I can sum up my whole life in 9 points

[antpower]

1. maegunnbatt is alive and not dead! This makes me the happiest girl in the whole world!

2. 300 is just as awesome as I hoped it would be. What is it about David Wenham's voice that totally pwns me?

3. I am not in love with Cassadaga like I'm in love with Lifted and I'm Wide Awake, it's Morning. But still, if anyone wants me to upload it, just let me know.

4. Went to see The Lemonheads last night. 15 years on and Evan Dando is still the perfect man.

5. Am up to season 4 of Smallville. Was starting to hate Lana less until she climbed all over Jensen. Lois freaking rules though.

6. Have only got one episode of Angel left to watch. Will probably write some sort of meta-y thing when I'm done about the Buffyverse in general and the awesomeness of Christian Kane Spike.

7. Speaking of point #5 and point #6, last night I dreamed I was at the Kryptonian branch of Wolfram & Hart and they were doing experiments on my brain.

8. I miss Sam and Dean.

9. My hair is especially good today.

Comments

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Oh! Yays! What do you think? I am liking it better with every listen.

[klave.livejournal.com]

Well, I haven't managed to listen to it all the way through yet, because people came to my house (grr) and it was apparently antisocial to listen to BE rather than admiring their baby...but I really like 'If the Brakeman Turns My Way', and I've loved 'No One Would Riot for Less' since I first got the bootleg a little while ago...it sounds like the apocalypse in my ears.

I don't know why, but it sounds like a record by a completely different band who are somehow the same...there's a lot less of the bleak, confessional edge that the early stuff has, and obviously they have the money for proper musicians and production and recording equipment now, and in a way their sound has totally matured, and I love what they're doing, but I love it in the way that I would love it if it was the first album of theirs I owned...I mean, maybe that's because it's the first new full-length that I've actually anticipated, since I didn't get into them until just after Digital Ash/Wide Awake were released. I don't love it like Bright Eyes, I love it like something else, and it's a love mixed with a strange sense of loss...I don't think Conor is floundering any more, he seems to know where he's going as an artist, as though all those years of growing up publicly through music have finally paid off, and whilst that's great I almost miss the angst and insecurity...Cassadaga sounds like some people's debuts do, when they haven't been recording their whole lives, despite the fact that his songs are so much more grown up, and that's lovely. But I miss the mixed-up kid.

In fact, in songwriting terms it reminds me of his work with Desaparecidos, with social commentary rather than introspection, only deeply mellow and very countrified, and since I love country and Desa, that's wonderful.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

OMG, how did you do that? That is exactly how I feel about it, only you said it with real, proper words! I miss the mixed-up kid too. It's like Cassadaga is brilliant, I can see that quite clearly (well, hear it, technically), but it doesn't gut me with its desperation in the same way that most of the songs on Lifted do, for example.

And, you know, the rest of what you said too :P

[klave.livejournal.com]

I know! Shit, Lifted was amazing. And Fevers and Mirrors! I mean, all my favourite saddest songs are BE, but whilst it used to be explicit, now you have to read into it to get the same sadness...in a way that's good, and I'm used to doing that with other songs anyway, but one of the things that used to set BE fans apart from other people was that in a sick way they fed off all the fucked-up-ness, which was unhealthy but also a little special...there was something very connecting about listening to a 19-year-old screaming for the sunlight...his voice has definitely improved, but that was another thing...you could only be a BE fan if you could deal with the bad vocals and all the intensity of emotion - like the two kinds of Dylan fans: people who think the songs are amazing but better when someone else, like the Byrds, sing them, and people who know that they're best when Bob sings them because he *feels* them too.

I mean, No One Could Riot for Less is a song that sort of rips me up inside, but it's turned outwards now, it's the madness of the governments, it's what happens when the oil runs out, it's no longer what happens when all the life drains out of a young man and he tries to claw it back through music, which I guess would have been the lyrical content if he'd written it five years ago. Hell would have been here inside his head, rather than a sweeping metaphor for our collectiv future.

