Monday 14 September 2009
Polaris 09 Shortlist: Chad VanGaalen Soft Airplane
(Why is he smiling like that? Doesn't he know it makes him look creepy?)
I knew this day was coming, but still I hoped that by some unexpected, unexplainable act of sheer coincidence, time and space would unravel just long enough to skip over the ninth consecutive Monday of my weekly Polaris Prize ’09 Round-up and I wouldn’t have to write my post on Chad VanGaalen‘s Soft Airplane. It’s the same kind of hope you had when you were a child, praying to whatever gods were listening that your parents would somehow be struck blind just before you got that report card with the big red “F” next to “Mathematics”. You know it’s not going to happen, and you know that the outcome isn’t actually going to be all that horrible after time, but still, if somehow you can avoid the inevitable you’ll take it.
Why? Why am I worried about writing this post? Frankly, I keep coming up with a blank in reaction to what so many have hailed one of the year’s best albums. I know this much: I have no emotional reaction to listening to Soft Airplane whatsoever. Hook me up to electrodes and wire my brain and play me “Inside the Molecules” or “Poisonous Heads” and I guarantee there will be next to no change in neuro-activity. I just keep coming up neutral. It didn’t start off this way, you know? I really liked “Willow Tree” when I first heard it and I thought to myself, “Hey Jim, this just might be the Chad VanGaalen album that you could get into.” There was a tenderness to his voice and vocal performance that I hadn’t noted with previous exposures to his work. I don’t often think of songs performed by men as being “pretty”this this description seemed to fit the bill.
I still think it’s pretty, and it’s still the track on the LP that I like the most, with “Bare Feet on Wet Griptape” and “Cries of the Dead” coming in second and third respectively. Really, when push comes to shove, I don’t have a mean thing to say about Soft Airplane at all. I really don’t have anything to say about Soft Airplane at all other than it’s just sort of there in my consciousness, growing more and more familiar with every listen (and believe me I have listened) but never provoking any deep connection. I think it’s partly VanGaalen’s fault. His obscure lyrics and angular compositions don’t make it easy to draw parallels to the listener’s everyday life. There is such a thing as being to quirky for your own good, and I think when it comes down to he and I, VanGaalen crosses that line ever so slightly enough to keep me at a comfortable arm’s length.
It’s akin to standing in a museum looking at what you’ve been told is a great and important piece of art. You’ve paid your admission, picked up the bulky head set to listen to the audio commentary, and wandered the galleries pondering the sights before you. You know its history, you know its pedigree, and you’ve spent an hour or more staring at the brushstrokes. So has the person standing next to you. You turn to them, and casually ask, “So what do you think of it?” Their reply: “Well, I think the frame is nice.”
I’m the guy commenting on the frame. And while you’re thinking, “What an absolute moron! Who let this low-life into the museum? There should be screening exams before they sell people tickets,” I’m thinking, “I like the picture, too, but I don’t really see what all the fuss is about.”
MP3: Chad VanGaalen “Willow Tree”
Myspace: Chad VanGaalen
This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under MP3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Jim September 14th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Yeah, I know what you mean, Frank. I’d sound like a moron, but the only answer I’d have for NOT voting for it is, “Because.”