Sound Inspiration: Is a Real Boy

I’m not a music critic. The closest I’ve come to making music was a music teacher telling me I had perfect hands for Cello. I told my parents and they were smart enough to sign me up for Spanish class instead. I hate criticizing. I find the more I criticize, the less I create. With that being said, I will throw my two cents of no sense into the musical wishing well. I want to give you a prompt to possibly find inspiration to write from. I want you to listen to an album all the way through, by yourself or with a friend. Dancing is optional but encouraged.

I read an anecdote about David Foster Wallace where he walked into a class and put on a record and told the students that he had just discovered something they all needed to listen to. That album was Nevermind by Nirvana and it had come out seven years prior to his statement. I will be completely honest, up until a few years ago I still bought CD’s. I empathize with people struggling to keep up with things. I still had a jewel case in my car and I looked forward to cross country road trips with the slough of albums I had. I had an assortment from Christina Aguilera to Black Flag.  I love the experience of going through an album from beginning to end. I find myself annoyed with people that skip through a song every 40 seconds. I tend to follow the unwritten law of seeing a song through.

I’m always looking for music people are listening to outside of what’s on the radio. I enjoy listening to music people really love. Something they are guilty about. I always thought it was odd to feel guilty about music, of all the things to feel shame about in the world. I find one of my favorite things about being alive is listening to a song someone else loves and feeling more connected to them. Even if I don’t particularly like the song. I found inspiration from my fellow Floodmarkers as Vernon wrote a post about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Alyssa wrote about Daughter, I will write about Say Anything. 

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I picked this album because I’ve found myself able to relate to the words of Max Bemis for years. I find this album to be a testament to who he is as a person and the making of it is actually something I think everyone should do their research on.

The prompt for this is to listen to an album and I chose one of my all-time favorites, Is A Real Boy from start to finish. Here are some things I found myself particularly drawn to.

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1. I listened to it from beginning to end and found myself comparing it to when I first listened to it and how I’ve listened to it now. Life experience tends to change how words are perceived. One of the songs on the record, “Alive with the Glory of Love” is about his grandparents making it through the holocaust and how their love was the strength they found. 
2. Every song has a bit of dark twisted wit to it.  One of my favorites is, “Every Man Has a Molly,” I could listen to this song over and over and still laugh my ass off. It’s very relatable for anyone who has gone through a break up or some form of rejection and took it too seriously (everyone).
3. I found it easier to think after turning myself into an audience member. Listening to what others have to say centers me. I can think myself into circles and never really get anywhere. Music bursts that bubble. 

Your prompt is to find an album and listen to it all the way through and find some introspection. I listened to this album all the way through. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have done so and I find something every time. Sometimes it’s an old feeling, an old emotion, something that has been burning for a while that needed the heat turned up. Sometimes all we need is the words of others to accept who we are as individuals.