So-Called Chaos

Started: 2004-05-20 16:23:40

Submitted: 2004-05-20 16:50:50

Visibility: World-readable

You see everything you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here

I suspect all of my loyal readers who are also Alanis fans already have this album (released to the world all of two days ago), and the rest of my loyal readers probably won't go out and buy So-Called Chaos just from reading this changelog, but that's not going to stop me from giving my thoughts.

Tuesday night, my first real chance to acquire the album in meatspace (given that I was occupied at work during normal business hours, I took a characteristically short lunch break, and I headed to my parents' house to help Willy film Fences at 1700), I left filming (and the following supper) at 2000. The thought crossed my mind to acquire the album, but the idea of going to a big-box retailer didn't appeal to me. I couldn't recall the locations of any music retailers in Boulder that matched my criterion (I know where Wherehouse Music, formerly known as Rocky Mountain Tapes and Records used to be before they closed), but there is a tiny independently-owned media retailer named CD Depot less than a kilometer south of my apartment, across the street from Louisville's downtown post office. Unfortunately, they closed at 2000, thwarting my chances of acquiring the album.

I returned to CD Depot on Wednesday after work. I wandered the crowded aisles of CDs, segregated by genre and new/used status. I didn't find the disk I was looking for until it occurred to me to check the display of new releases on the wall adjacent to the entrance. I found the disk (slightly discounted from list price) and presented my Magic Bank Account Depletion Card.

My media viewing schedule didn't permit me to actually listen to the disk until almost 2300. I briefly contemplated staying up to listen to all of it but settled upon listening to half of it and going to bed at 2330. Some mysterious circumstances thwarted my attempts to transfer the mp3s I ripped to my iPod (Ziyal didn't feel like talking to my iPod, despite my attempts at coercing it into working), so I took the physical album with me to work and listened to music the old-fashioned way.

I like the album. Thematically, it sounds like Alanis is growing up, learning to deal with the rejections that made Jagged Little Pill (an excellent album in its own right) so angry. (Alanis is even smiling on the cover photo.) She even says as much in "This Grudge":

14 years 30 minutes 15 seconds I've held this grudge
11 songs 4 full journals, thoughts of punishment I've expended

Not in contact not a letter such communication telepathic
You've been vilified, used as fodder, you deserve a piece of every record

But who's it hurting now?
Who's the one that's stuck?
Who's it torturing now, with an antique knot in her stomach

Musically, the album sounds like a logical progression from Under Rug Swept, with some notable influence from "No Pressure Over Cappuccino" on Unplugged.

I like So-Called Chaos. It'll make a worthy addition to my music collection.