Old Guard vs New Guard

VS

#1 Revolver (The Beatles) vs #16 Palo Santo (Shearwater)

In what will undoubtedly be a recurring theme of this blog, this is a match up of the old vanguards of my music taste and the torchbearers of the new. The Beatles obviously need no introduction, other than to say they were my first favorite band and introduced me to rock music (no small task). Shearwater, which I discovered as a side project for current fave Okkervil River (whom they have since completely separated from), is a new love of mine, and it started with this album.

The Arugments: Palo Santo (which apparently is actually a concept album loosely based on the life of Nico (0f Velvet Underground and Nico fame) is the perfect album for being stuck in a cabin (or apartment) on a brutal winter day, and makes a surprisingly good companion to certain winter oriented fantasy novels I may or may not have been reading when I discovered it. With its string arrangments, imagery of wolves and unicorns, winter and storms, the band, led by multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg and his soaring voice, can sound positively medieval at times. The lyrics are erudite and dense, and while not always accessible always conjure haunting and evocative images to go along with the often strange melodies that can be expected from a band that features instruments from cellos to banjos to pipes, and who is anchored not by a drummer but a "percussionist". Its a great album with a number of great songs, and five years from now will undoubtedly mean even more to me.

Unfortunately, it draws a matchup against a band that probably means more to me than any other (with the possible exceptions of weezer and smashing pumpkins, but we'll get there). The problem I've always had with the Beatles is that while I have the utmost respect for their entire catalog (at least post Please Please Me) its always been a challenge picking out a favorite anything...no one song is so above the rest that it can be singled out, and while each album has a ton of classic tracks and wonderful experimentation and the fact that it is by the Beatles going for it, listening to Revolver again I was reminde how much of it I actually don't like. While the last half of Revolver (with the possible exception of Dr. Robert) is unimpeachable, the first half is hit or miss, with absolute classics (Eleanor Rigby) sharing space with what, by the Beatles standards, can only be considered duds (Taxman? please). Taken in context, Revolver deserves its ranking...both on my list, and on most professional "Best of All Time lists" where it consistently is in the top three, and often number 1. It was revelatory for me, as a pre-teen, and trying to imagine how it sounded in 1967, with songs that featured only strings (on a rock album!) a sitar, and closed with a track that I think is at least partly if not awfully responsible for much of psychadelia and (and perhaps even some techno) ("Tomorrow Never Knows") is nearly impossible...as even a dabbler in rock history, the one-two combination of this and Sgt Peppers later that year must have been like the advent of technicolor...it was like a whole different medium. There are also songs that I still love as songs..."For No One" is certainly one of my favorite tracks of all time, and again, the last handful of tracks featuring "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "I Want to Tell You" are just great.

Score: Revolver is good enough, and historical enough, to beat an upstart like Palo Santo, but not by as much as it should, and my overall level of enjoyment while listening through it again does not bode well for this number 1 seed to make it as far as it seems like it should.

Revolver d. Palo Santo 74-63

Representative Tracks: