Cursive’s Happy Hollow, which may or may not refer to the other half of the reproductive team first alluded to by their previous LP, 2003’s The Ugly Organ, has some tough shoes to fill. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can predict what most reviews will conclude about the album without actually hearing it. The Ugly Organ was a clever self-referential album whose wit, concept, and unique sound fueled by the addition of Gretta Cohn’s cello helped it to cancel out some of the negativity that the indie-music press direct towards it for committing the sins of a) being a band from Omaha, and b) being on the same label as “too popular to be cool” Bright Eyes. The Ugly Organ was a great album that was at best admitted to be “okay” by the criticshpere (did the blogosphere exist yet?). That said, Cursive has lost the conceptual gimmick, lost the strings of Cohn, and still remains on the same label as Connor Oberst. The reviews won’t be as kind. [Quickly checks various reviews]. Yep, I was right. I’ll even agree, this album just won’t surprise you like “The Ugly Organ” did. However, there is a further maturity from frontman Tim Kasher that occasionally surpasses all that he has done before.
One of these moments can be found in the track Dorothy at Forty. In a tale every 22-year old hipster can relate to, Cursive explores the issues of dreams lost and forgotten during midlife. Calling upon the images and themes of The Wizard of Oz, Cursive uses the allegory to ask where Dorothy’s pure ideals would be if Dorothy were forty and living in the present day. One of Cursive’s strong points has always been the atypical themes they utilize in their songs (Art is Hard, The Recluse), and I applaud them for not pandering to their supposed audience in this respect.
Michael Grodner puts these ideas to film via a forty-year-old double-dream sequence. His “Dorothy” seems to be living the prototypical life with the two kids she has to drop off at school on the way to her unrewarding job. The dissatisfaction between her current life and the dreams she once held becomes unrelenting as a rainbow representing ideals and possibilities long since abandon beckons her. Does the rainbow have that which she seeks, or an even more important lesson to be learned? Watch the video and judge for yourself.
The only question I have for Mr. Grodner is whether that female protagonist is really forty. Because if she is, there’s hope yet for my forty-year-old sex life. Power suits and nighties? Sign me up.
Cursive - Dorothy at Forty by Michael Grodner
Flash, via Saddle Creek Records
Quicktime 7 (iPod compatible), via SRO
erm… unlike most of your fare, that was one lousy video (& track).
I don’t like videos I could have thought of and done. I just need to figure out how to add that rainbow. Not down with this one. It’s part of the American syndrome wanting things we don’t work for.