Problematic indie love
Valentine’s Day hasn’t gone unnoticed here at Birmingham Box Set. I’m nearly surrounded by married folks here at the mag—and though I love them, I suspect my Valentine’s Day plans and playlist will both be different than theirs.
And I’m not alone! Dan Schumacher, one of the most eligible bachelors in our February issue, shares my penchant for depressing indie music. (Of course he does. His first job was in his dad’s record store.) Dan joins BBS as a guest blogger, offering a problematic indie love song playlist for your Valentine’s Day and mine. I’ll let Dan get down to it, while I go listen to “Skinny Love” on repeat.
It would be too easy, too expected, to start off a problematic indie love song mix with a slow, sad, crooning ballad. Indie folk singer/songwriters are really great at that (and growing beards. Man, can they grow a beard), but it would be doing the genre a bit of disservice. There are plenty of upbeat, otherwise happy-sounding songs about obsession, lost love and an inescapable uncanny inability to find, keep or get rid of love.
We start off with an upbeat song by the Fiery Furnaces about forgetting an obsession, and continue on a brief upward glide through the Stars’ “Ageless Beauty.” The Decemberists’ violin-heavy “We Both Go Down Together” signals the downward spiral until bottoming out on Sufjan Stevens’ “A Loverless Bed.” Before going too far, I need to mention My Brightest Diamond’s “Golden Star” (track 5). Lead singer Shana Worden’s sweet and powerful voice would not been out of place on the Garden State soundtrack (think Frou Frou).
My mixes typically start on a high note, have a slower middle and finish off strong. After Sufjan’s desperation song, I looked to Bjork to get us back on the right road. Her music is like aural antiseptic—cold and crisp and unworldly. Even if you sleep in a loverless bed or just jumped off the cliffs of Dover with a star-crossed lover, Bjork might just help you forget it all and believe that love is everywhere (so long as you accept it).
From there, it’s a fun, quirky romp with Jens Lekman’s incredibly frank “I’m Leaving You Because I Don’t Love You,” ending with Cake’s “Let Me Go.” It’s not all rainbows and lollipops, this modern love. I’ll end with a question to the audience: What’s your favorite problematic love song (beard-faced or otherwise)?
The playlist (available on iTunes as Problematic Indie Love [out of convenience, not any kind of lucrative business deal with Apple]):
1. Ex-Guru The Fiery Furnaces
2. Ageless Beauty Stars
3. I Don’t Love Anyone Belle & Sebastian
4. Eros’ Entropic Tundra Of Montreal
5. We Both Go Down Together The Decemberists
6. Golden Star My Brightest Diamond
7. All Fires Swan Lake
8. Love Comes to Me Bonnie “Prince” Billy
9. Skinny Love Bon Iver
10. A Loverless Bed (without remission) Sufjan Stevens
11. All is Full of Love Björk
12. Modern Romance Yeah Yeah Yeahs
13. I’m Leaving You Because I Don’t Love You Jens Lekman
14. Bruised The Bens
15. Postcards from Italy Beirut
16. Like a Call Architecture in Helsinki
17. You Love Me DeVotchKa
18. Love is No Big Truth Kings of Convenience
19. Let Me Go Cake
Dan Schumacher cooks and eats, writes and blogs (though, admittedly, he does more of the former than the latter). Quite a bit of his new music comes from NPR’s All Songs Considered. He heads up the ‘Ham Sandwich blog and is always looking for some good French toast. He realizes that he forgot Feist’s “1 2 3 4,” another great, problematic indie love song. It was indie before the iPod commercials had their way with it, wasn’t it? Was it on Grey’s Anatomy? Ugh.
