Top CDs off the rack (Part 1)

"Look outside the FM dial, they're preaching lies in 4/4 time." - The Ataris

Let me redeem myself from the lameness of the previous post with the salvatory of more vanity. This time, fail attempted reviews of my favourite CDs I own by far. I am not a good reviewer and be forewarn that I will be bias here. They are my favourites after all. For the next six entries to come, you will have my (almost) collection. Arranged without a specific order. Cover picture and playlists included. Enjoy. Or not.

The theme for this post: Emo.

Move Along
The All-American Rejects
2005

1. Dirty Little Secret
2. Stab My Back
3. Move Along
4. It Ends Tonight
5. Change Your Mind
6. Night Drive
7. 11.11PM
8. Dance Inside
9. Top of the World
10. Straitjacket Feeling
11. I'm Waiting
12. Can't Take It
13. Night Drive (Acoustic)

Their marvellous comeback after their first self-titled album. I had fun with Swing Swing and The Last Song. I have yet to get the album although it has been sitting on my to-get list for the longest time. They got me once again with the first single off their second album, Dirty Little Secrets. The catchy guitar introduction followed with a fullblown entrance by the entire band. I must say their music video was one to catch my eyes. At times, I find myself interested in a particular song just because of its kickass video. This song works both ways. If you have not seen the video, it was a series of anonymous secrets on postcards posted on the (in)famous website PostSecret. I do check out the site regularly and I have the link on the right side over there. I got especially interested when I saw the “I had gay sex at a church camp three times.” It was censored back in Malaysia but I was one of the lucky few to catch the video when it first premiered and the censorship board has yet to spot the boo-boo.

This is one of those typical emo bands out there singing about breakup issues and how the girls are not treating the guys right. Which makes you wonder. So, we girls here complain how the guys suck big time ass and totally get what these bands are singing about. These bands are mostly guys. So, how come we do not cross paths? I mean, if someone up there would just put us out of our miseries and drop us on the same side of the Earth for once so we can cry over our shattered hearts, put sticky Band-Aids over the wounds and live happily emo after. We would have more happier songs to listen to and our friends will not have to suffer our “woe is me” attitudes.

It is the same old story all over again – just because someone up there will not cut us any slacks – only with renewed words and a sharper knife to stab your heart a little deeper. The lead singer has a unique voice and it is one of the trades that will definitely get me. Bands with a lead with a voice I can distinguish without asking the counter girl who the heck is this band. This one sings as though any minute now his voice is going to break and you will hear him coughing with the remaining of the song. But he does not. His voice works well with the memorable guitar rifts, catchy basses and improvised percussion sequences. The combination just makes you want to nod your head real hard and into the rock spirit – yes, throw in a cheesy rock sign if you want to be obvious – for those fast pace and upbeat songs. Dirty Little Secrets, Move Along, specifically Night Drive (Gotta love the catchy rhythmic beats) and Top of the World are the unforgettable ones.

If the lead is not out to expose you to the world how ridiculous you look with your iPod plugged on, he is out to break your heart. Yes, you see this coming. They are a Punk Rock emo band, for fuck’s sake. His wailing voice sings penned words that are out to kill your heart with his lethal sirens. Never ever arm an emo person with pen and paper and a guitar. This is what happens. He preaches a religion no sad soul is ever safe from. His sermons include: “I hope the love he gave you / Was just enough to save you / You nearly broke my heart / Just look at what you’re tearing apart” from Stab My Back and “I’ll be fine / You’ll be fine / Is this fine / I’m not fine” from Dance Inside. And this song comes with a catchy rift too. What else? Moving on from an ignorant ex: “Trust you is just one defence / For the list of others you don’t make sense / Beg me time and time again / To take you back now but you can’t win” and “I’m holding on but letting go of you” with Straitjacket Feeling. One of the selected few emo songs I dwell on when I need a good cry. His cracking voice, the powerful strings at the back and the crooning backups you fail to take note of but yet are strong enough to reach your subconscious. Strings instruments do something watery to my eyes every freaking time. In Can’t Take It, he relies solely on strong piano and strings. And he decided to sing more wholeheartedly. If the timing is wrong and he seems to hit every note in your heart just right, do not be surprised to find tears in your eyes.

