Hatful Of Hollow (Re-Issue)by The Smiths

I think that what I find compelling about this album is that is is both easy to listen to but it also challanges your ears to expand a little beyond their comfort zone. What I mean by this is that the writing is both accessible and distant at the same time. It feels like your listening to an old friend tell you stories from the good old days but they aren't quite the way you remeber them.

It's also interesting that the melodic structures on this album are not what is typical of music that came out during the same era. The melodies are very syncopated at time and this is also juxtaposed with longer held out notes.And this causes the words and the melody to jump out at you because its like the vocals are on top of the music and not in the music. And that goes back to why it seems to come across distant and alone. The vocals are aware of what's going around them but they tend to moving at an opposing pace to the rest of the mix. So this adds a layer of counterpoint as well which really allows the songs to feel more full.

I also want to not that the lyrics are very emotional and they seem in some ways contrary to the music surrounding them. And I think that this embodies some of the themes that this album dives into in regard to one's view of self and thier view of the world around them. It is also interesting that the lyrics go back and forth between total confidence and total doubt. This is powerful because it conveys something about the human expirience in regard to emotions. Emotions are fleeting and fickle and the lyrics fully reflect that reality.

I can also hear that this album has alot of musical ideas that were very forward thinking and can easily go unnoticed if you don't listen carefully. The effects that are used on some of the guitar work are really intriguing and almost remind me of sounds that would later become shoegaze and dreampop. I also noticed the band uses the guitars and synths to make walls of sound. The goal is to hear the feeling of the sound not all the parts of the sound. And it's not that you can't pick the sounds out but it's is mixed in such a way that you are meant to hear the emotion more than the induvidual notes. This album is also mixed so that the band is layers in echos and reverb while the vocals are compartivley dry. That also plays into the vocal sounding detached and like they are over the music not in it.

I could honestly go on about what I hear in this album but really it all comes down to the fact that you listen to this album with an ear for detail because what makes this album great is its own attention to detail in the face of its blatant self contradiction. The results are pretty remarkable.