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I just think his output got a lot more mixed bag-y after his true opus, The Shepherd's Dog. Like Kiss Each Other Clean was half-great ("Tree By the River" - bestill my heart, what an incredible, bittersweet song) and nothing since has done better than that. So running out of steam may have been part of it. But you would think, what with indie currently being in a big "lone singer songwriter" phase that his name would ring out more and he'd be making new fans.
Lots of stuff I wouldn't mind but don't need or won't shell for (the Grateful Dead Paris '72 one sounded good until I realized it was six disks and not 6 sides!). I AM stoked to see Here Comes That Weird Chill is going to be re-pressed. That and Bubblegum are peak "solo" Lanegan and "Skeletal History" is probably my favorite song he's ever done.
Nice. They used to do all kinds of fun, weird stuff live - at Bonnaroo '05 they were joined onstage by a bunch of people in like 10-foot puppet costumes (a giraffe, an alien, a cockroach, etc) who eventually started headbanging with the band.
Wow, I know from being part of a social media fan group or two that there are diehards who hold this and maybe Tennessee Fire up as their best, but I'm amazed (no pun intended) to see how many people in this comment section are claiming it as their favorite. I got into them during the ISM album cycle, so this one didn't take me long to work back to. It has some great songs - title track, "The Way That He Sings", "Phone Went West", "Just Because I Do", "Bermuda Highway", "Strangulation", and of course "X-Mas Curtain" - but it's also in my lower tier of MMJ albums, ahead of only Evil Urges and possibly Circuital. I think Ryan nailed the Hell out of his take on the album - it's an awkward transition where a kaleidoscopic range of possibility really started to show in them. A lot of the demo-sounding, depressing acoustic songs should have been cut or further developed. When you consider that "I Needed It Most" (worst song on the album), "If It Smashes Down", and "Death Is..." take up SEVENTEEN AND A HALF minutes, that is some serious drag you're burdening your album with. And I think the life-affirming, passionately rocking live versions of "Lowdown" from the era ruined the studio one for me, which sounds like a tinker-toy version of what it grew to on stage each night (check out the version from Bonnaroo '04...or if you're looking for an easier version to get ahold of, Okonokos). MMJ is my favorite band and I have a lot of great memories with this album and even more with some of its songs that stuck around in the live oeuvre. I love it, but it's a shaky love for a flawed album. But hey, to each their own; there's a lot of ground covered in these guys' odyssey of a catalog & career and as well as they've done most of it there are bound to be a wide range of favorites.
I watched the performances yesterday. Some people here said they hadn't been digging the songs but this helped - if anything it's the flip for me. I thought the first single was alright and "Melting of the Sun" was really good...but watching the SNL versions put me off somehow. I love St Vincent, so when I heard some people say everything about her new rollout and the performances seemed too theatrical/cosplay-y I assumed I wouldn't agree. But having watched those, I absolutely do think the performances themselves, at least, are totally awkward, overthought cosplay. I just...didn't buy it. THe good, more important, news is that both songs sounded good though and "Melting of the Sun" is still a quality tune.
"______ (Feat. Jamila Woods)" - I'm there!
Without ever intending to watch it....no it isn't.
The Avengers movies are, IMO. From the first one, they gave always felt like actual comics on screen, and the time-traveling-through-previous-adventures-to-collect-Infinity-Gems zaniness of the last one brought that feel to an even greater level than they had previously achieved.
Thank you. Snyder and his movies are trash. His Watchmen was an abortion, his hyper-dour DC superhero movies are nasty, angry-teenage-misanthropist murderfests, and he's basically treated everything he's fine like it was 300 again (the only thing with simplistic enough violence-orgy roots for him to have made sense on). That the little bitchass 'net incel community was able to piss and moan a 4-hour movie that didn't exist or need to exist into existence with a major studio is sad, gross stuff.
I didn't know it would sound like that exactly when I read get preview it, but yes, yes it is.
Just means a big draw keeping better sets from getting overcrowded, as far as I'm concerned.
Oh I was definitely not knocking the longer set times they started getting in '06. Just saying they make it easy to overlook what a fire set they played in '04.
Is that hard to believe? She's a household name and they offer a psychedelic alternative that very night, what's so laughable? That they want to sell tickets?
I agree that it's something special, especially in Q1 2021 terms. I have never been able to get into them or Woods in general, to my frustration since he's been like THE darling of rap underground for a couple years now. But something about this album works, even for me - Alch outdid himself and I guess the MCs did, too. Seriously nice work.
You people are fucking hard sells. They manage to offer satisfying varieties of pop, rap, jam music, indie, electronic, and jazz without even dipping into classic rock reunions and somehow it's still a subject of derision. This wipes the floor with the last few years of pre-COVID big fest lineups.
I went in '04, '05, & '06 and got three unique, killer MMJ sets. The '04 one, which now gets overshadowed by the marathon sets they started getting to do in '06, remains my favorite concert experience ever. I had just gotten into them earlier that year, had seen them once a month prior at a small fest in Asbury Park, and then they played the tightest, most literally sky-cracking* hour set I've ever seen. And I've had the recording since I got home from the fest, so I know it holds up. * seriously, they summoned a storm with the climax of their set, bringing desperately-needed relief from a sweltering first day and a half
Well, none of us ever anyway.
