A Hit and a Miss

Thursday at work I was doing quite a bit of PowerPointing at my desk so I took the opportunity to try out two more new albums. The first album queued up on WinAmp was Sleater-Kinney's The Woods.

I had heard a lot about Sleater-Kinney but never heard them perform. I kind of felt like they were always a bit of a darling of the Indie music scene and when I noticed that their latest offering made several Best of 2005 lists (Amazon, NPR's All Songs Considered, etc.), I decided to give it a shot.

After about 4 hours of this album playing continuously on repeat I can't say that a single track on the album has stuck with me. Every song sounded the same to me...a sort of generic, noisy rock. Honestly, I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about.

On the other hand, the second album I listened to that afternoon jumped out at me on the first spin. I was singing along to the New Pornographers' The Electric Version before I ever hit the repeat button. In fact, it's still playing on WinAmp tonight as I type.

I discovered the New Pornographers a few months ago when I heard a couple of singles off of their Twin Cinema album on Sirius Satellite Radio's Left of Center channel. I enjoyed Twin Cinema so much I went in search of more material from the back catalog.

I've appreciated this 2003 offering almost as much as I did Twin Cinema (which I'd classify as a Top 10 of 2005 for me). I'm particularly partial to the very singable and infectious pop of the tracks From Blown Speakers, All For Swinging You Around, and Testament to Youth in Verse just to count a few of the many great tunes on this disc.