Music, Memory, Destroyer

Whenever I hear the Clash's first album, I'm transported back to the summer of 1995 and the passenger seat of a 1983 Volvo sedan. My brother Chris, my friend Paul and I are aimlessly tearing down Route 6 and are suddenly stunned to realize that the police sirens just barely audible over "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A." are screaming for us; we fought the law, the law won. 

Everyone knows music is a potent trigger of memory, but do we ever consider how imprecise its aim is? I’m listening to a guitar fill in “Savage Night at the Opera” from the latest Destroyer album and wondering for the umpteenth time from which New Order song it’s borrowed. Memory tells me it’s from one of the hits on the Substance compilation, so I decide to put it on and get the connection once and for all.

Unfortunately, those high school and college days when I could offer up my attention in sacrifice to the uninterrupted immersion in an album are gone. These days, it is so easy to ignore the music I put on. While I keep an ear perked for that matching sound, the computer or other thoughts distract me. Not surprisingly, that past era of devotion is what forged the strongest bonds to my favorite bands, albums, or songs. So does its passing signal the end of favorites? Is there no more room for a classic to come along and establish itself?

Fortunately, the answer is no on both counts. Since its early 2011 release, Destroyer's Kaputt has become a favorite. It sounds old and new (for me, that’s one of the key criteria when bestowing classic status), and the collection of songs coheres like the chapters of a breezy novella dealing with eavesdropping and being that outsider looking in, passing or withholding detached judgments. An admittedly nonsensical description, but it’s what comes to mind when I hear this elegantly sleazy album.

Kaputt has the sort of smooth sound I reach for to ease into a weekend morning or to send me off to sleep. The album – any album with Dan Bejar, the brains behind Destroyer – is decidedly strange (another good criteria when identifying classics). For one thing, there’s Bejar’s high, expressive voice. It’s a voice that whispers, judges, concedes, and cajoles, while conjuring the distinct tones of Katherine Hepburn (I view the connection as a compliment to both of them). Then there’s the music, which shimmers like an impressionist late-night taxi drive through some beautifully seedy cityscape. It’s a lush combination of Miles Davis’s You’re Under Arrest and the Style Council’s  Café Bleu.

I've searched for that elusive guitar bit for a while now – it's been great to recline on the floor by the speakers and listen to New Order – but I've not found what I'm listening for. My memory got the band right, but the part of the song I so vividly recalled never existed. I can’t help thinking of a favorite Philip Roth line: “Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.” At the risk of romanticizing this unreliability too much, I will say that memory's inaccuracy - imaginative or not - is a great part of what makes everyone's listening experiences so varied and unique. You might hate Kaputt for some of the very reasons I like it. That's fine with me. 


Check out "Savage Night at the Opera" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_z9vwQLX90&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL (Listen for the New Order guitar part at 3:04-3:30)