in 2006 I went to Los Angeles as an exchange student. i never got the hang of the city, it's hard being stuck without a car, or driving license, in a city of villages connected by highways. but there were some highlights.
in a kitchen at some house party i fell into a conversation with a guy and we talked music. i pledged i'd listen to Love, in return he'd try the Feelies. i went back home, listened to Love, and it forever blew my mind.
brooding behind Love's flower power happiness, the almost childish melodies, lies this intensely haunting ocean of inevitable decay and death. in
Forever Changes for example, one of the most brilliant zeitgeist-albums ever, there's this frenetic, constant tension, a schizophrenic energy, between a precariously upbeat, but desperate hope that things will eventually work out, that we can all love each other, and the soul-crushing factuality of our human capacity for violence and self-destruction. it might just be the most complicated coming-of-age album ever, written by a brilliant 22-year old
expecting to die.
and then there's the beauty of music that sounds like someone tore apart a thousand clichés and moulded the shards into something that's still fresh today because no one has made anything like it since.
thanks kitchenbro, whoever you are, i hope you're still enjoying the feelies.
p
