long for the whole family of burning-heart sensations that accompany long-term, seriously nourished crushes (e.g. the kind that turn you into an augur of small omens and prompt earnest thoughts like, "holy shit, her last name ends in the letter Y and my middle name has a Y in it, jesus we are meant to be together forever." etc.)
The only other album that's held my attention like Begone Dull Care is the Phoenix album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which I cannot get enough of, for different reasons. But definitely buy or somehow obtain Begone Dull Care, because this album rewards any effort you put into it. I know I'm most likely in the minority here, but I think it's the best thing Junior Boys have done--it's both comforting and sexy, and I don't think many albums can deliver that combo.
Posted by Kevin at 12:10 AM