With Cassadaga, anyone could be a Bright Eyes fan, and whilst they wouldn't have the same connectedness that someone who is familiar with the backstory, the last however many years, Cassadaga is still an album they could enjoy. And I like that. But I'm mourning the publicly depressed, the anxious, the mixed-up, the drunk, the cokehead Conor in a way as well.

And it's reassuring that you feel the same!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Yay for solidarity!!

one of the things that used to set BE fans apart from other people was that in a sick way they fed off all the fucked-up-ness, which was unhealthy but also a little special

That is exactly it! It was like being told it's okay to be this screwed up and to love your pain and whatever. I don't know, it was sort of like all these messy thoughts in my brain were being articulated so perfectly, you know?

No One Would Riot For Less is beautiful, in that same sad way, and I also really love Cleanse Song and Lime Tree and I do appreciate the political aspect of the album. I guess it's a natural thematic progression from songs like When the President Talks to God and The Trees Get Wheeled Away and At the Bottom of Everything (and so on) and I appreciate the... musical evolution of it. (That sounds so wanky, doesn't it!) I guess it just feels a little impersonal. But it's a creeper, you know? I like it more every time.

I totally need new Bright Eyes icons.

Oh, while I remember it, you totally need to friend me on last.fm!!!

[klave.livejournal.com]

I totally friended you back this morning! The thing I hate about lastfm is how it scrobbles all the shitty music my sister listens to as well, and I don't know how to turn that off...it makes it look like I have poorer taste than I do.

I know what you mean about being impersonal, but I'm also liking it more the more I listen to it...a bit like A Collection of Songs.

You do, and I do too, and then we would win at icons. Also, sorry for taking up so much space on your LJ...I think that was the most I've said in several days...it's the Easter break from school, so life is basically sleeping, eating, driving, TV and the internets. Like a technologically-empowered bear. With a motorcar.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

You can turn the scrobbler off, and I think there's some way you can edit your music in last.fm, but I haven't worked out how to do that yet. And it seems a bit like cheating.

I have new icons! It's hard to find good Conor icons, which is weird.

I like you taking up space on my LJ! It makes me look all popular and stuff.

I am also like a technologically-empowered bear, but I don't have a car. I have slippers though!

[klave.livejournal.com]

I am liking the new icons! I can't work out how to edit it either, so I will have to look like I have sucky 13-year-old taste forever.

Well, of course you're popular...if by popular you mean 'has one weirdly talkative friend who posts over and over again'.

I am a bear who borrows her mum's car! I drove to the supermarket today, and then home again...I had to park in parking spaces! And turn the car around in our street! It was really exciting!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

That sucks. I set my alarm on the computer so it opens up iTunes and plays songs to wake me up, so if I happen to sleep through it, I end up scrobbling all these wacky songs that are sometimes embarrassing because I can't even blame them on my sister.

Yay for being popular!

I am a bear who makes her sister drive her places because she forgot to renew her licence and can't even drive herself. Yay for parking spaces though! I used to like reverse parking, because you feel like you're being all tricksy. :P

[klave.livejournal.com]

That is such a good plan! I would love to do that, only my computer is not in the same room as my bed, so it would only work if I fell asleep on the sofa in the study, and whilst the sofa in the study is very comfy for sitting on, it isn't very long so wouldn't be much good for sleeps.

Yay!

Sneaky plan! I find it a little embarrassing to drive, because I have to wear L plates so everyone knows I'm a learner but the insurance company and the government won't let me drive unless I do...and actually other drivers behave worse towards learners, cutting them up, pulling out in front of them and driving too close behind them instead of thinking 'hey, that person's trying to learn to be a good and responsible driver, and will hopefully not cause me an accident in years to come, unlike all the naughty drivers who never take their driving test, so maybe I should back off and let them take their time'. Still, I am calm, I am zen, I do not get roadrage because it is counter-productive.