father john misty
Music is tied to memories in a way few other forms of art can match. We can link our nostalgia to films or shows or books, but there’s something about sound that conjures up distinct feelings and images beyond the mere experience of listening. We can remember watching a movie with our friends, but when we listen to songs, they unroll a whole collection of experiences, jumping from memory to memory.
When this article is printed, I’ll be graduating college in a week, moving on to new things and new music. In honor of all the great memories I’ve had at this university — many tied to my time as a DJ at WMUC — here are a few albums released while I was here that have meant a lot to me. I’m going to keep this to albums I haven’t already reviewed, but some of those I’ve loved are Singles by Future Islands, Familiars by The Antlers, Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens and Foil Deer by Speedy Ortiz.
Animal Joy – Shearwater
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who loves Shearwater. Sure, people like them, but do people love them? I don’t know, but the combination of beautiful orchestration, singer Jonathan Meiburg’s haunting baritone and the lyrics about nature, animals and struggling to survive in a world so far removed from the one humans evolved in hits all the sweet spots of my particular interests. Most of Shearwater’s work is quiet and peaceful, but Animal Joy poured a vibrant, thumping heartbeat into their sound, resulting in some of the most triumphant and life-affirming stuff they’ve ever made. One of my all-time favorite activities is walking in beautiful places while listening to music. There’s nothing that brings up memories of the Lake District in England, the Isle of Skye in Scotland or camping trips in Virginia like this album.
Trouble Will Find Me – The National
It’s no secret among my friends (and the entire radio station) that my love for The National borders on obsessive. Lead singer Matt Berninger’s lyrics, with their combination of vague imagery and concrete, almost blunt expressions of emotions and daily observations, connect with me on a level few pieces of art ever have. This album came out near the end of my semester abroad in Manchester, England — six of the best months of my life. I remember listening to this album while roaming the rainy, foggy streets of London, my headphones protected by a worn umbrella. I’ve listened to this album so many times since then, but I’ve never had a listening experience that so profoundly connected my surroundings, my life situation and the music.
Modern Vampires of the City – Vampire Weekend
I resisted for a long while. Vampire Weekend was one of those bands with a few catchy singles and no substance, a band that symbolized everything I didn’t like about the super-colorful, dumb-joke, ironic hipster culture. So when this album came out in 2013 to rave reviews, I grudgingly listened, preparing to hate it. As you might guess, I didn’t. This album has songs about life and death, songs that question the institutions that have held up your worldview for years, songs about the Palestine-Israel struggle and about love. The album even features a song with the pun-name of “Diane Young.” I was hooked almost immediately and haven’t stopped listening since.
St. Vincent – St. Vincent
St. Vincent, along with Future Islands and LCD Soundsystem, is one of the artists I’ve discovered in college that has rocketed onto my favorites list. I first got into her music with 2011’s Strange Mercy, and then I worked my way backward through her discography. When her self-titled album came out in 2014, it represented a huge transformation from the baroque pop of her earlier work. St. Vincent is danceable and electronic-injected and portrays its creator as some sort of crazed alien-robot overlord. It’s bizarre, but it resulted in one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen.
I Love You, Honeybear – Father John Misty
Father John Misty’s latest dropped just a few months ago, but his combination of distancing irony, earnest love songs and a mix of truly hilarious and emotional lyrics have made this my favorite album of the year so far. You can’t generalize a generation, but it’s safe to say that many of the indie spheres I’ve traveled in have a complicated relationship with irony. Earnestly loving something is (wrongly) associated with the inability to think critically about it; as a result, we don’t typically express real, strong emotions without making fun of ourselves for it. This album might be ironically giving in to love cliches, but it nonetheless comes from a place of genuine emotion and has some of the greatest love songs I’ve ever heard. These are just a small fraction of all the albums and songs that have meant a lot to me over these past four years. Hopefully I’ll keep on listening to new music in the years to come, but there will always be a special air of college around these records, even if I’m listening to them decades from now. Even fun, stupid songs like Smash Mouth’s “All Star” mean a lot to me now. (WMUC played the song for 24 hours straight as an elaborate joke.) College has been incredible, and hopefully if you check out some of these albums, they can be as important for you as they are for me.
