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This is an irrefutable fact, but because life happens fast and relentlessly, it only becomes obvious during the holidays, when the world stops for a few days and there’s suddenly enough time and space to notice what’s been missing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is why my yearend lists always come too late – I cannot make a lucid assessment of the past 12 months until all the clutter and noise have finally faded away with the sated holiday haze. In the stillness, I have realized that I cannot write my Top Ten Things of the Year list this year; at least not in the way I’ve been doing it for the past few years, for the simple reason that there just weren’t enough amazing things to list. I can probably come up with something that includes True Detective, Boyhood, a few Mad Men episodes, Silicon Valley, the new J Mascis record, Joshua Ferris’ new novel (particularly the wonderful opening chapter), the San Antonio Spurs’ offense, and a few fillers, but I don’t want to comply with a set of rules I made up just so I can get to number one, which is really all I want to write about.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI just want to make a list that sums up my year in Spotify, which is the number one thing of 2014, and nothing even comes close.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESpotify’s entry into the Philippines early this year was really the beginning of this week’s journey into self-rediscovery, which is really as corny and as 100% true as it sounds. My first impulse upon being presented with a new technology that offers a vast library of music practically for free was to immediately dig for the lost sounds of my youth – songs heard through the grainy UHF mirage of 120 Minutes and mixtapes of Groove Nation Sessions (Toti Dalmacion’s criminally unheralded radio show on NU 107 during the mid-90s) that have long disappeared.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis list, therefore, is a mix of old discoveries, old rediscoveries, and a few new releases that dominated my year. This is an honest list. It does not pretend that the only songs that mattered this year were released this year. That never happens. I know you’ve read a hundred yearend lists by now, but this isn’t like any of them. I do not claim to be current. I only claim to be accurate.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003EHonorable mentions:\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/6Mbg2LVr0GFXkNRj7Gzi0f\"\u003E“Ahprahram”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by The Sugargliders (discovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/4mNJjITFogmINJ8x36pUF4\"\u003E“Crickets in the Rain”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Allo Darlin’ (new release)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/6t2QdODly64Mv4jdYjVtOb\"\u003E“Popkiss”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Blueboy (rediscovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/2TDL2dx1lmfMMfuO24UvfT\"\u003E“Lightning Strikes”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Lou Christie (discovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/7hGB5fr1ZMdRiaZiaFGFTe\"\u003E“Shallow”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Heavenly (discovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/3xyU0y1k8e7WJ2waV8Jrsj\"\u003E“All of a Tremble”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by St. Christopher (rediscovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/7yTA9jIvBRqM3oGsDjnudT\"\u003E“1st Grade Love Affair”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Shoestrings (discovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/49TcciOfbPaRXgqECGYqGi\"\u003E“City of Night”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Nicholas Krgovich (new release)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/7zt7pumR8ACQcyJhEaH58g\"\u003E“Don’t Look At Me (I Don’t Like It)”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by The Lovely Eggs (rediscovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/3Z4TQqCEmkalr0SAZuaRJQ\"\u003E“Make It Easy On Yourself”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Burt Bacharach (rediscovery)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E10.) “Miss Fortunate” – Jim Ruiz Set (discovery)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:6ICHPKwdSXnJmlvXTee5LV\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJim Ruiz has made a career out of trying out every genre that can possibly be found in vinyl bargain bins, so this first earnest stab at bossanova (that I’m aware of) makes so much sense and is kind of genius for being so long-overdue. It’s always been the most obvious, and therefore most overt route, which is why he’s teased the world with all those country-western and 60s jazz and pop since the days of The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group. “Miss Fortunate” is exactly what you’d think a bossanova Jim Ruiz would sound like – fun, earworm-deadly, and somehow original.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E9.) “You And Me” by Alpaca Sports (new release)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:1XffW972N1mDLuaunHLvDT\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter a promising string of singles and EPs, Alpaca Sports seemed destined to disappoint with their debut album, which was advertised as a collection of all their best singles plus a smidgen of new material. It didn’t. The new songs were as spectacular as their young classics, and “You And Me” stands tall as the shiniest proof of this band’s consistency. \u003Ci\u003ESealed With A Kiss\u003C\/i\u003E could’ve easily been my favorite 2014 release. It definitely was my most anticipated. But another album came literally out of nowhere this year to knock this winsome Swedish couple off their almost guaranteed perch. We’ll get there soon.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E8.) “500 Up” by Sloan (rediscovery)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:1A55Lzqlynm0cSMSndHUoV\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis was one of the first songs I fell in love with on MTV’s 120 Minutes, yet somehow, in the deteriorating crevices of my brain, I couldn’t produce its title from memory. It took me years and an unbelievably cheap music app to finally do it. “500 Up” now makes sense in retrospect as Sloan’s lone earnest attempt at “Alternative Rock,” because in my years of searching for this song and buying their CDs at random, I began thinking that maybe I just imagined it. How could a classic 70s-style power pop band have made a grungy song? Could I have conjured it? Could my subconscious have written one of the best Alternative Rock songs of the early 90s?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWell, no. I’d gladly trade my fake brilliance for the pleasure of rediscovering this song.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E7.) “Go With Love” by Swan Dive (discovery)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jD5N4Ghit7A\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI thought I’ve already heard the best Swan Dive ballads that exist (“Where Am I Going?” and “Goodbye September”), but then I unearth this gem and it instantly reinforces my belief that Molly Felder may be the greatest female singer no one’s heard of (which makes Swan Dive the greatest duo no one’s heard of).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EUnfortunately, for reasons that remain a mystery, Swan Dive’s old albums have disappeared from Spotify, which means I’ll have to make do with its Youtube existence, which I hope doesn’t go away anytime soon.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E6.) “Catholic Easter Colours” by Northern Picture Library (discovery)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:1eEzsl6CrBpAQBR80tgHT0\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter rediscovering Northern Picture Library this year, my opinion of Bobby Wratten has now completed the ideal arc, from underrated (discovering Field Mice), to overrated (listening to a lot of Trembling Blue Stars), to properly-rated (Spotify). Northern Picture Library was Wratten’s adorable doodling after Field Mice’s standard C86 guitar pop and before Trembling Blue Stars’ clunky brooding. The results were uneven, but the high points were really high, as evidenced by “Catholic Easter Colours” – a 7-minute masterpiece of triumphant melancholy, one that Wratten has since tried so hard, but has failed, to match.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E5.) “Wishing Her Away” by Jim Ruiz Set (discovery)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:589VrqBrACn3CKtoDwYy6U\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is perhaps the peak of Jim Ruiz’s sporadic career as a genre-chameleon. “Wishing Her Away” is an achievement in bourbon-soaked lounge-pop, which is amazing, considering that he pulled off in one swing what the likes of The Aluminum Group and Cousteau have tediously hammered at for years. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E4.) “Hard Drive” by Evan Dando (rediscovery)\u003C\/b\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:3VIm9N87rhCmaEkSrMeO2M\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI saw and heard Evan Dando perform this live during his Manila concert earlier this month and it is now one of my favorite Evan Dando songs. It doesn’t even matter that it was written by acolyte Ben Lee, because it was clearly written specifically for a former grunge-era pin-up-turned-junkie flameout. You can only sing \u003Ci\u003E“This is the hard drive \/ this is the ocean \/ have you ever felt yourself in motion?”\u003C\/i\u003E convincingly if you’re over 40 and you’ve been through the shit he’s been through.