So Long, Astoria
The Ataris
2003

1. So Long, Astoria
2. Takeoffs and Landings
3. In This Diary
4. My Reply
5. Unopened Letter to the World
6. The Saddest Song
7. Summer '79
8. The Hero Dies in This One
9. All You Can Ever Learn is What You Already Know
10. The Boys of Summer
11. Radio #2
12. Looking Back on Today
13. Eight of Nine
14. I Won't Spend Another Night Alone
15. My Reply (Acoustic)

I cannot get enough of them. I bought this album when I was all choked up with my college assignments at one point. I had this weird pact going on where I would only buy an album if I have listened to at least two songs from that album and like them. I did no such thing for this album. And I must say, I am proud that I bought the album anyway. I can still remember myself backing my car out of the front porch with the opening introduction of So Long, Astoria booming from the speakers. My fingers go on a frenzy on the steering wheel and the songs are always the same at the same traffic lights.

They have come a long way. I might have heard of them some place down the line and forgotten about them but I bet this is their best album yet. I have taken notes of their older songs and none of them were as good as those on this album.

Their guitars and drums are strong. Very very strong. One of the reasons why I love them so much. You can so see them spinning and jumping on stage while performing. It is some emo band camp move, I swear. They are probably one of the bands I would love to see live some day. See the hidden track I Won’t Spend Another Night Alone. The fucking drummer played in triplets. Sometimes, I cannot even hit my hand quick enough on the wheel let alone coordinate all four limbs on the percussion set to begin with.

I love bands with wonderful lyrics. No bands can ever catch my heart the way they write their words. Writing school dropouts or whatever but if the pieces are joined just right, you have my all. The Ataris has the most memorable and original lyrics to go around for decades. In This Diary held what I would like to call my motto for life. Either that, or it is just a chance for me to be less of a perfectionist and laze around just a little bit on the couch watching TV rather than studying. “The only thing that matters is just following your heart / And eventually you’d finally get it right”. It may have gotten me through some really low points of my life when indecision ruled my ass like no other.

See, The Ataris is all about having fun. They are post-mortem of sorts because they sing of a nostalgic past when they have the best years of their lives thrashing hotel rooms and having sex in old high school classrooms. How kids were so in love they would settle for a marriage at a drive-thru and a couch not big enough for two is already sufficient for the heart. So Long, Astoria, In This Diary, Summer ’79, All You Can Ever Learn is What You Already Know, Radio #2, Looking Back on Today… Practically the entire album, really. All You Can Learn holds a special spot in my heart with the rock out ending and true lyrics. It is also the first ever song I noticed with a fucking long song title. That was until The Fallout Boy beat them to it. And then, Panic! At The Disco. “Fell in love with his Keno waitress / They honeymooned in Memphis / They were married by the drive-up window” and “You’d be saddened to know that the train tracks you once walked as a young boy / Are now nothing but a graveyard” and “Please don’t forget who you really are / ‘Cause nothing really matters when we’re gone”. All-American goodness indeed and boy did Kris screamed at the top of his lungs for this one.

They did a better remake for The Boys of Summer like whoa. I caught their video once. So yeah, maybe I might have gotten hooked with them back then. That was when I really took notice of them. The video was nothing significant but the song sticks nonetheless. Another one of those good times songs. Altogether now: of a nostalgic past.

To end with more of their original lyrics, there is Eight of Nine: “When half of all your prayers are insincere / The other half are lies”. Hmm. Sounds familiar. Which is why I seldom pray now. Rephrase: do not pray now. The song title might be indicating the nine lives of cats. I might be wrong.

Oh, the band has one of the best CD sleeves too. Collages of sorts with letters and diary entries that inspired the very words you are listening to. Ticket stubs and hospital wristbands. Photos. Nothing speaks clearer than photos.

