AIPTO: Great Divide (Semisonic)

Who? I feel bad because the height of what I know about Semisonic is that they still play them on the radio so everyone knows one or two of their songs, and Dan Wilson is the lead singer. Dan Wilson is only notable because he’s a fairly prominent songwriter; I believe he won a Grammy for the Dixie Chicks song “Not Ready to Make Nice,” (which amuses me because it seems like such a personal song for them and yet they wrote it with someone else). Anyway, Dan Wilson has done a lot of solo stuff since Semisonic dissolved, but I’ve never liked anything of his as much as I liked the stuff from the band. For those of you who wonder how I caught wind of them: they did a brief tour opening for BNL. Yeah, I know.
Why it’s awesome: I think this is their first album, but it’s the second one I bought. The thing I remember about getting this CD is that I didn’t like it the first time I listened to it; it took a second listen before I was totally hooked. The writing ranges from being clever and cool to just being cool: I’m not sure if it’s on this album or not but there’s a line in one song that they once admitted had no meaning but sounded good. I agree with them on the sounding good thing, but I think it’s cooler when it works both ways. The music is good—peppy but not obnoxious, and definitely rocking while not being too high-energy. Also a plus: you can buy most of their stuff on amazon.com for next to nothing.
In One Word: Lounge
Song Rec: F.N.T.
Link: Amazon.com