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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 1, 2021 16:16:00 GMT -5
Earlier this year I did a ranking of the top 100 Hold Steady songs. Thanks to all of you guys who contributed, and made that thread such a thrill to make and be a part of. At the end of it, thrasher9294 made a suggestion that I might to the same with the Lifter Puller catalog. At first I thought that might be a little too much. While I feel very deeply familiar with everything Hold Steady's done, I sort of think of Lifter Puller as someone else's bag. I wasn't there in the 90s, I've only listened to them retrospectively, and I've never gone that deep. On the other hand, I think I might listened more to Lifter Puller than Hold Steady for large parts of the 2010s. Soft Rock was on repeat on my iPod, back when we still carried those things around, I've spent weeks blasting Fiestas And Fiascos back to back, and looking up on my shelf, I have a complete collection of everything Lifter Puller ever released. I know the band pretty well, and I adore them even more. So... why not? The other reason I feel it's the right time and place to it, is because of skepticatfirst's absolutely mindblowing thread about the narrative in the Lifter Puller lyrics. Just as he renewed my relationship with Hold Steady back in 2016, his meticulous work on Lifter Puller have made me revisit and re-evaluate single songs and entire albums. It's strange how spending nights reading lyrical and narrative analysis can change the perspective on music itself so profoundly. But that's how it is. I hope this countdown can serve both as a token of appreciation for the amazing songs Lifter Puller released through some hectic years in the 90s and early 00s, but also as an inspiration to any Hold Steady fan who haven't dug into it already. And if you were one of the lucky few who knew them back in the 90s, I hope you find joy in how this music trancends time and space. From Twin Cities in 1997 to Norway in 2021 - the affection for this stuff is very much the same. Before I start off, I have to add that ranking these songs, comparing them to each other, was a a lot harder than I thought it would be - and a lot harder than doing the same exercise with Hold Steady too. It could be that Hold Steady are more internalized in me, that I just know every song even better, but there's something about Lifter Puller's music and the band itself, that makes it especially hard. They feel more singular, harder to grasp. The highlights are just as high, they're just not that obvious, their appeal isn't as easy to articulate. And in a weird way, Lifter Puller is even more of an album band to me than Hold Steady. So many of their songs seem to exist as pieces of a grander scheme, rather than fulfilled and rounded-off songs in their own right. I guess I'll be coming back to this during the countdown, but it felt right to say it here: It's really tough to call any Lifter Puller song "bad", or even "not good". The catalog is 53 songs deep, and I really, really like every one of them. So, let's go. Here's every single song Lifter Puller released, ranked. -- A few edits after I've completed the ranking (01/21/22)
If you want to jump straight to the complete list, you can click here: theholdsteady.proboards.com/post/122261/threadThe full playlist can be found in this playlist. If you have any interest in digging into the lyrical universe of Lifter Puller, I strongly recomennt that you check out skepticatfirst's amazing Alright Alright thread. It can be found here: theholdsteady.proboards.com/thread/5869/alright-goes-ii-lifter-puller
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 1, 2021 16:16:32 GMT -5
#53: SUMMER HOUSE
Lifter Puller’s self titled debut is a really weird record. It’s a mix of Pavement inspired and fuzzy mid 90s indie, hard and abrassive punk (but played quite slow) and meandering, dark and almost distubring expeditions into stripped-down and grungy songs. There’s a strange mix of fumbling and confidence, spread all over the place. Sometimes it feels like they strike gold, and sometimes it just fizz out.
Summer House is one of those tracks I really can’t wrap my head around. Craig sings withdrawn, almost a little shy, the band seems to know where they’re going, but not with great certainty, and the song never really comes out of it’s shell.
Some amazing snippets in the lyrics, but if we can agree on the album being 8-10 minutes too long, Summer House is one of the songs who’s (musically, at least) expendable.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 1, 2021 16:21:44 GMT -5
#52: EMPEROR
This just sounds so lo.fi, and in a really cool way. It’s like the sound of a band finding it’s form, in practice, in the basement, looking at each other while they bang out one of their very first compositions. And that might be the case, for all I know too.
