Meta Meta Etc., Joe

In his piece about being a Deadhead in his late 30s, Steven Hyden had this to say about your relationship with music as you grow older:

Getting into the Dead replicates the feeling I had as a kid learning about music for the first time, when all artists were new and classic albums I had never heard were blowing my mind every day. Once you reach a certain age, it’s impossible to feel that way again, which is why so many people drift away from discovery in middle age and stick with the music they know.

If that's true, then Record Club is a conscious pushback against that inevitability. I don't want to just "stick with the music I know." That's boring to me. And so what if the new music I'm listening to isn't blowing my mind? I can just relax and put on something that's mildly enjoyable, and every once in a while, maybe I'll be surprised to find how much I'm digging something. That's good enough for me these days. Honestly.

Meta Meta Etc.? Yeah, it's good enough. It sounds like someone took the Unicorns/Islands and ran them through the 104.5 FM meat grinder. "I got some Foster the People in your Beck," and "I got some Beck in your Foster the People," and so on. Mostly it just sounds like two guys fucking around in a recording studio.

Despite the unfairness of reducing it to that, it pretty much is just that—two dudes from Toms River, having fun making music, and not really caring all that much about success, not really taking any of this seriously. Why should I take it seriously then? It's easier to just sit back and enjoy it for what it is, and not really worry. It's summer. Who the fuck cares?

If literally my only reaction to Brick + Mortar was "who the fuck cares," then maybe we'd have a problem. But there are some moments here that truly make me sit up and take notice. Not close to the aforementioned "mind blowing," but good enough that it transcends the "who the fuck cares" of it all.

"Hate Thy Neighbor" is one of those moments, a closing track that leaves you wanting more. "Tear Me Apart" is a dance tune that makes me believe Sean when he said that B+M's live show was raucous fun.

But then there are other tracks that are extremely forgettable. "Fiend" has that kind of annoying vocal manipulation sprinkled into a very bored and boring performance. "Original Sin" is what I imagine Twenty-One Pilots would sound like if I ever listened to a single second of Twenty-One Pilots. A few songs have a weird thread of hip-hop influence that seems wildly out of place. And what's up with that opening track? At least when Chubby did this, the preacher shitting on music. What does TV have to do with any of this?

I don't care. Who the fuck cares? I don't care. I'm relaxing by the pool. This is fine. It's good enough that I'm not going to stop trying to find new music. It's not mind-blowing, but I don't need mind-blowing. I'm certainly not like Pam, calling it "embarrassing." I don't believe that. This is pretty good. I'm not embarrassed. This is good enough. I'm fine. I'm good. I'm getting older. This is fine.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5