All Arise!

Methinks Colin Meloy’s grass is blue. This is the band that briefly, a few weeks ago, had the number one album in America. They’re on tour and their date in Austin (in the end of April) sold out before I even heard about it. The same thing happened last year – because the ATX is so far ahead of the curve! But popularity be damned, they’re going on hiatus. Colin Meloy’s decided to give the whole rock star thing a rest so he can pursue his childhood dream of being a novelist. What a nerd!

Earth Intruders

The song “Earth Intruders,” in particular, was sculpted soon after Björk awoke from a dream she had during a cross-Atlantic flight to New York. In the dream, the singer said a “tsunami of millions and millions of poverty-stricken people” swelled high above the airplane she was a passenger on. Eventually, the wave overtook the plane, hit land and razed the White House into oblivion. “It’s a quite chaotic song,” she said of Volta’s first single. “Lyrically, it’s a collection of all of these images” burned into her memory, from her trip to Indonesia as well as her vivid, in-flight reverie.  - And that explains everything. Quote from an MTV.com article, via Wikipedia (my research standards are top-shelf). Björk’s music can be, um, impenetrable sometimes; her a cappella album was slightly off the beaten path. But when she combines her native kookiness with great musicianship and as here, a catchy beat, she creates an atmosphere that surprisingly large numbers of people warmly respond to. Apropos of nothing, I want that shirt she’s wearing. I’ll wear it to work!