Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I Wish I Knew Where My Copy of "Thirteenth Step" Was

Does anyone know where my copy of Thirteenth Step is? It's one of my favourite albums of all time and I really feel like listening to it right now but I don't know where it is. I'm sure someone else has it...but who? Here's what it looks like.

WARNING: The rest of todays post will be a personal analysis of Thirteenth Step and why I love it. If you don't want to witness my gushing and getting all loving and emotional on you I suggest you read one of my earlier funny blogs or something. Maybe the Guide to Being a Villain or my porn review or something. You've been warned!

Anyway I thought that while we're all looking for Thirteenth Step I'd share with you why this album is held in such high regard by me (hopefully the thief who stole it will feel guilty and send it back to me...with a letter of appology...soaked in tears...wrapped in money). Anyway so Thirteenth Step is the second studio album made by A Perfect Circle, a band formed in 1999 by Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel, a guitar technician who had worked with Tool. Together they gathered other musicians to collaborate on some songs they'd been recording and eventually a new band (A Perfect Circle) and album (Mer de Noms) was born. Mer de Noms was a great album featuring several awesome songs like Judith and (my personal favourite off the album) Orestes. It was heavy, but also intricate and atmospheric. Many people consider Mer de Noms the best of their work; those people are wrong.

When I first got into A Perfect Circle I had totally missed the Mer de Noms era and was entering the scene after discovering the bands various connections with the Smashing Pumpkins (my favourite band evaaaaaaarrrrrggghh). Anyway so I downloaded a few tracks and blah de blah de blah I ended up buying their second album, Thirteenth Step.

Thirteenth Step is highly realised and conceptual. It deals with issues of addiction (the album title explicitly refences the thirteen step program for alcoholics and drug users) . Each song takes on a different role in the complexity that is addiction. There's regret, anger, accusation and fear woven throughout the lyrics. Sometimes the songs are from the point of view of the drug, maliciously manipulating it's victim, offering it empty comforts. Other times the songs are about friends in denial, not wanting to believe that they are watching someone who is essentially dying. There are twelve tracks with twelve stories to tell, each becoming part of the larger tale that is the album. One of my main issues with APC's first album is that it sounds disjointed and stilted. It sounds exactly like what it is, a series of great songs recorded and written individually and then glued together at the end. Thirteenth Step however is fluid, even though the songs have different sounds, stories and images you never feel like one song has ended and another has begun. As stated earlier the songs merge as part of something bigger. I have analysed this album lovingly for many hours, even that fact that there's an unamed and unrecorded "13th" track at the end of the album, perhaps signifying that the story of the album isn't finished; like it's left for us, or whoever needs it, to finish for themselves. That said the album isn't explicit. The songs never actually say "I'm on drugs and boy I love it but it's also not good for me." You can honestly take whatever you want out of the album. I recommend Thirteenth Step by A Perfect Circle more highly than you could imagine.

One of these days soon I'll think of something funny to write about again. Just felt passionate about this post is all.

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