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50 new things in 2023, part 6/50
Some music this week! I listened to Jens Lekman's 2022 album The Linden Trees Are Still in Blossom, which is a re-release of his now-discontinued 2007 album Night Falls Over Kortedala plus some new songs. I've previously listened to a few songs from NFOK but not the whole album, so it counts as new to me.
It's interesting to hear Lekman's early style along with his later style; I prefer the later one, which is less indebted to twee 1970s pop and syrupy strings. (Having said this, there are some fantastic songs from the original album, including "The Opposite Of Hallelujah," "Your Arms Around Me," "Shirin," "Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo," and the song that made me start listening to Lekman in the first place, "A Postcard to Nina." And most of these are on the less strings-and-ridiculous-synths side of things.)
What really draws me to Lekman are the lyrics--I'm much more a lyrics appreciator than a music appreciator--and his lyrical style has matured too, without fundamentally changing. There's the slice of life plus punch in the gut stuff, the melancholy (shoutout to "Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death," which does a hell of a lot with its opening line, "We're all gonna die"), the self-conscious and sometimes self-puncturing romanticism, the intense focus on little moments.
To me the greatest delight was the title track, "The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom." It's a follow-up song to "A Postcard to Nina," which not only adds to the (apparently true) story in the original song, but directly addresses the fact that homophobia's not a thing of the past. It made me cry, and not much does that these days. I hope Nina sent him that postcard.
It's interesting to hear Lekman's early style along with his later style; I prefer the later one, which is less indebted to twee 1970s pop and syrupy strings. (Having said this, there are some fantastic songs from the original album, including "The Opposite Of Hallelujah," "Your Arms Around Me," "Shirin," "Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo," and the song that made me start listening to Lekman in the first place, "A Postcard to Nina." And most of these are on the less strings-and-ridiculous-synths side of things.)
What really draws me to Lekman are the lyrics--I'm much more a lyrics appreciator than a music appreciator--and his lyrical style has matured too, without fundamentally changing. There's the slice of life plus punch in the gut stuff, the melancholy (shoutout to "Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death," which does a hell of a lot with its opening line, "We're all gonna die"), the self-conscious and sometimes self-puncturing romanticism, the intense focus on little moments.
To me the greatest delight was the title track, "The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom." It's a follow-up song to "A Postcard to Nina," which not only adds to the (apparently true) story in the original song, but directly addresses the fact that homophobia's not a thing of the past. It made me cry, and not much does that these days. I hope Nina sent him that postcard.
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That sounds really lovely. I will check it out.