(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)
Artist: Beach House Album Title: Teen dream Year released: 2010 Year reissued: 2020 Details: Gatefold sleeve, clear vinyl, Love Record Stores 2020 release
The skinny: A few weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down in March 2020, a campaign called ‘Love Record Stores’ was started in support of brick and mortar independent music vendors in England and a number of musical artists, big and small, threw their weight behind it. Many record stores, not just in England but worldwide, had to rethink how they did business and shifted from analog and tactile sales towards the online marketplace. It didn’t happen quickly enough to rescue the Record Store Day festivities in April but Love Record Stores managed something in June, which saw a bunch of artists offer a lot of great albums for special edition pressings in support of the cause. I found and purchased once such record, this clear vinyl reissue of Beach House’s third album, “Teen dream”, a couple of years after the original event. This no-brainer purchase came courtesy of one such indie record store in England that actually has a great online presence and from whom I order quite often. The album had been on my wish list for a while, being one of my favourites by the Baltimore-based dream pop duo. “Teen dream” took the well-practiced elements from their first two outings and amplified them into a collection of memorable numbers. Victoria Legrand’s vocals feels more pronounced, more melodic, and pushed to the fore, breathing new life and energy into their sound. It’s an album that, from the start, I was able to delve into deeply, soak my whole body into its warm flowing eddies and let it stream through my fingers.
I wrote about the very excellent Leonard Cohen tribute album, “I’m your fan”, back in 2020* when I was posting about Pixies’ cover of “I can’t forget”, which appeared at #71 on this list and was on the very same aforementioned compilation.
At the time, I had never heard R.E.M. covering anyone else (or at least, I thought I hadn’t), given I was a somewhat new convert, and this one blew my mind. Indeed, “First we take Manhattan” was one of my early favourites when listening to “I’m your fan” because the Athens, Georgia quartet was one of the only artists on it that I had heard before. The song appeared as track one on the North American release of the compilation, given R.E.M.’s increasingly high profile, but appeared as track 10 everywhere else in the world. I loved the raging and driving guitars and the contrast of Michael Stipe’s deadpan and austere delivery in the verses with the offset harmonies of the chorus. It was all very clear, though, and respectful of the words, allowing them their own space to breathe.
By the time I purchased Leonard Cohen’s “I’m your man” on CD a couple of years later**, I knew all the words by heart and could sing along with Mr. Cohen*** in his exploration on terrorism. And though I loved the poet’s deep voice and sing-speak delivery, I was less a fan of the instrumentation. Heavy on the synths and drum machine, it was definitely a product of its time and was maybe even a little late to the synthpop party. It definitely took me a little to get past that and for many years preferred the R.E.M. cover but I now can appreciate the version Cohen recorded for “I’m your man”.
Interestingly, though, his wasn’t the original recording of the song. That came two years earlier, care of frequent collaborator Jennifer Warnes, when she recorded it for her Cohen tribute album “Famous blue raincoat”. Hers is a much shorter version and more straightforwardly pedestrian than the versions I’ve already mentioned. To be honest, I only listened to it for the first time this past week while preparing to write this post because I suspected I wouldn’t be a fan and… well… I wasn’t wrong. Sure, it’s got Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitars but even those feel a bit wasted here and Warnes’ vocals a bit too cabaret for the subject matter.
So if we consider this last the original, I can definitely put my vote behind R.E.M.’s cover.
R.E.M.’s cover:
Leonard Cohen’s version:
Jennifer Warnes’ original recording:
*Right around the time that the world was deciding whether to shut its doors to take try to stem the rising COVID-19 tide.
**Incidentally, this was the first Leonard Cohen album I ever owned and purchased on the back of this song and “Everybody knows”, which I knew from the film, “Pump up the volume”.
***Yes, that’s right. I heard R.E.M.’s version before Cohen’s.
For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.
Every time The National releases a new album, I needlessly worry that it can’t possibly be better than their last, that perhaps this time, they’ll finally release a disappointing album, and then, they come up with something that somehow, unbelievably, improves on the last. Such has been my experience with the five-piece, Cincinnati-based indie band, ever since I got into them shortly after the release of their 2007 album, “Boxer”. I’ve since gone back to explore their back catalogue and can attest that, at least for myself, this theory holds true for their pre-“Boxer” work as well.
For those not in the know, The National has made a name for themselves with their dark, brooding, atmospheric music. Early on, they were compared to well-established, influential artists like Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and Joy Division, likely mostly due to the lush, baritone vocals of frontman Matt Berninger, but I think his intricate lyric work is another comparison point worth noting. I’ve heard it said that some people find their songs’ meanings too ambiguous but I’ve always liked the images that are invoked and the sometimes conversational tone Berninger takes, as if recounting a story to mates over pints. Yes, they create dark places in all corners of their music… and yet… there’s something oddly uplifting about it all.
If “Boxer” woke the world up to the beautiful music The National was making, “High violet” cemented them in our collective musical consciousness, breaking them into the mainstream but somehow keeping their indie “cred” intact. This album was well reviewed by both Pitchfork and Spin alike and sold very well with the music-buying public. For me, “High violet” is an almost perfect album. There are absolutely no weak songs in the batch. It is an album that is dense with instrumentation, each layer beautifully rendered and thickly applied so as not to be missed. The songs are all miniature symphonies with Berninger’s rich vocals serving as both the centrepiece and yet another cog in the complicated puzzle. I love to turn the volume up, close my eyes, and lose myself in this music, listening to the intense intricacies and discovering new nuances every time.
I consider myself truly blessed that I’ve gotten to see The National perform these and many other of their past and future songs a few times over the years. For those who haven’t had the pleasure, I definitely recommend you do so at your next opportunity. The experience is almost without description.
Anyhoo, here’s my three picks for you out of the eleven fantastic tracks on “High violet”.
“Bloodbuzz Ohio”: Track six starts cranked up with a crazy drum rhythm set against a thin layer of reverberating keys and keeps that same level throughout, and then, Matt Berninger peeks in with those aforementioned conversational vocals, allowing the rich textures in his voice to seep into every pore of the melody. “I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe. I never thought about love when I thought about home.” I don’t know what the heck he is referring to – if it’s personal or if it’s just words that match that melody – but damned if he doesn’t resonate. Especially when you are in the middle of a crowd shouting/screaming/singing along with those words and throwing them into the wall of sound that The National magically creates live.
“Conversation 16”: Speaking of conversational tone, this song’s lyrics sound like random snippets of dialogue picked up from different tables at a morning cafe and jumbled up into one disjointed narrative but one that paints a delicious Norman Rockwell-like image, wrought in the normal National hues. Back when this song appeared at number 22 on my list of favourite tunes for 2010, I wrote how the song reminded me of an exercise assigned to me back when I was a Creative Writing major back in university. Starting from “I think the kids are in trouble” and ending with “‘Cause I’m evil”, the ‘scratching, reverberating guitars and ominous drumming’ carries the conversation along on an almost sinister wavelength, making the banal seem gorgeous and exceptional.
“Runaway”: “We got another thing coming undone. And it’s taking us over. And it’s taking forever.” Track eight was my third favourite song of 2010 and back then, I described “Runaway” as a dirge. Bass drums thumping and laying down life as we know it. Acoustic finger picking, lilting through the dry ice fog and suddenly there’s a hint of horns, a taps for a new generation, sad but uplifting. The track reminds me of R.E.M.’s ability to imbue even the most quiet and delicate track with fiery passion and angst. It slowly builds but not in bombast or speed, no matter how much you think it could explode at any moment, it never does. It is simply beautiful.
Stay tuned for album #2. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:
My (life in) music lists 