CD obsession of the moment: American Lesion, by Greg Graffin, the lead singer of Bad Religion (and coincidentally a Cornell PhD as well). It’s his first solo album, from ‘97-ish. (I think.)

I’m really into this album right now, for some reason. I’ve always really liked his voice and songwriting style, and this album gets rid of a lot of the elements that bug me about Bad Religion, such as their occasionally overly-repetitive music. The lyrics are a lot more personal than Bad Religion’s stuff; much of the album, from what I hear, was inspired by Graffin’s divorce, and most of it deals with troubled relationships. As you might guess from this, many of the songs are predictably bitter, angry, or sad, but there are moments of hope and sweetness as well. Musically, it’s heavy on piano and acoustic guitar, and many of the tunes are as catchy as the best Bad Religion. The whole thing has a ponderous, melancholy feel to it, perfect listening for a rainy autumn day like yesterday.

My favorite songs at the moment are “Cease” and “Maybe She Will”.

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Associated tech thought: it’s interesting how I use “CD” as the generic term for a collection of music released together by an artist, when actually I downloaded this whole (record | CD | album | whatever) and it’s never actually seen physical form. Reminds me of how older people, like my parents, still call everything a “record”. I guess we all tend to use whatever term we grew up with, regardless of later changes in technology…

Perhaps “playlist” will be the next generation’s word for (record | CD | album)?