laments

I like folksy, guitar music so much that, sometimes, I annoy myself. I think it all began with me tuning in to James Taylor as a kid, and liking guitar music accompanied by whinny or nasal voices ever since. These are usually songs about getting your heartbroken in some place where you're all alone to wallow in your own sorrow with dignity.

Of all the bands that figured in lists of best records of '08, I like Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes a lot. Both feature a guy and his buddies singing sad, wistful tunes while accompanying themselves on their guitars.

Bon Iver sounds like the type of music you'll create when you break up with your girlfriend, and your band, and hole up in some cabin in the woods. With a liver ailment. Which is all good since that is the exact context of singer/songwriter Justin Vernon when he wrote the music that eventually made up most of Bon Iver's debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago.

Fleet Foxes's, eponymous album, not borne out of a solitary, cathartic experience is a bit more lush. Yet, with all this exploration of the depths of solitude, of sad love, this musical and emotional hari kiri is strangely cleansing and uplifting. It's like that nice, warm feeling after a really good cry.