WILL WOOD, THE NORMAL ALBUM

Ah, The Normal Album. Without a doubt, the most normal album on this site. I mean, compare it to Bigfoot Erotica, Maggot and The Four Seasons. Perfectly on the level. In fact, it’s so normal that this review is breaking my formatting for no reason. Why? I don’t know, why not.

It’s a 3 hour bus ride between my college town and Greensboro, the city to the west of my hometown, where the only bus comes. Before I had a car I always took that bus to come home for breaks, it went through big cities and country towns alike as it slowly climbed up mountains, leaving urban life behind it. It became a tradition to start listening to The Normal Album somewhere outside of Winston Salem, so that the albums A-side plays while you go between stops at hospitals. For years this was tradition, and I didn’t fully remember where it emerged. Turns out part of the highway is dedicated as the ‘William L. Wood Sr. Memorial Highway,’ so that explains it. A coincidence!

I have a lot of love for Will Wood, it hits the same part of my brain as Oingo Boingo and Lemon Demon, that mix of lyrics dealing with the occult along with a skewed view of the world. But unlike the works of Neil Cicierega or Danny Elfman, The Normal Album feels more real. Like the songs are coated with a sense of hatred for the society that inspired them. Most of The Normal Album deals with themes of 1950’s and early 60’s Americana, and all of the problems therein, the B-side especially dealing heavily with mental health practices at the time and the residual effects of those ways of thinking on people today.

I’ve said this a lot, but I am not an expert on this topic, just a casual observer. I think I first heard 2econd 2ight 2eer through a Spotify discover weekly, then later on became obsessed with I/me/myself before realizing there was an entire album and listening to it religiously. Will Wood albums always tend to find a weird time in my life to root themselves deep into my mind, making me associate those times with those songs. In Case I Make It did that especially, gosh that album means so much to me. But so does this one! It’s available wherever you may get your music, including wonderful physical releases of this and every other Will Wood album on Say10 Records.

Click here to return home.