Matthew Good – Hospital Music

August 1, 2007 | In Music | No Comments

In 2001 I wrote my first published piece for the student newspaper at my school. I worked as the assistant online editor at the time and hadn’t delved into the writing side of things. On one layout night we were down a music review. The person who normally did it didn’t pull through for us.

I took on the challenge, since I had an album in my possession that I wanted other people to check out. The album – Matthew Good Band’s “Beautiful Midnight.” The album, a reorganized version of the classic Canadian band’s album from a few years earlier.

Being my first real attempt at writing for publication, I sat down and really thought about what I wanted to say about the album. I had been enjoying Good’s music for a few years through the magic of Canada’s MuchMusic television network. Seeing the bands videos always made an impression on me. When the album finally came out, I was in the store quickly to snatch it up.

The album had a tracklisting with time stamps over a day, starting from sun up to sun down. I used this method to review the album, seeing as each song portrayed the times perfectly. The review and album were well received by my co-workers.

It would be a few years before I would have another fully fleshed out published article, however it was the beginning of something I make a living at doing today. For that reason Matt Good has always had a special place in my music collection.

Unfortunitly Beautiful Midnight marked the first and last album Good’s band released state side. Soon after the album made it to the US the band split up and Good went solo. I was able to enjoy his music through his Web site, but there were no US releases of his albums.

I would regularly check iTunes to see if maybe his stuff had been released but nothing ever came of it.

On Wednesday I opened up iTunes to see what had been released and looking right at me was Matthew Good’s mug. Not only did they have his new album “Hospital Music” but he also serves as the free single of the week for “Born Losers.”

I sampled about 10 seconds worth of the album before committing to buying it. After all it was on a discounted $7.99.

The album is a lot moodier and tender than a lot of the Matthew Good Band stuff. It’s almost all acoustic with a lot of samples, drums and other nice touches.

I’ve since lost the original review I wrote all those years ago, but I do remember one thing. I liked the album as much as I like Hospital Music.