Mac DeMarco’s Salad Days turned 10 this year. Back when music release dates were on Mondays (or Tuesdays in the US), it was released on March 31st or April Fools’ Day 2014 depending on where you lived. I was in my first year of uni, checking out Pitchfork on my old laptop. The album got the Best New Music mark. I listened. My following of the dude started right there. I was hooked. So much so that I even dedicated a post to it on here. Check out the writing of the 19-year-old I was. Had so much to learn. Now I’m six years older than DeMarco was when the album originally came out, and I find myself relating more and more to the lyrics as the time passes.

Although my previously linked article of my initial impressions of the album may be underwritten and not so substantial, the points I make on there still hold up. The album is indeed ‘sweet’, the eleven tracks on there are ‘enjoyable’ and I still really like the guitar tone on there to this day. The record is most definitely my favourite of DeMarco’s. The melodies are on point. Each tracks flows by like a breeze. And the whole package begins with its title track, a good old existential crisis indie song in which Mac sings about potentially having passed his peak in life but also telling himself to get over it and try again for another year like all the rest of us have to. Quite a melancholy way to start things off. But it’s real, it’s a universal feeling and the deliver of it makes it easy to digest. A very fine combination.

Seems appropriate that this song will be the last representative of the album in this whole series. Finishing off where my Mac DeMarco discovery began and all that. There are still more songs of his to come though, so stay tuned if you’re really looking forward to them. I would have written about a couple other tracks from Salad Days had the stars aligned. ‘Blue Boy’ was an instant favourite on the first listen. ‘Brother’ took some time, but I eventually got ’round to it. I noted ‘Chamber of Reflection’ as a highlight in that old, old post, but I sort of fell out with it quite quickly actually. Think I just found it to be a drag. That’s just me. But all in all, this album means a lot to me, no doubts there.