Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (2011)
Even slower than my listening series is the ongoing family series I do with my wife and two sons where we each name an album from a year for the others to play - we've been doing this for several years starting at 1965 and we're finally up to the past decade. You can guess what albums I'll often choose. My wife goes a bit more pop/mainstream (her 2011 choice was Adele's
21).
My sons' picks though are always intriguing - my 20 yo often will choose a hip hop album, one of his favorite genres. Over the past year though, my 17 yo son has developed some fascinating tastes for a 17 yo. He loves Vampire Weekend ( I don't think any of the kids in his school enjoy them). He often debates with me how the Strokes debut is better than The White Stripes'
Elephant (he's wrong but we won't get into that
). He has very strong Radiohead opinions (loves
OK Computer but thinks
Kid A is overrated). For his 2011, pick he decided to pick this Fleet Foxes album because he liked their first album when it came up in our series.
Again, I don't know what 17 yo today knows Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend much less can discuss them (yes he loves classics too like
Abbey Road and, of course, Springsteen), but I guess being the youngest in a family that includes me and his older brother has led him to explore some fascinating directions
My opinion of this one hasn't changed too much from its release - don't find it as exciting as their debut, but nice revisiting it again (not sure if I picked up the CSN type harmony vibe years ago when I last listened - but getting a lot of that on "The Plains/Bitter Dancer" which is spinning now)
The wizardry of the Decca studio, not known for jazz, brings a luminous clarity to these electrifying sides. George Russell assembled this sextet from a group of Indiana University students he was teaching at Lenox School of Jazz:
on the Sam-O-Meter. Grab it while you can.
