This gets me hype; catching them next week here in Boston. Was initially surprised that they're playing arenas, but makes sense with the crazy production going on. Don't know if anyone's had a better decade than JV.
I guess maybe if you thought she were skewering that lifestyle in any way, but I've never gotten any sort of in-on-the-joke-ness from her music either. Whereas with Papa Juan it always feels self-evident that he's playing a character and the actual J. Tillman is much more aware of the tropes and criticism he's writing/singing about.
Listen we all have different tastes and that's fine, but I can't understand how this album (which sounds pretty good from the singles) can get a rave review while Crack-Up got skewered in it's Premie.
Love it. Agreed that the first half gets a bit tripped up. There's a ton of propulsive tracks but doesn't really get into a rhythm because of the pacing.
Would be interested in seeing your TWFM cut. Cause I also agree it could use some trimming, despite having some of their best songs ever and I think, the most "cohesive" sound of any of the albums.
It's definitely grown on me in the ways National albums usually do—little snippets of melodies/lyrics getting stuck in my head at different points. I still think it's unnecessarily long though and there's a great 7-8 song album in there. While it was awesome to get another album from them so quickly, it might've been better to sit on for a while and spend some time editing.
Good review, I'm sure as we get further away from this whole press cycle this will eventually just be a late-career shrug, hopefully followed by a return-to-form. Weirdly not excited to see them on this tour despite being my first chance to do so, but I'm sure it's still gonna kick ass.
What a formative record, and reading some of the replies, it doesn't matter what age you were when it came out. Probably worth revisiting their other stuff at this point, it just seems like the other albums were destined to be crushed by the unbelievable highs of the debut.
This is the Big Thief I live for. U.F.O.F. didn't do much for me, especially compared to Capacity and Masterpiece. Give me this style 10 out of 10 times. Hell make the whole damn album out of this track!
Unbelievable. So funny and poignant and sad all at the same time.
Similarly this piece has been going around today and it's great: https://thebaffler.com/stories/clip-on-tie
What a loss.
I'm thrilled we've reached a point where that album is finally getting the praise it deserves. It's obviously not the best thing they've ever done and has some issues, but man I was surprised how lukewarm people were about it when it came out.
Thank you for this. I felt a little crazy when everyone was so hype for The World's Best American Band (which is great!) but after getting into them on White Reaper Does it Again it felt like a little bit of a step down. Also the keyboardist is an absolute snack during live shows and deserves as many solos as he can handle.
Yeah I'm going to this show mostly for Spoon, and the fact I have to like rush to where the venue is to make sure I don't miss them because they're opening is wild. Cage is a fun live act but please give me a 20-song Spoon set instead.
This entire season has made me realize how fucking crushed I'm going to be when Trebek goes. Really hope his treatments go well. What the hell else am I going to do every night?
I dunno man, feels pretty weird to tell someone to commit to a press cycle and an intense tour schedule (probably a year and half's worth of travel) when they clearly just wanted to bow out semi-quietly and haven't burned any bridges.
Definitely going to check out this playlist and read the article but just want to say that earlier this summer I declared it Studio 54 Summer among my friends, so this is perfect timing. Serendipity!
Just look at the comment above you. The entire league was on speed for the 50s and 60s. God knows how many guys were on cocaine. Not to mention painkillers.
There was an entire team that got popped for throwing a World Series! Baseball has been lying about itself since it existed with the Abner Doubleday nonsense. You think Bud Selig didn't love McGwire and Sosa launching baseball back into the national conversation? He was just mad they got caught.
Didn't say I dislike baseball, in fact I like it a lot. But if you think there was some sort of moral/cohesive/idyllic fabric of baseball until steroids came along, well that's ignoring a century's worth of wild shit!
Bringing in the Woods team to play/help produce was an amazing call by Berman. City Sun Eater... is one of my favorite summer albums, and the Purple Mountains stuff from what I've heard seems to be a perfect marriage of their two strengths.
For real, I've been driving around lately with the windows down just loudly singing along to "All My Happiness is Gone," like it's a summer banger or something. It is! Sort of!
You guys ever read (or seen) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? There's the one patient that just walks around all the time saying "I'm tired." That's me a lot of the time now with shit like this.
No one called him racist. No one is cancelling him. It's fair to point out when someone is ineloquent about something like this. As you said, Nick Cave did a perfectly fine job of being nuanced and thoughtful. Flowers didn't.
He was a sad, disaffected youth at a time when it wasn't as easy to get radicalized so made some great music but then got around to falling for fascist tropes in the long run anyway.
Oh damn haven't heard that name in a minute. I keep a list of bands I need to circle back on eventually (mostly that come up around here) and they've been on it for a while. Sucks to see they're not on Spotify but listening on Bandcamp, they rule. Wonder if Chris has any insight into whether they're still going/releasing anything new?
Comments