Have you ever gotten a new record and instantly fallen in love with it? To the extent that it’s kinda all you want to listen to? And in those moments when you’re not listening to it, one (or more) of the songs is playing in your head?
That’s how I feel about the debut album by Mona. It’s not really that surprising, though. I loved “Listen to Your Love” from the first time I heard it on Alt Nation last year. I would occasionally look for the song and/or the band on iTunes (and later Spotify), but no dice. Eventually the Mona EP and the digital single for “Lean Into the Fall” showed up on Spotify and I listened to them a lot, but I still couldn’t find them on iTunes. Even after they showed up on iTunes I refrained from buying them because I’m broke and they were on Spotify. But I got iTunes gift cards for Christmas (yay!), so the EP and the single were among my early January purchases.
As great as it was to finally have something by Mona on my iPod, I still wondered when they’d put out a full-length record. If I had been thinking I suppose I would’ve googled them to find their Website, but I’ve become very myopic in my search for music online. If it’s not on iTunes or Spotify, I give up. Silly me.
Earlier this year I developed the habit of checking the homepage of the iTunes Store on Tuesdays to see what the Free Single of the Week is. I checked last Tuesday and, lo and behold, it was “Shooting the Moon” by Mona. Score! I downloaded it immediately and loved it (shocking, I know). The Single of the Week page also told me that their debut record, Mona, was finally out. And what’s more, I could get it for the bargain price of $2.74 thanks to iTunes’ Complete My Album feature. Double score! I didn’t actually buy the record until Wednesday, though. I refused to believe that MLB At Bat was free until I was able to see it with my own eyes. Not that I wouldn’t have broken down and bought the Mona record for less than three bucks without a gift card eventually.
Mona is a straight-up rock’n’roll band, and that’s awesome. There’s a retro-ness to them that I really like. There’s a bit of Kings of Leon (fitting since Mona is apparently already huge in the UK) in there, too. And iTunes makes a reference to Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” on the Single of the Week page and since they pointed it out I can hear it in “Shooting the Moon,” but it doesn’t detract from the song (which is a huge thing for me to say because I hate, loathe, despise, and abominate Rush – you have no idea). I must like this band because I don’t even hold a song called “I Seen” against them. (One of my big grammar pet peeves is people who think that “seen” is the only past tense form of “to see.” In my defense, though, have you ever heard someone say, “I seen him this morning?” They pretty much sound like an idiot.)
For further proof that I like Mona, I voluntarily watched Jay Leno to see them play “Lean Into the Fall” on Wednesday (and my feelings for Jay Leno are pretty similar to my feelings for Rush). Turns out they played it on Conan the next night but I didn’t hear about it until after it aired. But good old Team Coco put it up online.
Y’know the best part of the 600 words I’ve written so far? The point of this post was not supposed to be my love for Mona, but my abject terror at the thought of listening to them too much too soon. And I realize how bizarre that sounds, but I have a history of falling madly in love with a record, listening to it ad infinitum, and then getting sick of it and never listening to it again. (For example, I listened to Cartel’s Chroma over a hundred times in the summer of ’06, but I haven’t listened to it since. And sure, now I think that Mona is a better record than Chroma, but once upon a time I thought Chroma was the best thing ever.) I’ve listened to Mona at least a dozen times since Wednesday. A dozen times! I keep trying to force myself to listen to something else each time the record ends, but Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, and Bayside have been unable to hold my attention. It’s right back to Mona. And then yesterday I brought my iPod in the car with me so I could listen to Mona on my way to and from The Artist. And I really never listen to anything other than SiriusXM in the car (after all, I’m paying for satellite radio, I really ought to listen to it).
It’ll be interesting to see if I’m still listening to Mona’s record in a couple of months. I hope I am, because I really think it’s phenomenal. But at the same time, it’s probably a good thing that my personal austerity measures will make it impossible for me to run out and buy the record on vinyl right now.
Until tomorrow.
kristininprogress 