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe declarative litany of “Hard Drive” is hardly matter-of-fact: it sounds like a recitation of failures and reassurances. And it’s hypnotically moving. When the current’s taken you so far, all you can really do is make an honest accounting of your life’s accumulations. You see the clothes you wear now, the street you walk on, the house you’re building. And then you see the love you’ve always had, and your tone changes just enough for your song to hurt.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E3.) “From Paddington to Penzance” by The Hit Parade (new release)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:4JWWhC2klLHKIVTtbn9AVL\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy biggest surprise discovery of the year is also my number one favorite album released this year – The Hit Parade’s \u003Ci\u003ECornish Pop Songs\u003C\/i\u003E. It opens with its best song – “From Paddington to Penzance” – a delicious explosion of pure pop reverie. I had no idea The Hit Parade were still around, let alone producing the best new music of 2014 by simply being stuck in the late 80s and being blissfully oblivious of every music fad that has happened since.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E“From Paddington to Penzance” is as delightful a journey into regret as you’ll ever hear. Julian Henry’s voice is still impossibly youthful, that when he sings: \u003Ci\u003E“many years ago and many miles away, I threw it all, I threw it all away,”\u003C\/i\u003E it sounds doubly poignant, as if he’d travelled into the future only to find himself yearning for the past. Rarely do sugary-sweet pop songs come with this much gravity and this much poetry, but perhaps it takes years of perspective to write lines like: \u003Ci\u003E“in your death chair, looking up at the moon, raining remnants of a burst balloon.”\u003C\/i\u003E The Hit Parade has resurfaced as a one-of-a-kind treasure: pop geniuses with teenaged hearts and middle-aged minds.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E2.) “You As Just A Memory” by The Hit Parade (rediscovery)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:10w6UyDESwJAdAKlDtfWaq\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe aforementioned discovery was only stumbled upon after making this rediscovery. I damn near cried after finding this song again. The experience was akin to stepping back in time and seeing your younger self, unable to warn him of the pitfalls ahead. Tellingly, my sister missed the opening words to this song in her mixtape that I listened to for a decade before it was lost, words that I have now discovered to be: \u003Ci\u003E“stay with me ‘til I grow old.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis was my favorite break-up song at a time when break-ups were only theoretical and fictional, when pretty pop songs were my only gateway to the ugly realities of adult life. I do not listen to this now with a newfound context – I find that impossible. Every time I hear the line: \u003Ci\u003E“I’ve got faith in what will be, so come on girl, put all your trust in me,”\u003C\/i\u003E the memory of a lie I once believed comes back. I don’t want to let it go.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E1.) “Paris” by Northern Picture Library (rediscovery)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:72RLXhkrPyPYNf8MSSKsOD\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis song used to exist in my memory as an incomplete loop. I remembered the guitar solo, the verse, the refrain, but somehow not the chorus which I now consider the most paralyzingly beautiful part of the song I thought I already loved so much.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E“Let me dream of Paris,” Annemari Davies sings, as if willing her wishes into reality through her levitating voice. I don’t know why this chorus failed to stick all these years. Maybe it just resonates more at this age, when dreaming of things that have passed you by becomes life’s refrain. When I think of Paris, I remember walking along the Seine early in the morning, which was the last time I remember being at peace, not worrying about life because it felt as if I had left it in a faraway place. When I think of this song, I remember being in senior high school and being frightened by a future I vaguely knew would be disappointing. This song is now complete, with no more parts missing, and everything makes sense.\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8838563472074295833\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=8838563472074295833","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/8838563472074295833"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/8838563472074295833"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2014\/12\/top-ten-things-of-2014-year-of-spotify.html","title":"Top Ten Things of 2014 (the year of Spotify)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-RmNIo70mz_8\/VKI6SNjggkI\/AAAAAAAAA88\/mQWldsPzgwA\/s72-c\/6226544-large.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-6808941073886270396"},"published":{"$t":"2014-08-14T14:12:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-08-14T14:12:51.579+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Dance About Architecture Like Nobody's Watching"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-BMN543eUfzc\/U-Y81zy3JgI\/AAAAAAAAA8k\/NpbQxGWKQUY\/s1600\/vlcsnap-2014-08-09-23h19m38s132.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-BMN543eUfzc\/U-Y81zy3JgI\/AAAAAAAAA8k\/NpbQxGWKQUY\/s640\/vlcsnap-2014-08-09-23h19m38s132.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: justify;\"\u003EI don’t read music reviews anymore. It’s not because I think the state of music criticism has declined or any straw man polemic thing like that. It’s just that other people’s “objective” description of songs and albums no longer interest me. I’m sure a lot of them are well written, full of expert observations and deep, encyclopedic references. I just don’t care about them anymore.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI used to care when I was a teenager with limited sources of money. And by “limited,” I mean around 300 bucks per week. Money was also the only way to acquire music back then, which meant albums were nearly plutonium-level scarce. My allowance was enough for one cassette tape purchase per week (which cost 80 pesos during the early 90s, and 100 pesos during the mid-to-late 90s), or at times two tapes, if my threshold for hunger somehow exceeded the norm. There was very little room for error. I couldn’t just give 4 Non Blondes a whirl via torrent and delete it after 5 songs of awfulness – I was stuck with that tape and the grief of losing 80 precious bucks forever.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat is why music reviews mattered. It mattered because 15-year-olds like me couldn’t afford to blow money on dust-accumulating paper weight (my only source of music reviews then was the fanzine-cum-song-hits \u003Ci\u003ERock ‘N Rhythm\u003C\/i\u003E, which covered anything from Def Leppard to Shelleyan Orphan, and was right about 64% of the time). It mattered because music actually cost money – real money that was finite and therefore had to be budgeted wisely. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-8AqD2skiQD0\/U-YijVAWYFI\/AAAAAAAAA8A\/y7qwFpRHglo\/s1600\/tumblr_mh26ztwVjS1s1ir61o2_500.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-8AqD2skiQD0\/U-YijVAWYFI\/AAAAAAAAA8A\/y7qwFpRHglo\/s400\/tumblr_mh26ztwVjS1s1ir61o2_500.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMusic criticism has always been, to varying degrees, an act of self-indulgence. But in the pre-internet era, it also had a practical purpose, serving as a consumer guide for people who had limited means of buying music. Now that functionality is gone. I concede that there may still be people out there who (a) always pay for music and never use streaming services and (b) who still read reviews to determine which albums to buy. But I doubt that the existence of these people is what motivates today’s music critics. I also don’t think critics today seriously believe that they can somehow influence an artist’s work, that if they call Slow Club’s new record “hammy,” the group would consciously try for more restraint on the next one. I would like to believe that the best critics (or at least the most self-respecting ones) expect the best musicians to not care about what they write.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAll we are left with then is self-indulgence. It’s the sole reason why music criticism exists today. People write music reviews not because they want to guide the ever-dwindling percentage of people who lack free or cheap access to music – they write them so they could describe the music better than anyone else can. It’s now become some sort of a sport. People actually read reviews now just to see if a writer agrees with them or not. The entire generation of people who came of age with the Internet already in full-access mode experience music criticism exclusively this way. They don’t need reviews to guide them – they just need someone to agree or disagree with. They need to stay afloat on a sea of opinions.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn and of itself, self-indulgence isn’t wrong. I don’t find music reviews uninteresting because they’re self-indulgent – I find them uninteresting because they’re not self-indulgent enough.