There’s an atonal and unwelcoming vibe here, I think it’s very much intentional, and they pull that trick so many times later on - I just get a sense that they don’t quite have the confidence to walk the walk here. The idea is visible and audible, they just don’t quite reach what they’re aiming for. And a lot of it has to do with Craig - and this is more a testament to what a fucking beast of a ringleader he was about ot become, than what he doesn’t do here.
As usual, some of the lyrical themes brought up here, still echoes in 2021. And that’s not a small thing.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 2, 2021 6:01:46 GMT -5
Man, I was hoping you were going to do this. The THS ranking was a lot of fun, and I expect this will be too, but with much more suspense about the outcome, especially at the top half of the list. So this made me laugh out loud. The first thing I thought when I saw you were going to do this list was, "I'm gonna have to get used to thinking about where the songs rank musically, instead of about which are most important to deciphering the story; like, I can't expect that Summer House is going to be in the top three." And here we are. Summer House is one of those tracks I really can’t wrap my head around. Craig sings withdrawn, almost a little shy, the band seems to know where they’re going, but not with great certainty, and the song never really comes out of it’s shell. Some amazing snippets in the lyrics, but if we can agree on the album being 8-10 minutes too long, Summer House is one of the songs who’s (musically, at least) expendable. So this Summer House opener prompted me to put together my own ranking, one that of course is still personal but that downplays narrative aha-moments in favor of 'what do I enjoy listening to' factors more broadly. I think your point about how Craig sings on these early songs versus later really is probably the most important factor in the difference in quality, and I agree that the band seems to be following his lead here. In that sense, the uncertainty kind of smothers the experience of the song. But there are two things about Summer House that lift it off the bottom of the list for me. One is that *lyrically* it's a very strong standalone song. I remember hearing it for the first time, before I had any way to connect it to the other songs, and getting a powerful image from it: there's this guy whose girlfriend has gone away for the summer and kind of written him off, with a subtext of trouble on her part; he's trying but failing to engage her, and yet there's a weird vibe of resolution on his part that he's not going to be defeated. It's rich, it's a little creepy, it definitely feels real. And, two, the uncertainty of the voice actually fits this probing quality of the things he's saying. Altogether, pretty great storytelling. I'm responding at this level of detail mainly because Summer House really is a top-three song, and maybe even #1, in terms of the keys it provides to understanding the larger story, starting with the cool little connection to Mono and spiderwebbing out from there (I won't write up a list of those keys here, but it's a long one). Can't disagree, though, that it's not super listenable. I have it at #43.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 2, 2021 6:07:06 GMT -5
It's as awkwardly put together as anything Craig Finn ever wrote. I have a soft spot for it because of the weird comparison to Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne all the way back in 1994, but it's not something I'm going to put on in the car. I have it at #52 also, ha.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 2, 2021 14:09:07 GMT -5
Man, I was hoping you were going to do this. The THS ranking was a lot of fun, and I expect this will be too, but with much more suspense about the outcome, especially at the top half of the list. I think it's gonna be a fun project! And you're right about the suspense in the top half. I still haven't completely figured out how to rank the top 10, all the way up to #1. More on that later, but I already think this is an interesting difference. With Hold Steady, I have a pretty strong opinion on the three or four very best songs. They're pretty settled to me, and I didn't really struggled to pick them. With Lifter Puller, the heat is way more even, and I tend to like very different songs for very different reasons. Anyway, I won't spend to much time sweating over the exact rankings. They point out a direction, and hopefully some members around here not too familiar with Lifter Puller, will find something to enjoy. Haha, that's funny. I sent you a thought when I started off with it, just the title is so heavy regarding the narrative stuff. But as you point out, it's mostly a musical thing. And I'm glad you don't rate it in the top half yourself. Two times #52, that's what I call agreement! I enjoy the song, but it's certainly among the ones I enjoy the least, apart from the thrill of hearing the very earliest version of Lifter Puller.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 2, 2021 14:09:42 GMT -5
#51: MONO
Mono is really a quite fine song, a mellow and subdued closer from a somewhat surprisingly sprawling album. Before I went back to it, eager to hear the songs with the Alright Alright thread fresh in mind, I had had a feeling it was more coherent, more straight up 90s indierock. The revisit showed that it points in many different directions, and the quite mellow, dark and introverted scope of Mono is one of them.
