Emergency & I by The Dismemberment Plan

The Dismemberment Plan
Emergency & I
1999
Indie
DeSoto

1. A Life Of Possibilities
2. Memory Machine
3. What Do You Want Me To Say?
4. Spider In The Snow
5. The Jitters
6. I Love A Magician
7. You Are Invited
8. Gyroscope
9. The City
10. Girl O'Clock
11. 8.5 Minutes
12. Back And Forth
(Also included is a 507x514 album cover .jpeg)

When I die, I'm goin' to heaven
Leave it all to the cockroaches and the 7-11s
But it'd be nice to think we could get it right down here
Just once

"8.5 Minutes"

The Dismemberment Plan, also known as The D-Plan or just The Plan, was essentially a pop band with experimental songwriting and instrumentation. They formed in 1993 and released 4 full albums, but never really got the attention they deserved. Emergency & I is regarded by most fans and haters alike as the pinnacle of their discography. I don't know where I stand on the issue, due to the quality of their last album, Change. But nonetheless, Emergency & I is a great place to start with The Dismemberment Plan, and features some of their poppiest and noisiest songs.

The thing that set The Plan apart from mainstream pop bands of their time was their futuristic sound and their unique vocals, lyrics, and song structure. The singer/guitarist of the group, Travis Morrison, is mostly to blame for this. He writes songs in a strange way, sings in a strange way, and has strange ideas for how his accompanying music to sound. This is in no way a bad thing. In fact, I believe these things are the reason for The Plan's appeal.

All of the music features keyboards that sound closer to being sound effects than a piano, and more often than not, highly effected guitar signals, caused by effects pedals made by the band themselves among others. Sometimes the music is minimal, quiet, and peaceful, like in the majority of "A Life Of Possibilities," but other times, The Plan is loud, busy, and sometimes noisy. For a great example of this, listen to "I Love A Magician," or "Girl O'Clock." Some say that the music of The Plan incorporates elements of R&B and Hip-Hop, though I'm not sure I agree.

Travis' lyrics also have something to be said for them. Most songs have a Bob Dylan-y way of progressing lyrically. They are very visual and read like a story, taking the listener on a complete trip to another place. Good examples of this are "You Are Invited," and "8.5 Minutes." Another thing about Travis' writing is that he rarely follows the traditional pop song structure of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. It's nothing drastic, but it's worth noting. Some songs also replace singing with spoken word lyrics, but leave a nice hook-y chorus for casual fans to latch onto.

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This album contains just a couple of instances of strong profanity. Just a heads up for those of you who are offended by those kinds of things.

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