Just One of the Best Albums Ever
here's to Modest Mouse and cornfields and The Lonesome Crowded West
There’s no particular reason I’ve been listening to music from the ‘90s lately, at least not a conscious one I can figure out. I suppose it’s a combination of general malaise towards modern culture while trying to understand what it felt like to be mad at the existence of late capitalism before the internet turned into a big dumb stupid mall. Nonetheless, during my runs along the canal, walks to coffee shops, and writing endless content about this and that and that and this — I’ve been cranking soundtracks by the Mount Rushmore of it’s-the-90s-and-I’m-not-giving-a-fuck-and-can-you-believe-the-world-is-the-way-it-is-god-damnit-what-are-we-doing-man type bands. You know the ones… Pavement, Silver Jews, Sonic Youth, Red House Painters, and, most recently, Modest Mouse. When’s the last time you listened to The Lonesome Crowded West, anyway? Just one of the best albums of all time. A friend of mine recently confirmed: It might’ve been recorded while staring through the misty distance of the Pacific NW, but the album sure does sounds meaningful while driving between Midwestern cornfields as your mind wonders if the road will suddenly end and your car will fall off the edge of the earth. Or maybe that’s just the feeling of any horizon. Or maybe that’s just what it means when you don’t know what it means. Or maybe that’s just what it is, if that’s all there is. Or maybe that’s all it ever was, dreams of something greater lost over an edge, and all the people you knew — they were actors.
Not the internet being a stupid dumb big mall.
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