Sunny Day Real Estate "how it feels to be something on"

Music is the only thing that makes me contemplate spirituality in the face of my staunch atheism. It's not that a CD makes me ponder the existence of a god, they don't... but music does make me suspect there is a deeper level to the human condition. Music is not an essential element of survival. In fact, I could argue it has no real purpose in our existence, but that's precisely why it perplexes me. It is important to me; my life would be shallow without it. This disc by #sunnydayrealestate  is a pastoral influence on me and has worked it's way into my double-helixes. This disc was released while I was dealing with financial and identity crises in my mid-twenties. I was ripe to be absconded by a cult, and in a way music did just that: gave me attractive responses to big questions. This CD is as charismatic as any guru. It's honey-warm production and it's ascendant complicated musicianship coupled with Jeremy Enigk's nasal angelic croon sounded like a road map out of misery. It made the doldrums of my life suddenly seem like mystic conundrums. It also really made me think about the spirituality of music. I believe up until this point I had thought that gospel music cornered that niche, slowly i began to understand that all these abstract patterns of sound couldn't be appealing to me in a cognant rational way, there was some other elusive explanation. I've still never really come to any conclusion to this that nestles comfortably with my pragmatic atheism. I have, however, become more comfortable with the transcendent feeling music invokes. Giving myself up to how these songs can influence and guide my emotions and thoughts. I decided to just drink the kool-aid.

Sunny Day Real Estate "lp2"

I was exposed to #sunnydayrealestate  debut "diary" upon its release and I turned my nose up at it without ever listening to it. It was on Subpop so I assumed it was more grunge that I could give a rat's ass about. Remember, this was 1994 and we were up to our eyeballs in poets in flannel. About two years later I was lounging on the floor of a friends Brooklyn apartment and "lp2" was washing over me. Maybe it was the experience of a NYC weekend that called for a soundtrack, maybe it was the mimosas and breakfast burritos or  maybe if I had paid attention to the first album I could have been humming along (singing along is near impossible because the lyrics are incomprehensible and it's the stuff of legends).  I backtracked and bought "diary" and played these two records until Jeremy enigk's nasal voice became a running joke amongst m6 roommates back home. As with most discographies your entrance point is usually your favorite and it's no different here. While they haven't put out a bad album this is the one I'll grab first off the shelf.  Oh yeah, these guys created emo. So love them or hate them for it this is as good as that gets.