Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Song of the Day: Badly Drawn Boy - Once Around the Block

I was completely and utterly obsessed with The Hour of Bewilderbeast when it came out. Shortly thereafter, I visited London and felt a connection to the album that was even beyond what I had originally experienced, and it remains one of my favorite albums of all time. Sadly, the album may also represent the biggest shock to the system in regards to everything that came after it; that is, if Bewilderbeast is a 10.0 to me (in the parlance of Pitchfork), Have You Fed the Fish? is probably a 6.0, and everything after is sub 4.0. I can't really put my finger on why his debut is that much better; sure, the songs are probably superior, but there is an innocence and an experimentation happening there that's largely absent from the later records.

Take today's song of the day, "Once Around the Block." There are three guitars, multi-tracked harmonies and vibraphone (I think), yet it still engenders a home recording feel to it. To paraphrase a lyric from the song, I wish Badly Drawn boy could take a left, a sharp left and another left, and return to making albums of this quality.

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