I bought "The Work..." sometime during the summer of 2004 when there was a big hype surrounding it, coming from people such as Nate the Great and others whose tastes I generally trust, and listened to it (sometimes drunk, sometimes stoned, sometimes sober, sometimes while working out) quite a few times (more than five, I can tell you, but probably not more than ten because anytime you listen to an album that many times over the course of several days, the music tends to grow stale and banal and it honestly destroys the joy of listening to it in my opionion, I'd rather my music be surprising every time I listen to it, which is why I spread my music listening out and try not to let one album outweigh the rest, although I did it when I first bout "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" on CD, though, and I still love that album, altough that case is certainly an exception), honestly (in my heart of hearts) trying to like it (I am of the opinion that everyone should at least "try" to like an album when they first hear it... if it disappoints you, so be it, but you should at least give everything a chance -- it makes the music-listening experience that much more enjoyable!). But then it really clicked with me -- I, being a big fan of the coldness, the dissonance, and the guitars that waver in and out of the wall of sound like phantoms running their cold fingers down the back of a frightened young boy that is running through a graveyard... I remember the days when children were afraid of graveyards and haunted houses and graveyards instead of Neverland Ranch... I mean really... who the fuck predicted the irony of that name?) but I bought a bunch of other stuff and forgot to listen to it more (at least, as much as I should have in the ensuing seasons); I haven't really considering trading it away.
