Editor's Choice: Album of the Year

MAC DEMARCO -  SALAD DAYS (Captured Tracks, 2014)

The quarter-life crisis. For many, it seeps in during the early 20s, typically in the period immediately after college. Gone is the structure of school and an easy network of friends, replaced by questions of identity, stagnancy, and a daunting amount of imperfect career opportunities. For Mac DeMarco, the cause is a rigorous tour schedule, its consequential partying, and the pressure of a rapid rise in popularity. The average person likely responds to such a crisis by stressing, drinking, crying, and likely a combination of all three. DeMarco responded by recording 2014’s stellar record Salad Days while cooped up in his Bed-Stuy apartment.

Fortunately for the listener,  Salad Days can read as an advice column, with Mac functioning both as Dear Abby and Uncertain from 1990. While his 2012 releases Rock and Roll Night Club and 2, brought us odes to babes in blue jeans, Annies, and Viceroys, “Salad Days” tackles some tougher questions. Can we be past our prime at age 23? Are good times a thing of the past? Is this what I’m going to be doing until I roll over and die? Are these all boring and unoriginal questions?

Advice-giving DeMarco isn't afraid to dish it out. In "Brother",  Mac sings "You're better off dead, when your mind's been set, from nine until five". On the other side,"Goodbye Weekend", Mac responds to the preachers "Don't go telling me how this boy should be leading his own life, sometimes rough, but generally speaking I'm fine."  

Further alleviating any hints of a lecturing tone, Salad Days manages to make this otherwise difficult conversation feel relaxed and easygoing: the guitar is as carefree-as-ever, and the lyrics explicitly encourage calming down, taking it slowly, and going easy.

We don't all have the troubles of indie pop rock stars, but there's a comfort knowing that the patient lessons of Dear Mac can be learned from. As he sings on "Go Easy," "I'll be right there behind you, to pick you up until you come around." To avoid dropping cash on a yellow Camaro, spending hours in the bathroom looking for white hairs, and getting Botox injections, let's hope Mac's still churning out music like Salad Days in 2029. <EC>