The Ataris means well. Fresh out from their growing up years and still clad in Levi’s jeans and worn Chuck Taylors, in between lines of memories they speak of advices. Not those given to you theoretically or through mere speculations. But those given to you by people who have been there, done that. And came out on the other side. Alive.

Life. It is just a recurring nightmare again and again. He just decided to pick different characters to make things look versatile. Frankly, He is not really creative to begin with.

If The Ataris sounds like something up your alley, try The Lights are Out in NYC off the Spiderman 2 soundtrack. “If I could have one wish tonight / I’d wish upon a satellite / And bring it back to you / Bring it back to you”. Just. Yes.

Plans
Death Cab For Cutie
2005

1. Marching Bands of Manhattan
2. Soul Meets Body
3. Summer Skin
4. Different Names for the Same Thing
5. I Will Follow You into the Dark
6. Your Heart is an Empty Room
7. Someday You Will Be Loved
8. Crooked Teeth
9. What Sarah Said
10. Brothers on a Hotel Bed
11. Stable Song

Ames hates everything associated with this band. She hates it when I play their album in the car and when I listen to it 3,000 miles across the globe. I just cannot get enough of them. They are one of the two of my favourite emo artistes, as I have once mentioned to Esther. Just like most of the bands I love, their lyrics are original and touchy. Ben Gibbard has a quirky way to bring forth his lyrical talents.

“If I could open my arms and span the length of the isle of Manhattan
I'd bring it to where you are, making a lake of the East River and Hudson
If I could open my mouth wide enough for a marching band to march out
They will make your name sing and bend through alleys and bounce off all the buildings”

He is just amazing that way.

I have been trying to find out more about them ever since I took note of their unique band name. What it truly means I will never find out. The first Death Cab song I have ever came across was Lowell, MA. An online acquaintance was posting songs with titles with names of places around the world. From then onwards, I downloaded pieces of their songs here and there until my Eskimo friend did me the decency of sending the entire album. Then, for peculiar reasons none of my friends but my CD store guy will ever understand, I went ahead and purchase their album when I saw it on the shelves. He said, “True music fans will always want to feel this satisfaction of holding a CD physically.” I could not have agreed more.

I missed out on the episode when Summer teased Death Cab to be a one man emo band with a lot of problems and a guitar. Seth went defensive, of course. That would be the cutest thing I have ever heard.

What else can I say about this band but their uncliche words. There is nothing spectacular in their musical rhythms and beats. Nothing out of the world with wailing guitar rifts and fancy drum sequences. What Death Cab will always hold close to their hearts are the words they put in their mouths to sing. Ben just has his own special way of portraying his feelings in shapes and lines nobody else will ever think of. His mentality is just in another world big enough for one. I can list a line or two of my favourite lyrics in every song on this album. But I shall not go overboard and post complete lyrics of all songs. Not everyone likes emo songs, this I know. Whether or not I understand is really a completely different matter. “And I knew your heart I couldn’t win / ‘Cause the season’s change is a conduit / And we left our love in our summer skin” from Summer Skin. “Love of mine / Some day you will die / But I’ll be close behind / I’ll follow you into the dark” from I Will Follow You into the Dark. This is probably the sweetest song a person can ever sing to his/her significant others. I have an unofficial list of songs I would like to have my beloved sing to me in the unforeseeable future. And this song is on the list. "You may feel alone when you're falling asleep / And every time tears roll down your cheeks / But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet / And someday you will be loved" from Someday You Will be Loved. This song may be out to comfort lonely souls but for me, it does not quite work that way. "'Cause at night the sun in retreat made the skyline look like crooked teeth in the mouth of a man who was devouring us both" from Crooked Teeth.

