damn

It's been a while. So I've been listening to a bunch of stuff recently. I don't exactly remember the last thing I posted about, so I'll go back a bit.

For about a week I listened to Modest Mouse, about 95% of which was from the album Lonesome Crowded West. At first I listened to some of the new albums, then Lauren told me that they were shit, because the singer had lost a bunch of emotion from his voice. I thought that was a bit odd, since all the posts on last.fm were debating about whether or not Modest Mouse had gone emo. Later on I figured out that while the music and melodies had indeed grown more "emo", if we must use the word, Lauren was right and his voice had become pretty boring. Not exactly a good trade-off in my opinion.

Then after that I listened to The Mountain Goats, which was very interesting. The lyrics are pretty intelligent and the songs often allude to figures and events in history. For example, "Sax Rohmer #1" alludes to Sax Rohmer, the writer. Sept 15 1983, which discusses Israel, was the date that Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigned. Babylonian gods, crater lakes, and fictional characters are all included.

After The Mountain Goats I listened to a LOT of Regina Spektor. For about a week straight. Not as intensely as Stars, but you get the idea. I started listening a long time ago, but only really got into it recently. So now I've played Regina 400 some odd times. Which means that according to last.fm She's my second most played artist. Craaaazy. I didn't even realize I was listening that much.

And this week I am on to playing something different. I think this structure of listening to music is better, even though I don't listen to a lot of stuff. One of my biggest complaints about finding new stuff was that I never really got into anything. Well now listening to an artist for a week at a time allows me to become better acquainted with the artists.

It was a pretty hard weekend for me, and The National helped, cause it's so soothing. So then I realized how good The National was, and it's off to a few days of that. Of course it's not going to be religiously like Stars, but a few days of mostly The National can't hurt!

also...

On another note, this week I'm listening to whatever Lauren tells me to listen to. She gave me a huge amount of new stuff and a 99 song playlist. Just getting through it all will probably take more than a week.

ende

Well it appears that I've successfully listened to Stars for a week straight. not only that, I listened to more tracks per day than the average, I'm pretty sure. So to answer our question of "Is it possible to overdose on Stars?", I would give a resounding "NO!".

I enjoyed the music the whole time, never getting tired of it, showing the incredible talent that Stars possesses. Like I've said in a previous post, I don't know why exactly I like them to such an extent, but there's just some special connection. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that Stars is pretty much fucking amazing, cause they're not really trying to be especially "trendy" or "hip". It just happens. Like Torquil said in an interview with CBC Radio 3, the most punk thing you can do write now is to write a love song. It's not about the looks, media attention, or fame, it's about the music.

And that, perhaps, is why the Stars shine so brightly.

halfway!

So I guess I'm halfway through my little experiment, since it's wednesday. I started sunday/mondayish cause I listened to Stars all sunday too, so this makes it the third/fourth day, about halfway in between.

About now I'd say it's impossible to get tired of Stars. I've played Stars more than 300 times since the weekend, and it's going pretty swimmingly. In the car I've been listening to Heart exclusively, and I must say it's a very good album. Though every album by Stars is good so I can't really say it's better. Also it doesn't have The Calendar Girl, which is basically the best song ever. I would put Set Yourself On Fire first, since that album contains Calendar Girl, Your Ex-Lover, First Five Times, and One More Night. Then I'd probably put In Our Bedroom and Heart at second, since they're both still amazing but in different ways. Nightsongs still has good songs like On Peak Hill but some of them I don't like all that much, as opposed to the other albums.

Anyways 3 and 1/2 more days to go! About now it seems like no problem. I might even double the total plays of Stars.

experiment time!

So I've been listening to a lot of Stars these past few days, and I started wondering if it's possible to overdose on them. I don't think it's really possible cause almost every song is so fucking amazing and I love them so much, but let's find out. So starting today I'll listen to nothing but Stars and see how long I can keep it up. Of course, I'd not like to listen to Stars for the rest of my life (or maybe I would?! I'm so confused!) so I'll set the limit at week. If a week is up and I've listened to Stars and only Stars for the whole time, I'd say it'd be impossible to overdose on them. I won't count if I accidentally listen to something else, cause it's not really such an experiment anyways, but if it's purposeful or it happens a lot I might have to change my mind (eep!).