I freaking love Rilo Kiley. I’ve seen them twice now in concert and I’d do so about fifty more times. I own all their albums on CD and I’ve gone to a lot of pains to find their LP mp3’s that I just can’t find in Toronto. As much as I love the band, you’d think they had been some kind of lifelong love affair. But really, I just discovered them a little over a year ago.

I was studying in Berlin at the time (gah, didn’t I use this story last time?!), trying to learning to speaking the Germanics. It was a lunch break between class (oh god, I loved our one-and-a-half hour lunch breaks!!!!) and we were all headed to the U-Bahn to take us to the cafeteria for munch time. I was pretty low on new music, so a friend of mine just plopped her headphones on me and pressed the play button on her iPod. The song was “Portions for Foxes” and the sound took me away, instantly.  It can often take me quite a while to really fall in love with new music, but Rilo Kiley just set itself right into my bloodstream.

One thing I think is really fantastic about the band is their flexibility as musicians and their very playful lyrics. They really have a very wide emotional range in their songs, and it’s always a treat to just listen in to the particular story Jenny Lewis (lead singer) is trying to tell you. One song, the Execution of all things, seems to be about Armageddon, and I’d gladly welcome the real thing if it sounded that good. And sometimes when I feel a bit too lazy or too tired to write a post for JAMM, Jenny Lewis shouts to me through my Shure earphones:

But it’s a sin when success complains,
and your writers block- it don’t mean shit.
Just throw it against the wall and see what sticks.
Gotta write a hit.
I think this is it.
It’s a hit.

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