Towards a General Theory of Everything: 65. “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver (2008)

What It Is We're Doing Here

This is a place where I post anything my friends and I feel is relevant to the music we like. The kind of music in question can be seen pretty easily by checking out the playlists posted. I post a playlist every month and regular record reviews. By regular I mean 'when I get the chance'.

It is my sincere hope that any reviews or commentary you read here will not remind you at all of reviews you can read in Rolling Stone or Pitchfork or NME or any number of other professional music reviewers.

Why? Because for the most part, those reviews are just really, really boring and they kill the fun of music. No one (aside from guys who write those reviews) sits around with their friends and mentions how 'the deeply melodic tempo shifts emanating from the counter-intuitive and soulfully rhythmic jazz fusion guitar lifts us to incomparable ...'

Incomparable heights of bullshit, maybe. Not gonna happen here. (I didn't tell you this, but I still visit Pitchfork every day, but only for the articles, yeah.)

It would be a lie if I said there will be respect for a variety of musical tastes here, there will be no such thing. Some music, no matter how popular it is, just sucks. That doesn't mean this is a haven of indie rock snobbery by any means. There's plenty of well-regarded indie shit out there that is just fucking awful. Grizzly Bear, I'm pointing at you and nodding my head.

Really there are no limits to the kind of music we'll listen to, so anything goes. Forward on anything worthy that has not been discussed in enough detail.

If we miss something newsworthy or get something wrong, let us know. If you agree or disagree with an opinion here, let us know. It will not change said opinion, but you will probably feel better than if you kept it in. So go ahead.

How I Rate Music

When I post my thoughts on a record, I use the standard 1-5 stars format for a couple of reasons: 1) It works just as well as anything else and 2) Most people use an iPod, I rate my songs on my iPod, the iPod has a 1-5 star ratings system and therefore it's a common language to both of us.

Here is how I define my ratings:

5 Stars: Totally awesome. A great song. Permanent favorite. Think 'Fans' by Kings of Leon (before the hairstylists), 'Mahgeeta' by MMJ, 'Fight Test' by the Flaming Lips, that sort of thing. A rare rating, though.

4 Stars: Very good. I'll listen to this song again and again, I'm happy I bought it, I will refer to it in conversation as 'one of the songs I like on that album'.

3 Stars: Just OK. Nothing wrong here, it's just not that memorable and maybe if I listened to it three or four times I'd like it, but if it was really that good, I shouldn't have to, so that brings us full circle and therefore it is 'Just OK'.

2 Stars: Irritating. A bad song. This rating means something is really wrong here, and perhaps we should sit down.

1 Star: A sin against music. Why did you record this? Do you not have any friends who listened to this with you and said 'Wow, this is incredibly, incredibly bad'? This is the kind of song that totally pisses me off when I hear it.

A few songs almost automatically fall into 1 or 2 star category, in particular the trend gaining popularity with bands to once again put one minute snippets of music or horrible noise on an album. Spiritualized, I am talking to YOU. 'Harmony 6 (Glockenspiel)'? I mean, fuck you.

How I Make Playlists

Any 4 or 5 star song usually ends up on a monthly playlist. If an album is so good that it has more than three or four songs that warrant being added to a playlist (ie Windmill, Deer Tick), I'll space the songs out and put them on a subsequent month's playlist.

Playlists are generally 35 songs or so. Any more than that and you'll just never listen to some of them, any less and you'll just get bored because there's not enough music. I realize this makes no sense, I really just needed an arbitrary cutoff, so 35 it is.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

65. “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver (2008)

Everyone loves a back story and the one behind Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago seems to have driven a lot of the critical praise for the album. Real quick: Justin Vernon lived in North Carolina but when he broke up with his girlfriend, he decided to also break up his band and move back to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin. It was there that he spent a winter in a freezing cabin, adopting the name Bon Iver (French for “good winter”) and unintentionally writing the songs that would make him an overnight darling. The tastemakers and music blogs loved the thing long before it was even released, of course, and that led to tons of buzz, which in turn led to Letterman appearances, ABC News specials and Town Hall-headlining shows.

The thing is, Vernon deserved it. For Emma is a mini-classic in my mind, an album with real depth and soul, and something that seems to be timeless and of one particular time and place (in a freezing cabin in Wisconsin, after breaking up with a girlfriend in North Carolina). Whether the back story matters of not is hardly the point. The songs stand on their own – the mix of folk and gospel is perfect and Vernon’s falsetto carries the day throughout. All nine songs are great in their own way, but this one seemed like the most obvious pick.

Listen here.