Thirteen Birds vs. The Record Desk

First, a confession – I don’t think I’ve been as actively geeked-out about a record as I am about this one for years. Thinking back, White Blood Cells and Moon and Antarctica probably provoked the same enthusiasm. Still, this record has hit me square between the eyes. I’m bonkers for it. I recognize that I have fallen for an inherently gimmicky thing here, an actor-led, vaguely-Halloween-themed phony indie musical sporting a kiddie choir. Nevertheless, I appreciate this record’s willingness to construct a very specific, obviously amateurish aesthetic out of odd bits of ‘50s rock and roll, pilfered Arcade Fire bombast, community theater musical numbers, and stray memories of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.

It weirds me out a bit that Dead Man’s Bones has made a record that collects many of my longstanding preoccupations — Halloween, shambly indie rock, liminal states, ships, cemeteries, growing up, retro pop — into one album. I’m not complaining. Increasingly I’ve become bored by a lot of rock and pop (indie and otherwise) because it is so sensible, so normal. This record avoids the big bad boreds by creating a little world all its own. And it is a little world. I mean, how many people are going to get on board a leaky rat-abandoned little disc like this? It is, after all, a high-concept, precious nerd-hammerish novelty record.

I’m not entirely sure what has prompted has prompted me to retreat, listening-wise, to the little bedroom between my ears. I don’t really go to shows anymore. I rarely discuss the bands/songs I really like, relying instead on theoretical discussions about “name” acts ripe for sacred cow tipping. Maybe it’s because I — like most everyone these days — take most of my musical medicine through headphones. We no longer have to put up with everyone else’s tastes and sounds and whatnot. Maybe that kind of insularity allows niche records like Dead Man’s Bones to take hold. Maybe I’ve forgotten what a proper pop/rock song is supposed to sound like, instead taking up with spooky, clattery records made out of the rags and bones left behind by what used to be popular music.

Perhaps it’s fitting that I’ve gotten tangled up with a record about ghosts and graveyards. Sometimes I wonder if I keep listening to pop music as sort of self-haunting. Some “researchers” into ghostly phenomenon suggest that hauntings aren’t really the result of restless souls pestering the living. Instead, they claim that hauntings are the result of a location being charged with excess emotional energy during a traumatic event. Maybe pop music is haunting me because once upon a time it was exciting. Or maybe I’m haunting pop music because once I used to be exciting.

Still, I’m not sure if I’m the only creepy critter out there unable to let pop’s past go. As those Horrors and Pains of Being Pure at Heart records prove, backwards-glancing is popular. And one of my recent favorite tracks suggests, perhaps it’s not all that uncommon to find love in the graveyard of pop past.

MP3: Veronica Falls, “Found Love in a Graveyard”

And let’s not even get into the endless parade of reissues, fame hall inductions, dead icon vault looting, reunions, and whathaveyou that are the very blood and guts of the fast decaying music industry. Sometimes even kind of caring about the goings on w/r/t popular music feels like brushing the teeth of dead monsters. Not to knock paleontology, but often thinking about, making, and enjoying pop-like music feels like working hard to get something new out of something old — which, of course, is only a “problem” because pop music has for so long made such a stink about its own “newness.” Rock and roll will never die and all that. Plus that famous promise to die before getting old. Seems a recipe for undeath and pallor.

Anyway, Dead Man’s Bones is my very favorite record of 2009. The bats have left the belfry. Here’s to another decade of zombie rock.