125. The Books - Thought for Food (2002)

First off, let's be perfectly honest: I have no clue what in the hell the Books are trying to do here (both on this record and its equally lauded followup, The Lemon of Pink). I have no clue what's going on, I have no clue why it's supposed to be any good, I have no clue why anyone would like it, I have no clue why I should like it, etc. So what this is is basically obscure spoken-word vocal samples taken from old advertisements, instructional videos and so forth set to calming, amelodic washes of acoustic guitar, rumbly-sounding percussion and dinging noises. The whole thing is aggressively quirky and weird and nothing is really allowed to stay around long enough to make much of an impression. I don't understand why this is any good at all. Occasionally a good melody will jump out of the murk (like on "All Our Base Are Belong to Them") but that's the exception more than a rule. I suppose this kind of stuff makes the most sense as an attempt to inject some interest into "ambient music", which is laudable I guess, but this isn't the way to do it. So 1. I've never heard anything else much like this and 2. that might be a good thing.

MY RATING: 4.4

The Books - "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again"