fiction and creative non-fiction from Brennan Quenneville
Paper Route is in an interesting place. After releasing a smattering of brilliant EPs1 that introduced their novel, beautifully melodic take on electronica, Paper Route released Absence, their début full-length in 2009. The album was well received, both critically and commercially, and while I agree that it is a strong album,2 it also seemed to present a movement away from those […]
Continue reading "Paper Route – The Peace of Wild Things"The fast approaching end of 2019 means not only the end of the year but also of the decade. Ten years ago, in a similar situation, I was new to blogging and felt obligated to make clear that my decade-spanning retrospective was no more than one man’s personal opinion. In 2019, there’s no need for […]
Continue reading "The 100 Best Albums of the Decade: 80-61"One day I was listening to my music catalog on shuffle, as I often do, when PVRIS’s “You and I” came on and was followed by Paper Route’s “You and I.” After a quick search revealed that I also had Fightstar’s “You & I” lurking in my library, I thought that it would be fun to […]
Continue reading "A (Failed) Quest to Find the Best “You and I”"My girlfriend likes to claim that I only listen to depressing music, which is crazy. Case in point: I love Christmas music, which is unilaterally positive. In fact, one of the great things about the holiday season is the festive music that can be heard everywhere, from your nearest shopping center, to the park near my house […]
Continue reading "Top 5 Non-Traditional Holiday Songs"My peers and I are in a conspicuous position when it comes to reviewing the past decade in music: we began high school and likely completed college all within the confines of the decade. High school and college. Those are your prime musical-attachment years. Regardless of whether or not you are capable of keeping an […]
Continue reading "My Top 50 Albums: 2000-2009"2009 was a solid (if unspectacular) year for music, marked by two masterful (if not transcendent) albums and a whole slew of decent-to-good records. For some reason unbeknownst to me, nearly every band that released an album in 2009 released some variety of pop-album, even bands that had never before ventured into those sugary waters […]
Continue reading "My Top Ten Albums of 2009"One of the certainties of writing year-end retrospectives—or decade-end ones, if you happen to share my particular brand of lunacy—is that, as soon as you’ve published your hard-wrought work, you’ll find several albums that warrant inclusion on your list but that, for one reason or another, you missed. Maybe you had meant to listen to […]
Continue reading "Hallucinations is a Somber, Exciting Turn for PVRIS"It is news to approximately zero people that music is not made in a vacuum. What may actually be news to a few people is the important role that community can potentially play in fostering a band’s sound. There’s a reason that we associate Seattle with grunge, St. Louis with the blues, and Detroit with that Motown […]
Continue reading "Brennan’s Best of 2012: New Jersey Rising"
Songs & Stories 