Parquet Courts – Sunbathing Animal: #807 of best 1,000 albums ever!

Why is Parquet Courts’ Sunbathing Animal on my best 1,000 albums ever list?

Hits that perfect sweet spot between alt rock and garage rock.

What does Parquet Courts’ Sunbathing Animal mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?

There are so many things I’m enjoying about this best 1,000 albums ever project. With respect to music discovery, two of the biggest ones are:

1. Getting to promote music that I deeply love that most people haven’t had the chance to discover
2. Getting my own mind blown by music that I hadn’t previously had the chance to discover

Parquet Courts falls clearly and cleanly into the second category. And further, they gloriously refute the notion that “rock is dead,” something I’ll admit I’ve asked myself from time to time in recent years.

Parquet Courts is also the very rare band or musical act where I pretty much at a baseline (at least) like everything they produce. I just really dig their sound, and pretty much every song they produce is some combination of (at least) interesting, engaging, or exciting music.

I’ll fully admit that the only reason why Sunbathing Animal is relatively “low” on the best 1,000 albums ever rankings is that I simply haven’t had the chance to spend as much time with it as many other albums on the list. I’ll also raise the proverbial curtain on a few other behind-the-scenes things:

1. Sunbathing Animals – and a few other albums – may or may not have knocked a much better known album from pop culture history either “lower” on the list or clean off it entirely
2. This is not the last Parquet Courts album you’ll see on the best 1,000 albums ever list

Songs like “Ducking & Dodging” hit that perfect sweet spot between alt rock and garage rock, reminding me of the best output of some of my favorite bands, like The Hives for example. There’s a talky section in the middle of the song that I feel like could be trimmed a tad, could see this as an absolute crusher if it was perhaps more of a three-minute song versus its 4:29 running time, but it’s a tiny quibble.

“Black And White” leans into more of alt rock-meets-jangle pop vibe, which, right there, you had me at “alt rock-meets-jangle pop.”

“Instant Dissassembly” slows things down considerably for a righteously shaggy bar band vibe that also shows off the band’s Texas origins (the band met at the University of North Texas and then relocated to New York City to form Parquet Courts).

“Bodies Made Of” is a nicely quirky alt rock on the edge of art rock kind of tune.