#15 - Melody, Fidelity, Quantity

Ok, so I am really just using that as a handy title that uses melody which is what I am focusing on. (Not to say I don't appreciate the other two as well.)

When it comes to music I tend to be more lyrics and vocal focused, but of course lyrics are just a poem without a good melody (and oddly, I don't tend to like poetry). Sometimes there are melodies or a particular riff that just reach out of a song and grab me. This happens to me more often with TMBG than with any other artist I listen to, partly because I take more care and pay more attention when listening to their music than with most other performers and partly because they have a knack for writing really catchy, pretty, ear grabbing melodies. I also find they do an excellent job layering in the parts of the various instruments to create a whole piece of music, particularly on the later albums with the live band.

Having finally acquired my own copy of The Else recently (rather than coping off my boyfriend's) I've been listening to that in the car a lot and realizing what an incredible album it is musically. I think I discounted it too much at first because not enough of the lyrics grabbed me but I am coming to realize that it's the music and instrumentation that get me on that record. The bass on Take Out the Trash, pretty much everything on With the Dark. And I will say it again. The keyboard part of Withered Hope is probably my all time favorite musical phrase.

One of my favorite things to do at a show these days, when I am listening to a song i have heard a billion times before, is to focus in on one instrument's part and listen to it all the way through. I find this rather eye opening for me as I suddenly discover a really interesting rhythm guitar line in something or a particularly complex bass line that I never noticed before because the music blends together so well.

I seem to have these "Ah-Ha" moments a lot. I was listening to something in the car the other day, I think it might have been My Man, and suddenly realized that it was a really pretty song and I had never noticed.

I keep meaning to make a mix collection of all the TMBG instrumentals. I can't think of any other rock band that has produced so many lovely little instrumentals, partly a product of doing incidental music I'm sure, but also, I think, just out of a love of melody. I'm waiting for the TMBG symphony.

Some of my other favorite melodies: Road Movie to Berlin, Self Called Nowhere, Dig My Grave, We Live in a Dump, Someone Keeps Moving My Chair, Apartment Four, 813 Mile Car Trip, Electric Car, Subliminal (duh), AKA Driver, Museum of Idiots,  End of the Tour, Bangs, Man, It's So Loud in Here, Fibber Island, Sleepwalkers, Damn Good Times, Ana Ng, She's an Angel, I've Got A Match, They'll Need a Crane, Don't Let's Start and The Famous Polka.