BEST (OR WORST) ALBUM TO LISTEN TO WHILE DRIVING

The Magnetic Fields are an indie band who have this interesting habit of making really short albums that you can sing along with. The singing along with bit makes them (for me at least) good albums to listen to while on long car trips. The short part makes them really terrible to listen to on long car trips since if you leave your CD player on repeat, you’ll hear a half-hour album six times in a three-hour driving stretch. So anyway, they put out an album all about traveling called Charm of the Highway Strip that has some really freaking great lyrics but is only a half-hour long (for the love of Mike!). Not only are the lyrics well sung, creative, and emotional but there are also some fabulous backing beats. There’s also a stupid friggin’ harpsichord, which is mixed in way too loud on track #2. However track #2 also contains the heart-breakingly sung lyric “your eyes are the Mesa Verde, big and brown and far away.” It hurts me just to think about it.