The New Pornographers - Challengers

THE BAD ARTS IS LIVE BLOGGING.

First (kind of) impressions.



My rights versus Yours.
Okay, it is sounding okay here. Promising. It sounds like the New Pornographers without sounding exactly like every other Carl A.C. Newman song. Strong opener, TNPs!

Fade to.....
All the Old Showstoppers.
Twangy opening strings.
Okay, and then the melody. Kind of sounds like, oh, another NPs song. Which one? I can't remember, because they all kind of sound the same.

The twangy guitaring is good. It's not that this song is bad. I just feel like I have heard it before.

Halfway through the song, I'm a little bored.

The New Pornographers like to end their songs with repetition of words/melody. That's okay. They also like to repeat songs. :(

Challengers.
Oooh, the title track. A little melancholy right away -- ooh, I knew Neko was going to be the main singer. She always is on the slow songs. Which is fine. She has a lovely voice. I've loved her for over seven years and, in fact, it was my love of Neko which first made me buy Mass Romantic which still stands as my favorite of all of the NPs albums.

I'm just sayin'.

This is a pretty little ditty. Nothing earth-shattering, but pretty.

Myriad Harbour.
Immediately, I hear Destroyer. Oh, Dan Bejar, I love you. You sound like you without re-writing the same song over and over again.

I love Dan's voice.

I love his songwriting.

All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth.
First impression? I HAVE HEARD THIS SONG BEFORE.
I'm kind of bored. Though, it could just be the fact that I am tired.

Failsafe.
Another Neko track. This sounds kind of like Neko singing for the Magnetic Fields circa 1990. While I like Neko and I like the Magnetic Fields (esp. circa 1999), I don't know. It's not as boring as the previous song, but it's just okay.

Unguided.
Maybe it's Carl's A.C.'s voice. It used to not bug me, but now it kind of does. I'm not sure why. One would THINK that Dan would have the more annoying voice (if one were not me), but no... I don't think that Carl A.C. is a bad singer; I just don't like his voice very much.

And again, I feel like I have heard this song before.

Oh, and now Neko chimes in. I don't know.

Is it my mood? I like 'doot doot doots' in songs, but I'm really really bored. Or tired. As previously stated.

Entering White Cecilia.
Enter Dan again, to make things interesting.

I am just going to listen and enjoy this one. No blogging. Unless something stands out.

(Oh, it's drifting a little into Carl A.C. Newman territory towards the end. Yikes!!)

Go Places.
A promising first twenty seconds of instrumental.
A Neko song!
This song could......go places.

1:52 in and I still like it.
This actually sounds different than the other Carl A.C. Newman songs.

Okay, so this one is a winner. It's not overly exciting, but it was solid. And not quite the same.

Mutiny, I Promise You.
I like the title!
But, again, it's so same-y.

Immediately, one is hit with the same-y-ness of this song. It's so obvious a Carl A.C. Newman song. :/

I'm not saying that these don't make me bop my head or tap my fingers or swing my leg (I am, after all, sitting at work and can easily swing one leg)...it's just that I expect something different every New Pornographers album, and I keep ending up disappointed because it kind of just sounds the same.

Sometimes, bands progress too much, and other times they don't progress enough. Rare is the band that can keep their sound without sounding the same all the time (hats off to you, Spoon!). The New Pornographers is not one of those bands.

See? I'm so bored that I am writing about other things instead of the song. It just sounds the same.

(Pause for coffee break!)

Adventures In Solitude.
Again, I like the title. Probably because I have a lot of adventures in solitude myself. I'm a solitary kind of girl a lot of times.

Immediately, I like this song. I am not sure why. Combination of title, tempo, instrumental, vocals, probably. I never quite know why I like some things and dislike others. Things just hit or they do not.

This one is sounding good.

It hits about 2:30 in.

This might be the best Carl A.C. Newman song on the album. He always has a couple of winners on each album, which is probably what keeps me coming back. Well, that and knowing that I will hear at least one or two Dan Bejar songs that are not on Destroyer albums....

The Spirit of Giving.
A remake of a Destroyer song.

Good stuff.


Overall thoughts:
Challengers is kind of the same as Electric Version and Twin Cinema. I keep buying these albums, hoping for something different, and get a few good Dan songs and a few good Carl A.C. Newman songs, with a bunch of other songs that all sound exactly the same. While, overall, not a terrible album, it probably will not be on heavy repeat.


Other thoughts:
I went on a CD buying binge last night. For the first time in years. Maybe I'll shake the dust off this blog yet...!