In the end, music succeeds or fails on how it makes us feel. There's a moment in the recent Bob Dylan DVD, The Other Side of the Mirror, which chronicles his performances at the Newport Folk Festival from 1963 through 1965, where you can see his appeal change from intellectual visceral. It's during a daytime acoustic performance of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" at the 1965 festival where, behind the cerebral and, for me, often painfully earnest wordplay, you suddenly hear a hook. The guitar shifts from something to hold the words to being an equal partner to the words. Historically, this shift was more gradual, but in the context of the DVD, it appears as an abrupt change. While I could appreciate the performances before that one, it was only that performance and the ones that followed that I could enjoy. For me, this change was even more startling than the more discussed change from acoustic to electric that's also portrayed on the DVD.
I would guess that it's the way songs make us feel (or that they make us feel) that bring us back to them again and again. Last year, the music that I returned to over and over, that reliably brought me back to myself when I was confused or overwhelmed, was The Field's From Here We Go Sublime, Dinosaur Jr.'s Beyond, and the one-two punch of LCD Soundsystem's "Someone Great" and "All My Friends." The interesting thing to note there is that so much of what I connect viscerally to is electronic music. So far this year, The Field's new Sound of Light continues that trend. But the other album I've been returning to over and over is the Drive-By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark, which, like Beyond, isn't the least bit electronic.
The Drive-By Truckers are one of those bands that I just missed. They've been around, they've been acclaimed, and they've been modestly successful for years. I was aware of the name, but they never quite got my full attention until I read a very positive review of Brighter Than Creation's Dark. I bought it, and I've been listening to it over and over since. I'd be hard pressed to say why—it certainly doesn't come from my cultural milieu. But the run of songs from "Perfect Timing" through "Bob," peaking at "Self Destructive Zones," are as good as anything I've heard in a long time. Give it a try.
