3 Thoughts on Music

1.  Often people feel a band’s debut album is the best work ever recorded by that band.  For example Fall Out Boy, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, The Academy Is to name a few.  Most people attribute this to the cliche sayings of “they sold out” or “the industry changed them.”  I don’t buy that, not for a second.  The musicians that make those great debut albums are some of the most creative people in the world and aren’t going to change after a few years of success.  My theory is that the sophmore effort is usually viewed as a failure because of time.  It will take a band anywhere from 1-3 years to make that second album, while hey had anywhere from 18-30 to create their first.  Years and years of expierence, thought, effort and passion go into that debut album.  Asking a band to create an equal product in far less time is simply not possible.

2.  As some of you know I have what I like to call a severe case of music OCD.  Mostly due to the program Last.fm (a program EVERY music fan should have), I will never turn off a song before it is over.  Very rarely will I even listen to an album without listening to it in its entirity.  Last.fm tracks my listening history so I can see what I’ve listened to and when.  For example I’ve listened to almost 500 Jimmy Eat World songs in the past 3 months, thats over 5 JEW songs a day.  I think this is very cool, most people probably couldn’t care less.

3.  I am very excited for the Chicago music scene.  Back in the early 2000’s Chicago had the BEST pop-punk scene, the early days of Fall Out Boy and Plain White T’s along with the glory days of Alkaline Trio and Lucky Boys Confusion, as well as smaller groups 504 plan and Knockout.  Now we can look forward to a scene that will be fronted by American Taxi, The Graduate, Powerspace, Empires, and Coventry to name a few.  Awesome.