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA truly honest album review will always be written in the first person, whether in voice or in spirit. It never aspires to be objective. Music, more than any other artform, is personal. It is a living thing. It seeps into our consciousness like oxygen in blood, or a virus, sliding through our veins and taking over our entire system. It mimics our memories until it \u003Ci\u003Ebecomes\u003C\/i\u003E our memories, folded neatly into melodies, and choruses, and hooks. A critic can't \"review\" a personal experience. If I wanted to know what the new St. Vincent record sounds like, I’ll just go ahead and listen to it. There are many easy ways to do so: via Youtube, Spotify, or torrent. But there is only one way to describe how the virus infects \u003Ci\u003Eyou\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-nfXiNOIt90Y\/U-Yi0CcL7mI\/AAAAAAAAA8I\/uyrGlgg1zII\/s1600\/High-Fidelity-John-Cusack-misery.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-nfXiNOIt90Y\/U-Yi0CcL7mI\/AAAAAAAAA8I\/uyrGlgg1zII\/s400\/High-Fidelity-John-Cusack-misery.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhen Elvis Costello said \"writing about music is like dancing about architecture,\" he was illustrating the futility of the entire endeavor. One artform cannot possibly capture the essence of the other. But dancing about architecture \u003Ci\u003Eis\u003C\/i\u003E possible. Of course it is. Architecture - especially great, transcendent architecture - is always \u003Ci\u003Eabout\u003C\/i\u003E something else, in the same way that no transcendent art is about itself. The way to circumvent the imagined impossibility is to ignore the cold minutiae involved in building houses and just dance about the dreams and failures that reside in them. Yet, it seems like the critical establishment is moving towards the opposite direction, diving headlong into the contradiction.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMusic theory became a hot topic earlier this year, with a couple of pieces – one by \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2014\/03\/18\/music-criticism-has-degenerated-into-lifestyle-reporting.html\"\u003ETed Gioia\u003C\/a\u003E in The Daily Beast and another by \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/arts\/culturebox\/2014\/03\/katy_perry_s_teenage_dream_explaining_the_hit_using_music_theory.html\"\u003EOwen Pallet\u003C\/a\u003E in Slate – advocating for more technical analysis in music criticism. While I find the music theory approach fascinating, I don’t see how it has anything to do with the problematic state of music criticism. All it offers is another way to “objectively” describe music – more scholarly and formal, they argued, and therefore more “correct.” But the only meaningful way to write about music today is to write about how it makes one feel, not how it sounds. Whether through poetry or music theory verbiage, the language doesn’t really matter. The architecture of music, however complex and opaque, makes our hearts dance. It's the dancing I'm more interested in.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy favorite music essay of 2014 so far is by music and basketball writer \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@steventurous\/let-it-out-and-let-it-in-9b8d63c242ed\"\u003ESteve McPherson\u003C\/a\u003E. It’s not even about music. It’s about his memories of his dead mother and how they still haunt him. It’s also about how all his important memories are marked by songs. It’s a family portrait painted with music.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is what I wish more music critics would do. I know that what McPherson wrote isn't a music critique and that's precisely my point. Music criticism is limiting, which is tragic because the richness of music should never ever be constrained. I wish websites like Pitchfork, the Quietus, and NME would somehow let go of their addiction to the new, to ignore social media’s impulse of doing things first, and let the albums live inside them for weeks, months, even a year. No music reviewer gets to the music first anyway. Everyone will have heard the newest release in a matter of minutes, and any attempt to beat them to it will only result in a meaningless piece of writing. Stop telling us what we’re already hearing. Tell us what \u003Ci\u003Eyou’re\u003C\/i\u003E hearing. Tell us what all those “pentatonics” and “synchopations” mean to you outside the realm of music itself. Tell us what they say about the human condition.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI know this may sound hyperbolic and a tad dramatic, but I’ve loved music all my life. The world I know can never be hyperbolic and dramatic enough.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Z3Fm2pPQs5E\/U-Yjmwolw4I\/AAAAAAAAA8U\/0hWA_o3bD0U\/s1600\/tumblr_mpa1iadqGW1qduh7lo1_500.gif\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Z3Fm2pPQs5E\/U-Yjmwolw4I\/AAAAAAAAA8U\/0hWA_o3bD0U\/s400\/tumblr_mpa1iadqGW1qduh7lo1_500.gif\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6808941073886270396\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=6808941073886270396","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/6808941073886270396"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/6808941073886270396"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2014\/08\/dance-about-architecture-like-nobodys.html","title":"Dance About Architecture Like Nobody's Watching"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-BMN543eUfzc\/U-Y81zy3JgI\/AAAAAAAAA8k\/NpbQxGWKQUY\/s72-c\/vlcsnap-2014-08-09-23h19m38s132.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-7847318771196694221"},"published":{"$t":"2014-04-27T20:21:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-04-27T20:21:53.914+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"worthless observations"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"I Know It's Over"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThis essay is from the January-February 2014 issue of Rogue Magazine\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tDct6IT5_Ug\/U1zum4Z1NvI\/AAAAAAAAA7w\/d8OfUDo4og8\/s1600\/smiths.JPG\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tDct6IT5_Ug\/U1zum4Z1NvI\/AAAAAAAAA7w\/d8OfUDo4og8\/s640\/smiths.JPG\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: justify;\"\u003EThe statement “indie is dead” is dead.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s been said so many times since the turn of the century that the phrase itself is now as meaningless as the word it eulogizes. When people say “indie is dead,” what do they even mean anymore? Do they mean that the distinction no longer exists, that Kanye West and Katy Perry are every bit as “independent” as Mission of Burma? Do they mean that the emergence of the internet, coupled with the decline of radio, has rendered all music accessible, therefore nothing could truly be “underground” anymore? Or is it because everybody — including sitcoms that still have laugh tracks in them — is in on the secret?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAll of these are true, but the problem with blanket statements is that they leave no room for subtleties or gray areas, those tiny nooks that foster precious little accidents like indie music, or at least its original iteration. The real meaning of “indie” is inevitably a subjective one – it lives in your room, your old mixtapes, your history. These songs form the soundtrack of who I am, for better or worse. For me, indie’s death happened in a very personal way, which is really the only way it can possibly die.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are still ghosts hovering about and one of them has been haunting me for months. My  favorite song of last year is “Unliving” by Hebronix  – a solo project by Daniel Blumberg, who used to sing for 90s-indie revivalists Yuck. While Yuck’s post-Blumberg album saw the band veer away from the Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth comparisons, Hebronix went even deeper into 1991 with the album \u003Ci\u003EUnreal\u003C\/i\u003E. I just knew, from the first time I heard “Unliving,” that it would be indestructible. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/z4jpeuKcT8o\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are only a handful of songs – like The Sundays’ “You’re Not The Only One I Know”, Railway Children’s “In The Meantime”, New Order’s “Leave Me Alone” – that never grow old because they happen to be sonic approximations of my soul. Hebronix’s “Unliving” belongs to this rarefied category. It has that familiar lazy guitar jangle, the hollow space in between the instruments, the life-affirming romance of sadness as the most beautiful sound that can ever be produced in the natural world. It sounds like my youth, which is to say that it is – like most current indie music is accused of being – derivative. But derivative is okay. What could possibly be wrong with reliving the glorious past? What is music if not a simulacrum of memory? What else do chord progressions and tonal inflections mimic, if not the sudden pangs of nostalgia?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis obsession with the past can be heard in today’s most relevant indie acts – Haim, Chvrches, Lorde, Autre Ne Veut, Grimes, and the like. But their iTunes shuffle retro-ness leaves me cold. They just don’t sound anything like the indie that I know and grew up loving. What they seem to be nostalgic for is the mainstream pop and r\u0026b that I was specifically conditioned to rebel against. There’s nothing wrong with mainstream pop and r\u0026b; a lot of good music have come from those traditions. But they’ve already claimed much of pop music’s real estate for so long. Why don’t they just leave this tiny private space alone? \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat indie is short for “independent” distracts from the actual meaning of the term, which has always simply been “different.” Whether it was the shambling guitar pop of the likes of Television Personalities, Marine Girls, and The Wedding Present of early-80s British post-punk or the abrasiveness of The Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, and Beat Happening from its American counterpart, “indie” always meant one thing: music that was inevitably pushed to the underground by the radio-record-company homogeny. Since the internet destroyed this monolith, the underground has since been unearthed, slipping into the mainstream via the TV show \u003Ci\u003EThe O.C.