Stars, The Five Ghosts

Stars, The Five Ghosts
Reviewed by: Chris Polley

I’m aware that after about 8^th grade it’s no longer deemed “creative” to start out a paper or piece with a definition, but as I find my joy buttons being pushed relentless as I swim through the glistening sounds of Stars’ new album The Five Ghosts, I can’t do much to explain my love for the kind of music this band makes other than to point you to the Urban Dictionary’s nineteen different entries for the slang term “sucker”. I particularly identify with definition number three, which suggests that a sucker is one who, simply put, “loves something obsessively.” This makes my renewed adoration for the Canadian group in question’s warm and bubbly melodies seem only a bit over the top and manic, nothing more. I can live with that. Unfortunately, many more of the definitions on this page use language like “gullible,” “falls for scams,” and “loser.” It seems like the odds are against me. More people would see me as a dim man who has given into an album that isn’t merely representative of my more facile tastes, but more significantly, something that has tricked or manipulated me into liking it, rather than being a genuinely likeable and worthwhile collection of songs.

This treads dangerously into the futile “guilty pleasure” debate circa 2004ish, to be sure, but remains notable today because guilt is very much not a factor in the equation. Due to overuse of the original phrase and a newfound embrace of sincerity across the indie spectrum, we have in many ways come full circle as music lovers who just want to experience pleasure while listening to music. So it’s no longer a question of whether or not the style is cool or hip; it is now a question of whether the style is pleasurable. And, more specifically, when a style is objectively non-abrasive and/or doesn’t take aural risks (if not in melody, then in production, and if not in production, then in instrumentation, and if neither, then the genre better be something that hasn’t been popular for at least ten years), in the sadistic world of indie, it is thereby stigmatized automatically and stamped as displeasing. So off we now march into an adult version of opposite day on the playground, where something as starkly beautiful and lush as Stars’ The Five Ghosts is in great danger of garnering the attention it deserves because it’s safe, because it’s hormonally balanced, and because it’s mature.

And that last word is key for oh so many reasons, but first and foremost because it calls to mind a couple of ugly acronyms in the music world (*cough* – industry): AAA and MOR. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of learning too much about the ever so slowly dying field of radio, the first stands for Adult Album Alternative, which is basically the same as some middle-aged program directors sitting around a table with copious amounts of acoustic pop CDs in front of them and asking each other “what songs will soccer moms with emo glasses or aging tech-geeks who think Ryan Adams is underground like?” They are the hive mind that are responsible for getting music that makes people who aren’t cool by college-aged kids’ standards think they’re cool to the masses. The second acronym mentioned above, MOR, translates to middle-of-the-road, and for all intents and purposes, means the same thing, but is more friendly in the indie crowd, especially those nearing 30 who haven’t listened to their Sonic Youth CDs in years but will anxiously await the next more-watered down Hold Steady album with bated breath. It’s more apt in describing and helping wade through the issue at hand with Stars’ The Five Ghosts, but really both are simultaneously becoming less and less used in vocabulary while more and more successfully creating a divide between those that prefer friendly simple music and those that prefer “music that, you know, makes me think.”

The trick behind this whole masquerade is that all music, if you like it, doesn’t primarily make you think. It, before anything else, makes you feel. And despite my assy descriptions in the above paragraph, I fully support and embrace anyone who feels joy when they listen to music, regardless of how meticulous or effortless the songs they listen to are, or how challenging or accessible they are, or how much I like them. Period. The truth is, with music criticism, is that I’m going to assign a rating to this album at the bottom of this post that represents the best possible numerical quantification I can muster of how much I feel while I listen to Stars’ The Five Ghosts. The beauty of this site in particular is that in one month’s time you can come back to this post and see if I still feel as much as I did when I first started listening to it, but really even that is just one more attempt at trying to objectively understand through a third eye how pleasurable something is, which is impossible.

Right now, in this moment, I don’t care how milquetoast or banal Stars may sound to someone who likes Lightning Bolt. I don’t care how benign and lifeless these songs sound to someone who needs something more complex in composition or vibrant in texture, or whatever. On the other hand, I also don’t care if someone who prefers their straightforward pop music to include a folk drawl or some acoustic fretwork doesn’t find the same kind of splendor I find in Stars’ airy and slight electronic-meets-organic symmetry. It ultimately doesn’t matter. Which is also what makes me a continued committed music critic as well, I may add. Because what I communicate to you the reader may be moot when it comes to whether or not you like this record, but at least I told you my piece. I have tried to offer some perspective on the ideals of one kind of music listener versus another, and if you don’t find yourself in either camp, or in one camp or the other depending on your mood, congratulations, you’re a bit more human than the industry wishes you were.

So if you immerse yourself in the opening track “Dead Hearts” and don’t find yourself moved or at least curious, don’t sweat it. Try the excellent subsequent song “Wasted Daylight” to get less of Torq Campbell’s whispery-meets-convulsive vocalizing and more of Amy Millan’s inarguably gorgeous and modest delivery atop the familiar kind of pop soundscaping that hasn’t sounded innovative since the trailer for Garden State. And if that doesn’t float your boat, doesn’t pique enough cerebral hairs on your head, then so be it. From there I think the album stays strong, with the small exception of some sleep missteps before, after, and during the song “Changes”, but those of you in the AAA/MOR target demo might think it finally gets soothing there. But regardless of where you fit in the spectrum of suckerdom (aka Pleasure City), if I left you with one plea regarding this kind of music that doesn’t worry so much about mental stimulation but rather the kind that’s more concerned with the aorta, it would be (as is appropriate considering the tone of this record) simply this: don’t like something just because it’s weird, and don’t discount something just because you think you’ve heard it before. Listen. Closer.

Rating: 86%