Laugh At What I Love - Feist

The problem with women is, they listen to their own music and it’s not the same as yours. When you’re getting in to a relationship with one of them, at first it’s all mixtapes and exploring each other’s musical tastes. This stage of the relationship is sweet, but fleeting. If your respective musical preferences are too divergent, these feelings are soon replaced by a deep hatred for whatever the other person puts on the stereo. When you’re young, this transition might take years, but when you’re older and generally tired of life and the people in it, you’re looking at mere months.

No two people like the same stuff. They may have a lot in common, but eventually one person decides they love something the other hates. Her affinity for Coldplay may be a source of friendly jabbing at first, but eventually it will stir up feelings of true loathing; especially in rural areas where much of your time is spent in cars. Whether you really hate Coldplay, or you simply hate the girl is irrelevant. You’ve made the commitment to hate something she loves, and you’ll do it at every available opportunity. (Oddly enough, this new Coldplay record you despise so much is what you’ll end up playing on repeat when she dumps you in six months.)

Finding common ground is essential. I dated a girl for a while who was in to a lot of fluttery, emotional, bullshit, pseudo-intellectual, downtempo crap, and that’s all she ever played. shit like Thievery Corporation, bad Massive Attack clones, Esthero, etc. (Basically exactly what I listen to now.) I was really in to Motown and Def Jux, but Diana Ross and Fantastic Damage didn’t exactly make her hurry to take her clothes off. El-P’s voice, however sexy, somehow didn’t appeal to this girl’s vaginal cortex. Go figure.

So I had to adapt. I actively looked for things I liked in her retarded CD collection. Some I tuned out, some I made remixes for in my brain, and some I drowned out with mindless conversation, sneaking over every so often to turn the volume down. You know, so she could hear me better, and totally not because I couldn’t take another second of Sia. However, when we were listening to Feist, I didn’t have to do any of this shit.

Limit To Your Love blew up recently when James Blake, a twerpy guy from the UK who does dubstep, covered it and made a zillion trendsluts swoon. It’s alright, I’ll give it that, but he can’t really sing like Leslie, and the instrumental has a lot of unnecessary shit thrown in. You know what I’m saying, it’s dubstep. It kind of sucks.

Plus, it missed the point a bit. Feist’s sad songs are always punctuated with a little happiness, a little hope. Even if the overall message is, “you don’t really dig me that much,” she’s able to put a little whimsy in it, as if realizing this brought her some relief. You get the impression that Feist is going to be alright, and this is just another story to tell. James Blake seems like he’s ready to jump in front of a bus.

Feist quickly became something I loved, instead of something I tolerated. My girlfriend and I had one of those awkward phases where something she turned me on to had somehow become more important to me than it was to her. I explained this away, citing her ties to Broken Social Scene and Kings of Convenience, but she would point out that those were bands we both enjoyed, and Feist’s solo albums were completely foreign to me before we met. She was kind of dumb in a lot of ways, but this wasn’t one of them. She had me there.

Unrelenting, I brought up people like Bjork and Fiona Apple, but there aren’t a whole lot of similarities between the three. Bjork is foreign, esoteric, and from outer space. Fiona kind of coasted on production (for me personally) until I was able to get in to her songwriting. Neither had the ability to appeal to me directly; I had to replay their music quite a bit to enjoy the full spectrum. Leslie Feist sang me Let it Die exactly one time and I was hooked.

Chicago has a venue that’s about 35 minutes North of the city, in a rich suburb that none of us will ever be able to afford to live in. It’s called Ravinia, and it gets adult contemporary artists, classic acts, Steve Martin, and absolutely nothing that anybody under the age of 25 should enjoy. They like quiet crowds, put it that way. You sit on the grass, pack a picnic, drink wine (it’s BYOB, and most venues I frequent kick you out for that) and try not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes. I took my current girlfriend to see Leslie Feist and Juana Molina there a few years ago, and we kicked that place’s ass. I was there to see Molina, she was there mainly for Feist. We soft rocked until the stroke of 9:45, when we decided to bail early so we could catch a cab. Like I said, we tore that muthafucker down. To our credit we went in a 7-11 after we called the taxi service and bought a bottle of Jack to slam on the cab ride home.

I’d heard a lot about Molina’s stage show. She used to be a stand up comedian in Columbia (or wherever the Fuck she’s from), and apparently she tells jokes and sings songs and it’s amazing. I couldn’t really tell you, because the PA was so low that I could barely hear shit from where I was sitting. I figured the Feist set would be sullen, quirky, pleasant, and kind of boring. Of course, I’m telling you about it, so I was obviously dead wrong. She was fucking great. At multiple moments over the course of the night she made the entire crowd laugh at once, which is an odd thing to experience. She did big songs, slow songs, mellow songs, and especially her hit songs. While most people are familiar with 1234 from the iPod nano commercial, I’m a much bigger fan of the remix, which I will be kind enough to link you so you can play it for all your five year old friends.

How great is that? If you’ve never given her solo records a shot, I really recommend Let it Die and The Reminder. Leslie has some great records, and as much success as she’s already had, I feel like she’s due for a lot more. Play her around your girlfriend, you might even get laid.