Badly Drawn Boy's One Plus One is One might be one of my ten favorite albums of all time. I don't spend a lot of time listening to CDs the whole way through anymore- I've taken to either buying on iTunes or buying corporeally and just throwing it onto iTunes and just blending it into the shuffle-o-matic- but I'm sitting here, listening to this straight through, and it's just as moving as the day I bought it. I think it's because it comes from an honest place and just sounds like a heart's been left open. An excerpt from the lyric book:

...As Will takes his lunch break one day, I ask about his Father, my Fathers Father.
I'd been told that he died in the second world war.
Will recounts a visit to his fathers gravestone in Northern France when he was 34.
When he found the head stone it was as if he was looking at his own grave.
WILLIAM GOUGH - AGED 34
TO LIVE IN THE HEARTS OF THOSE HE LOVED IS NOT TO DIE.
An Epitaph with a beautiful sentiment.

I tend to like albums that feel personal, I think a lot of people do, because it lets us see that we're not so alone and that everyone feels the same way, at some time or another. Even if one of us just got paid thousands or millions of dollars to express those feelings, there's a comfort in knowing that they can't hide those sentiments away now that they're out there, in people's iPods and Walkmen and car stereos. I would think it'd be very freeing to just let your emotions out and away, dandelion puffs that flit and flutter, float and follow the air. Would I want to listen to my own album, though?

I don't imagine I would.