\u003C\/i\u003E and the movie \u003Ci\u003EGarden State\u003C\/i\u003E in the early aughts, that beget the \u003Ci\u003E(500) Days of Summer\u003C\/i\u003E generation that saw indie as a harmless, folksy Manic Pixie Dream Girl they can flirt with. The floodgates opened, and soon, different genres took turns abusing the label, even rap and r\u0026b, with its fans and artists desperate to associate the music they always loved with the modifier they now claim as their own.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe indie ethos that struggled in anonymity for years has won and has become the aspiration of a new generation of teenagers and 20-somethings. Being different is no longer the refuge of the uncool; it’s now widely acknowledged as the point of being young, and paradoxically, of being popular. Being different is no longer different. Kids who used to listen to Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys  have learned all about this new source of cool that was ready for discovery and mass download on the internet, became hipsters overnight, then branded their endless popular kids party as “indie,” featuring Odd Future, Blood Orange, or whatever new “alternative r\u0026b” Pitchfork happens to be championing that week.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThose of us who hung out with indie back when no one else would were the outcasts, the losers, the freaks who never got invited to the popular kids’ parties where they played songs like “Tha Crossroads” and “Right Thurr,” back when they were still plainly called “rap” and “r\u0026b.” The “alternative” label belonged to us, right at the other side of the battle lines that were still clearly drawn, still rife with meaning. The war gave us purpose: it made our isolation a lot more palpable and the music that celebrated it more important. We didn’t even want to win. It wasn’t supposed to be the point. But now I see, with the clarity of hindsight, what it was all about. It’s the reason why I can’t stop listening to Hebronix and why I can’t relate to much of modern day indie: the point is loneliness, it’s always been loneliness.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KCgIgao1-C8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’m aware that pop music has historically been about misery, that it is the product of the blues, the bittersweet fruit of oppression. But the mainstream kind is the one that everyone feels – heartbreak, lost love, and everything else that Air Supply sung about. It’s universal and public. It’s everything that the internet is. When Paul Westerberg crooned, \u003Ci\u003E“everybody wants to be someone’s here,”\u003C\/i\u003E he wasn’t speaking for normal folks living normal lives outside his desolate bar. When Morrissey told the world \u003Ci\u003E“you know I’m unloveable\/you don’t have to tell me”\u003C\/i\u003E, he wasn’t being hyperbolic in a 3am-on-Twitter kind of way – he was being literal. There is a certain kind of unseen loneliness that only perpetual losers feel, and they don’t come in a groovy beat with heavy bass; they sound like jangling lo-fi defeat. It is and always will be my favorite kind of sound.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s not “dead” yet, I suppose. But something definitely is. I feel the need to keep pretending it isn’t just my youth.\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7847318771196694221\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=7847318771196694221","title":"3 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/7847318771196694221"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/7847318771196694221"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/i-know-its-over.html","title":"I Know It's Over"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tDct6IT5_Ug\/U1zum4Z1NvI\/AAAAAAAAA7w\/d8OfUDo4og8\/s72-c\/smiths.JPG","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"3"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-4633049844132739088"},"published":{"$t":"2013-09-22T19:22:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-23T10:30:39.718+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Mazzier Than Ever"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-l_M9Em49eew\/Uj6jwL3X_iI\/AAAAAAAAA4I\/bmwXPOqru0Q\/s1600\/hope+young.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"246\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-l_M9Em49eew\/Uj6jwL3X_iI\/AAAAAAAAA4I\/bmwXPOqru0Q\/s320\/hope+young.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: justify;\"\u003EThe first time I saw Hope Sandoval, she was a smudge on the TV. It was Mazzy Star performing \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E for MTV’s 120 Minutes. It was the early 90s, a time when MTV aired in a UHF channel that perpetually aired grainy music videos that seemed always destined to be old. I had no idea then that it would age like Benjamin Button 19 years later, looking crisper than I remember with all the grains ironed out.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYoutube will never stop being amazing for someone who grew up in the dark ages, yet it will also never cease to unsettle, the way it stubbornly replaces the warm dreaminess of your memory with the plainness of reality. I somehow remember Hope Sandoval looking a lot more drugged than she apparently was. Specifically, I remember her eyes scanning the studio crazily, which the actual video clearly refutes \u003Ci\u003Ebecause we almost never see her eyes\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9eptj2EZ4xE\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut memories are ultimately never about what actually happened – they are only about \u003Ci\u003Ewhat happened to you\u003C\/i\u003E. We don’t remember the accurate details of moments; only what those moments ultimately mean to us. And 1994 Hope Sandoval was the first time I’ve ever found darkness sexy. \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E was my jam in the fall of ’94, not that we have fall in the Philippines, but my consciousness certainly did. I kept playing it from October, through sem-break and November despite not having a tape of \u003Ci\u003ESo Tonight That I Might See\u003C\/i\u003E until a year later, but I didn’t need to – it was already playing in my head, echoing through the dim chambers of my pubescence, my moping sanctuary.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESeeing that video confirmed everything I thought about Mazzy Star’s music – the airy Halloween fogginess hovering over this ghostly beauty. Seeing Hope Sandoval for the first time, or her grainy ghost, left my mind in a dizzy spell, trying to fill in the haze with my own fuzziness.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo it’s kinda tough to see Hope Sandoval - in full digital, cold clarity - looking so old all of a sudden.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-3tVyF-dBhTs\/Uj6jzkQpowI\/AAAAAAAAA4Q\/f-28qmX2PGg\/s1600\/hope+old.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"213\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-3tVyF-dBhTs\/Uj6jzkQpowI\/AAAAAAAAA4Q\/f-28qmX2PGg\/s320\/hope+old.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cspan id=\"goog_457951960\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan id=\"goog_457951961\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’m not a lookist (or at least not consciously more than the average person, since we’re all really subconsciously lookist) or an ageist (see: my continuous infatuation with Neko Case and Susan Sarandon) in any way. What I am, though, is a memorist. Mazzy Star, more than any 90s band making a comeback over the last few years, operates primarily like a hazy memory, mainly because their music sounds like one. \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E, their most popular song, was never a number one hit, yet it remains one of the most enduring tunes from the 90s just by constantly echoing in our psyche like a recurring dream. It never sounded old or dated. It's just always there, omnipresent and invisible, like ether.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EListening to their new album, \u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E, makes the image of an older Hope Sandoval even more jarring. Not only has her voice not aged one smidge, but this album also happens to be Mazzy Star’s best. It's Mazzy Star at their mazziest.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/itHc2Pb_Up0\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat hurt the band’s status among the 90s cult was that missing iconic album that could double as proof of their greatness and shorthand for the era’s supposed superiority, like say, a \u003Ci\u003ESlanted and Enchanted\u003C\/i\u003E, or \u003Ci\u003ERid of Me\u003C\/i\u003E, or even a \u003Ci\u003ECopacetic\u003C\/i\u003E - \u003Ci\u003EShe Hangs Brightly\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003ESo Tonight That I Might See\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003EAmong My Swan\u003C\/i\u003E just don’t evoke the same kind of reverence. What they have, however, is a tiny wall of great singles – the aforementioned \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Flowers in December”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Halah”\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003E“Blue Flower”\u003C\/i\u003E – which only highlight the unevenness of their albums. Every so often, when I find myself missing Mazzy Star, I pop one of their CDs only to find myself increasingly disillusioned for the next hour (they had a habit of loading their best songs at the front end). While I have stopped doing that over the past few years, their truly great songs remain in my go-to playlists (\u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E can be found in 3 playlists named “Hickory Smoke”, “Adolescence Lost”, and “Unsatisfied”; and in one mix CD entitled “Sad Bastard Music”, which also features \u003Ci\u003E“Take Everything”\u003C\/i\u003E from \u003Ci\u003EAmong My Swan\u003C\/i\u003E). My impression of their music has therefore improved over time. Yet, while my memory of Mazzy Star may have been altered by technology once again, it is now rendered in the same selective incompleteness from which it was originally formed. Mythology ver. 2.0.