I found an instantaneous favourite in What Sarah Said with its repetitive broken chords of a piano. I so shamelessly took the lyrics to class one day when my tutor asked for our favourite poems or song lyrics. It was the first thing that came into my mind. I have forgotten all about Henry Scott Holland’s Death is Nothing At All. I listen to this song whenever I need a good cry for my emo soul; one of the few on my self-constructed playlist. This is me with lyrics. I will fall in love with the lyrics without knowing what the entire story is all about until I am well into the hundredth repeat. It never really registered into my head that Ben was singing something as simple as sitting in the waiting room at the hospital anticipating bad news about his dying lover in the other room just like everyone else in the same room. Rarely musicians do that – pause in a single moment in life’s time and write a song about it – and pull it off. “As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me / Away from me” and “It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds” and “But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all”. And. “Love is watching someone die”. The music continues with Ben echoing painstakingly, “So who’s gonna watch you die?”. The percussion’s light cymbals chiming away along with the steady drum beats, the piano’s repetitive broken chords…

Transatlanticism is another good Death Cab album to dwell in. I have a few tracks on my playlist and they are doing justice. I am uncertain of their earlier albums but I am guessing you cannot really go too far off with them. It might be a good idea to get your hands on Directions, a DVD with videos directed by different directors using songs from Plans. You can also find a more upbeat and techno-ish Ben Gibbard in The Postal Service. If not, look him up doing solo projects. Here, you are back to more Death Cab-like styles.

Their tones are relaxing and basic. Nothing really fancy to show off but just lyrics that comes as naturally as rolling off the good side of your bed with dishevelled hair in the morning. So maybe Summer is right; an emo man with a whole lot of problems and a guitar. Ben can do well merely busking the streets with his beat up guitar and the case wide open, welcoming pennies and quarters. If he is lucky enough, maybe a dollar or five. You may find me sitting nearby every day after long hours of classes enjoying his talents over a cup of takeaway coffee. I would buy him another after I have found out which caffeine he prefers.

Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park
2000

1. Papercut
2. One Step Closer
3. With You
4. Points of Authority
5. Crawling
6. Runaway
7. By Myself
8. In The End
9. A Place for My Head
10. Forgotten
11. Cure For the Itch
12. Pushing Me Away

Meteora
Linkin Park
2003

1. Foreword
2. Don't Stay
3. Somewhere I Belong
4. Lying From You
5. Hit the Floor
6. Easier to Run
7. Faint
8. Figure.09
9. Breaking the Habit
10. From the Inside
11. Nobody's Listening
12. Session
13. Numb

Asia’s favourite rock band. Of all time. Hands down. Period. Whenever they make a slight hint of stopping by any of the Asia countries, you will see competitions grazing television channels and newspapers, giving fans grateful opportunities to experience their godliness. Their shadows are an addictive drug itself, where fans are turned into slews of insanity streaks moshing and jumping and screaming at the top of their lungs along with Chester, as if what he has been doing to ruin his voice box is never enough he needs reinforcements.

I, for one, have been lucky enough to attend their concert when I was 19. I am a snobbish girl. I would rather spend more attending a concert in Singapore but not the one they had in Kuala Lumpur in the dying month of 2003. But I was stressing with my assignments and I needed somewhere to go. Linkin Park ever so conveniently decided to have one more gig in Singapore and my birthday was just around the corner it was far too easy to obtain a free ticket from Ames. Everything just fell into place. This is obviously something triggered by desperation and determination. There is no such thing as coincidence.

It was the best concert I have ever attended. I got squashed and I came out a better person smelling of everything/everyone around but me. I mean, I met Mike Shinoda in person the next day at Shaw Centre. I shook his hand and I got his autograph. Yes, be jealous. Be very jealous. Come hunt me down and rob me blind.

Linkin Park has a serious problem with the world. Or more specifically but yet ever so indistinctively, an anonymous you. The lyrics speak of the same theme every time. Accumulated animosity on this you person with no name nor a face, hatred pouring in between lines of artistic words, and then, seeing the better side of the world for letting go of you, moving on without you. Always the same old story of angst and morbidity. The you may be fictional, a battered wall of sheer imagination. Or someone real. One person. A whole crowd of people. Never certain.

