#28: “Her Majesty The Decemberists” by The Decemberists

Album: Her Majesty The Decemberists
Artist: The Decemberists
Genre: Indie Rock
Year: 2003

I would feel guilty if I went right into this discussion without admitting that I slightly rigged the code that “randomly” chose this as my first album to listen to. Feeling slightly intimidated by the breadth of the genres that I’m committing to listen to (see here for the list), I tweaked my code so that the first album I was given would be from my familiar “Indie Rock” genre. Getting an album by the Decemberists was a pretty good starting point, as I’m only moderately familiar with the group’s music. I’m a huge fan of their 2009 rock opera “The Hazards of Love” but had a very tepid reaction when I listened to NPR’s free stream of their latest album, “The King is Dead.” 

With the appropriately titled first track on “Her Majesty the Decemberists,” a soundscape of dissonant violins, percussion, and screams launches into a folky accordion-driven “Shanty for the Arethusa.” From such a distinctive stylistic choice to open the album, the group proceeds to freely flow between equally distinctive styles, from the country-influenced “The Gymnast, High Above Ground” to tracks like “Billy Liar” which sounds like a tune penned by Lenka, or “The Bachelor and the Bride,” which sounds like it could have just as easily been on a Death Cab for Cutie album.

Through the eclecticism of all these styles, one constant seems to tie the album together: a bizarre sort of unrestrained joy. WIth the exception of the album’s two shanties, the second being “The Chimbley Sweep,” all of the songs are in a major key (or eventually end up there), with sparkling instrumentation like plinking glockenspiels, shining horn sections, bright acoustic guitar, and even a brief melodica solo. Even the minor “Chimbley Sweep” sounds like a raucous celebration taking place through the streets of a movie-musical set. 

One of my greatest interests with this album, though, was how the lyrics seem to lie with and yet are set against the music. Lead singer and songwriter Colin Meloy is able to wring a wealth of emotion out of his voice, and yet the variations in his singing between full-out glee and subdued mourning are relatively subtle. Rather than arising from superficial melodrama, the emotion behind his voice seems to come from a truly deep place within himself. A song such as “Red Right Ankle” that among other artists might have been sung with the sorrowful voice of a jilted lover:

This is the story of your red right ankle
And how it came to meet your leg…
…And whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb 

instead is treated with a level of narrative distance, and somehow, this removal allows the narrative of the song to sound much more realistic, universal, and heartbreaking. Another beautiful example is “The Bachelor and the Bride,” which begins with the lyrics

There’s a wrinkle in the water
Where we laid our first daughter
And I think the wind blows so sweetly there

These words sound apt for a down-tempo, grievous ballad. Instead, the song is uptempo and driving. As a result, Meloy is not mournful, but instead sounding quietly angry, sour, and suddenly the song gains many more layers of complexity.

While “Her Majesty the Decemberists” may not actualize the seafaring mood that its opening track promises, it certainly provides the listener with a journey through rising and falling waves of moods and music. It has high-energy tracks like “Song for Myla Goldberg,” resting on Barenaked Ladies-style pop sensibilities, and quieter moments like “I Was Meant for the Stage,” an extended acoustic ballad that sounds like a rejected number from “A Chorus Line”; the tune “Soldering Life” even plays back and forth between these two sonic ends. Through all of these dynamic shifts, however, the album wraps the listener with harmonies that are comfortable but not cliche, and serves them dangerously tuneful melodies placed over arrangements that make the whole affair come off as one giant family celebration. While not containing the same excitement that “Hazards of Love“‘s conceptual continuity provides, “Her Majesty the Decemberists” certainly fulfills its contract of providing the listener with an experience that is be well-worth their forty minutes of time.

Favorite Tracks: ”Song for Myla Goldberg”, “Red Right Ankle”, “The Chimbley Sweep”

Listen & Download: Her Majesty The Decemberists

1 year ago  #indie rock #the decemberists 

About this Blog

The Long and Short of It (mostly short)

I am going to embark on an epic musical voyage, listening to a ridiculous number of albums, and then writing about them here.

The Point of it All

There are a lot of reasons that I was inspired to do this project, all of them sounding dangerously overused and simplistic: I want to expand my musical horizons; I want to improve my critical thinking and analysis of music; I want to push my writing to its limits, etc. All of these and more are true, but I am also doing this because I think it will be very challenging and very fun. So hopefully by the end of this project, I will be a more educated music listener, a better writer, and a happier person. Sweet deal, right?

So, about that music…

Right. The basic plan is grounded in a Reddit thread where users compiled a list of the essential albums for every genre imaginable, and a few that are actually kind of hard to imagine. I spanned this thread and its thousands of comments, and using a horribly complicated system* ended up with a list of 225 albums in 39 genres. Some are among my favorite albums of all time, some I fear even approaching. But approach them all, I must.

The main focus of this blog will be an account of my journey, traversing this list of 225 albums in a random order (as chosen by an impartial computer) at a rate of at least one album a week, hopefully more. Hopefully, I will recount a tale of growth, exploration, and discovery on these very pages. Or, alternatively, I could regress into a caricatured version of hipster kitty. Either way, it should be pretty exciting.

In addition, I have an ever-growing list of albums that I’ve been meaning to get around to hearing, which I plan to report on as “interludes” to the main list, and I will probably also take advantage of my music subscription and listen to new albums as they are released.

Are you reviewing these albums, or what?

Well, not reviewing so much as simply discussing. Considering that these albums were voted by the Reddit zeitgeist as “essential,” it’d be pretty pretentious to decide whether they are inherently good music or not. Instead, I want to try to look at each album both objectively, and through the lens of my personal tastes and opinions, and think about why it works, what the appeal and draw of it is. I’m more interested in thinking critically and less about being critical. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

When does this all start, good sir?

Soon my friend, very soon.

*Horribly complicated system: Generally, I used an “above the break” system. For genres that were “above” the major comment break, I took all albums that had >30 karma. For genres “below” the major comment break, I generally took albums that had >15 karma, with some exceptions. It’s pretty arbitrary, to be sure, but led to a pretty nice mixture of genres.

1 year ago