QUOTE (Chronodiggity @ Oct 22 2008, 02:30 AM) 
Teenagers - Department of Eagles is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard
It was this brilliant and eloquent piece of analysis that inspired me to create this thread about one of the signature collections of songs of our time, the year of Christ our Lord and saviour, two-thousand and eight.
Before you engage in any discussion of this album, make sure you've given it a thorough listen or two. It deserves as much! I've taken the courtesy of fetching you all a link so that you can partake.
CODE
http://rapidshare.com/files/149792923/department.rar
On this album, Grizzly Bear guitarist and songwriter Daniel Rossen and his friend from his days at NYU, Fred Nicolaus, take the concept of 21st century baroque-pop and run with it, trading in most of the clarinets for some minor riffage, keys, jazzy progressions and a little more swagger than your average indie outfit and their xylophone quartet. On the song, "No One Does it Like You", a driving beat is accented by white-soul harmonies that cut right to the core of the Department of Eagles appeal, atmosphere. These are compositions more than they are songs, elevating songs like "In Ear Park", and "Phantom Other" that in lesser hands would be dreadfully uneventful quirky folk songs to powerfully organic and full-of-life waking dreams that serve to keep you awake, not put you to sleep.
As with most albums in this mold, every sound is meticulously well placed. The drums are big and poignant rather than filling the dead space. Reverberating tones fill and surround each track. Even acoustic guitars sound like the forces that move mountains. Their strings are picked to perfection. Grand pianos and the acoustic guitar lay the groundwork for each track, with strings and background keyboards that create a powerful, though subdued effect. It's not remarkable in it's conception, but you have to hear the excellence in the way each track coalesces to understand why it works so well.
Album standouts include the magnificent "Teenagers" and "Herring Bone", both propelled by off-kilter piano lines and a powerful sense of grandeur that makes the simplest song epic in its execution. This is very self-important music. Very sincere. Very artful. Those descriptors have often been used to chide bands in this era of "I don't give a fuck", and if you're looking for your musicians to exude humor over authenticity, beware. In Ear Park isn't for your next house party. It's for the subway ride to work. For the period of reflection after you wake up and realize you just missed a morning meeting and should probably kill yourself (BUT YOU WON'T!!!). It's for the time not when you want your music to make you move, but when you want your music to move you.