writing about music

"you, you're a history in rust" by do make say think is just plain amazing. I mean, the individual songs are great... but I just finished listening through it the entire way for the first time in the five days that I've had it. After the last song faded, something seized my heart, and I could not move or speak or do anything: it was as if the happiest moment in my life had just brushed up against my chest, surprising me completely, stopping me, breath held, just before tears rushed to my eyes.

That is one good album.

As a multi-instrumentalist myself, I know that creating music with moments like that is difficult, let alone making an entire album have that effect. I feel like this difference can be likened to the difference between a really good short story, and a really good novel. I've been trying to quantify what I like about some writing more than other writing lately,and the best that I've been able to come up with is the idea of things that aren't said explicitly but are nonetheless received. For instance, throughout the album, there are little moments... for instance: a really pretty instrumental section coming to an end with people making funny noises with their mouths. Only you don't realize that it's people making these noises. And then all of a sudden they stop, and they laugh good-naturedly in the one second of silence before a guitar picks up the melody again. It shows the humanity behind the music, but it fits so perfectly. This is a poor example...

Also, of supreme relavence: http://xkcd.com/304/