Random Music Talk CXXVII: Crickets

[Jerry Dunk]

Did Peef just low-key confess to murdering someone and disposing of their body piece by piece??

Spoiler

Spoiler

If I keep working hard, they won't even need to be piece by piece by the end of all of this.

 

[lazarus]

Wait, I guess it's called The Waterfall II because it's songs from the same recording sessions. So y'all haven't written any new material in the last 5 years? Or you have, but would rather release 5 year old songs that were written during the Obama administration and weren't good enough to make the previous album? That's kinda weak. Put out some new shit.

Ask and ye shall receive:

Jim James Says My Morning Jacket Have a “Completely New Record” Ready For Release

 

[gump]

I bought Neon Bible on vinyl recently and realized I really miss mid-aughts Arcade Fire. I’m firmly in the camp that every one of their albums is worse than the preceding one (with a huge cliff after Reflektor). Those first two are unbelievably good.

And shit, Funeral is sixteen (16) years old.

I still remember getting the 7 inch Wake Up single on eBay.

 

[lazarus]

Who the fuck are The Suburbs??

 

[cobl04]

Still think Reflektor is comfortably their best record, ahead of Neon Bible.

Thanks for the insights into how things are in America at the moment everyone. Peef in particular, and LM, for being so open. It seems apocalyptic from the outside looking in. Unfixable. I am hoping for the best for all of you. Please look after yourselves and feel free to drop in here with updates.

In Australia, we've done a pretty good job of flattening the curve. Every other state and territory bar my own (Victoria) is now about 60% back open. We were getting to the same point here, but we've had a huge spike in cases (which I'm sure has a lot to do with drastically increased testing) and now metro Melbourne is back on the hardest lockdowns for six weeks, which has me very upset, angry, depressed, flat and frustrated. I'm really worried for people's mental health. It's not as easy as "looking at the positives". There's no roadmap for this. The uncertainty makes it worse.

I feel that we're all going through a collective trauma, and I think the grief comparisons are completely fair. We ARE losing a year or possibly longer of our lives. That is unfair. I am grieving losing what's likely to be at least six months of normal living.

It also makes me think about people living through worse things, like being a young person in Syria, or being a soldier sent to die in a war, or the people who sat in their homes for five/six years in WWI and WWII. I wonder how they felt, how their mental health was affected. I wish I could ask my grandparents.

Wherever anyone is at, is completely fine and understandable. I would encourage everyone to be kind to themselves and do what they need to do to survive, and not worry about thriving.

 

[DaveC]

Who the fuck are The Suburbs??

alternate canadian name for drake.

 

[DaveC]

"The Masterplan" is the best b-side of all time, change my mind.

 

[lazarus]

Thanks for playing.

Also better than The Masterplan:

 

[LemonMelon]

God Only Knows is the best b-side ever, the flip of Wouldn't It Be Nice.

 

[intedomine]

What’s the feeling around these parts about Patti Smith’s Horses?

Have been spinning it quite a bit recently and always picking up new things to like. I must say I still don’t get much out of Gloria or Land, but absolutely adore Kimberly and Redondo Beach.

 

[DaveC]

yeah, Drunk Dave clearly didn't think about that for very long before posting.

revolution doesn't count though because it's a double a-side.

 

[gump]

What’s the feeling around these parts about Patti Smith’s Horses?

Have been spinning it quite a bit recently and always picking up new things to like. I must say I still don’t get much out of Gloria or Land, but absolutely adore Kimberly and Redondo Beach.

I like it a great deal, and really came to appreciate it more after reading Just Kids. Kimberly is great, but I do find Gloria to be the best thing in there (the music itself is so good) and also love Horses. Her unique vocal style didn’t appeal to me at first, but it has grown on me, and now I really like those deep bass tones she seamlessly adds to her cadence (Gloria being a good example).

 

[the tourist]

yeah, Drunk Dave clearly didn't think about that for very long before posting.

revolution doesn't count though because it's a double a-side.

I wasn’t drunk by I misread it as b-side album, since the song is the title track.

 

[lazarus]

yeah, Drunk Dave clearly didn't think about that for very long before posting.

revolution doesn't count though because it's a double a-side.

No it wasn't. Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out and Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever were double A-sides (which is why I didn't include them), but Lennon lost this battle.