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zw5VrD_d3fE\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn \u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E, Mazzy Star finally sounds like the Mazzy Star I always wanted to hear, the Mazzy Star I always imagined myself hearing. It’s the kind of record you could describe as “vintage Mazzy Star” if you never bothered to sit down and actually listen to their three previous albums in full. It’s as if the band itself, in the space of 17 years, reconstructed their music on foggy memory.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI always found Mazzy Star’s propensity for sub-zero coldness frustrating. I attributed this to David Roback, mainly because my love for Hope Sandoval was blinding, but also partly because he was the chief sonic architect of the band. This was confirmed when Hope finally went solo with her Warm Inventions project and recorded \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2009\/12\/2000s-hindsight-is-1010-my-number-3s.html\"\u003Eone my most beloved albums of the last decade – \u003Ci\u003EBavarian Fruit Bread\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. Finally detoxed of Roback’s bad-trip psychedelia, Hope’s voice soared and hit the ear like a warm, damp kiss. You can’t even describe the experience as “eargasm” – just plain orgasm.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kCXdnHa508M\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E sounds like a Sandoval-Roback collaboration more than a Mazzy Star record, which is the best thing that could ever happen to the Mazzy Star sound. I like that Roback saw the darkness in Hope's effortlessly melodic voice years ago, but as much as I enjoy the wrist-slitting charm of \u003Ci\u003E\"All Your Sisters\"\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E\"Mary of Silence\"\u003C\/i\u003E, I feel like her voice - with those moaning, slithering crescendos - was always meant for songs like \u003Ci\u003E\"Common Burn\"\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E\"I've Gotta Stop\"\u003C\/i\u003E. They showcase Hope in all her unencumbered beauty, which never ages as long as it stays in the dream logic of her music. I’m utterly convinced, as I type this, that \u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E is the greatest Mazzy Star album of all time. This may very well be hyperbole caused by a still ongoing time-travel high (previously felt with My Bloody Valentine’s \u003Ci\u003Embv\u003C\/i\u003E earlier this year), but I’m not really big on objectivity right now, or things like clarity and being right. That’s the job of music criticism – to tell it like it is, to rate an album’s musical merits. I’m more interested in the haze, the smudge, the narrow keyhole through which childhood views all music. I want – no, \u003Ci\u003Eneed\u003C\/i\u003E – to keep listening this way.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ryhXfAdU8VI\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4633049844132739088\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=4633049844132739088","title":"5 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/4633049844132739088"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/4633049844132739088"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/mazzier-than-ever.html","title":"Mazzier Than Ever"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-l_M9Em49eew\/Uj6jwL3X_iI\/AAAAAAAAA4I\/bmwXPOqru0Q\/s72-c\/hope+young.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"5"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-680197215551207326"},"published":{"$t":"2013-07-01T11:31:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-21T19:54:27.126+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Eulogy for the Living: The Forgotten Paul Westerberg"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-S6U6fjp8Sno\/Uc7frguz7aI\/AAAAAAAAA14\/WbsiVlx3Hpo\/s400\/westerberg_finger1.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-S6U6fjp8Sno\/Uc7frguz7aI\/AAAAAAAAA14\/WbsiVlx3Hpo\/s400\/westerberg_finger1.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“I will play a song that I like…and it’s not sad, so don’t be deceived.”\u003Cbr \/\u003E– Paul Westerberg on “Let the Bad Times Roll”\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E(from a KCRW “Morning Becomes Eclectic” \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lOdR1SOPZ08\"\u003Esession\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E***\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: justify;\"\u003EPaul Westerberg is not dead. He’s not dying either. In fact, based on \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.spin.com\/articles\/the-replacements-reunion-riot-fest-chicago-denver-toronto-lineup\/\"\u003Erecent reports of a Replacements reunion tour\u003C\/a\u003E, it seems like he’s not even close to dying any time soon.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut I want to write about him as if he just did.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEulogies are the best kinds of tributes because they come from a place of deep reverence that can only exist in mourning, or – as twitter demonstrates – feverish self-identification. I have no interest in being identified as the biggest Paul Westerberg fan in the world by pre-empting his death and thereby beating everyone else to the punch. I’m not an old ‘Mats fan from the early 80s – I discovered the Replacements in the early 90s when they were already churning-out the lame-ass mellow stuff that longtime fans were supposed to be disappointed with. I only felt compelled to rediscover their back catalogue in the early aughts, after falling in love with Paul Westerberg’s greatest hits collection glibly entitled \u003Ci\u003E\"Besterberg\"\u003C\/i\u003E. Early-80s underground music has always been something I've studied more than witnessed first-hand.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mPRJD0sE69c\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI write from a place where Paul Westerberg and The Replacements (or at least the Bob Stinson-era Replacements) are two separate entities. I fell in love with \u003Ci\u003E“Waiting For Somebody”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Runaway Wind”\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003E“It’s A Wonderful Lie”\u003C\/i\u003E before I even discovered \u003Ci\u003E“Unsatisfied”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Left Off The Dial”\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003E“Stuck In The Middle”\u003C\/i\u003E. I feel as if this inverted way of experiencing Paul Westerberg’s music is the correct way because it presents a more accurate depiction of his art.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHe's always been a confessional singer-songwriter. The first Replacements records were really a product of him feeling obligated to play hardcore punk because of his surroundings and his metalhead bandmates. The Replacements were known early on as a group of messy, nihilistic amateurs who didn’t give a fuck but Westerberg’s early-80s solo home demos, stripped of distortion and all the drunken references, revealed a romantic soul. It produced this wonderful gem called \u003Ci\u003E\"You're Getting Married One Night\"\u003C\/i\u003E, which guitarist Bob Stinson hated and dismissed rather prophetically: “save that for your solo album, Paul”:\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C7jrH6xKCtU\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWesterberg’s reluctant punk phase produced some great accidental music, which is the most impressive kind of great music. At their best, the Replacements sounded like Bruce Springsteen possessed by Johnny Rotten after like seven beers. Isn’t it mind-blowingly amazing in retrospect that some of the most iconic songs during the golden age of American underground music were written on the throes of a musical identity crisis?\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fl9KQ1Mub6Q\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut the rock critic establishment experienced all this in chronological sequence, so they’re less inclined to see how weird and unnatural it was and just consider it as groundbreaking canonical stuff. The narrative goes: the Replacements were important because they set the template for punk’s pop flexibility that made a spectrum of bands from the Lemonheads to Green Day possible, whereas Paul Westerberg’s solo career will always be a footnote as unremarkable as his plain rock n’ roll shtick. And because the current musical climate is more rock-crit-influenced than ever before, the industry growing increasingly referential and self-conscious and music becoming increasingly about music, Paul Westerberg will still be considered as a seminal drunken genius who sobered up and became just another dude with a guitar.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhich is complete utter bullshit.