Suggestions: Kris Fulton

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This weeks Suggestions come from musician/photographer Kris Fulton.  Kris is the vocalist of the Baltimore based screamo band Age Sixteen.  They have a new album coming out on March 16th called Open Up Finders, Please that I will be posting a review of in the coming days.  Kris wrote a bunch so I’ll just end my little introduction and let you get on with his suggestions.  Enjoy.

For me, a good solid album has always and will always be about the marriage between great music and great lyrics. i typically treat vocals like an instrument, because technically speech is just a bunch of sounds much like any sound an instrument itself makes. the music is what gets me interested enough in the band to want to know exactly what they are trying to say lyrically.  understanding exactly what a band is trying to say both musically and lyrically can be very challenging. i have always found it easier to relate to and try to comprehend the lyrics, which is why playing an instrument never worked for me and being a vocalist seems to be working out. music has been a big part of my life since i was about 12 and even more so now than before, but i naturally consider myself a writer more so than a musician. i don’t think that my top 5 will have any albums that most readers of STR will not already be familiar with, BUT i do hope that upon reading my reasoning for choosing these albums you’ll go back and listen/read the words to the songs and connect to them lyrically if you haven’t done so already (or just gain some new insight). all of these albums have had a great effect on me and are the reason why i am involved in music the way that i am today. they feel more like old friends than just groups of songs. i tend to be pretty long winded when it comes to writing about things i’m passionate/interested about…you have been warned.

1. mewithoutYou – catch for us the foxes

both mike and matt already mentioned this album and typically that would deter me from listing this, but it would be a complete lie for this album not to appear on my list. this album whole-heartedly influenced me as both a person and later on as a song writer. i blew off mwy when i first heard about them from a co-worker. it took me a long time to actually go back and give them a listen. i first sat down and listened to this album around the time when i was struggling with my stance on christianity. i was raised christian but realized that i didnt actually believe in it, but i merely thought i believed in it because it was what i had been told all my life. listening to this album really put things in perspective for me. that’s not to say that it lead me straight back to christianity, but it did give me the basis in which to start my journey towards my own spiritual enlightenment.

musically this album gives me everything i need: fast & explosive when it needs to be along with calm & melodic parts. lyrically this album means the world to me. reading aaron weiss’ lyrics made me want to write songs and it’s a model that i try my best to follow with my own songs. he inspired me to be as open and honest with my words, despite how great they may or may not make me seem in other’s eyes. i am constantly impressed with his imagery, attention to details, and his fusion of bibilical verses with his own mortal dilemmas. he tells you that he is not perfect and that it’s okay. he doesnt preach, but rather he just tells his story. it’s really interesting to me that this is one of the only bands with a strong christian message that non-believers have been able to openly enjoy.

and on a side note, watching weiss perform live really influenced the way that i originally approached my “onstage presence.” as lame as it is to actually think about what you’re going to do onstage, as a vocalist who doesn’t have an instrument, you really have to consider this. figuring something out that makes you comfortable and the audience comfortable watching is part of the art of being a vocalist, in my opinion. with watching weiss live, i learned to be completely expressive with my body and to let the music and how it makes me feel along with the words that i am saying and the experiences tied to them to control my movements rather than use any predisposed music video/hardcore dance moves.

aside from being completely influential, this album is one of my all time favorites in general.

Snatch it HERE.

2. brand new – deja entendu

this album opened me up to a whole new world of music. what i like most about this band is how much they progress from album to album. the music grows up and matures as the band members themselves do. they didn’t try to re-write their previous albums like most bands do, rather thy reinvented themselves each time. i saw them when they were touring off of this album and it was probably one of the best shows ive ever been too (definitely much better than the two that i went to after they started touring again in 2006).

i saw the video for “the quiet things that no one ever knows” on mtv2 and was immediately convinced that this was a band that i needed to listen to. at the time i was buying cds left and right b/c i was 16 and had a job and no real bills to pay for, so i went out and bought the cd right after i saw the video. it took several listens for me to get into this album. at first i wrote it off and just skipped around to the one or two songs that i liked off of their first listen. after awhile i would just let it play through while driving in my car and once i actually stopped and listened to to the music, the lyrics and the stories behind them i became completely obsessed, even to the point where i had to read up on all of the drama between them and taking back sunday (remember that?? ha).

lyrically this album just blew me away. never before had i really read lyrics written or delivered in the way that jesse lacey did on that album. i loved how honest they were, even if they were cocky. they were so much more to me than taking back sunday’s “you could slit my throat and with my one last dying breath i’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt”, it was the more angsty, “I am hellbent on extracting all of my revenge. Take heart, sweetheart, or I will take it from you.” there isn’t one song on this album that doesn’t impress me still to this day.

the band’s third and most recent release, The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me” is another you should spend time with!

