I don't remember how I first encountered Sparklehorse, though it was probably through allmusic.com or another internet site. I remember being put off by the name (one of my friends derisively called the band "Sparklepony") but there's a lot about Sparklehorse that's off-putting by design. Mark Linkous's modus operandi was writing pop songs and then fucking them up with lots of distortion and cheap keyboards. Take Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man: a great alt-rocker is more or less ruined by static simulating a radio station going in and out of range. Ghost of His Smile is another catchy tune coated in Linkous's signature sound. The whole album made me rethink presentation and quality. You don't need a three-thousand dollar keyboard to make great music; some of Linkous's favorite gear was stuff he found in the trash. Linkous committed suicide a couple years ago, which makes me very sad. He only released four albums, with the last one being a collaboration with Danger Mouse (is that guy still around?) and all are worth listening to, but Good Morning Spider is his best. All tracks are excellent, including the bizarre rocker Pig, the pop song Sick of Goodbyes, and the noise rock of Cruel Sun. My own approach to recording my vocals was influenced by Sparklehorse; like Linkous, I don't particularly like the sound of my voice, so I often distort my recordings. On my Soundcloud page, the song Cossacks probably owes the most to Sparklehorse, with its cheap drum beat and weird vocals. Some influences run deeper than appearances, however, for Sparklehorse is still one of my favorite artists.
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