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sLNiOkMw1nA\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn a world where honest-to-goodness songsmanship is deemed more important than edginess or genre-bending acrobatics, Paul Westerberg will be regarded as the poet laureate of Generation X, our Bob Dylan, our Bruce Springsteen, the patron saint of slackers, underachievers, romantic losers, and the disillusioned who nonetheless carry on with dignity disguised as self-deprecation and earnest hope. He may not sell as many records as Zimmy and the Boss, but he would at least gain more critical attention than Elliott Smith, Will Oldham, Ryan Adams, and Bon Iver. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where These New Puritans is actually a thing.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAuthenticity, like coolness, is a slippery concept made more amorphous by the inherent fakeness in pop music. Chuck Klosterman once argued that David Bowie is the most authentic pop star in history because he was the most aware of pop music’s artificiality and the most skillful at creating art out of this awareness. I don’t agree. Because every time I listen to Paul Westerberg, I hear the sound of rock n’ roll’s closest approximation to real-life honesty.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo one knows more about artifice than a soulful singer-songwriter who once tried to be punk. Westerberg broke through the industry as a world-class poser and this experience informs much of his solo work. Where Bowie’s commentary on artifice was in itself a performance art, Westerberg’s is a continuous memoir whose own knowledge of fakeness makes it more authentic than anything Bowie has ever done.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EEm7pUwlGXQ\" width=\"560\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“It’s A Wonderful Lie”\u003C\/i\u003E is not only one of the greatest pop songs about the fraudulence of fame; it’s also one of the greatest pop songs about the inevitable honesty of aging. When Westerberg sings, \u003Ci\u003E“How am I looking? I don’t want the truth. What am I doing? I ain’t in my youth. I’m past my prime, or was that just a pose?”\u003C\/i\u003E he’s not only singing about his career, he’s singing about all of us who’ve spent our lives pretending to be someone else. Our lives are filled with wonderful lies and we all do “still get by on those.”\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s the greatest song in Paul Westerberg’s career filled with great songs. It ends on a sublimely spot-on note:\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“So don’t pin your hopes or pin your dreams\u003Cbr \/\u003Eto misanthropes, to guys like me\u003Cbr \/\u003Eand the truth is overrated, I suppose.\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s a wonderful lie, I still get by on those.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn one verse he’s able to describe his art as true and false at the same time and is therefore able to express the biggest truth of all: life is one big lie and it's all cool. What makes this song an all-time classic, apart from the songwriting, is how Westerberg’s guitar makes a detour from its snappy, sunshine-drenched path to slink down the darker road of the two-line chorus. It’s ho-hum but pained. It sounds exactly how growing old feels like.Westerberg’s guitar has aged with him. Like his heart, it started out restless, angry, and drunk. In The Replacement's landmark \u003Ci\u003ELet It Be\u003C\/i\u003E album, the alcohol had settled permanently in his veins and it felt right at home with \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ub75Sk1Wrcc\"\u003E“Unsatisfied”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E. In his solo career, his guitar slowly lost its late-Replacements-era polish, and became as beautifully damaged as his voice. No other Paul Westerberg album showcases this best than \u003Ci\u003EStereo\u003C\/i\u003E, which also happens to be the best album of his career.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VqPNLzkWj04\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are records that I listen to for specific moods, whether it's depression, boredom, nervousness, self-pity, or just harmless introspection. Only \u003Ci\u003EStereo\u003C\/i\u003E manages to be applicable to all of these emotions and I really don’t have any explanation why other than it’s the album that sounds like my life the most. It’s generally okay and smooth like \u003Ci\u003E“Baby Learns To Crawl”\u003C\/i\u003E, rough and melancholic like \u003Ci\u003E“No Place For You”\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E“Dirt to Mud”\u003C\/i\u003E, defiantly exuberant like his shambolic rendition of \u003Ci\u003E“Postcards from Paradise”\u003C\/i\u003E, ambitious and defeated at the same time like \u003Ci\u003E“We May Be The Ones”\u003C\/i\u003E, and peacefully resigned like \u003Ci\u003E“Let The Bad Times Roll.”\u003C\/i\u003E It’s also technically imperfect and transcendently beautiful.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-jUiZp8veS0\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut no one mentions \u003Ci\u003EStereo\u003C\/i\u003E in the same breath as Elliot Smith’s \u003Ci\u003EEither\/Or\u003C\/i\u003E, Jeff Buckley’s \u003Ci\u003EGrace\u003C\/i\u003E, or classic albums by the living like Morrissey’s \u003Ci\u003EViva Hate\u003C\/i\u003E, Elvis Costello’s \u003Ci\u003EMy Aim Is True\u003C\/i\u003E, or even Daniel Johnston’s \u003Ci\u003ESongs Of Pain\u003C\/i\u003E. In fact, no one talks about it at all. And frankly, I don’t care anymore. I give up.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPaul Westerberg, the solo performer, will never be hip or influential or quirky or plangent or whatever the hell else standards are considered “important” these days. All he is, is the greatest male singer-songwriter of the past 20 years; better than Morrissey, better than Jeff Tweedy, and definitely better than Thom Yorke. His music is the beautiful sound of someone still trying after already failing and ceasing to care. It’s the kind of music that will always be important to me and I don’t need his death to remind me of this.\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t1iJfgU4ApM\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/680197215551207326\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=680197215551207326","title":"4 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/680197215551207326"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/680197215551207326"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/eulogy-for-living-forgotten-paul.html","title":"Eulogy for the Living: The Forgotten Paul Westerberg"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-S6U6fjp8Sno\/Uc7frguz7aI\/AAAAAAAAA14\/WbsiVlx3Hpo\/s72-c\/westerberg_finger1.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"4"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-9017104885774025538"},"published":{"$t":"2013-02-08T17:44:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-23T10:06:38.712+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"journal entries"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"My Fuzzy Valentine"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-16iurjfRJE4\/URTEX0xk8QI\/AAAAAAAAAzs\/04IHIiBH0k0\/s1600\/mbv%2Bstage.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"303\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-16iurjfRJE4\/URTEX0xk8QI\/AAAAAAAAAzs\/04IHIiBH0k0\/s400\/mbv%2Bstage.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003EOn the morning of February 3, a disruption in my personal space-time continuum burst into our reality with such force, I could still feel its disorienting effects this very minute.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy Bloody Valentine also released its first album in 22 years, the much-awaited-then-lost-any-hope-of-ever-hearing-but-was-once-again-greeted-with-great-ancticipation follow-up to their classic \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E album, but that’s only half the story. I wouldn’t actually listen to their new songs until five hours later that day. That morning’s experience was a phenomenon in and of itself; it deserves its own over-analysis.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo here’s what happened: I went over my twitter timeline that morning (backwards, like I normally do, so I can retain the natural chronology of everything I missed while I was sleeping) and was shocked to find out that the new My Bloody Valentine album finally had an actual release date, which happened to be that very day, February 2, 2013 (February 3 here in the Philippines). I could feel the build-up pulsating through my iPad: first there was the buzz, then the cover art reveal, and then the announcement that it had finally been released on the band’s website, which was followed by widespread panic over the now infamous “error 403”, and finally punctuated by an eerie silence of what I imagined to be everyone finally listening to the album and actually experiencing it rather than tweeting about it, an awestruck paralysis that only a long-time fan would recognize.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat whole sequence of events, manifesting itself to me through a tiny device that belied its actual immensity, was infinitely strange. I don’t even know where to begin to describe how unfathomable that morning was for me. But I’ll try. First, I have to go back 20 years, to a fuzzy radio recording of a couple of already intrinsically fuzzy songs. And one extremely loser-y Saturday night.