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Zoots

Zoots

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Was listening to Throwing Copper today after ages and remembered how good this album is! Which made me think... I know nothing about any of their other material. Any fans of this band here? What's commonly considered their next best album?
 
I loved Throwing Copper and think it's held up very well. But almost everything else that came after was just way too much. Too earnest, too over the top, just too damn much.

"Overcome" was beautiful, though, as was "Turn My Head." But god, didn't they ever get tired of being so serious? Ed Kowalczyk ... dang, man. Lighten UP.

Their debut album was pretty good, too, but not nearly as good as Throwing Copper.
 
I've only ever really heard 'The Dolphin's Cry' from 1999, and while it's catchy enough, I don't think it's anything special.
 
Their titles are just as earnest as they sound when you listen to them. Geez.

The Dolphin's Cry!
Lakini's Juice!
White, Discussion!

good NIGHT, guys - lighten UP! :lol:
 
"Ed Kowalczyk's lyrics and singing remain indebted to early U2 - he wants to say something big in a big way." - allmusic.com

But it sounds like they took the earnestness and seriousness inspired by 80s U2 to a whole new level from what I'm reading about their follow up albums to Copper.
 
:yes:

I'm being pretty harsh with my snark, but I really do love Throwing Copper.

I Alone
All Over You
Selling the Drama
Iris
Top

Good stuff. (But I really don't like "Lightning Crashes." No song should ever have lyrics regarding a placenta falling to the floor.)
 
Their recent compilation (Awake) is quite strong throughout. As far as studio albums go, I don't believe that they ever matched Throwing Copper. Kowalczyk definitely has some serious pretensions...such as tring to reconcile the problems of life through a conflation of mystic Christianity, Buddhism, and the principles of Confucius.
 
I grew up in the same part of central Pennsylvania as the band is from, and I was in late high school and early college when they became huge there for awhile in the late 90s. Okay, maybe they weren't ever huge, but they were pretty popular in my area.

The only Live album I still have is Secret Samadhi. I don't listen to it very often, but I'm pretty convinced the song "Ghost" was a William Faulkner novel in a past life. I had the first two awhile back, but I lost them somewhere along the way.

I agree that the band was influenced by a lot of U2's earlier angry but earnest work, but they stayed too static and didn't evolve the way U2 did.

Awhile back I found a live cover they did of Running to Stand Still that made me want to stick things in my eyes :crack:
 
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I have been a huge Live fan for years. I have seen them about 15 times in concert. However, I did not even listen to their last album. They kind of went pop. I was so sad.
 
I really like Turn My Head, from Secret Somadhi. It shows Kowalczyk great vocal range more than any other. Such a beautiful song to.

I agree with Throwing Copper being by far their best album. Regardless of the placenta, Lightening Crashes is still one of, if not their best.
 
Secret Samadhi is my favorite Live album, but Throwing Copper is probably their most well known album. I like Throwing Copper too.
 
Throwing Copper is a good album, but their newer stuff is second-rate.
 
Secret Samadhi is a great album. I like The Distance To Here as well as V. I really enjoy alot of their music. Their recent albums haven't enchanted me as much though.

Throwing Copper is frikkin brilliant though.
 
I'm the same way. I liked the first two albums. I thought they were going to just be huge. I saw them on the Throwing Copper tour and it was a great show. Then that third album came out and it was a step down. Some songs were decent, but it wasn't there as a whole. The next one was another step backwards and I gave up on them. Plus, it seemed like Ed just grew more and more pretentious. The thing that really pissed me off was in about 97/98 Ed said that they can rock a stadium much better than U2 and U2 was losing it or something like that.

It's funny to see where the two bands are today.
 
I bought the album V in '01. Only two or three songs are even bearable. Overcome is the best off that album.

It was definitely downhill after Throwing Copper.

I always loved Pain Lies On the Riverside and Operation Spirit from their first album Mental Jewelry as well.
 
Mental Jewelry! Thank you! I was racking my brain trying to remember the name of that album.

