Artist: The Walkmen
Title: Wake Up
Date: May 1, 2005
What’s the big deal about higher fidelity recordings anyways? Some of the best recordings I have are in bad quality (some due to technical limitations of the time, and some on purpose). The sound of The Walkmen is not actually old-timey per se, but something about the recording feels that way, and I think it’s the production quality of it. It feels like it’s been run through a tape maybe, and the piano is just gut-wrenching in its reminiscent quality–i.e. quality of sounding like it’s reminiscent of something else. The high points of the song are not the singing–although the singing is great–but the long breaks between the singing, when the closed hi-hats are clapped in time to some imperfect metronome–and especially when the piano comes in with its solos. The slight pause, hesitation really, as it plays its descending notes imparts more emotion than do entire albums by less hacks. If Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone, the album this song is from, is supposed to be merely “well-received” by critics, whereas Bows And Arrows, the followup, is supposed to be “one of the year’s [2004’s] best albums,” holy shit.
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