I Will Possess Your Bootleg
May 14th, 2008, 3:11 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Michael
You really have to be careful about what you download on the internet these days.
I’m not talking about contracting viruses or spyware. I’m talking about downloading bad music. Or rather, fake music.
I’ve had two recent frightening brushes with the download era’s only true drawback.
The first, less eggregious instance was last week when the new Coldplay b-side “Heather” had supposedly leaked onto the net. I snatched my copy and sent the link onto a couple close friends.
Five minutes later, I hit play and - to my horror - an old Michael McDonald song started playing. Someone had played a cruel, cruel joke (a bit too close to the “40 Year Old Virgin”) on all of us Coldplay fans frothing at the mouth for new material by uploading a fake track.
About seven years ago, this was a common sabatage by the record industry. Totally inept at dealing with any sort of change, and in over its head as fan after fan downloaded the leaked Jay-Z album weeks before it was scheduled to hit stores, the industry began flooding Napster and other filesharing hosts with fake, renamed tracks. For a few months, you might try to download a Madonna song and end up with Korean parlor music or a 2-second sample of “Like A Virgin” on repeat for 5 minutes. But as Limewire and WinMX slowly died, so did the flood of fakes.
But the worst experience I’ve had yet with downloading music came about a month ago when I downloaded what I thought was the new Death Cab for Cutie album.
I’ve been a fan of the only emo ban of any worth since Transatlanticism in 2003, one of the few classics to be found in modern rock this decade. They followed that with Plans - a major label debut for Atlantic - in 2005 and actually charted a couple hits and scored a Grammy nomination last year for “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.”
So I grabbed my chance to grab the new album a few weeks early, eagerly anticipating what the sound and feel of the new material could be like. For the first few songs, I was enraptured. The single, “I Will Possess Your Heart,” marks new territory for the band. But after that 8-minute skeletal piano jam, it was one piano dirge after another. I gave up (and continued giving up on each repeated play) after the fourth or fifth track when lead singer Ben Gibbard sang about a skater park.
Luckily, I ventured out to buy a physical copy of Narrow Stairs this morning, only to discover a totally different album than I had been listening to for three weeks.
Maybe it’s out of relief, but I’m thrilled with my two initial spins of the real Narrow Stairs.
I have some friends who loved Plans, but it just didn’t feel like the Death Cab I came to love so intimately when I was trapped in my 20 x 30 prison cell of an eighth grade classroom in 2004. It was close, but just a beat off and with too many easy metaphors for me.
But this is the Death Cab for Cutie I really love - full of influences other trendy bands won’t touch (like a love of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours), an abundance of heart and some really great production by guitarist Chris Walla.
Narrow Stairs is one album I can already recommend for your summer. It’s worth the $12 just to have “Grapevine Fires” and “Your New Twin Sized Bed.”
Here’s the stalker anthem and first single “I Will Possess Your Heart.”
And just in case you want to rewind with the band a bit, I’ll give you some older songs.
Here’s “Crooked Teeth.”
And going back even farther, here’s “Title and Registration.”
And just because I want to, I’m including “Transatlanticism,” maybe my favorite song of the last five years.
