ALEXISMANIA

On the one hand, calling an album your favorite of the year when the year isn't even halfway over is clearly the height of idiocy; being a student of my own history as I am, I can't even imagine the sheer tonnage of pot I'd need to incinerate in order to obliterate the memories of other albums which, er, didn't exactly hold up over time so much. However, it's worth considering the possibility that maybe, just maybe, a great album should be measured by the degree of idiocy it inspires in otherwise sensible people (and me); I mean, I know it's bourgie and gauche to get excited about stuff, but it's worth entertaining the idea that bands might actually like it when their music has an effect on people, right?

Well, I certainly hope that's true, because Alexis Strum's Cocoon mysteriously hit iTunes over the weekend and it's done nothing but make a blithering idiot out of me ever since. Again, I feel compelled to immediately qualify this statement by pointing out the distinct possibility of my enthusiasm being strictly point-of-impact stuff; this time last year I was flipping out over New Order's Waiting For The Siren's Call, an album I doubt I've even laid a finger on in the last six months except when fitfully reorganizing my CDs. Of course, that doesn't diminish Waiting For The Siren's Call in the slightest in my estimation - it's a great album whether I'm listening to it or not. And I'd like to think that Cocoon has, at the dirt worst, that sort of future in my CD collection ahead of it - it may have a hard time staying my favorite album of the year what with the maelstrom of insanely exciting albums on the horizon (Black Leotard Front! Guillemots! The Rapture! Pet Shop Boys! Paul Epworth! Scissor Sisters!), but that's sure as hell where it's sitting right now, and I'm sure not looking to give it up anytime in the near future.

Alexis Strum, "Alright"

Cocoon is, and I apologize a trillion times for putting it like this, basically the best album you could reasonably expect from the hypothetical fruit of a drunken orgy between all eleven thousand members of Belle & Sebastian if said fruit decided to rebel against her league of parents' indie ethos and make a full-bore modern pop record. It is, in other words, incredibly pathetic, and I mean both "incredibly" and "pathetic" in the most literal sense, as in "I have a hard time believing how much pity I'm feeling for this person"; I'm about as myopically self-pitying as they come, but even I have to cringe for the lovely Ms. Strum's sorry self-described state of affairs when she opens the second verse of "Alright" with a couplet as Murdochian as "Don't want to end up lonely with my cat/That's why I let you treat me just like crap". I mean, I'm tempted to simply stop writing since, in essence, that line is Cocoon in a nutshell; it's as wry and prosaic and self-accounting an album as you're likely to find without digging out your parents' Jackson Browne albums, only backed by a storming Max Martinesque track rather than a Hal Lindley noodling session. Suffice it to say, it's a decidedly engaging change of affairs from the usual take on loneliness in pop music - there's simply not a hint of "why me"-itis to be found on the record, no small feat for an album whose most overpoweringly beautiful song happens to be titled "Why Me, Why Now".

Alexis Strum, "Why Me, Why Now"

Yeah yeah yeah; make your Kelly Rowland jokes now, because the orchestra swells towards the end of this one in a way that kinda obliterates most criticisms one could theoretically muster up about this album's propriety. See, the other thing about Cocoon, aside from the whole Oh Alexis Strum, Why Must You Give Me The Vapors aspect, is that the music really is pretty remarkable; it may be undeniably difficult to file under any heading other than "Music For Little Sisters", but hell, every so often someone makes something incredible for the little sisters of the world. And make no mistake about it - the music on Cocoon is just as articulate as the vocals; when the album's on point, it swells and rolls with all the emotional primacy that the lyrics' braininess might otherwise siphon off, and it rarely gets more on-point than the ballads, first among them being "Why Me, Why Now". I mean, here's a song with a protagonist practically dislocating her shoulders in an effort to wrap her arms around love's painful inconvenience; as someone chronically not good enough for any of the girls that catch my eye, you'd have a hard time keeping me from testifying to both the complexity of the subject and to the preposterously adroit manner in which the actual music captures all the drama. And the great thing about Cocoon is that, good as "Why Me, Why Now" and "Alright" are, they're entirely typical of the album as a whole - it really is all just like that.

But hey, I guess you don't have to pick it up. Certainly won't be the first time a truly worthwhile album only sells to people smart enough to read PopJustice. (Click here to pre-order Cocoon from Amazon.co.uk. Also, Alexis keeps a blog over at PopJustice which is eminently charming and should really be read more frequently by all)

Dan Wallace, "Fell" - And hey, as long as Matthew's sending me an assload of traffic, might as well throw out a bone for Dan Wallace's "Fell", probably the catchiest song to turn up unsolicited in my inbox in quite a while.
It's very much a song made up of distinct elements - you can clearly make out The Climbing Double-Tracked Vocals Bit or The Part With All The Guitar Punctuation or, most unmissably, The Shockingly Non-Loathesome Indie Rocksteady Skank Part - but seeing as how they're quality parts, it all comes out in the wash. Lord knows I was walking around all day whistling the keyboard hook from it, so if nothing else, there's that. (Click here to buy Neon and Gold direct from the artist)