Crossroads Minute: Boomkat - Boomkatalog One

Hey Everyone! It's James from Crossroads Minute and for our Newsletter this month, I decided to listen to the debut album by Taryn Manning's band with her brother Kellin, Boomkat. It's called Boomkatalog One. We actually heard a song from it in Wednesday's minute of THIS WEEK!

Erin had told me that this album was good, but I had no idea when I put it on, how much I would enjoy it! 

First of all, this is an album that defies genre catergorization, which is very exciting. There's a hip-hop element, there's a trip hop element, there's a simple pop element. It's very cool. There's a song called "Fun For Me" on the Batman & Robin soundtrack by a band called Moloko (lol it turns out that it was the first single released from the soundtrack!) and I was reminded of it more than once when I was listening to this album, and especially during "The Wreckoning". Something about how Taryn is singing really puts me in that same sonic place.

The other thing that struck me right away about this album is that it definitely doesn't feel like a vanity project for Taryn Manning. She's the lead singer and the star of the band, but it's not like ACTRESS TARYN MANNING'S BAND BOOMKAT. It feels like a separate world. Also Kellin is present and vocal on the album, probably to slightly less extent than Blake was on Rilo Kiley's Takeoffs and Landings, but you still feel like he's there and making contribution to the music and the overall feel of the music. It's very cool.

The album is just so damn charming and I think the thing that kept it from DESTROYING the pop charts is that it came out in 2003. If it had come out in like 1996 or 1997, I think it would have been HUGE. And it's very interesting/depressing to me how the matter of a couple of years can make the difference between huge and nothingness. Fortunately, Ms Manning (if you're nasty) (you might wonder if she makes this Janet Jackson ref. You better believe she does) has had an incredibly successful acting career to fall back on.

A highlight of the album for me, and something that really highlights how they are approaching this album, comes on the song "Bein Bad". It's a song about going out to the club and all that goes into that. So you're listening and bopping your head and then this line pipes into your ears:

And now we're rolling at the club
Where her love is being smothered
Yo there's a cutie over there
(Taryn! That's your brother!)
Oh, that's my brother

I laughed out loud the first time I heard this. That's the thing about this album. It's beautiful and it's dancey but there are parts on it that are also FUNNY. And I find that to be a very valuable facet of an album and one that is missing from some otherwise VERY good albums.

So in conclusion, you should check out this album. It's available on Spotify, if you use that and I would imagine you can track it down on YouTube if you don't!