cre618
True Scene Leader
Posts: 714
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Post by cre618 on Nov 28, 2020 18:04:06 GMT -5
Just gave another listen to the whole second record. It's obvious they left off anything that felt too "Hold Steady." The callbacks to Killer Parties, etc, the guitar solo in the alt "We Can Get Together" etc. I get what they were trying to do, but I think they left some great stuff on the cutting room floor. These are definitely the best batch of outtakes we haven't heard before out of the last few deluxe editions.
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cory
Clever Kid
It's hard to slow down when you're picking up speed.
Posts: 84
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Post by cory on Nov 28, 2020 20:20:58 GMT -5
Weird, @thesemiracles work. I think "Hurricane J" is one of the best songs on the album and has been a recent live highlight. Much better than, say, "Rock Problems" (barf). And cre618 I disagree, I think these unheard songs that were left on the floor are some of the most mediocre of any of the recent batches to be freed from the vault. Maybe I need to listen more. "Beer On The Bedstand" clearly falls in the Craig Finn Solo Album songs that accidentally ended up a Hold Steady song camp. From my one re-listen on a hike yesterday, here's my ranking of the songs on this album. PS: I love this album. I also love Teeth Dreams. 1. We Can Get Together 2. The Weekenders 3. Hurricane J 4. Barely Breathing 5. The Sweet Part Of The City 6. The Smidge 7. Our Whole Lives 8. Soft In The Center 9. A Slight Discomfort 10. Rock Problems
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cre618
True Scene Leader
Posts: 714
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Post by cre618 on Nov 28, 2020 22:32:47 GMT -5
Opinions are why we are all different yet still love this band. Love it.
I think "Beer on the Bedstand" and "At Least Not Tonight" could replace "The Smidge" and "Soft in the Center" and you have a better record. Oh, and throw that "We Can Get Together" guitar solo in there!
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john k
Midnight Hauler
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Good news
Nov 29, 2020 8:43:04 GMT -5
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Post by john k on Nov 29, 2020 8:43:04 GMT -5
Listening party tonight on twitter for HiW. The last one was good fun
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Post by mtruslow on Nov 29, 2020 15:02:06 GMT -5
I'd like to order the vinyl version but I'm not a vinyl guy. There is a download for flac, correct? Thanks, Mark T. I decided to not get the vinyl and just went to 7 digital and got a nice FLAC download for 23.00. It sounds great and it's not the Itunes verison.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Dec 1, 2020 4:46:48 GMT -5
These are definitely the best batch of outtakes we haven't heard before out of the last few deluxe editions. Totally agree!
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Post by muzzleofbees on Dec 1, 2020 4:49:51 GMT -5
Weird, @thesemiracles work. I think "Hurricane J" is one of the best songs on the album and has been a recent live highlight. Much better than, say, "Rock Problems" (barf). And cre618 I disagree, I think these unheard songs that were left on the floor are some of the most mediocre of any of the recent batches to be freed from the vault. Maybe I need to listen more. "Beer On The Bedstand" clearly falls in the Craig Finn Solo Album songs that accidentally ended up a Hold Steady song camp. From my one re-listen on a hike yesterday, here's my ranking of the songs on this album. PS: I love this album. I also love Teeth Dreams. 1. We Can Get Together 2. The Weekenders 3. Hurricane J 4. Barely Breathing 5. The Sweet Part Of The City 6. The Smidge 7. Our Whole Lives 8. Soft In The Center 9. A Slight Discomfort 10. Rock Problems I really like Heaven Is Whenever too, and I don't think any of the bonus tracks would have improved the album in a big way, due to sequencing and dynamics. The exception might be The Smidge -> At Least Not Tonight. This is my HIW ranking: 01. Our Whole Lives 02. Sweet Part Of The City 03. We Can Get Together 04. Rock Problems 05. Hurricane J 06. The Weekenders 07. Barely Breathing 08. A Slight Discomfort 09. Soft In The Center 10. The Smidge
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Post by orzelc on Dec 1, 2020 8:03:53 GMT -5
Weird, @thesemiracles work. I think "Hurricane J" is one of the best songs on the album and has been a recent live highlight. Much better than, say, "Rock Problems" (barf). And cre618 I disagree, I think these unheard songs that were left on the floor are some of the most mediocre of any of the recent batches to be freed from the vault. Maybe I need to listen more. "Beer On The Bedstand" clearly falls in the Craig Finn Solo Album songs that accidentally ended up a Hold Steady song camp. From my one re-listen on a hike yesterday, here's my ranking of the songs on this album. PS: I love this album. I also love Teeth Dreams. 1. We Can Get Together 2. The Weekenders 3. Hurricane J 4. Barely Breathing 5. The Sweet Part Of The City 6. The Smidge 7. Our Whole Lives 8. Soft In The Center 9. A Slight Discomfort 10. Rock Problems I really like Heaven Is Whenever too, and I don't think any of the bonus tracks would have improved the album in a big way, due to sequencing and dynamics. The exception might be The Smidge -> At Least Not Tonight. This is my HIW ranking: 01. Our Whole Lives 02. Sweet Part Of The City 03. We Can Get Together 04. Rock Problems 05. Hurricane J 06. The Weekenders 07. Barely Breathing 08. A Slight Discomfort 09. Soft In The Center 10. The Smidge I'd go: 1 Our Whole Lives 2 Weekenders 3 Hurricane J 4T Sweet Part 4T Get Together 4T Soft in the Center 4T Rock Problems 8 Slight Discomfort 9 Barely Breathing 10 Smidge There's a four-way tie at #4, because basically any permutation of the order of those songs looks perfectly reasonable to me.