Snatch it HERE.

3. death cab for cutie – transatlanticism

i kind of overlooked this album when thinking about this list, mostly b/c i tend to shy away from this album in general b/c of it’s commercial success. however, i ended up listening to this album all the way through recently and was reminded about how powerful of an album this is and the influence it had on me. this, of course, is the album that catapulted death cab into the indie starlight. it’s easy to say that this band “soldout” for radio fame ala “The OC Soundtrack” BUT if you actually look at their discography you’ll see a band who have worked their asses off for many years just to get to that point. these guys deserve everything that they are getting now. great musicians.

either way, if you live under a rock or something, this is the album to listen to if you are new to death cab. it’s their fifth release and, i think, has elements of the older shoegazy/dark/moody sound found in their first four albums along with the more upbeat/hi-fi/indie pop sound that they develop in this and the two releases after Transatlanticism. arguably, any “true” death cab fan would say that We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, their 2nd release, was the band’s best release. generally i would agree, but i definitely have more of a connection to this release.

i can remember specific moments in my life when i was listening to each song on this album. i think that ben gibbard is an amazing songwriter and all of the words on this album just struck so close to home. lyrically, “title and registration”, “tiny vessels”, and “a lack of color” had the most impact on me and still do. “tiny vessels” hit so close to home (and still does at times) when i first heard it that i opted to skip it every time it came on just b/c i didn’t want to be reminded of the feelings that it evoked. the title track is a slow almost eight minute build up to an explosive and haunting chorus, “so come on…” though gibbard elegantly sings all of his lyrics, i could easily hear this phrase screamed and/or yelled overtop the same ringing chords and steady beat.

i dunno, i guess this album just really reminds me of a time in my life when things seemed so hopeless and yet when i listened to the music and read the lyrics i felt like things weren’t so bad after all.

Snatch it HERE.

4. jimmy eat world – futures

it’s kind of weird that most of my albums come from the early 2000s, but i guess that was the period in my life where music was the most influential to me and started to shape me as a person. either way, this is another album that i can remember the exact point in my life where i first heard it. i was very resistant to jimmy eat world at first. i hadn’t heard of them until “the middle” became popular and was playing on mtv nonstop. i kind of wrote them off as another pop group trying to make it. my girlfriend at the time was really into this cd when it came out so i heard it here and there. after we broke up, we kept in close contact b/c we hung around the same group of people and also, in hindsight, i wasn’t over her and she didn’t want us to break up in the first place. either way, she kept mentioning the song “work” and how she had been listening to it and how it was really helping her get through everything. there was a taking back sunday and jimmy eat world show that we both ended up going to with two different groups of people and i just remember how i felt seeing her there and hearing jimmy eat world play that song. i thought about how much of a shit head i had been and how i had wished that we had come to the show together like we had planned originally. it really crushed me and eventually led me to realize that i really wanted her back and had made a mistake. ha, of course i was too late and she had moved on by the time i came around. such is life.

i ended up coming back to this album years later by chance and was instantly reminded of that moment at the show and just about that relationship in general. this whole album destroys me every time i listen to it. i almost feel like i had to mature to actually understand it all. now, songs like “23″ completely blow my mind and pull at my heartstrings, such a great song musically and lyrically. a song like “drugs or me” just reminds me of dealing with a difficult relationship and that person’s “drug” becoming a huge weight on the whole situation. the remix to this song found on their ep Stay On My Side Tonight is amazing as well and brings a whole new light to the song, something that every remix does not accomplish.

this is just one of those albums that i feel like has the whole of my adolescence wrapped up in 11 beautifully composed songs.

Snatch it HERE.

5. blink 182 – enema of the state

this album wasn’t even nearly as influential as the other albums on this list were for me, but it was one of the first cds that i bought when i was around 12 and i remember how excited about it i was. this was one of my first tastes of the “punk” music of that time and i ate it up. listened to this cd back and forth everyday for a couple of months, learned all the words to the songs and even made a tape of it so that i could secretly listen to it in my mom’s van while i sat in the car waiting for her to come out after church. this album told me that it was okay to be a kid and do stupid things and to like girls even though they thought you were weird and that it was okay to not be the coolest kid at school. the songs on this album are simple and infectious. reunion tour summer 09!

Snatch it HERE.