(100) Days of Soundtrack: #2 – Ought – Sun Coming Down

“What should I be listening to?”

I feel that’s an important question. I’m at least somewhat insulated in what I’m aware of. I want to know what other people recommend. I’ve listened to some awful things. I’ve listened to things I knew I’d hate. I once borrowed Sonic Youth’s “Sister,” earnestly giving it a shot despite Sonic Youth being the worst band I’ve ever seen live. I listened to it twice, even, trying to hear something other than Kim Gordon’s novocaine wails. To no avail. But it was of necessity to give it a proper shot. To know I really did hate it.

So I opened the floor to my friends: recommend me what I should hear. Good or bad, I want to know it.

Album #2 comes from one of our esteemed collaborators, Mr. Jeff Bennett. He gave a couple suggestions so far, and I’m looking forward to getting through them. For the starter, I chose to go for Ought’s Sun Coming Down. In a lot of ways, it was exactly what I wanted to get out of this experiment. In others, well, I don’t know how to feel exactly.

Ought immediately felt over-long. “Men For Miles” should perhaps have been a kilometer. It was hard not to compare it to Blackstar, despite having nothing in common stylistically, due not only to proximity but also to how differently the albums play with a relatively small number of tracks crammed into 40 minutes. Even the best bits of Sun Coming Down feel like they could have been edited for length. The best bits of this sort of snarky indie rock come from incisive commentary succinctly put. In contrast, the wisest concept here, the anodyne niceties rattled off throughout “Beautiful Blue Sky,” representing the mundane nature of everyday small talk, carries on past the point where it can be said to be representative of the blather it mocks. Where Bowie peppers jazz flourishes throughout and layers textured soundscapes, Ought never allows the music to carry the songs anywhere new.

Again, though, this is apples and oranges, because these are fully different albums. The similarities in Ought trend a lot closer to Modest Mouse (in many ways, “Beautiful Blue Sky” may as well be a Brock demo). Other musical connections are more surprising: there is something about the delivery here that feels like Fred Schneider of the B-52s fronting the National. If that sounds damning, it is not intended to be anything more than fact: I would suggest that “Celebration” has more than a few shades of “Rock Lobster,” and lines like ”I’m driving a truck filled with everything” would fit right in with the psychedelic party rock of Schneider’s outfit. It does, however, make the album very hard to focus on. Indeed, the easy favorite here, “Passionate Turn,” stands out for being the most consistently melodic vocal line on the album. It feels like a different band… perhaps it is the most authentic to the band they believe they are throughout the album.

As a music lover, it is actually physically hard to not love something someone thinks I might dig. I put so much stock in the music I love that not loving the music that those I care about are into makes me feel guilty. It’s not that I don’t like to be negative; we all know I relish the opportunity to tear into something. It’s just different when its not a visceral dislike, and when it’s an earnest recommendation. And yet, I expect this to be the case more often than not in this exploration. Either way, it’s an experience. That’s what I’m looking for.

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