2022, I think, has been a difficult year for many of
us. I cannot imagine how difficult the
past few years have been for musicians with the closures and shut downs taking
away essentially every opportunity to perform and share their art or even
create it.My goal in sharing the music
I love with as much gusto as I have is to celebrate it!Not just those that I champion here, but all
of it.I admire the effort and passion
to not only have the talent and creativity and vision to make music, but to
also bring it to the public for those of us who struggle to make things
happen.Considering all of the
obstacles, 2022 has been as vibrant and exciting as any other year in music.These choices below are an approximation of
what I believe my most listened to albums of the year have been.
How does a person become an
expert? I'm not sure what that entails
or feels like. I suppose I became an
export of sorts at some of my various jobs over the years, after practicing
them for many years. That never felt
like anything other than doing a bunch of stuff that I really didn’t want to
do. Perhaps that is my problem that I
need to figure out and adjust. What I do
know is that despite living in a country and society that touts capitalism, I
seem to embrace dying fields, or anything that can be lucrative financially. The things I enjoy doing or being a part of
one rarely gets the opportunity to earn a living. I have a feeling that this is true for many
of us. The entire “job” scenario alludes
me. How did we get here? Why can I not be productive with the stupid
shit I like to do without spending most of my time trying to make enough money
to survive? This is part of why I try to
be so supportive of the artists I appreciate.
I try to buy stuff and talk about it when I can, in a minor effort to
keep these atists enhancing my life with their creativity.
The more life I’ve lived, the less I
understand how to navigate it. All of
the good ideas I have and things I’d like to do feel impossible. I’d like to be involved with music related
projects, but the music industry is only profitable to an incredible minority
and I don’t ever fit in, nor do I know how to break in. My friend Ox and I have tried releasing
music, and online music retail, but almost no one buys it anymore. I sometimes enjoy writing. in my amateurish
way, but I am allergic to promoting it, or trying to monetize it, nor do I
think I could earn a living at it. When
I was a dialysis patient I had some serious ideas that might help dialysis
patients with their difficult diets, but I never knew how to make that
happen. I would like to help people
dealing with trying to navigate the medical system, but I don’t have the job
experience or education to be taken seriously.
I have the problem of shooting myself down before anyone else can. I am
good at self-sabotaging, and I tend to disengage from things I like and can be
good at, when they become jobs.
It’s surprising to me that this will
be the first time I’ve written about Auckland, New Zealand’s The Beths. Expert
in a Dying Field is their third album since 2018 and it is as fresh and
exciting as their debut! I first
happened upon them by accident via their first single “Future Me Hates Me,”
which the creepy YouTube algorithms
thrust upon me after I played my chosen song and I had let it play. Turns out this one was right on! I immediately pre-ordered that first LP. It’s been a fun ride ever since.
The Beths "Future Me Hates Me"
I hate say it, since I recently
referenced it, but I think I may have given The Beths a bit of a short shrift
in that Men at Work way (read here).
They are fun and display a sense of humor, yet they are much more than
that. The “Future Me Hates Me” video is a
sweet kind of goofy clip and the song has an awe-shucks ‘everything goes wrong’
self-deprecation shrug vibe to it. This
is an unfair and shallow assessment.
Bandleader Elizabeth Stokes’
lyrics are incredibly clever, inventive, heartfelt and impactful. She has an unbelievable knack for creating
effortless sounding pop songs that are relatable in an every-person sort of way.
Plus, they flat out rock! These
pop tunes are crunchy, buzzy, energetic, light on their feet and performed
flawlessly. The background vocals are
otherworldly, frequent and super fun.
They capture the relatability and excellence of some of 90s band That Dog, but with way more
consistency.
The thing is that these songs can be
fun and fun to blast on a warm sunny day, but they have a lot of depth. Not far underneath these clever and inventive
songs is some deeply felt emotion and huge dollops of melancholy. There is a sense of loss and longing that is
infused in most of their songs giving them an added depth.
I realize that the excellent title
and lead off song for this album, “Expert in a Dying Field,” is a
thought-provoking missive about clarity about a dying relationship, but to me,
it’s more universal. It’s bigger than
that. The title alone has stuck with me
since it was first released as a single.
Stokes has had me contemplating life, existence, work, usefulness, and
the damning passage of time just with the song title alone! It has me feeling like an old relic. Not the potentially valuable kind, but the
kind that sits unnoticed in a weekend garage sale, that will be thrown away if
not sold for a nickel. Far too often, I
feel like most of my interests and desires are part of dying fields.
Having said that though, this album
does not make me feel old. Anything
but! The Beths brand of energetic pop
rock is the type of thing that has always rejuvenated me. Their mix of high energy, burbling basslines,
noisy guitars, frantic drumming, incredible sing along songs full of passion is
never not utterly infectious.
The second song on the LP, “Knees
Deep,” is the kind of song that confuses me.
It is so catchy and relatable, at least to me (“The shame / I wish I was
brave enough to dive in”), it should be a massive worldwide hit that none of us
can escape. These songs are all over
this album and their entire catalog.
This can also be said of the ultra-sentimental “Your Side,” the anthemic
“Best Left,” the rocking “I Told You that I was Afraid,” and the reflective and
wistful love song “2am.”
I think about times in my life, when
I have pushed difficult and uncompromising noise onto others, attempting to prove
to others that I am also those things.
There is that side of me, but I still get giddy over really well-done
pop music. I would’ve loved the Beths
when I was a 4th grader and I love them now as an old relic, or anytime in-between.
