08 - The New Pornographers

“Challengers” – The New Pornographers – Challengers

It took more listens for Challengers to sink in for me than any previous NP album. I think part of this is that it doesn’t have a centerpiece song for me the way their other albums have (“Mass Romantic,” from Mass Romantic, "The Laws Have Changed” from Electric Version, and “The Bleeding Heart Show” from Twin Cinema). You are likely to get a different “centerpiece” list from any NP fan, but my point is that with no such song for me on Challengers, all the songs were essentially growers. Grow on me they did, though, to the point where picking one for this playlist was based as much on YouTube availability as it was on which song I liked best.

I went with the lovely, subdued title track, but it could just as easily have been “Myriad Harbor,” the best Bejar-penned NP song yet, Kathryn Calder’s breakout vocal performance on the stuttering, droning “Failsafe,” the haunting Neko Case ballad “Go Places” (also a waltz, I might add), the Bleeding-Heart-Show-That-Never-Quite-Explodes of “My Rights Versus Yours,” the rollicking “All The Old Showstoppers” or the sweeping glory of “Mutiny, I Promise You” or “All Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth.”

Challengers may not have peaks that reach quite as high as the previous three albums, but that is easily made up for in depth.
( Here’s a Rhapsody playlist of all the songs mentioned.)