This is Joe K***, roving reporter for the newest addition of the McD***** Family Newsletter, Vol. XLI, Issue 15. As is usually the case—and has been for this newsletter since I took over as editor-in-chief for the Randal-from-Clerks-sounding Anthony C. in the spring of 2010—I am here to present my weekly update in the form of an album review. A lifetime of being part of a new family through marriage, as seen through the lens of music criticism. Being part of this new (to me, back then) family has afforded me the opportunity to see it evolve and grow. This has been true in general over the course of sixteen years (and counting) and it has been true specifically during the annual weeklong family vacations. At one point, it felt like there was nonstop drama. This week, so far, has been calm. I think this is a good thing. There is marked improvement in that fact. I think the 51 weeks in between vacation weeks each year do us good. There is inevitably, during that period, ample time to reflect on what the drama was the previous year, what went wrong, what it means to come to grips with our own shortcomings, and how we can be better versions of ourselves as the years slowly unravel.
It also means that it's less exciting, if I'm being honest with myself. It's easy to say as the person who acts more as an observer than as an active participant in drama (most of the time, with plenty of exceptions, sure), but it's true. This week so far (we're about halfway done as of the typing of this paragraph) has been calm like the bay, with no waves. It's relaxing, but there will be much less to talk about. Everyone's growing older, I think. The little kids aren't so little anymore, and while there is still squabbling among siblings, it's tamer. The middle generation are all late 30s and early 40s, and we're all fucking exhausted all the time and not really in the mood for hijinks of any sort. The grandparents are... I dunno, I guess they are getting older too, and don't really care enough to worry about any pettiness anymore. We played Apples to Apples the other night, all of us. My nephew flipped out because he lost, but that's not really the "drama" I was originally referring to. Other than that, it was a fun few hours. And then we went to sleep. Haven't yet had a night where anyone gets loaded or I'm forced to defend my progressive views or we hear endless stories of the elders' peers we don't know and will never meet. Which is fine, but also not exciting.
I wonder sometimes if the album that is arbitrarily chosen for any given week showed up in our lives on purpose, like maybe that each album is reflective of what kind of week we are living at any given time. Music as an artform and our interpretation of that album is subjective, and I usually default to "this album sounds like what I deserve this week." So if I said that my week of vacation was relaxing, was nice, was a little boring, was lacking in any drama, was fulfilling in small ways but lacking fulfillment in big ways, then might I also use those same descriptors for Give Up the Ghost by Brandi Carlile? I think I might.
I have traditionally been reticent to explore the music of Brandi Carlile (Highwomen notwithstanding). She seems like one of the coolest living musicians on this earth, and I didn't want to put myself in the position where I'm saying "except her music sucks," which is such a boring take on this shit. So I just avoided it, for the most part. Pam has been big on Carlile in spurts over the years. I recall "The Joke" and "The Story" and songs of that nature making their way across the car speakers via XPN or Apple Music app or both, and I've always been dreadfully bored when I hear them. I wondered what would happen this week that would surprise me, or shock me, or make me wonder about the universe (in either good ways or bad ways, didn't matter). It never really happened—not with the vacation this week, and not with the album this week.
"Looking Out" has some bombast that I appreciated. "Caroline" was joyful in a communal sense, like the fact that it wasn't just Carlile singing, but that refrain was so fun. "Dreams" has a passion about it that makes me feel good about what Carlile is doing. But the rest of the album is nice and pleasant and not all that memorable. My biggest takeaway is that she is part of a lineage; this is my fancy (and, 386 weeks in, cliché) way of saying that I hear clearly how she was influenced and clearly who she was influencing. It makes total fucking sense that this is the marriage of outlaw country and Elton John. It makes total fucking sense that such an artist would be touchstone for artists like Lucius and First Aid Kit and countless others. How their supposedly needs to be a balance of slow songs with upbeat songs (there doesn't), how there is a melding of folk and rock and other genres that basically add up to nü-adult-contemporary. An implicit understanding that some catchy choruses don't necessarily make the music "cool" or "interesting."
But it's nice to listen to, that's all. That's the big headline here. I like this and I like listening to it. Even though it doesn't excite me or interest me all that much when it's not playing. Like, I'm not thinking about it when it's off, but when it's on, I'm happy. I think this is reflective of the family vacation that I am documenting in the newsletter this year. I am happy here. I am having a nice time. I have no negative thoughts about it. I also probably won't think about it too much when it's done. A few exceptions, the bombast of seeing wild horses on the beach match "Looking Out," the communal joy of that Apples to Apples game matching "Caroline," I feel passionate about riding my bike while the little ones scooter alongside me, that sort of thing. The kids are having a blast, just like Brandi Carlile's acolytes are having a blast listening to this thing, I'm sure. I care about the artist, and I care about the people I forced to listen to this artist while in Selbyville, DE. But what to pull from it that's deeper than surface-level contentment? Anything?
What I fear is that everyone draws their own line in the sand in their 30s about what they expect out of life and what they can stand to tolerate, in terms of "excitement" and "something deeper" and all that. How some people are content to just drift through each week's mild pleasure and live your life hopping from week to week and not thinking about what it all means, and how other people need something more, how that way of life is not enough, how there needs to be more, how it needs to fucking mean something for it to all be worth enduring. It's not enough for me to say that this album is nice and pleasant to listen to, just like it's not enough for this week of vacation to be nice and pleasant to live through. What the fuck does it all mean? Are we here to discover that, or are we here to avoid it?
I fear that line of reasoning because I want to just relax and enjoy the pleasant, surface-level joys of a nice family vacation or a nice folk-country-pop album, and I can usually get close, or enjoy it enough that I can say that was fun and not be a dirty fucking liar. But it doesn't bring me lasting satisfaction. I need something more. It's not fulfilling in the way that traveling or music should ultimately be, in my opinion. "My opinion" being something that is apparently out of my hands, being something that has evolved with me over time, being something that I have realized in my 30s. I can't go through life like this. I can't just float down the lazy river and engage with the surface and consume whatever comes to me and spit it out when I'm done and forget. I need more.
As always, I spend the final paragraph before the brief conclusion flipping that enduring thought on its head and asking: is it my fault? In other words, is there a way that I can change, like can I actually find something deeper in something that I previously thought was all surface-level? Is there more to Give Up the Ghost than I was able to find? Will this week in southern DE (and SE MD) mean something more to me than I'm letting on now? Is there a way to do the deep-diving myself, strap everything to my back and do the moving? By calling something "surface-level," am I being lazy? Is it really possible to find meaning in everything, even in the moments that you've lived before and you'll live a thousand more times and in which nothing ever feels different or interesting or exciting?
Regardless, let the record show that this is nice. Everything. It's nice and I like it and I'm thankful that I'm here, in this vacation house, listening to this music. I am happy. Maybe it's not that I need more, it's that I just want it. And there's no reason I can't have it, too.
This has been Joe K***, reporter for this addition of the McD***** Family Newsletter, signing off.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
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