So this is what it sounds like when doves cry...

By Nate Adams
Collegian Editor
February 27, 2008

It’s 12:30 a.m. Monday morning, and I’ve been working on this review for over four hours. I’ve got about seven other articles I need to write, including a rather daunting news story that will require a lot of research and phone calls. And yet, I’ve spent the bulk of my time in this office, staring at pages of failed attempts to explain Hold On Now, Youngster by Los Campesinos!.

It really shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not like I don’t have an opinion on the album. In fact, I think it’s one of the best pop records I’ve heard in a long time. It’s a flawed beauty of youthful expression and musical ear candy, a mess of a record bursting with so many catchy hooks and riffs that it’s almost a chore to try and keep up. And yet, I can’t seem to do the record any justice.

I think the reason lies not so much in what is on the record, but in how the record makes me feel.

Ever since I was old enough to put cassette tapes into my mom’s Oldsmobile, I knew I wanted music to be in my life. Make it, listen to it, sell it, tell people about it or whatever, I couldn’t imagine a life in musical silence. I couldn’t wrap my head around a Tuesday without a new record. I couldn’t go further than five minutes without my headphones hugging my ears. This simple form of expression, of words mixed with sound, was for me.

As I sit here, 15 minutes before 1 a.m., I realize that somewhere along the way, I became bitter. Years of writing about music, giving my opinion on sound, passing judgment on the personal expression of others, has turned me from a bright-eyed explorer to a jaded, close-minded grouch. Music has turned from a fun hobby to fill out my empty parts into an obligation, a job. I no longer find the same joy in it I once did.

In short, music isn’t fun for me anymore.

And I think that’s why this review is giving me such a hard time. See, for most reviews, I can just absorb what I hear, cross-reference the music with what I’ve already heard, make my comparison and move on.

But to do that for Hold On Now, Youngster would be to rob it of what makes it so special. There is an intangible joy in Los Campesinos! that is almost impossible to put in words. The band, a group of British kids no older than myself, play their brand of gleeful twee-punk with such reckless, brash joy that I almost feel guilty listening to it, as if I was spying on lovers holding hands in the park.

I feel in this record the same sense of happiness and belonging I used to get when I would play a new album that I loved. It feels fresh and familiar at the same time. It makes me want to dance in the street. I want to burn copies of this record and give them out to strangers, a reminder that indie music doesn’t have to be all snide comments and self-deprecating protection. Somewhere, there are people making music not because they want to push an agenda or create buzz, but because making music is fun.

Fun music, but still with substance. I could wax poetic for the next thousand words about how good this record is; about the painfully clever lyrics that never seem snide or jaded, about the kitchen-sink organization that allows all six members to play at the same time without songs sounding cluttered or about the melodies, riffs and vocal ticks that are so criminally catchy they’ll stick to your ribs like too much Chinese food.

But none of those elements matter nearly as much as this one thing: Los Campesinos! remind me of a better time, when music came to me easily and I didn’t have to worry about how it sounded, just that sound was made. They remind me of when I first found the silly fun that comes from playing a record. They give me hope that I might get there again.

adamsn1@lasalle.edu