Their lyrics are somewhat therapeutic. They speak of medication. They speak of survival. They speak of better off. They speak of a hero hidden beneath ruined lives and pressured souls. The words bring forth hope and possibilities. Sometimes. Most of the time it is about the process they are going through. The shaky grounds they stand on. They faces they would like to spit at. It is therapeutic. Because they smoked weed and paused frames of tortured moments and wrote a song for every snap. Maybe we do not want solutions. Maybe all we ever need is an output. Words to scream. Songs to sing. Because there will never be solutions and an end to a suffering life. Woe is me.

They write the prettiest lyrics ever. If I can describe their lyrics to you with such inarticulation, I will tell you they are graffiti artworks on peeling walls by dampened streets. Those with the fanciest curves and lines. Those with shiny surfaces screaming suicidal yet not really. Because somewhere around the corner, there is another suicide note. You wonder when will it ever end. Will he ever kill himself. This is their suicide notes of sorts. Saving themselves before they see a sharp blade cutting skin too deep. They remind me a lot of my final high school years, when stress are faceless people and blurry forms you can never find focal and point a finger at. There is no starting point and sometimes you wonder if there will be another end of the tunnel. Drowned in times like these you find deep within yourself a darkness you never knew hidden. Frankly speaking, words I wrote back then still scare me at times. There is a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment. But Dr Jeckyll has never been fond of Mr Hyde. You never really want a monster to be unleashed too often. Or do you.

“Graffiti decorations / Underneath a sky of dust / A constant wave of tension / On top of broken trust” from Runaway. “If I’m killed by the questions like a cancer / Then I’ll be buried in the silence of the answer” from By Myself. “I watch how the moon sits in the sky / In the dark night shining with the light from the sun / The sun doesn’t give life to the moon / Assuming the moon’s gonna owe it one” from A Place for My Head. “In the memory you’ll find me / Eyes burning up / The darkness holding me tightly / Until the sun rises up” from Forgotten. “I put all the pain you gave to me on display / But didn’t realise / Instead of setting it free / I took what I hated and made it a part of me” from Figure.09. “Rise from the ashes of stylistic division / With these non-stop lyrics of life living / Not to be forgotten / But still unforgiven” from Nobody’s Listening. To name a few. Can you see the colourful blends? Can you picture a wall of so much pain? They are vain because they think they can do so much better of the people around them. They are vain because the world revolves around them and they have to carry the burden. They are really vain. Just like you.

Linkin Park is a great hybridisation of rock and rap. And a little bit more. You hear Chester Bennington screaming like a typical emo band lead singer with a voice so very close to break and never ever healed from the huskiness. Lowly, you hear Mike Shinoda rapping, chanting. His dropped vocal merged ever so well with Chester’s like clay to mold, like peas to pod. If you are not busy trying to catch up with Mike’s frantic rap, you are trying your hardest to shriek your God given voice box out of your throat. Their musical style goes very electronically. They rely on Jo Hahn’s squeaky turntables and special effects a lot. Wheezing. Dreaming. Beating. Singing. Technologically. Something you can nod your head to, tap your finger to, surrender our heart to.

They are a heart full of talents. Lyrically. Musically. Artistically. I like the CD sleeve for Meteora. The cover is awesome and the booklet runs pages over pages of fine graffiti artworks they have done themselves. Have you seen the music video for Pts.Of.Athrty? It was marvellous work. Jo Hahn has been blessed twice over. I wish I am an artist. Not only was the video made up of creativity, the remixed version of the song pwned harder than the original version from Hybrid Theory. I love it.

I have a couple of friends who find Linkin Park wrong. But I like them. They are good talents blended into one. Although they are not versatile but they have something good I will always go back for. However, it is another story for Fort Minor.

If you may, check out Reanimation loaded with remixes of selected songs from both the albums mentioned above. Collison Course is another well-worth album to check out. Featuring Jay-Z from the Hip Hop world, they have done a pretty good job blending two songs of both artistes into one. However, I would not be one to recommend you Fort Minor's works. Chester is missing but other than that, it still sort of drips of Linkin Park because of Mike. Then again, I could be wrong; I have not really checked them out.

Photo credits: Amazon.com