27th
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Deeper Than Beauty: Sloan (1994)
Sometimes I can’t get over the fact that there are no moving parts in an iPod. All those songs mysteriously stored inside. Incomprehensible strings of zeros and ones. There is nothing to see, nothing to set in motion. Songs get loaded in through a cord. Music just kind of happens. Even the name MP3 – so abstract. No vowels!
But then the music itself is but an illusion. Where are all these songs happening? What kind of physical space allows the human voice to sound louder than a drum kit? None. The laws of physics are defied. Wires hung from each ear, we nonchalantly nod our heads in approval.
Drums move, right? They are a train designed to carry songs along a linear track, to some destination, some place of resolution where the chords can rest. I’m convinced. No, wait. Really? Just a guy on a stool hitting things? Huh.
It must be the lack of bass guitar that gives this song its movement. Those long barren stretches of drums and vocals. All that thumping. The ears fill in the blanks and the mind is too easily fooled. Good god, how time dissolves! It’s 1996 and I’m checking my caller ID for your number – the only reason I bought that silly little box. Searching for traces of you and those glasses, those hideous glasses.
