CD Odyssey Disc 86: Rilo Kiley

I am on a roll of strong music big time!

Disc 86 is...Take Offs and Landings
Artist: Rilo Kiley (n.b. it's a band, not a person)

Year of Release: 2001

How I Came To Know It: Sheila read a good review for a side project by Rilo Kiley's frontwoman, Jenny Lewis. We really liked that album and so I sought out something from her band. I started with "Take Offs and Landings" because well, it was the earliest thing I could find.

How It Stacks Up: I have all four Rilo Kiley albums that I know. It really depends on my mood which one I like the best, but all things being equal, I guess I like this one the best.

Rating: 5 stars.

My friend Spence is often asking if there has been a truly great band that got started in the 'oughts'. It sometimes seems like there isn't, but then I listened to this album and the answer is "yes, and that band is Rilo Kiley."

This song also again answers the question, "Can pop music be made with any artistic value?" Although Aimee Mann already affirmed you can earlier in the Odyssey, Rilo Kiley reinforces this point. This album has some of the best pop music you will hear.

Jenny Lewis has a very pure, almost childlike quality to her voice. It is waifish - but still conveys adult emotion. As is common for the band, "Take Offs and Landings" features fellow band founder Blake Sennett singing two or three songs of his own. Sennett is the weaker voice, but he manages to hold his own here better than later albums.

Also, while I prefer the Lewis songs, Sennett gives a nice break stylistically to the music every 4th or 5th track.

The songs have an almost sixties-folk feel to them, but like with Belle and Sebastian the lyrics and themes are a lot heavier. Much of the album is about existential crisis - not only questioning whether relationships have meaning, but whether life in general does.

Yes, yes - rock and rollers questioning the meaning of life - we've seen it before. That is true, but Rilo Kiley sounds fresh, bold and very unlike anything else I had heard. Besides, they write good pop songs, which is not as easy as it sounds.

I particularly like the opening to "Science vs. Romance":

"I used to think, if I could realize I'd die
then I would be a lot nicer
Used to believe in a lot more,
now I just see straight ahead"

A nice summation of the end of youth's innocence, and an expression of the fear we all have that as we get older we're settling. A theme followed up in "Wires and Waves":

"There are twelve hours
there's a day between us
You called to say you're sorry in your own way
There are oceans and waves and wires between us
You called to say you're getting older
Sometimes planes they smash up in the sky
Sometimes lonely hearts they just get lonelier"

There is nothing like realizing a hard fact for the first time, and this album recaptures those feelings we have in our early twenties. Complex feelings when we realize that everything is NOT necessarily going to be alright, and that we're going to have to muddle through anyway. Planes may crash, romance may falter. And one day we'll be gone, and that will be that. Or it won't.

As Jenny sings in "Plane Crash in C":

"I have no idea what's been going on lately
I just wish you would come over and explain things"

We all remember that feeling, but don't worry, it gets easier once you stop waiting around like an idiot for the doorbell to ring. As the last lyric on the album states "you can't stay here tomorrow."

Because in the end, "Take Offs and Landings" is not just a celebration of confusion, it's also a kick in the pants to those who might be tempted to wallow in it permanently. It is a good way to start the oughts.

Best tracks: almost all of them - maybe not "August", which mildly irks me - but the other 13 for sure.