The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
I like to make mix CD’s for my friends. I like to make mix CD’s and leave them in random places for someone to discover, and hopefully fall in love with the songs that I like. I like to turn people on to music that they would never seek out or buy without that push in the right direction. I put the Mountain Goats, “Dance Music” on a lot of these mixes, and most of the reactions I got from friends and strangers was about that song. I lot of people can’t get past John Darnielle’s voice, saying it’s too nasal for them. I can get past it, in fact, I don’t mind it. The stories in his songs are powerful and informative. Lyrically, I think this album may be one of the strongest out this year.
From Coke Machine Glow:
Darnielle has given us a story that is impossibly painful, subject matter that is unreasonable to expect the most self-referential artists to dissect, and he’s fucking nailed it.
What the critics say:
Coke Machine Glow – 89%
Tiny Mix Tapes – 4/5
Metacritic.com – 82/100
Pitchfork – [7.2]
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You can see the rest of my 2005 favorites (so far) by clicking here.
“I like to make mix CD’s and leave them in random places for someone to discover”
Brilliant! I do the same thing. Earlier this year, I left a “party” mix in the mailbox of my overly fratty neighbors, who were fond of playing the worst dance music at 2am. Later that month, I heard LCD Soundsystem coming from their house and slept like a baby.
That’s great. I used to party at this one place back in the day, and I would always burn them tons of music because I really didn’t want to hear the same OAR album a million times over.
OAR is coming to Ann Arbor! I’m definately not going.