Back then, Ed had hair. :wink:
 
My fave band until I became a hardcore U2er (2002).

Throwing Copper was my bible in my mid-teens, and it is a masterpiece - Selling The Drama, Iris, Top, Al Over You, Stage, and the ever-brilliant perfect Waitress.

Secret Samadhi, I feel is just as good as Throwing Copper, the lyrical themes of the album seem to match the musical feel of the album perfectly.

Distance To Here is majestic, and some of the instrumentation is beautiful (Face And Ghost, Meltdown, Sparkle)

V is great, cept for a few filler tracks (Nobody Knows, Call Me A Fool. Life experimenting with a new direction. For the most part their 6th and 7th abums sound more like V than their first 4 albums.

Being a hardcore Live fella, I got Birds Of Pray and Songs From Black Mountain pretty muchimmediately. These albums are nothing too remarkable. Kowalczyk seems too content with life to have anything interesting to say. Whilst happy for him, they are kinda tedious now.

Still a few sprinklings of greatness - Life Marches On, Like I Do, Out To Dry, What Are We Fighting For, Sofia, Night Of Nights, the intro to Love Shines (A song for my daughters about God) and the ever-uplifting Sweet Release (Up To Better Times!)
 
I haven't listened to V in ages, but I'm immediately reminded of the fact that Ed's lyrics often relate to Bono's.

And then of course he sings he dreamt he was on stage with Bono and all these other great artists (Queen, The boss..) ;) , singing Hallelujah in People like you (I had to look that up though)
 
Great group. I saw them last summer in Rotterdam. Did even played a bit of "bad". I've been following them since Throwing Copper. Very energic. Allthought my opinion that the latest 2 albums really suck, their performance are still brilliant.
 
First 2 albums were amazing, they tried to be a little tongue in cheek with Secret Samadhi and it didn't work. Great live band. Everything after, with the exception of a song here and there, just didn't compare.

Talk about a band that jumped the shark.
 
Their first two albums were superb, Throwing Copper with hardly a dud on it. I thought Secret Samdhi was average though Lakini's Juice is a fantastic tune. They're playing a show near me on April 13 at their old haunt, The Chameleon Club, in Lancaster, PA. $40. A little too steep having already seen them several times in clubs for a lot less money.
 
Back in October of 2001, I had the unique experience of seeing Live and Jane's Addiction perform at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey. Live were great! They had the whole Vegas Lounge Act vibe going. They had couches set up on stage and just chilled out and played. Jane's Addiction were awesome too. Their set was like a sex party. They had women in cages. They had women on stage. Perry Farrell was like the MC of a crazy house party. I had a great time. The arena was only half full, but everyone played like it was a packed house.

I loved Live, but when they started playing more radio friendly pop, I kind of lost interest. If one of their songs comes on the radio, I stop and listen though.
 
It's like I'm re-discovering Throwing Copper! What a fantastic album! :drool: Okay I admit I only liked the first half for years until a couple of days back when the other songs hit me! They sound like not only U2 but REM especially! Listen to that intro of Top.
 
I think I'm one of the five people who actually owned Mental Jewelry (on cassette, no less) when it first came out. Most people I know didn't buy it until after Throwing Copper made the band huge. I would highly recommend it to people who love Throwing Copper. It has some powerful, beautiful tunes. :heart:

Glad to see so much love for Live here. I really adored them back in the day.

Does anyone remember when they played Unplugged? I think I still have it taped on VHS. :shifty: They played a cover of a song called "Supernatural" that was stunning, but I don't know who did the original or if there's an official recording of their cover anywhere out there. All I remember is that it was superb.
 
HeartlandGirl said:
They played a cover of a song called "Supernatural" that was stunning, but I don't know who did the original or if there's an official recording of their cover anywhere out there. All I remember is that it was superb.
Click to expand...
The original is by Vic Chesnutt and it's available on the Sweet Relief II compilation album, which is basically a tribute to Vic.
 
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