When it ranks so low on this list, it’s mostly because it’s role in the album. It feels somewhat like a drag, at the end of an album who’s quite slow in the final parts. And it might be a case of a personal preference of massive closers, in opposite of the afterthought. I have the same feeling about the final songs of two of my all time favourite albums, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Pinkerton.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 2, 2021 14:10:17 GMT -5
#50: LAKE STREET IS FOR LOVERS
Just like it’s hard to rank Crucifixion Cruise as a song-song, it’s impossible to rank Lake Street Is For Lovers. I love what it do for Fiestas And Fiascos, a jolly interlude, packed with funny and loaded lines. The entire vibe of Steve (?) hollering “smoking weed and making money!” is just perfect, and “the bathroom stalls is speaking volumes of your ethical slips” is extremely Craig-y.
But after all, it’s mostly an interlude, and in competition with fully fleshed out songs, most of them really, really good, it can’t be ranked much higher.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 2, 2021 14:10:46 GMT -5
#49: THE GIN AND THE SOUR DEFEAT
One of the most perfectly titled Lifter Puller songs, and by no means a dud. This is also pretty much down to personal preference. Just as many of you, I guess, I fell so hard for Hold Steady because of their ability to mix huge rock songs with energy and intensity with a more sentimental and romantic approach. The wide screen approach to rock’n’roll, stories and America itself.
Lifter Puller is, at it’s core, something different. I’ve said it before, but Hold Steady is the feeling of watching a story unfold retrospectively, at safe distance, with some of the rougher stuff rounded off or hidden in euphemisms, told by a narrator with experience and Big Picture scope. On the other hand, Lifter Puller is like being out in the streets while the madness unfolds. The narrator isn’t telling us of one time back then, when he was in trouble, he is in trouble, right here and right now.
This isn’t just a lyric thing, it’s most definitely a thing bleeding into the music too. And The Gin And The Sour Defeat is this hard, abrassive, raw and very much in-it song. It’s a pretty perfect soundscape of paranoia, claustrophobia, told with a wear gnarl, over heavy and ugly guitars and synth. And that’s pretty cool, but it’s also pretty exhausting, as a listener.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 2, 2021 21:17:40 GMT -5
Interesting that you have it here near Summer House (separated, like on the album, by one song). I've also got it at #42, one spot above Summer House, from which I can't detangle it even if I'm trying to focus on more than just the lyrics and narrative. (And there's a lot of narrative going on in four short lines, here.) To me it's got that weird Oaks thing finale going on, too, which gives it some extra power. #50: LAKE STREET IS FOR LOVERSJust like it’s hard to rank Crucifixion Cruise as a song-song, it’s impossible to rank Lake Street Is For Lovers. I love what it do for Fiestas And Fiascos, a jolly interlude, packed with funny and loaded lines. The entire vibe of Steve (?) hollering “smoking weed and making money!” is just perfect, and “the bathroom stalls is speaking volumes of your ethical slips” is extremely Craig-y. But after all, it’s mostly an interlude, and in competition with fully fleshed out songs, most of them really, really good, it can’t be ranked much higher. I like the comparison to Crucifixion Cruise, that's a good one. But I have to disagree about the ranking ... LSifL is genius, brilliant filler spun up out of absolutely nothing, and the first song I went out of my way to hunt up in the car when I first started listening to LP (where I took "alright alright" from, after all). I have it at #18. Yes to the "ethical slips" line being extra Craig-y, that is so true. The "livin large," "alright alright," and "smokin weed and makin money!" baseline is key to the brilliance of the song ... it's a slice-and-dice repurposing of the opening of Jeep Beep Suite (the "creedo," per the liner notes and the old website? I