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I'm going to warn everyone right now, I'm not going to shut up about this band"
If there is one reason that music is always near the top of my list of priorities, it's because of the specific intangible feeling I get when I first fall in love with an album. I say album here because as much as falling for a song is worthwhile and even at times transcendent, there is nothing on this earth like falling hard for a set of songs and listening to them ad nauseam just to extract (strangle) every bit of excitement out of it. It's comparable to every rotten cliche about falling in love I know, and though it falls short of the excitement of a new relationship, falling in love with an album is rarely a regrettable decision.
Let it be said that I have unequivocally fallen like, deeply in love with
Teen Dream. From the first morning I listened to it on a blustery train ride to work to just the other night when Victoria Legrand sang me to a deep and satisfying sleep, it's been hard to tear myself away from these songs. This isn't like falling for the cute girl in the sweater sitting alone at the cafe, this is like meeting someone you feel like you've always known and feeling a little scared about how comfortable you feel around them. This is talking about the meaning of life at 4am while trying to fight back sleep so you can watch the sun come up. This is looking back at the loves in your life and still not having all of the answers, still not being able to draw simple conclusions from them. Why am I telling you this? Because I have a hunch that if you're not into falling in love, you're probably not gonna be too into this album. And that's kind of a damned shame.
Let me make this clear before I continue to blush,
Teen Dream is coherent, it's chalk full of surprising melodies as well as deft and tasteful instrumentation. It builds off the strengths of their previous work while striking out into new territory. The
critics agree, this is a good album. It isn't a reinvention of the form, it isn't going to contain too many sounds you've never heard, and I really don't think anyone's going to laud the complexity or virtuosity of the band (with exception to Legrand's golden set of pipes). CMG even went so far as to call the instrumentation "
staggeringly uninventive" in an otherwise positive review. And there's nothing much resembling an extra-textual/conceptual/meta gesture anywhere on the album, so let's agree that it's sincere, that what you're hearing can be judged prima facie. Now, I think this is interesting. A band who's work is not just more interesting than the halo of discussion surrounding it, but a band that is almost devoid of the kind of baggage that initiates the rite of instant backlash. I can't imagine being embarrassed about my love for this record in say three weeks when they have a meltdown in Spain. The band has proven it's worth quietly for years now. Sure, there's always the chance for hipster hatred, though Baltimorons don't seem to suffer the same ire as their Brooklyn counterparts. And there will be those who dismiss anything this pretty as trite, but they're not really worth arguing with. So what we have here is a rare record that stands to be judged without the noise of hip politics or the tiresome cockfights of who's more avant-garde. Hopefully.
So for me, the only question left for to ask is this: are you or aren't you in love with this album? If not, whatever, we'll talk later. I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you. This isn't like my love for Women or The Dirty Projectors where I feel like I'm defending my favorite sports team, always discussing the finer details of what makes them unarguably great. This time I just feel bad if you can't get with this.
And for now, why not leave it there? You can be sure this band is going to pop up on this site in the future and be forewarned not to mention this album around me if you don't have some serious free time on your hands. But please, give this a serious listen. I don't think you'll regret it.
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