All things Mark Kozelek

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Yeah that whole "bad press is better than no press" argument I made regarding U2 a couple weeks ago definitely doesn't carry over here.


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This is passing me off at this point. He's really destroying any hope of other people listening to his music I'd had left.

No publicity is bad publicity only works for people of a certain level of celebrity. Kasabian completely turned me off of them by being douchebags to U2 fans, and it did nothing but paint them in a bad light, for me. I don't know them well enough to shrug it off and say, ahhh they were just kidding.
 
I'm still having trouble believing this is the same guy that wrote Katy Song...
 
:hmm:

Like most of the crackpot theories I've come up with to explain and perhaps absolve Mark Kozelek over the past six months, I've had to keep this one to myself. But here goes: I go back to the shocking shift towards full disclosure on Among the Leaves and everything that's come after—the awe-inspiring prolificacy and empathy captured on his underrated 2013 collaborative LPs, the simultaneous morbidity and heartbreaking acceptance of the still staggering Benji, clearing out the vaults for hilarious stage banter and stone-sober Christmas carols and, unfortunately, the desire to air out every last grievance without regard for the consequences on his career. And here's my conclusion: in 2012, doctors told Mark Kozelek he had three years left to live.

And so, "The Possum". Titled after an animal utilized for a metaphor about faking one's own death. Is this where he explains the whole War on Drugs fiasco as some kind of Sun Tzu scheme to lower expectations before dropping another reminder of his brilliance so conveniently during year-end listmaking as a redemption story?
The natural inclination is to fit this into some narrative about the past year but... right, this is Sun Kil Moon, so a possum dying under his radiator is maybe just an experience that moved Mark Kozelek and one that ultimately triggers your own memories of something similar. Likewise, Godflesh sounds about as much like Sun Kil Moon as the Postal Service does, but then again, you realize how shared experience can trump superficial differences and forge incredible bonds.
Towards the end of this nine-minute yarn, "The Possum" has morphed into the most gorgeous of its numerous movements—a coda of a cappella, straight spoken word, a flurry of arpeggios and church bells that ring as the possum takes its last breath, Kozelek wondering if it's just a serendipitous occurrence. It's an overwhelming ending similar to those of "I Watched the Film 'The Song Remains the Same'" and "Ben's My Friend", where Kozelek starts to see everything align in some sort of grand design: both Broadrick and the possum gave it all they had, one just had a better result and it was really out of their hands. And so Kozelek realizes that he might die on stage, maybe in a horrible, gruesome accident like his uncle and second cousin. Maybe Caroline will be gone and maybe the crowd will disperse and he'll die alone and disrespected and the echoes of "War on Drugs: Suck My Cock" will drown out "Katy Song" and Great Ghosts of the Highway and 20 years of alternately incredible and interminable music. Either way, the inevitable prospect of death is treated with respect and humor, ugliness and beauty delivered in a song that rarely feels like a song, but rather a conversation with someone offering us a direct line to his every thought, whether it manifests a shocking pettiness or beautiful, complex humanity or likely both. Because this is a Sun Kil Moon song.
 
You Missed My Heart (Live version and NOT the horrible tripe that has the same title on Perils By The Sea)...and Gustavo (again, the live version).

Both brilliant songs.

P.S. Who are these War On Drugs that you speak of
 
Just putting together my list of best songs from 2014. Ben's My Friend gets the nod from this album. Despite all the crap that happened this year I hope people will forget it and just remember the amaaaaazing album that Mark Kozelek released this year. Holy shit it's good.

Sports bar shit ... sports bar shit.
 
New album Universal Themes out in spring!!

1 The Possum
2 Birds of Films
3 With a Sort of Grace I Walked to the Bathroom to Cry
4 Garden of Lavender
5 Cry Me a River Williamsburg Sleeve Tattoo Blues
6 Ali/Spinks 2
7 Little Rascals
8 This is My First Day and I'm Indian and I Work at a Gas Station`
 
Is this just Mark? Those albums are wonderful treats.

EDIT: Oh shit, it's another Sun Kil Moon album? That was fast.
 
I'm just used to Mark Kozelek releasing something every year (or every 6 months), but not Sun Kil Moon. This is fantastic.
 
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