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003EIn case this entire blog doesn’t make this obvious enough: I was never really cool at any point in my life. In high school, I spent all of my Saturday nights at home watching the \u003Ci\u003EFriday the 13th\u003C\/i\u003E series on RPN 9 (\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/lCcUY58lv5k\"\u003EI found the redhead heroine addictive to stare at\u003C\/a\u003E) and then listening to NU 107’s \u003Ci\u003ENot Radio\u003C\/i\u003E program before going to sleep. One night in 1993, \u003Ci\u003ENot Radio\u003C\/i\u003E had its Shoegazer Special that featured Curve, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, and other bands I can’t remember anymore. A couple of songs stood out that night – one was a searing clash of guitar white noise that drowned the soft female vocals into an unintelligible whisper and somehow coalesced into a thick and fuzzy pop confection, and the other was a languorous, hallucinatory mope song that sounded like The Cure on 50 different drugs, only it didn’t really sound sad but kind of uplifting. Both songs were by a band called My Bloody Valentine and it would take an extra year for me to find out that the former was entitled \u003Ci\u003E“To Here Knows When”\u003C\/i\u003E and another decade to learn that the latter was \u003Ci\u003E“Moon Song”\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p4klTCRxHCA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhile I was in my room completely flabbergasted listening to this mind-blowing spectacle, I knew that my big sister – apparently also a loser who spent Saturday nights at home listening to the radio – was in her room, recording selected songs because she doesn’t have enough tapes to record entire episodes of \u003Ci\u003ENot Radio\u003C\/i\u003E, and I remember thinking to myself: \u003Ci\u003E“Oh dear God, please tell me she got these.”\u003C\/i\u003E I checked with her the next day, just to make sure that I didn’t just dream those dreamlike songs, and surely enough she got them.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI had to make sure because, otherwise, those two songs will forever be lost in the ether of adolescence. That’s how precarious indie music was to an ordinary teenager in the early 90s. My first relationship with My Bloody Valentine was through a mix tape that was probably on its fifth overdub, playing a sonic facsimile of a couple of songs that I would play repeatedly for days, weeks, and months. It would take me another year before I finally owned \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E on CD.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is why the moments leading up to the release of \u003Ci\u003Em b v\u003C\/i\u003E were so strange to me on so many levels. I had multiple people telling me that it was about to be released and that they were so excited, “error 403” almost trended (or did it?), and that they were narrating everything, down to the progress rate of their download. And these were actual people – not radio DJs or music journalists or news services – people who I know, people who I used to work with, people who I follow because they were writers whose work I enjoy; all of whom I had no previous knowledge of their intense love for My Bloody Valentine.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe last time My Bloody Valentine had an album out, the world was a fucking wasteland. I didn’t have magazines then that had reviews of \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E. I’m sure they existed, I just didn’t have access to them – financially, geographically, and socially. Outside my brother and my sister, I just didn’t know any other people who listened to My Bloody Valentine. Being into indie music in 1993 in a third-world suburban-industrial district at age 15 was such a lonely affair.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe songs in \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E were the anthems of that loneliness. I would’ve said “soundtrack”, but that’s what The Sundays were for. \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E didn’t merely comfort or romanticize that loneliness – it decorated it with the prettiest, sweetest noise I will ever hear in my life. Kevin Shields’ guitars shredded the sameness, the boredom, the claustrophobic uneventfulness of my teenage years. It made the loud music of grunge at the time sound unfulfilling in comparison, for finally here was noise that was dense enough and spatial enough to fill my discontent with more than rage, but with a wordless sonic substance. And it was a secret. As far as I knew, My Bloody Valentine lived in my room.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E-cmeVcoRBA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELast Sunday, a new technology that allowed different people from different parts of the world – some of whom even share my third-world background – to simultaneously express my same excitement over My Bloody Valentine’s nearly-lost album demolished any remaining remnants of that secret. It never really was one. And it was a really strange feeling. It was sadness, euphoria, disappointment, comfort, snobbish dismay, happiness for My Bloody Valentine for having achieved pantheon-level cult status, and most of all, excitement. It was exciting that all of these things were inspiring all of these emotions, it was an excitement that flowed on top of the main one, which was just the elation of finally hearing new material from a band that forever changed my perception of sound. It was just layer upon layer of feelings that they almost felt like a multi-tracked fuzz. But nothing can be muddled and beautiful the way My Bloody Valentine’s music is and always was. It’s the kind of mess I prefer, because it’s the kind of mess that never confuses me. It only makes things clearer.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003EIn the movie \u003Ci\u003ECinema Paradiso\u003C\/i\u003E, a young Toto grew up sneaking inside a theater to watch movies that were censored by the local priest. Whenever an actress was about to kiss an actor, or was about to reveal some skin, or shed some clothes, the scene would instantly jump, causing people inside the theater to boo. Decades later, Toto – now an old, successful filmmaker – comes back to his hometown after the death of Alfredo, the town projectionist who also served as his father figure growing up. He has left Toto with one memento: a film reel, old, unmarked, and pregnant with promise. \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/TflvNm22cpk\"\u003EIn one of the most moving final sequences in film history\u003C\/a\u003E, we see Alfredo viewing the reel in utter speechless amazement that he cannot help but smile like a little kid and break down into tears – it is a montage of all the kissing scenes and nude scenes that Alfredo was ordered to cut, now spliced together and finally revealed.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’ve always loved that scene and imagined what it must feel like to be Toto in that very moment; not only to see vestiges of your cherished past, but to see the parts of it that you missed, the parts you’ve long given up on ever seeing at all. I may never find out what that feels like for as long as I live but listening to \u003Ci\u003Em b v\u003C\/i\u003E for the first time last Sunday is definitely the closest I’ve come so far.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis album is our generation’s \u003Ci\u003ESMiLE\u003C\/i\u003E, a lost classic that we all thought was lost forever in the inscrutable mind of an obsessive genius. But where Brian Wilson’s masterpiece could only be recreated from his memory that has become as flawed and damaged as his voice, \u003Ci\u003Em b v\u003C\/i\u003E comes in its fully realized form, the way Kevin Shields intended it to sound.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd so I listened to it, and suddenly it was 1993 again, and I don’t mean a recreation or a flashback, but a brand new extension that branches out into its own alternate universe with every anachronistic vocal styling and shoegazer shimmer. Only this isn’t shoegazer music anymore; My Bloody Valentine has long ceased to become that anyway, and this isn’t M83 anymore or Radio Dept. or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart or any music that “recalls” or yearns for a certain era, but \u003Ci\u003Eis\u003C\/i\u003E the era itself, reincarnated, uprooted through a wormhole and transplanted into our new reality, and there is no hint of nostalgia whatsoever, only the blissful unawareness of time. And this happens until now – every time I play the album, the sheer density of My Bloody Valentine’s music surrounds me with a wall that shelters me from the disorienting cacophony of the internet and social media. This is the sound of obliviousness towards the ways in which the world has changed. And it is so fucking beautiful.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe walls of sound that My Bloody Valentine continues to produce will always shape the four corners of my room, which I’ve never really left, and which I will never ever outgrow.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UUc5y1NljXI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E \u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/9017104885774025538\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=9017104885774025538","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/9017104885774025538"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/9017104885774025538"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/my-fuzzy-valentine.html","title":"My Fuzzy Valentine"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-16iurjfRJE4\/URTEX0xk8QI\/AAAAAAAAAzs\/04IHIiBH0k0\/s72-c\/mbv%2Bstage.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-2326655976494225261"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-23T09:41:00.002+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-27T09:27:10.352+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"20 Years Ago Today"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"20 Years Ago Today: The Sundays' \"Blind\""},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-SMp2gOmSTGY\/UIXt9BzXx7I\/AAAAAAAAAso\/JrEAoYSoq_k\/s1600\/Photo0195.