#29: Air - Moon Safari

For as much as I love Talkie Walkie, Air's third record, I inexplicably expected to hate Moon Safari, their debut. Just based on reviews I'd read, everyone seemed to have their undies in a bunch over Moon Safari while rating Talkie Walkie as a somewhat lesser record. Having started listening to Air in reverse order, I was coming at it from a slightly skewed angle. I had a hard time imagining how anything could live up to "Venus," which I consider something a pinnacle of pop songwriting. I shouldn't have been concerned.

It's not going out on any limbs to say I enjoyed an album that's often considered a modern classic, but based on how much I was planning on being lukewarm on it, I was pleasantly surprised when opener "La Femme d'Argent" started and immediately sounded like Steely Dan's "Do It Again." Hey, I like Steely Dan. This could work. And it did. It stretches to seven minutes, but is so gentle and easygoing that it's impossible to get bored with it, and there's always something being added or mutating.

One thing I found interesting was the amount of instrumentals. Perhaps it just sounds like more than on Talkie Walkie because the tracks with vocals on Talkie Walkie stand out so much to me, so it seems like there's more of them, but there really does feel like there's a bigger reliance on instrumentation here. That's one of the reasons I've avoided Pocket Symphony, because I get nervous about guest vocalists, even though as I look at it now, there's only two on there. I have bizarre and irrational fears.

One of the tracks with vocals, the unfortunately-named "Kelly Watch the Stars," features piano work unlike anything I'd heard from the band so far, and immediately made the song transcend its title. "Talisman" is perhaps the best instrumental on here, and by the time "You Make It Easy" came along, I was convinced that this was, indeed, good. So today's a big day. Putting to rest nonsensical worries about a band I only really like in a casual capacity somehow seems like a minor victory, though, so with that out of the way, it's time to listen to it again and go to bed.

Oh, but "Sexy Boy" is still kind of annoying. Sorry.

"Kelly Watch the Stars"



"Talisman" live