1001 Albums Summary

An unappealing blur is the best way to describe Blur. Overly long with one song worth listening too.

It is apt that The Band has such a generic name, because their sound is awfully generic. I remember very little of their music despite listening to this album twice in a row. "Across the Great Divide" may be the most memorable, but not entirely for good reasons. The twang on that titular line is spine tingling. The trumpet connecting sections is foot tappingly good. But the subject matter is odd, seemingly about a man being threatened by his wife with a gun - possibly for doing drugs and gambling all their money away. For this, she seems to be the villain, and the singer assures Molly he tried to keep his hands to himself, but just couldn't, and he'll definitely do better next time and "crawl across the great divide" This line of misogyny is found in much of the subject matter.

I'm not sophisticated enough to understand some (most) of the techniques used here but I do know I enjoyed the experience a lot, and Strange Meadow Lark was particularly stunning and will definitely go into regular rotation for me.