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-SMp2gOmSTGY\/UIXt9BzXx7I\/AAAAAAAAAso\/JrEAoYSoq_k\/s400\/Photo0195.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThis is the fifth installment of my \"20 Years Ago Today\" series, where I write about a life-changing album on the exact date of its 20th anniversary (you can check out the previous ones \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/20%20Years%20Ago%20Today\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E). Since I've been insanely busy this past week, I'm a few days late on this one: 20 years ago this past Saturday, October 20, 1992, The Sundays released what turned out to be my number one favorite album of all time, \u003Cb\u003E“Blind”\u003C\/b\u003E.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI have now come to the most difficult point of my “20 Years Ago Today” series. For much of this retrospective gimmick, I have revisited the albums of my youth, which, save for Sonic Youth’s “Dirty” – an album I have listened to on and off for the last 20 years – have been largely gathering dust in my large cabinet at home. The thing about The Sundays’ “Blind” is that there never really was a prolonged period in the last two decades where I didn’t listen to it. It’s been in my regular rotation pretty much since I bought it in early 1994. I don’t know how to look back on it because I never really left it behind; it’s still, as far as I’m concerned, in the present.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFor the rest of my life, I will not love an album more than I love The Sundays' \"Blind\". I don't remember most of my first experiences with the albums I grew up loving, but I somehow remember every piece of random detail about this particular album: the wait (I ordered it through legendary import store Groove Nation; it took 4-6 weeks for orders to arrive then), the day it arrived, how I marveled at its solemn sleeve design and stared and smelled the first CD I've ever owned, how I listened to the whole album on loop that night until I fell asleep.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-zI90T3ep5Nk\/UIUMqKjVR9I\/AAAAAAAAAsQ\/DDMMqCHDg9k\/s1600\/sundays_black.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"250\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-zI90T3ep5Nk\/UIUMqKjVR9I\/AAAAAAAAAsQ\/DDMMqCHDg9k\/s400\/sundays_black.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI don't know what it says about me that The Sundays are my favorite band of all time. I suppose it means that I'm not cool, but that's not news anymore. I suppose it means that they perfected the confluence of two things I've loved about music since I was old enough to have consciousness: jangly British indie guitars and angelic female vocals. Or maybe it’s because the first full album of theirs that I listened to was also the most perfect album I’ve heard then and until now, and this is because my idea of perfection is anything that is sad and beautiful at the same time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom the first moments of “Blind”, where Harriet Wheeler sings, \u003Ci\u003E“I feel fine, don’t wake me up yet,”\u003C\/i\u003E your heart sinks from the sheer fragility of her high, tiny, and almost quivering voice, and the soft acoustic strumming that seems to echo from a distance. The album’s very first note pops in abruptly and simultaneously with its very first word: this is the sound of the rest of my life beginning. It was also serendipitous and somewhat prophetic that I was in bed at night the first time I listened to it because the album, to this day, sounds to me like a 42-minute lullaby, a comforting sonic presence that told me everything was going to be okay if I just closed my eyes and shut the rest of the world out.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mb9avze4e7g\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“I feel fine, don’t wake me up yet ‘cause I feel tired…and we don’t need to work anymore now, open the ground up and slip down.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI think the real reason why The Sundays are my favorite band of all time is because theirs have been the single most enduring influence in my life. Nothing has romanticized the comfort of loneliness more than Harriet Wheeler’s voice mixed with David Gavurin’s guitar.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy all-time favorite Sundays song is actually not in my all-time favorite Sundays album. It’s “You’re Not The Only One I Know” from their debut album “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic”. Because it’s my all-time favorite Sundays song, it’s also my all-time favorite song ever; it has the most sad-beautiful guitar sounds in the history of pop music and it features Harriet Wheeler at her level best: her voice soars, dips, curls, purrs, meanders in a virtual whisper, and then soars, dips, curls, purrs, and meanders all at the same fucking time near the end of the song. The first time I heard the song, I fell in love with it right away just from the way it sounded. It took me a while to finally understand what it was about. “You’re Not The Only One I Know” is an ode to loneliness, introverts, and socially-awkward people. \u003Ci\u003E“It’s perfectly fine to sleep in a chair from Monday ‘til Saturday,”\u003C\/i\u003E Harriet sings. \u003Ci\u003E“And what is so wrong with talking out loud when I’m all alone?”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1S_8u9F_y2o\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere’s a lot more of this fuck-the-world-isms in “Blind”. The song “On Earth” is about a “Sarah” who’s \u003Ci\u003E“walking on the edge of a knife…knows it’s the death of her.”\u003C\/i\u003E Harriet sings to this Sarah: \u003Ci\u003E“You live and you learn you’re invisible.”\u003C\/i\u003E At the end of the song, she offers some words of solace in classic Sundays fashion: \u003Ci\u003E“A Heaven on Earth is ours \/ but not now \/ I tell you when a Heaven on Earth is all ours \/ come on down.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe best song in the album is “Love”, which also happens to be its most misleadingly titled song. For months in 1993, I was singing along to its chorus (from my sister’s cassette recording of a “Not Radio” episode in NU 107) \u003Ci\u003E“Love, love, love…just love yourself, \u003Cb\u003Elove\u003C\/b\u003E no one else.”\u003C\/i\u003E When I finally got the CD, I skimmed through the lyrics sheet and found out it was actually \u003Ci\u003E“just love yourself \u003Cb\u003Elike\u003C\/b\u003E no one else.”\u003C\/i\u003E Even at that moment, I couldn’t believe it; I swore Harriet was singing \u003Ci\u003E“love no one else.”\u003C\/i\u003E The CD notes already corrected me, but I knew what I heard. The song that was burned in my brain was un-editable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mO6kaETAGSg\" width=\"480\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe most wonderful thing about adolescence is also simultaneously the most dangerous thing about it: the rush of discovery fools you into thinking \u003Ci\u003Ethis is the way things should be\u003C\/i\u003E. The Sundays’ musical aesthetic was beautiful and perfect, in my own definition of the word. I listened to it as an introverted high school student, silently proud of the fact that no one else in my class knew they even exist. But The Sundays were the toast of the U.K. music press when they came out and effectively made the musical landscape cushier for The Cranberries years later. They definitely weren’t “invisible.” But this hardly mattered; I still wanted to be.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s hard for me to take stock of “Blind” because I never really got tired of listening to it, and therefore it sort of aged with me. I don’t mean “dated”, because it never did; it’s just that, unlike say, “Our Time in Eden” by the 10,000 Maniacs, which was like a bottle of wine I stashed in the cellar for so long, “Blind” was always open, forever filling my cup, so the taste can never take me back in time because it’s still very familiar. My life over the last couple of decades has been consistently and evenly associated with “Blind” and I still find myself sometimes longing for that “Heaven on Earth” that lonesomeness seemed to promise years ago, although it sounds fainter now, lost in the jangle of David Gavurin’s guitar and Harriet Wheeler’s melodic cry. I suppose I still listen to it because I know that perfection can only exist in a CD, not in real life where sadness can easily contaminate beauty and can rarely co-exist. And if 12 songs are all that’s left of the beautiful sadness of perfection I used to yearn, then I’ll never stop listening to them for as long as I live.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S9Amq0qdGHc\" width=\"480\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E--\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 75%;\"\u003Eimage credits: \u003Cbr \/\u003Enolody.deviantart.com\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2326655976494225261\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=2326655976494225261","title":"14 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/2326655976494225261"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/2326655976494225261"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/20-years-ago-today-sundays-blind.html","title":"20 Years Ago Today: The Sundays' \"Blind\""}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-SMp2gOmSTGY\/UIXt9BzXx7I\/AAAAAAAAAso\/JrEAoYSoq_k\/s72-c\/Photo0195.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"14"}}]}});