Magnolia Electric Co.
“Almost Was Good Enough” (live)

Let me tell you a story.

There’s this Canadian band I used to talk a lot about. They’re called Tomboyfriend. For a while, I thought they had released my favorite album of 2010. It’s a good album. The band is like a highly accomplished bar band. But it’s no “favorite album of 2010.”

One of the main reasons why I love the album so much, though, is that I could not download it. Not from the file sites or the torrent sites. (I did, though, get it for free because the band very very graciously just straight sent me a copy of it. I’m not saying I dislike the album. I really like this album.) My point is the scarcity of the music—Said the Gramophone had the one mp3 I wanted pulled from the site, no torrents existed, I only had like two songs of theirs—contributed to my belief that Don’t Go To School was one of the best albums of the year.

The truth is that it is and it isn’t. It’s good, but now that I can listen to it whenever, I don’t listen to it as much.

Being able to listen to any music you want to, at any moment, is, in the words of Jay-Z, a gift and a curse. With the torrent sites, iTunes, eMusic, Amazon MP3, and Google, I can get just about any piece of music I want right now.

The problem with that is you have to actually pick out what you want to listen to. Checking my iTunes right now, I have 60 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes, and 15 seconds of music. That’s a lot of music! (Too much music, Brian.)

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I was listening to Madvillainy a few minutes ago. As is wont to happen when you’re listening to Madvillainy, “Rhinestone Cowboy” came on. And then, as is wont to happen when “Rhinestone Cowboy” ends, Magnolia Electric Co.’s Trial & Errors started up. And let me tell you, after the stony, spaced out raps of Madvillain, the poetic/direct lyricism of Jason Molina hit me right there.

I think Trial & Errors is my second-favorite Magnolia Electric Co. album. It’s a live album from 2005, if my tags are correct. And I am a sucker for live albums. Molina’s band sounds really present and awesome. There’s some decent banter. But mostly, it’s stretched out compositions, tasteful guitar solos, and lots of presence.

I am also a sucker for presence.

Describing the band, they’re like a Mountain Goats meets a little Neil Young minus a bunch of religion. That’s awesome. Big fan of what that describes.

And it’s made more nice to me by the kind-of randomness of it. I know it’s not random (per se) that “Magnolia Electric Co.” comes after “Madvillain,” but it just feels nice to have a little agency taken away from me when it comes to queueing up the next song.

It’s a blessing to delegate. And it’s even better not to have to delegate at all.

“Almost Was Good Enough” is not my favorite Magnolia Electric Co. song, but it is my favorite Magnolia Electric Co. on Trials & Errors.