Bon Iver tops the charts

SINGER-SONGWRITER- JUSTIN VERNON hits the top of the charts with his #1 album, “22, A Million.”

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

SINGER-SONGWRITER- JUSTIN VERNON hits the top of the charts with his #1 album, “22, A Million.”

Sam Levin, Contributing Writer

After five years of hard work and cryptic teasing, Bon Iver’s “22, A Million” was finally released on September 30th. Before the release, the band performed songs from the album live on television, and released singles to promote the 10-song experience. While every song is unique and interesting, perhaps the most intriguing story is Justin Vernon’s.

Justin Vernon is the lead singer and writer for Bon Iver. He grew up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and went through many bands and even a solo act to get where he is today. He created and played with the band DeYarmond Edison during his time in high school and college. The band decided to take their music elsewhere and traveled to North Carolina to pursue their musical career. They released two albums and still have an unreleased EP up on their MySpace page. Eventually, the band broke up, as well as Vernon and his girlfriend, and he decided to travel alone back to Wisconsin. Depressed and confused, diagnosed with mononucleosis, he lived alone in his father’s remote hunting cabin, hunting his own food and writing music. During his time there, he wrote and recorded his album titled “For Emma, Forever Ago” using only his voice, a guitar, a snare drum, a piano, and some horns. His career skyrocketed from there and he started getting noticed by other musicians.

Vernon has worked with James Blake, Kanye West, Frank Ocean and many more musicians due to his iconic falsetto voice. Performing on albums such as “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and The “Colour In Anything.” His music is featured on TV shows such as “One Tree Hill” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” bringing him more recognition. Since 2009, he has only gotten more and more popular, and finally after breaking into the “pop” genre, he has started a tour for the new album, “22, A Million.”

The new album features fewer instruments than his first. There is a lot of computer-generated noise used as drums, and Vernon puts a vast array of audio effects on his voice to create a whole chorus built on top of his vocals. He often raises his vocal tracks by an octave which surprisingly doesn’t sound silly at all. He uses a full orchestra at one point, and he samples a lot of hymns. Over all, the album feels very religious, but not annoyingly so. Every song brings a new element to the table, and by the very last song, Vernon lets you feast on the whole buffet.

“22, A Million” is a musical experience. While not every song can be listened to without the others, the entire album together is a 34 minute landscape of sounds and feelings that I highly recommend.