From Wiki:

Lennon wanted "Revolution" to be the A-side of the Beatles single, but his bandmates opted for "Hey Jude".[104][77] In his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, he said "Hey Jude" was worthy of an A-side, "but we could have had both."[105] In 1980, he told Playboy he still disagreed with the decision.[106]

So do I, John. So do I.

 

[DaveC]

yeah, Hungover Dave clearly didn't think about that for very long before posting.

the other two you posted are better songs than revolution anyways.

 

[bono_212]

Once I was pretty drunk and found out this single existed. I don't think I've made a lot of drunk purchases, but I jumped on eBay the second LeMel told me about it:

http://www.45cat.com/record/cb354

 

[lazarus]

Pink Floyd Meddle



Bonus points for singling out Fearless as one of PF's best achievements; points deducted for failing to say a single word about St. Tropez. There's only 6 songs on the album, people! You can hit them all.

 

[namkcuR]

Pink Floyd Meddle



Bonus points for singling out Fearless as one of PF's best achievements; points deducted for failing to say a single word about St. Tropez. There's only 6 songs on the album, people! You can hit them all.

That was a great read. The only part I take issue with is this rather dismissive reference to, I believe, Atom Heart Mother: " a ponderous quasi-symphonic work assembled in large part by a guest arranger".

The AHM suite is one of my favorite Floyd pieces, and I feel it deserves to mentioned in the same breath as Echoes, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Dogs, etc.

 

[DaveC]

it's a very good read, aside from the aforementioned omission of st. tropez, which is a gem of a song. also this writer has done what 90% of them do and neglected to mention the important step of obscured by clouds (which really tightened up their songwriting and focus) between meddle and dark side. but the writer clearly knows pink floyd reasonably well.

9.0 seems about right - it'd be an easy 10 if it wasn't for seamus.

 

[iron yuppie]

I've always liked Seamus.

 

[LemonMelon]

There is no song on Meddle that I don't enjoy.

 

[mikal]

God Only Knows is the best b-side ever, the flip of Wouldn't It Be Nice.

Biffy Clyro covered God Only Knows on their MTV Unplugged and then went straight into "Opposites". So fucking good.

 

[cobl04]

The best b-side ever was released yesterday, it is "My Rajneesh" by Sufjan Stevens.

 

[mikal]

“Fog” by Radiohead is another great one.

 

[cobl04]

The Amnesiac & Com Lag b-sides are absolutely phenomenal. Genuinely three or four of my favourite Radiohead songs amongst them.

 

[cobl04]

Loved that Meddle review. It's a fucking fantastic album, and it was nice to see some love for Side 1, usually people only really talk about Echoes, but One of These Days, A Pillow of Winds and Fearless are all such stellar, top-tier Floyd tracks. One of These Days slaps, A Pillow of Winds is one of my all-time favourite calming mood songs (my ebay name is eiderdown71) and Fearless is brilliant. Those two songs in particular are a style that they almost completely abandoned from Dark Side onwards (I've never actually heard Obscured By Clouds though!)

San Tropez and Seamus are both inessential in my opinion though. Interesting enough curios but I've tried playing the album with Fearless leading straight into Echoes and it is exquisite, the YNWA chant leading into the ping. I challenge anyone to try that and feel like it's necessary to have San Tropez and Seamus sandwiched in between. Luckily, they only take up 10% of the album's runtime. (I like both songs; San Tropez has this great understated swagger to it and Seamus is a funny take on blues, but I consider them inessential to Meddle's listening experience.) Take them out and it's still 41 minutes long.

 

[cobl04]

Actually, this is the best b-side of all time:



I am pretty sure I'm the only one here who has ever spoken about this song, and I've tried many times to get people to listen to it and it makes me mad that it is super unknown.

 

[bono_212]

I have listened to the new Jesse Ware album twice this week and it's only Monday. I'm very happy with it.

 

[LemonMelon]

Picking my favorite album of the year is going to be tough when Jessie, Fiona Apple, Charli XCX and Natalia Lafourcade all came through with brilliant works. Natalia's record is such a wonderful introduction to traditional Mexican music, instant comfort for the ears.

Waiting on Sufjan to either solve the dilemma or make it more challenging.

 

[cobl04]

I think græ could join my list. Polly is comfortably my SOTY so far.