The Lovers' Album of the Week - Part 2

The Dirty Projectors The Getty Address

The Getty Address reminds me of one of my favorite releases from 2004, Panda Bear's Young Prayer. As a response to the artists' father's death, Young Prayer was the years most unconventional pop record complete with incoherent chants of various falsetto ranges set to minimal instrumentation. While I'm not sure of the personal response behind the release of The Getty Address, The Dirty Projectors are sure to be this years contender for oddest pop record. Like Panda Bear, the voice acts as a central instrument and lead man Dave Longstreth's use of the falsetto comes of like a classically trained Tiny Tim. However, the main attraction of The Getty Address is the music itself which is engulfing and ever-changing. The Getty Address also reminds me of my other Album of the Week, The Books' Lost and Safe, in the way that both records approach each song in so many directions. Sorta like a kid who has been accidently locked in the school's music room over the weekend and decides to kill the time by pulling out every instrument from the closet. Which is not to say Longstreth is alone in all this - he guides his odd vision with the aid of the Orchestral Society for the Preservation of the Orchestra, a 10-piece chamber group complete with oboe, trombone, horn, trumpet, and soprano and alto voice. It's that organic sound that really sets The Getty Address apart from the Books' Lost and Safe and that grand scale which sets it apart from Young Prayer. And as a combination of it's parts it's what separates it from anything else out there. If Lincoln were correct in assuming "that all men are created equal," well, surely all pop music is not.