#skip track

[balloonpup]

Choose Wisely

[Soft skittering]

[The high-pitched whine of a CRT]

[Quiet sobbing]

[Distorted numbers station broadcast]

[ICQ launch foghorn at 2:37 AM at full volume]

[Filmstrip advance beep]

[2600 hz chirp on a phone line]

[A freight train rumbling through a dead industrial town]

[Wind through an empty parking garage at 4 AM]

[MFM hard drive seeking]

Voting ended onMar 12, 2023

[dreadforks]

I didn't keep track of all the times you didn't keep track of all the times I didn't keep track of all the times you didn't keep track of all the times I didn't keep track.

[contemporarysnobbery-blog]

By Dan Vaughn

Albums rejected in the process of selecting my target:

  Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm - “Compliments” (not drastically different)

Weezer’s Pinkerton - “Butterfly” (too obvious)

Willie Nelson’s Read Headed Stranger - “Down Yonder” (too obscure, might fit in)

  So let me set this my article up. Dan comes up with this idea, best album with a track you always skip. My first thought was “Down Yonder,” stupid tinny piano getting banged on by a drunken lunatic, and I may have even vocalized that idea. The other musical (non-vocal) tracks on that album fit into the rest of the album’s feel, consistently of Willie slowly picking his guitar over piano. But as the time got closer for me to write this piece, I realized that the album, a Western concept piece, might need that album to communicate the feeling of the bar within the story. So though it annoys me, for ambience reasons, it dodges the bullet.

  So now I am in a huge quandary, deadline looming, I think of “Butterfly,” but almost immediately shrug it off. For two reasons, 1. It will probably get picked off by one of the other guys 2. Pinkerton is my second favorite Weezer album and I’m not sure I consider it “great,” particularly in comparison to Blue.

  So I cruised though my iTunes, searching for my victim. Silent Alarm, one of my favorite albums of all-time (probably top 40, if I had to guess) features “Compliments” as its last track. Compared to the rest of the album, it drags, is boring, and doesn’t measure up to the rest of the incredible songs from this album. BUT, I also wanted to choose a song that didn’t fit in with the rest of its album, and, though it is a weak song, I can’t say that that it doesn’t have some aspects that disqualify it. It feels futuristic, features a lot of effects, and has a beat that sounds drum-machine-esque. It is close enough to be in the same city, just not the same neighborhood.

  As I approached the latter part of the alphabetic listing of my albums, I was getting worried. Which album would offer up the perfect target or would I have to reassess the tracks I had already disqualified? And then, there it was.

  Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - “The Ghost of You Lingers”

  If you asked me in 2011 (which you did, by the way), I would say that The National’s Boxer was the best album of 2007. However, in January of 2008, when asked to make a yearly top 10, I choose this album by Spoon. At the time (and to this day), I would argue that though Spoon had shown considerable talent throughout their previous albums, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was the one that brought it all together into perfection. The best track of the album, without a doubt, is “The Underdog.” Lively use of horns set over a fun guitar track and catchy lyrics deliver a single that could stand up to any other track from that year. And the rest of the album offers little to disappoint the listener. I can’t state this more bluntly, I LOVE this album...except this one track.

  So why does this track suck so much? First of all, its overproduced in the same way the rest of the album is. The entire album is crisp and clean throughout thanks to careful attention to production detail. This is a good result, but, in the case of TGOYL, it becomes a muddy mess of audio and effects. Secondly, what stands out from in every track but this one? The guitarwork. A consistent use of acoustic guitar, combined with great bass, gives this album a signature feel. What does TGOYL give you? Not one strum of guitar, not a single string is struck, just effect after effect, echoing noise and ignoring the feel of the rest of the album. Finally, its position within the album. Second track, really? Kill the Moonlight (Spoon’s second-best album) gave us “The Way We Get By” at that point. Had this track ended up as a fading out for the album (much the same way the previously mentioned “Compliments” was used on Silent Alarm) maybe it is forgiven. Instead, the song breaks the flow and build-up between two great tracks, “Don’t Make Me a Target” and “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb.”

  The album would not only have a better rhythm without “The Ghost of You Lingers,” it would be a perfect album without a single weak track. Instead, you are forced to skip this track or break the mood of the album, a choice a great band shouldn’t toss into the laps of their listeners.