I want to shine

Okay, so since this was my favorite album of the year, and since I totally flaked on the deal that got me the album in the first place, here is my attempt at an album review. I'm sure it'll be even worse than my movie reviews. I don't like to review things; I like to highlight or detract from specific pieces of the thing. Anyway.

I don't remember when I got it, this summer, I think, and I only listened to it a few times before putting it aside for something else, and I was like, "Yeah, I like it, Amy Ray, wee," the end. I don't know. But when Carlos and I went to Florida, we were stuck without any music to listen to, because we don't travel with CDs, and I didn't have any of my iPod equipment to play it through the car, so we actually bought CDs, and since I hate stealing, I actually purchased Amy Ray's album, and we listened to it and five other discs for the whole four days, and I started to totally, totally love it. It crept past Alanis in the final days of 2008, and so it is now my favorite album of the year.

It's weird, too, because I usually prefer Emily's songs when we're talking Indigo Girls, and maybe Brandi Carlile's backing vocals had something to do with it, but I love almost every song on this album (even those she doesn't sing on, yes), with the possible exception of "Birds of a Feather." That one just falls epically flat for me. Right off the bat, I loved "Cold Shoulder" and "Who Sold the Gun," without really listening to the lyrics. The lyrics of "Who Sold the Gun" are a little...I don't know--unoriginal somehow, but I love to sing along with that one in the shower. Then, in Florida, "Stand and Deliver" started to get to me, and that was definitely partly caused by Brandi Carlile's voice, so now I also sing that one in the shower.

I like "SLC Radio" sometimes and not others, depending on my mood. Either way, I like that Amy is calling out the Mormons, kind of. I am so frickin' fed up with Mormons these days. Which reminds me, there was this girl on my plane from Baltimore to Manchester who was flying home from Salt Lake City, and some other woman was also coming from there, and she asked the girl where she went to school, and the girl said, "BYU," and I immediately groaned and cursed the fact that we were totally not at the appropriate altitude to use electronic devices, because then the girl started talking about how she was so blessed to attend BYU, and blah blah, and then she wouldn't shut up. Like, about anything, her mom, her pets, whatever. And for the most part, Mormon people seem generally, like, doofy and kind, which should be like the least inoffensive thing ever, I guess, but oh my god, people like that, who are just so shiningly wholesome make me want to kill myself. And then they also hate gay people, so there's that.

Ahem. Anyway, I really liked Didn't It Feel Kinder--it's not anything original or innovative or whatever. The songs are rock-ish-er than the Indigo Girls' stuff, but they're just as easy to listen to. And I dig them.

Woof, that was awful. I'm no good at discussing why I like music or not. Guess I won't be sending Rolling Stone my resume.