Took you guys long enough to get this up, I've been waiting all morning for the article! I have a big, expensive thing already planned for August, so between that and not being sure how this is going to play out, I guess I'm gonna miss it....but I definitely do not share the ambivalence expressed by the first few posters in here so far! Admittedly, Thursday looks like Thursdays used to be in the 2Ks, when they were super-warmup days rather than serious lineup days. I'm sure the Grand Ol Opry thing will be cool, but the rest are head scratchers. But Friday and especially Saturday? Yowza! Friday - RtJ, Janelle, Primus, Marcus King Band, the Remain in Light tribue, Waxahatchee on the 6th line...maybe even the Biscuits if they're late enough and my state is sufficiently altered.... Saturday - MMJ would be enough, but instead we get MMJ, Tame, the Sylvan Esso Superjam (WITH is SO damn good!), King Gizz, J.I.D....maybe the lineup isn't as deep for me as Friday's but the first three I listed are towering gets. My only fear would be that there's no way the schedule would let me watch all three. Lizzo would be fun, too, but throwing her into the nighttime mix would definitely guarantee I miss someone I'd need to see. I could definitely enjoy myself Sunday, too, even if it's a step down from Fri/Sat. Glad to see Jamila there!
Change your shirt, you damn hippy!
+ Kikagaku & Ryley Walker - "Shrinks the Day"
Favorite song: Valerie June - "Call Me a Fool" RU: R.A.P. Ferreira - "red guard snipers", Lushlife w/Dalek - "Depaysement"
It has definitely been slooooooow, but there have been positive signs lately - my top 3 all dropped in the past like 3 weeks. 1. Lushlife - Redamancy 2. Armand Hammer - Haram 3. Valerie June - The Moon & Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers 4. Madlib - Sound Ancestors 5. Uh...the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets one, I guess If I had included live albums, Kikagaku Moyo's Live at Levitation & Neil Young's Way Down in the Rust Bucket would be in 3 & 4.
Man, I lived this album (and am still pretty fond of it)! I liked the next one, but I thought only about half of it was on this level. He lost me after that (there were a catchy track or two off the ScarJo album), but MftMA holds up.
17 year old me was so stubbornly, close-mindedly anti-rap and anti-anime-style art that I immediately rolled my eyes at this and dismissed it at the time. What a dumb-dumb, because Gorillaz clearly made some really great, cutting-edge music through the 2Ks and as someone who was already into Beck they should have made more sense to me than I let them. And they managed to get better each time out up to and including Plastic Beach, which is a borderline masterpiece - all the more impressive since Gorillaz were ten years deep by that point, but Albarn had been at it with Blur for another 7 or 8 years! Him dropping Plastic Beach that far along in his career was like Tom Petty dropping Wildflowers that far in.
I don't think they even have anything else in Tiny Music's league (not to say Purple was bad or that there weren't some great singles before and after)
I'm positive others will be able to point to something even a little earlier, but I think the Action Bronson EP he produced in '19, Lamb Over Rice or whatever it was called, was the first one that tipped me off that he was on a hot streak. And then obviously the Boldy/Freddie albums made it impossible to ignore because damn they were good.
That list definitely helped push me further into Van's catalog, which really is a remarkable one. The SG list opened me to the possibility that he hadn't shat the bed as hard in the 80s as most of his peers have, whereas I just kind of auto-avoided that stuff before. Who knew Inarticulate Speech of the Heart was worth a damn? That said, Veedon Fleece deserved a positive reappraisal for sure (and is another other I checked out after reading the SG list), but I would not have it at #1.
I knew it was gonna get shafted, but second-last was even worse than I expected. It sounds great and there are a fair number of very good songs on there. Hell, looking now, the first 7 songs are all keepers.
I'm glad you did and shared it. I heard a song from her solo release a couple of weeks ago and kind of forgot both about it and that her name is Anna Fox Rochinsky. But I liked the song and really liked Quilt, so I'll add that to the Alchemist/AH album and this AotW for stuff I might check out this weekend.
Top honors (barring a couple live albums) goes to last week's Lushlife EP for me so far.
Hell just look at Pence - from beloved ultra-con basketcase vice president to ultra-con basketcase murder target just for not supporting an completely unjustified overturn of the election.
Huh...who'd thunk? I'll check this one out later, but for now I'll say the bluegrass version Simpson put out last year ripped.
Plugs 1 > Plugs 2 > The Fraud Dept (Jim Jones, also recent and produced by HF) > Burden of Proof But yeah these Harry Fraud albums have had some real dicey features holding them back (as they're generally well produced and the headliners have turned in good work on them).
Not that I think they would have exactly crushed A Storm in Heaven material, but damn - it had to be the most obvious Verve song possible, huh? (disclaimer: the original "Bittersweet Symphony" is all kinds of great, just sayin)
Those are my two favorites, at least.
I loved it at the time (I was in my first of what turned out to be five years living in a mid-sized city in China and I remember so very fondly talking about it and listening to it with some of my new friends from the expat scene there; at our favorite bar we could bring our ipods and play playlists and I saw to it that "Under Cover...", "Machu Picchu", "Taken for a Fool", "Two Kinds...", and "Gratisfaction" got plenty of play time) and I love it now. I would chop off "Call Me Back", "Games", and "Metabolism" in a heartbeat, though. So it's really a testament to how great those other seven songs are that I'm so comfortable saying I love the album anyway. One thing i never hear mentioned - they sounded like a more skillful, ambitious band here than they had on their early stuff. It was also cool because First Impressions really turned me off from them ("YOLO" is obviously one of those perfect Strokes songs they manage to create at least one of for every release they have - see also "Tap Out" and "OBLIVIOUS" if we're talking releases I don't otherwise love) and then as Chris said, they were gone for a while, so getting them back in even near peak form made me a happy man. Still my #3 Strokes album after the Big 2.
Angles is SO much better than First Impressions and Comedown Machine!