As a music collector, I try to find special things, things that divide, say, Milli Vanilli from Pink Floyd. Sometimes it’s something completely different. Take, for example, the concept of enjambement. A sentence is spread over several lines, would be the simple description. It can work like that in music. The artist often spans his sentence across many a measure. I here present to you my Top Three of Enjambement-Embracing Artists!
The Top Three Everyone’s Been Talking About
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On number three, we find the electro-pop indie idols of The Postal Service! It is no surprise that they ended up right here, as Jimmy Tamborello’s music has the tendency to bounce on itself, let alone when Ben Gibbard fills it in with his epitome-of-indie voice. A choice citation:
I / am thinking it’s a sign / that the freckles
in our eyes are mirror images … and … when
we kiss they’re … perfectly aligned
This kept The Flaming Lips out of the list, people, so mind that next time you listen to some Flaming Lips as well.
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Yes, next up, a runner-up I am ever so fond of, it’s the Canadian punk ensemble The Weakerthans! Nobody will be surprised to hear that John Samson is more of a poet, after having heard their (probably best) Left & Leaving. Samson and his crew forged a stunning piece right there, but what caught me ear was John’s voice, spreading his words over measures nearly beyond sensibility. At first, I was afraid he’d fly straight over the end of the stanza and keep singing! A citation, again:
measure me in metered lines / in one decisive stare / the time it takes to get from here to there
To note is that Samson writes rather well. I would suggest you check out their oeuvre.
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Number one may be the least well-known to people, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t deserve to be the number one; it’s the Radar Bros.! Who saw that one coming?
With their poignant and often weirdly drowsy overall image, they left an impression on me anyhow, but some of their enjambement addiction really gets blatant. Pick up The Singing Hatchet to hear it in full action. The album bears a likeness to Pink Floyd’s More and Meddle, if you’re into that.
tar the roofs / of the houses / that are leaking / the religions / of who lived there / and are leaving / their infidelities / at the door / when they come in
That’s insane, huh? A well-deserved number one, once again. Check it out.
So that’s that. I hope you’ll check these artists out, and if you happen to know other great artists with great use of enjambement, do tell the world in the comments right here. I always love new stuff.
(This list is based entirely, solely, blatantly upon my own opinions, and can be taken with a grain of salt if that’s your kind of thing.)
First of all, season’s greetings to all of you! I’ve been spending my time eating, playing the guitar and drinking special beers, generally. One way to spend Christmas. I hope you’re all having a great time, but now:
Our feature film
Referred to as one of those crazy plans I keep thinking up, people said I was mad, or to be more precise, we were mad. I guess that yes, indeed, we’re out of our fucking minds. For the sake of listening to great music and to have something to do this Christmas holiday, Geert and I have planned our first (annual?) music marathon. Over thirty albums, a whopping 26 hours of music and all that in one long breath. We’re sacrificing not only two Earth days of our holiday, but also our sleeping pattern for at least a week, I’m afraid.
The Fletcher Memorial Music Marathon, as we christened it (funny—we’ll not be listening to The Final Cut), will be held on the 27th and 28th of December and will, well, yeah, in fact it will span these two days. Damn. We’re out of our minds.
The line-up
To make sure we’ll not be spending our entire holiday listening to brilliant music (hey, what the– why not? ;)), we’ve decided to pick one album per artist. That’s tough, yes. Consider Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens, Nick Cave, Moby– yup, tough decisions all the time. The general rules also include “No soundtracks” (with the notable exception being Superfly, which we can’t consider a soundtrack because it’s a brilliant album on itself) and “No best-of albums”, so that rules out the two 2-disc Best of The Beatles boxes, and that makes it more the challenge for us.
The albums we’ll be listening to
| # |
Album title |
Artist |
| 1 |
Unrest |
Erlend Øye |
| 2 |
Seven and Six |
Bellwether |
| 3 |
Let Love In |
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds |
| 4 |
Automatic for the People |
R.E.M. |
| 5 |
Superfly |
Curtis Mayfield |
| 6 |
3 |
Blood, Sweat and Tears |
| 7 |
Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars |
Fatboy Slim |
| 8 |
Gods and Monsters |
I Am Kloot |
| 9 |
Sleeping with Ghosts |
Placebo |
| 10 |
Carpathia, A Dramatic Poem |
The Vision Bleak |
| 11 |
Ghost Reveries |
Opeth |
| 12 |
Mutter |
Rammstein |
| 13 |
A Certain Trigger |
Maxïmo Park |
| 14 |
Turn on the Bright Lights |
Interpol |
| 15 |
Melody A.M. |
Röyksopp |
| 16 |
Debut |
Björk |
| 17 |
Play |
Moby |
| 18 |
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness |
The Smashing Pumpkins |
| 19 |
Funeral |
The Arcade Fire |
| 20 |
Twin Cinema |
The New Pornographers |
| 21 |
Picaresque |
The Decemberists |
| 22 |
The Madcap Laughs |
Syd Barrett |
| 23 |
Riot on an Empty Street |
Kings of Convenience |
| 24 |
I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning |
Bright Eyes |
| 25 |
Left and Leaving |
The Weakerthans |
| 26 |
Illinois |
Sufjan Stevens |
| 27 |
Give Up |
The Postal Service |
| 28 |
Cosmo’s Factory |
Creedence Clearwater Revival |
| 29 |
Bad |
Michael Jackson |
| 30 |
Revolver |
The Beatles |
| 31 |
The Dark Side of the Moon |
Pink Floyd |
(Yes, I started at the bottom. Yes, I got lazy. I still urge you to buy all the music we’re gonna be listening to, as it’s all worth your whiles.)
Next year, we’ll double the amount of music and do something for charity. Insanity for Charity© ;)
I’m a lover of music. I buy my albums, cherish them and put them neatly onto my shelves. I buy the “special” editions because I get more music (for, admittedly, more money, but I can take the hit). I make sure I rip them properly to my hard-disc, that it’s all tagged properly and that I can go through my complete collection easily. I listen to that music a lot. It’s why I bought an iPod back in August last year.
When you live in the Netherlands, you’re used to some crazy stuff. Drugs legislation is an easy one, but there’s a lot more. It amazes people every single day, those from abroad and those who’ve been here for as long as they live. “Terrorists” are a Dutchman’s worst fear, but in most cases the government takes the cake. I guess I’m okay with living here.
Sometimes, stuff happens. People get together, forge insanity, sharpen it with media attention and stab right through my heart and that of many others. It will not necessarily be new to you—I recall myself ranting about this to a select few some months back—but apparently some Dutch society of music rights protection (mind you, this is not the official Buma/Stemra) got a plan through to throw many euros of tax over MP3 players. This can be as pricey as € 25 over the price of my 20GB iPod (and even more on the new 30GB and 60GB versions!). The money goes to this crowd of bright minds.
It is on moments like this that I shake my head in despair. I paid a lot of money to get my music. Many people do the same and may want an iPod just as well. I guess you can fill in the lines. What’s the next prey? Hard-discs? Of a terabyte? Thank you, so-called “music rights protector”, and good bye.
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