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charlie
Sniffling Indie Kid
Posts: 214
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Post by charlie on Dec 1, 2020 8:07:14 GMT -5
I like ranking things. Two tiers. Tie for #1.
1. Our Whole Lives 1. Sweet Part 3. Hurricane J 4. Weekender 5. Barely Breathing
6. Slight Discomfort 7. Smidge 8. Soft in the Center 9. We Can Get Together 10. Rock Problems
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Post by doctoracula on Dec 1, 2020 10:06:10 GMT -5
I will always love the Smidge for that faith/void lyric
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Post by muzzleofbees on Dec 1, 2020 15:19:00 GMT -5
Lot of dislike for Rock Problems here. Not too hard to understand that, it's one of the simplest and most straight-forward songs they've done. But I think it's really well executed, I like the Cheap Trick references and I kinda dig the solo - maybe fueled a little bit by Craig's "Come on Tad, tell them 'bout your problems" intro from the bootlegs who surfaced before the song was released.
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Post by Rattlesnake Gospel on Dec 1, 2020 17:09:50 GMT -5
I will always love the Smidge for that faith/void lyric I WAS THINKING THE SAME THING
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2021 3:53:08 GMT -5
Rock Problems is one of my favourite songs ever. It captures the feeling of having anxiety perfectly:
“I didn't want to stay in 'cause the walls were so gray You can almost feel the tentacles tighten I didn't even want to go out 'cause I was way too frightened”
Note how the usual Catholic metaphors are replaced by the Lovecraftian/Weird Fiction/Uncanny metaphor of the tentacles (I can link essays on their significance as a symbol, but if we’re sticking with music there’s Lovecraft in Brooklyn by the Mountain Goats) - an anxiety attack is so severe it changes the whole metaphorical structure.
But then something so terrifying can be banished by a bit of power pop, by the right song. It’s so perfect, and so true to life. It also reminds me of the Wig in a Box scene in Hedwig and the Angry Inch - rock and roll transforming your life. There are so many nights when that was exactly how it happened...and the power pop reference puts it in dialogue with Alex Chilton by the Replacements and We Can Get Together.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 19, 2021 7:44:42 GMT -5
I keep coming back to this reiusse. Yesterday I got the Bandbox version in the mail, and that magazine/fanzine who came along with it was really interesting. The liner notes from Patterson Hood too. It's a weird little album to revisit, ten years down the line. As I've stated somewhere in this thread, I think I always thought it was a little better than the general reception it got, maybe because I wasn't THAT thrilled by Stay Positive. But it definitely sounds different now.
And I still think the bonus tracks are at a level above every other reissue.
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Post by spacefuzz on Jan 19, 2021 9:01:32 GMT -5
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Good news
Jan 19, 2021 17:21:21 GMT -5
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Post by doctoracula on Jan 19, 2021 17:21:21 GMT -5
And I still think the bonus tracks are at a level above every other reissue. Totally agreed. We basically got a bonus album with this one. The quality of the songs is unreal.
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Deleted
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Jan 19, 2021 18:23:15 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2021 18:23:15 GMT -5
I got the bandbox edition too, even though I don’t own a record player, and the zine is rad. One nerdy thing I noticed: Craig compares Weekenders revisiting THS characters to the Mountain Goats’ Alpha Couple, and in the LIFTERPULLER thread there’s an old interview where he did the same thing with those characters.
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Post by spacefuzz on Jan 20, 2021 4:29:50 GMT -5
And I still think the bonus tracks are at a level above every other reissue. Totally agreed. We basically got a bonus album with this one. The quality of the songs is unreal.
totally agree, fantastic extra album. now if it were a double album, the tracklisting would be...
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 20, 2021 4:36:07 GMT -5
I got the bandbox edition too, even though I don’t own a record player, and the zine is rad. One nerdy thing I noticed: Craig compares Weekenders revisiting THS characters to the Mountain Goats’ Alpha Couple, and in the LIFTERPULLER thread there’s an old interview where he did the same thing with those characters. That interview isn't very old, it's from the Fault Lines episode of I Only Listen To Mountain Goats s01. But, yeah, I noticed that too, it was cool!
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