Stephen's "Worth Listening To" blog

Yours uses your username though I was copying Alan because I used my real name.

Website (All songs available for streaming in top left corner)

Major Parkinson are in a way a relic of a bygone era, when I used to check every day for new releases on the sidebar of the home page, check samples and buy the album if it interested me. (These days I am too far behind on my wishlist to help it grow in such a way!)

At the time, Major Parkinson was streaming their entire first album on their website, and so the first track I heard was "Bicycle". I think I was about halfway through it by the time I was browsing their website madly for a way to purchase the music ... at that time, it wasn't available at any of the north american distributors I used, other than iTunes, but I wanted the CDs so I got in touch with Lars and he was able to sell me both of their albums. It cost a bit more than it would have had I waited a while for the band to eventually reach our shores (I've since seen their albums on the American amazon page) but I consider it a net gain given the enjoyment I've gotten from the albums.

ANYWAYS, I listened to their second album, Songs From a Solitary Home, for the first time in the week leading up to Christmas. I remember how quickly the music struck me - how the subtle drumbeats and the sweet-sounding guitars of the opening track, Ecophobia,  lead perfectly into the stunning, deep vocal delivery. A very pretty song about loss that has just the right amount of space between the instruments to let your heart fill in the cracks and be taken along for the journey.

This is no way prepared me for the journey that would follow, Major Parkinson are a very multifaceted band - especially on Songs from a Solitary Home - but what ties their music together are the instantly recognisable melodies that will embed themselves in the depth of your mind for months after listening. They are incredibly catchy and most of their tracks are high energy and in your face. There are only a few tracks on Songs From A Solitary Home that could be described as being relatively mellow; the aforementioned opener, the closer, and Card Boxes which is roughly in the middle of the album. The band knows that you need to be eased in at the beginning, catch your breath from all the dancing and headbanging halfway, and then eased back out at the end.

Thus far, by my descriptions, Major Parkinson must sound an awful lot like a pop band (and I personally think that they should be an incredibly successful pop band), but the band has an off kilter, almost avant-garde feel to their music that married with some great chops and varied songwriting they are more than master songsmiths. Their music explores a variety of different sounds, and is deep enough that after many listens there are still little nuggest to discover. 

As an example: my wifes favorite track off of Songs was Dance With the Cookieman, a twisted love song (or something along those lines anyways, I'm still not sure), and after the first line has been sung, the singer changes style and sings in a more high-pitched, semi-raspy voice. What I didn't notice for quite some was that, low in the mix, there was a second voice singing in a very deeply. The song always had a sinister edge, but when I noticed the second voice for the first time (which must have been on my 15th or 16th listen), it sent shivers down my spine.

(Sadly the track is not available on youtube, but you can check it out on the bands website!)

What kept me returning to Solitary Home was that it was one of those albums where, at one point or another, almost every track became a favorite. At first I was returning for Ecophobia, then Dance With the Cookie Man, but then suddenly I was in love with the accordion-lead Heart of Hickory and it's haunting chorus (ooooh, come and get your butcher knife, ooooh, open up my heart and make me happy, oooooh, come and get your butcher knife) or it's mysterious lyrics (It's a habit to be hip, like a donkey with a whip, or an epileptic pantomime). Next time, I couldn't wait until the ragtime-y Downtown Boogie started. And so on...

In the end, Songs From a Solitary Home topped my album of the year list for 2010, and I listened to it pretty consistently for over a month. I remember putting it on to energise me and keep me focussed during game making marathons in my living room with my roommates. Such was my love for the album that I was almost afraid to listen to the bands debut album, Major Parkinson. But finally, sometime in the second half of January when I was finally starting to listen to Songs From a Solitary Home less, I gave the debut its first spin. It didn't take long before I realised that Major Parkinson were far from a one trick pony; and while their debut was less exploratory in terms of styles and sounds than the second, it showed that they had been stellar songwriters from the very beginning. It didn't take long before I was loving the first album as much as the second. I even ended up listening to Songs more again after I started listening to their self titled.

As I implied above, the debut was more straightforward sound wise, making less use of the odd instruments (like accordian) that had been used on the second album and relying more on guitars, so the songs on it don't stand out quite as much as on the Songs. But there is not a bad song on the album, anywhere. Bicycle sounded as good to me when I heard it again as it had the first time on the bands website, over 2 months prior. The thick, chunky bass in Bazooka Mirror made the song heavy and unforgettable. 

Once again, I was falling in love with the album one song at a time, first loving the sleaze of Casanova  (I'm on the front page of a dirty magazine, Mr. January pumping kerosene, can't you see my face, it's a lie?  Close the curtain, flip the switch, make me happy, baby you're a bitch, turn me on, turn me on, tonight. Casanova, do you love her, do you really think that you will find the bit of self esteem to push between her legs and make her happy like you used to do?) and the music that just didn't seem to be able to contain the stream of words, yet the words which flowed perfectly despite the changing meter. And the song, despite it's sleaze, had a nostalgic, sorrowful tone to it as well.

Next, it was Death In The Candy Store, a song about loving our children by spending money on them (Love me, love me, I am just a little boy, give me soda pop and toys), which gets heavy and dark and catchy in the way that Major Parkinson had somehow already perfected with this debut.

For a short while there, I grew obsessed with the song I Am Erica, which has three melodies that could have been a hit song on their own but is paired with an angular, odd flavor of perversion and darkness. The songs strength isn't just in the melodies - if the flow weren't absolutely perfect, I don't think it would have caught my ear the way it did, but the various themes flow into each in a way that maximises the punch of each change. 

Some months later, my roommates had moved out and my pet cat of 17 years passed away. I remember at this time, the song Ecophobia gained new meaning (along with Devin Townsends The Death of Music). As she wasted away and afterwards, the lines:

"I've strolled through night

trying to subside into something that's real

but home is still unfamiliar"

grew deeper in meaning to me and helped me deal with my pain.

 

Btw, great blog, Gazza! Will definitely follow this space in the future