tealin | The Acquisition of Miserable Music (Reply)

A whole week after it came out, I managed to get ahold of The Decemberists' new CD. I've only just finished listening to it. It ... well, it's good. Of course it's good. But it's so different! The sound is so polished! It's like if a good friend who had an interesting if not the most beautiful face went and had some glamour shots* taken, in which they looked fabulous but not really themselves. Forgive me a bit of animation-related cross-sensory analogy here, but this is the best comparison I've been able to come up with: If their previous stuff sounded like Sword in the Stone looked (kind of raw but with a definite charm and obvious intrinsic quality), The Crane Wife would look like Pocahontas. I mean, it's got background vocals! And so many instruments! I don't know how much of this is due to signing on with a big mainstream label** or if it was just some talented musicians exploring new territory but I, personally, miss the thinner guitar/accordion/violin/piano/bass/idiosyncratic instrument arrangements. It'll probably just take some getting used to. I can't really say too much on the songs at the moment as I've only listened to them once, but while they are well-written and evocative, they aren't as whimsically narrative or posessive of the dramatic highs and lows (and lows, and lows, and then more lows) of Picaresque. I guess it's what you're into ... As for me, I'm sticking by my Eli.

*You know, where they slap on the makeup and take softly-lit photos with a gauze filter...
**Be it the label saying 'sound like this,' or them thinking 'we should sound more like that' without the label saying anything.

I have been waiting four years for this CD. Ever since hearing 'Dreary, Dreary' on the Miserable Mill audiobook (my introduction to the Snicketverse) I have hoped against hope that they'd release a CD of all the audiobook songs, and lo! It is now in my posession. I knew it was coming out today but had little hope of actually finding it anywhere – surprisingly enough I actually got it at the first place I went looking for The Crane Wife (where the latter was sold out). I walked into the CD section and, surreally, 'When You Play The Violin' came on the store's music loop. I had no idea what section it would be shelved under – Kids? Electronic? Rock? Audio books? – so I pointed at the speakers and asked the guy at the counter 'where can I find that?' and he pointed me to the New Releases shelf. Duh. Anyway. It's great to have all the songs on one disc, especially the ones belonging to audiobooks that the city's library system only had on tape so I couldn't rip them off the CD¹, and in uninterrupted wholes where the verses are not cut up and placed at the beginning or end of each disc/tape. On this CD you can find both verses of 'Crows', previously only available on the tape because the CD only had verse one; the previously unheard song that is actually remotely related to The Carnivorous Carnival and the song that was on the Carnivorous Carnival audio book; and a pristine version of 'Scream and Run Away' in all its glory, especially valuable since the .ram disappeared off the official HarperCollins site. There's also the song for The End but I'm not listening to that until I read the book, thank you very much!

The odd thing is that in most cases these are not the original versions of the songs. The words are the same, and of course the melodies are the same, and for the most part the arrangements have the same basic core, but many of them have had a few new instrumental tracks added or some sort of mildly distracting reverb filter. This really threw me the first time, especially on my favourites 'Dreary, Dreary' and 'Crows' which had had a fairly barren accompaniment on the audiobooks, but the more I listen to the CD the more the shock wears off and I kind of like them. I'm wondering if perhaps HarperCollins retains the rights to the versions on the audiobooks so they had to record new ones or modify the recordings they had... I have made up a story for what happened to 'Violin' though. Most of the songs have a richer sound than their audiobook counterparts² but 'Violin' is more tinny than the original. According to me: HarperCollins wouldn't let them use the version recorded for The Austere Academy, and unlike all the others, neither Stephin Merritt nor Daniel Handler had a master or a recording in any format that was readily editable. Mr Handler did, however, have a tape or something (which, for some reason, um ... wasn't ... useable ...) so he played it over the phone to Mr Merritt, who recorded it off the phone, then they went in and threw a couple tinkly percussion tracks over it and tacked on an improvised coda in the studio when they re-recorded everything else. Or maybe they just ran it through a telephone filter for some reason known only to them.

And I still say I've read a poem that is at the very least extremely like the Mushroom song. But where? Argh!
¹Another reason to buy the CD: ethical debt
²... or than the mono MP3s I recorded off them ... heh ...

It's odd that I should collect both these CDs on the same day. When I first heard The Decemberists, they reminded me a bit of the Gothic Archies with their whimsical lyrics and odd instrumentation, though of course the lead singers couldn't be more different – a former roommate once described Stephin Merritt's singing style as 'Leonard Cohen but with less energy,' while Colin Meloy is ... not. But still, complementary and contrasting. A musically gifted day.