I once accidentally found a folder filled with illicit music on a hot desk PC at work. I’ve found over the years, the music I have self-discovered on the various platforms available, that have been left or lost by other people has become incalculable. Disguarded cassette tapes at the side of the road, mysterious CDs left in cars, abandoned MP3s on computers. So many different forms over the years and, like porn in park bushes, a form of discovery denied to future youth because of the controlled way that music is proliferated and consumed.
I suppose that is why I started this music project. A way to explain, not only to myself, that my music tastes have developed over the years but to also preserve for future generations a catalogue of music to discover for themselves without commercial interference and duplicity.
The Decemberists were one of those bands that I self-discovered via an abandoned folder of illicit downloads; Hazards of Love was a legitimate purchase made on the back of that discovery. But as we all know, downloading music illegally killed music, and this is why today, The Decemberists have to tour and continue to produce sound to feed their starving faces.
I’d not listened to Hazards of Love for some years after its purchase. Mostly because it languished in my collection out of reluctance to listen to it. Eventually, sometime in 2016, I plucked up the courage. My disappointment in having not listened to it before then forced me to reevaluate the whole purpose of the Music Project; this, curiously, took me a whole year to do.
Hazards of Love is a prog masterpiece. A true concept album and much more enticing than Crane Wife, Hazards of Love tells the story of magical beings that live in an enchanted forest and how falling in love in such environments is never a good idea. Some really catchy tunes with intricate lyrics make up this acoustic soundscape which will lure you in like a forest enchantress. Ideal as a first tentative step into the back catalogue of The Decemberists especially for those looking to later paddle into the shallows of post-pre-neo-revival prog rock.
Yes, I make up my own genres.
Stegzy's Music Project 
The King is Dead – The Decemberists [#658]
by stegzyI recently worked with a guy who bore an uncanny resembelance to Colin Meloy, the lead singer of The Decemberists. He had no idea who Colin Meloy was and, for a young chap, was surprisingly lacking in music knowledge. I’d like to think that me purposefully calling him Colin or Mr Meloy either drove him to hating me outright or that it encouraged him to look into his look-a-like and perhaps on a musical path of self discovery.
That was in 2020, the year of the virus, when the world turned on its head and stability seemed like a memory. Indeed, only a few years previous in 2018, I had gone to Leeds with Mrs Gnomepants to see the band, something I’d really looked forward to, only to come down with a really bad bout of flu on the day. Like “get me to bed now I’m not well at all” bad. I still went to the gig though. It was great fun. But before that I’d really no idea what the Decemberists looked like or sounded like live. But now I know and I’m bloody glad I did go. Their support, Hop-a-long were good too.
The King is Dead is the next album chronologically from Hazards of Love which, if you’ve forgotten or missed it, I talked about here some time back. Look I’m a busy guy you know? I’m fifty next year, I have to work and do actual grown up shit these days so if I fall behind in my various content outputs its not because I don’t care, its because I can never find the time ok? I’d even do this as a podcast if I had someone to do it with me! Anyway, The King is Dead isn’t as catchy as previous Decemberist albums in my opinion. Its odd but the Decemberists sub-reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Decemberists/) did a Redditors vote for the best album and I seem to remember this one fareing quite well. Perhaps I’m just not a typical Decemberists fan?
Audibly, this album is very close in style to what Mike Scott’s The Waterboys were trying to achive in the Fisherman’s Blues days. Indeed, you can also detect influences of This is the Sea in previous Decemberist materials come to think of it. Happily though, the Decemberists dont go down the Room to Roam route and still churn out some good albums, which, hopefully we’ll see here when I get to them….
The album is available from
Apple Music
Amazon Music
Youtube Music
and probably Spotty-fi if you’re lasse faire with your data….
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2011 Capitol Decemberists Folk Folk Rock Rough Trade