neurological dryer lint

 pearl jam - live at benaroya hall





my disparaging (indifference, really) of public libraries ended this weekend. a glorious heap of content, DRM free and ripe for the taking!

(however - filter said 'heap' with things i will actually enjoy listening to / watching, and you're not left with a lot, unfortunately... the library won't replace netflix anytime soon)

i did grab pearl jam's live acoustic double-disc album, one i'd been meaning to check out for a while, since staring at the brown-wrapped stacks of live bootlegs at record stores, trying to decide if one of them would be worth the purchase price.

live at benaroya hall certainly was (being free), but on top of that i found the intimate, mellow atmosphere of the disc refreshing. would have been a great show to see in person... a good setlist of much of their catalog, and some tasty covers of
the ramones' i believe in miracles and dylan's masters of war.

 arcade fire - neon bible





i approached this disc with a certain amount of skepticism - primarily due to the fanatical hype from the blogosphere surrounding it. a little dose of the old "if that many people love it doesn't it have to suck?"

i can say that there aren't many cases where i would be doing something and i would think, "neon bible would be the perfect thing to listen to right now". that's also true for revolver, the joshua tree, thriller, highway 61 revisted, ok computer, etc... which is to say that this is a powerful collection of music, brilliantly written and produced. there's a sort of tears-for-fears/springsteen/pumpkins vibe throughout most of it, falling into a genre i don't normally frequent...

i don't know. there is something irresistible about the disc, tough to categorize, effortless to enjoy. it's a comforting listen, unless i'm sitting in traffic, at which point it becomes pretty annoying. really the only stuff i didn't like was where it started to take itself too seriously (i.e. intervention)... the rest of the time, it's a great disc, and i'm glad i gave it a chance.