I absolutely adore the sound of Louis XIV*. More specifically, the sound of Louis XIV's The Best Little Secrets are Kept album. The band once described it as a concept album that tells the story of Louis XIV, or rather, some pompous, late teen, oversexed, overdrugged kid in suburban Cali who thinks he's the shit, acts like he's the shit, and doesn't give a fuck what you have to say about it....basically like the 14th Louis of France, who was arrogant enough to callhimself "The Sun King" and stay in power for seventy-two motherfucking years.
Musically, lead singer Jason Hill discussed the band's goal to really capture a specific "rock n roll" sound. To get that right, sorta clean, post-punk sleeze rock feel. According to Hill, the album's all about sound. The music came first. The lyrics came after. And in between? Sweat, cigarettes, late night studio jams, fun, and general love of music. Combined, you can hear it all--the passion, the influences, Louis...
I don't know if there are a lot of albums out there that give you that experience. Hell, I don't even know if people listen to albums anymore. I know I can't really talk, I grew up with CDs (I fiddled with cassettes back when the only thing I listened to was the Lion King soundtrack), but I know I always valued the experience of listening to an entire CD. Today is the day of the single, the day of the 4 track EP, the iTunes shuffle, so of course it's even harder to stomach the idea of listening to one band for a solid 40 minutes. But I swear, Best Little Secrets... is the kind of album you don't want to listen to intermittently. You actually can't help it. You put on one song and you wanna hear the rest, intrigued by Louis's suicidal inducing longing for his teacher, his adventures of lust and girls that do it "like they do in Hong-Kong", all the while witnessing the darker side of such self-destructive behavior in the form of Dominique's body being carried out of the house or his own self-reflections. Furthermore, you're enticed by the palpable, audible, connection between the artist, themselves, and the music they're creating and the organic process they're creating it in.
Listen to it high.
Listen to it sober.
Before a party.
While you're cleaning.
Before you fall asleep.
Whenever.
It's an experience, so much so that I had to give you a link to download the whole shebang.
So here's a free CD essentially, on me. Enjoy
Cheers
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*The Band is no longer together, unfortunately. So you should really enjoy this album since its one of the only two in existence...and the other isn't as good.
