A.C. Newman, Abba

Before I say anything, I feel the need to state that in some recent upgrade of iTunes, there was a change made to the way songs are sorted, and now when you sort things by alphabetical order, numbers and symbols are listed at the end and not the beginning. This is why things are getting started with A.C. Newman and not someone like !!! or 50 Cent.

A.C. Newman is a dude, born in 1968, Canadian. He was in a couple of generic indie rock bands in the 90s, now he heads up the New Pornographers [whoa, did not know that til I read it in Wikipedia]. He has one solo album out (The Slow Wonder) and also had a song on one of the OC soundtracks. I'm not gonna lie, I generally liked the music that was featured on the OC. Despite the cheesy goodness (and badness) of the show, they had some rockin artists. Think: Lady Sovereign, Spoon, the Walkmen.

I dig this guy. He's laid back, pretty chill, almost always very heavy on the drums. He has a sort of tinny voice, and I guess the whole sound is generally pretty tinny. A bunch of the songs feature a heavy piano that kind of drives everything (not sure if he's the one playing). Rock-ish piano I guess, cooler than Billy Joel, grittier than Ben Folds.

I'm keeping it. And I will listen to it more often.

Favorites on the album:
*Secretarial
*35 in the Shade

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Abba. I mean, I only have one song by them, obviously Dancing Queen. They're goofy and I can't remember the last time I got down to this one tune, but it's definitely a keeper. You never know when you're going to need it.