Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Lucky by Nada Surf...


Lucky, out yesterday, is an album by Brooklynites: Nada Surf. Three guys with a sound I can't quite explain. It sounds like young Tom Petty, but the lyrics are so real and open and conversationally poetic. I haven't yet, but I suspect if I scratch a little deeper it might be quite insightful. I think Guster, and The Samples, and yet neither of them. I'm stumped but interested. Maybe, just maybe...they sound like Nada Surf. Oh, and get this...I love it: They harmonize. Check it out.

http://www.myspace.com/nadasurf
Songs I dig off the album:

-The last minute of "See these bones". I feel like running out into the 12" of white fluff falling outside right now, stretching my arms out as far as I can, opening my mouth to catch snowflakes and spinning until I drop into snow-angels. Yep. Really. (I also wish my bones were showing, it’s all winter chub right now)

- "Here goes something" feels like an early Beatles song. You can't help swaying and smiling with apathy. I tried stomping with high-knees...it didn’t work. Stick to sway.

-"Weightless" sounds perfectly like a melodramatic high school love and angst song."Behind every great desire/is another one/waiting to be liberated/when the first one's sated". Um...words cannot articulate my equal agreement and disdainful understanding of that line.

-"From Now on" is a great running, 80's dancing song. "You have to invent what you lack". This song is hidden poetry when you take time to really listen to the thoughts and admissions behind the words. Oh, the game of power in giving up and giving in with relationships. Who doesn't say those three words and try to see things differently.

And of course....
The sad, folksy, Irish-forlorn sounding song “The film did not go 'round" makes me want to cry. They even made a round sound cool. "Everyone's gotta leave their love sometimes". This song won’t change your world, or strike the match to a burning epiphany...but it does make you think a little.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some snow blowing, spinning, and ponderment waiting for me on the replay of this album. Go easy, go sleazy, or just go be better every day...at something, anything, everything.

I love musical inspiration.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uh...you do know they sang "Popular," years ago, don't you? Amateur.

Lulu said...

That's the spirit. Berate people for discovering good music. I bet Nada Surf would like new listeners! Have a good day asshole.Way to be a fan.

Anonymous said...

When probable random, first time readers think they're cool by referencing the very first hit single by the band,

(which, I will note was an early effort from 1996, and I believe the intent of this blog entry was not to acknowledge their entire discography, but to show the band's musical growth and accomplishment in present state - let alone how their sounds intertwined in dance with her soul)

and then choose to berrate Lulu for not mentioning said song...what can you say, but wow.
I didn't know she was to write a Wikipedia entry on the band.

Clearly, Lulu is familiar with the band's oeuvre much more than you, as you obviously know only their radio hits. In this day and age, the music world (I say more so than "industry") needs more adventurous souls such as hers.

When such lovingly and painstakingly crafted music as Nada Surf's no longer collides with the mass-merchandised consumer's dispoable income AND more disposable interest, but rather is looked upon as a cohesive piece of art in whole...

when bands are not judged in merit by how high their last single charted...

we - as fans of quality music played by real musicians - will all know that monumental chest heave and ears being scorched when sound meets (e)motion and elicits moments within those life-altering time/space continuums that she so eloquently expresses. Hell, I'm gonna go run out in the snow right now. Who's joining me?

Read on, amateur. You've got a lot of Lulu homework ahead of you.