don't even know what that is), done by Damon Locks, vocalist of Trenchmouth. Too funny. #49: THE GIN AND THE SOUR DEFEATLifter Puller is, at it’s core, something different. I’ve said it before, but Hold Steady is the feeling of watching a story unfold retrospectively, at safe distance, with some of the rougher stuff rounded off or hidden in euphemisms, told by a narrator with experience and Big Picture scope. On the other hand, Lifter Puller is like being out in the streets while the madness unfolds. The narrator isn’t telling us of one time back then, when he was in trouble, he is in trouble, right here and right now. This is amazingly well said. I've got the song at #35, but could be persuaded that it belongs above or below that.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 4, 2021 5:29:52 GMT -5
#48: RENTAL
One more from the debut, and yet again a song who’s by no means bad, but just feels a little too lush and shy. I get that’s the kind of vibe they probably aim for, but it lacks a little tension and release, some sort of at-stake feeling. There’s plenty of that in the lyrics, though, and as with so many other songs from the debut, Alright Alright have lifted my interest for that part of the songs many levels.
I still think it’s interesting to hear how much and how quick Craig developed as a singer, and maybe most important, frontman. Half Dead And Dynamite was released in the same year as the self titled debut, and on that record, he’s a totally different beast. For reference, if your not that familiar with the records, just check out the opening 30 seconds of the opening song on Half Dead, To Live And Die In LBI. In that sense, it feels good to have songs like Rental - songs that display that both the band and Craig had a more sensitive, less confident maybe, side.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 4, 2021 5:32:14 GMT -5
#47: PLYMOUTH ROCKIt’s tough to rank songs less than a minute long against other, “real” songs. Plymouth Rock is cool as fuck, and it serves the function as an opener of the Entertainment And Arts EP in a perfect way. A fist in the face, a rush of adrenaline, a band just bursting onto the scene. From the opening screams and riffs, this quickly turns into a rock’n’rollercoaster, filled with backing vocals and sweet fills. And then, it’s over. It surely would have ranked a hell of a lot higher as a full song, but for a close to 50 seconds long intro to the EP, I can’t put it any higher. Also, re: what skepticatfirst wrote about Lake Street Is For Lovers: If I could shake the feeling that these aren't song-songs, both Lake Street and this would probably be well into the top half. They're both so damn cool, and they sound perfect as they are, doing the job they're supposed to do. I guess I just had to decide wheter they should rank as experiences or songs, and I've sort of chosen the latter.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 4, 2021 5:32:50 GMT -5
#46: 11TH AVENUE FREEZEOUT
After getting pretty deep into Fiestas And Fiascos, my next step into Lifter Puller was (a illegally downloaded, which seemed to be the only option at the time) Soft Rock. I remember playing it a lot from my iPod Classic, sometimes on shuffle, and anyway without any real sense of when and where these songs were from. I think it took years before I realised that there were two full albums on those CDs. They were just songs to me, and that made me discover them in a way I rarely discover music.
There was a stretch midway through the first disc I liked a lot, with Mick’s Tape, The Pirate And The Penpal, Langelos and this one. It had a different vibe than the songs that came before and after them, and I later learned that these four songs were outtakes from something right after Half Dead And Dynamite, pieces of what could have become a lost Lifter Puller album.
11th Avenue Freezeout sounds like a really accomplished song, an idea fully realised. But as with many other Lifter Puller songs, it’s rough around the edges, deliberate hard and rocky, not very melodic. Sure, there’s a melody here, but that seems a little beside the point. The seasick saxophone in the latter part of the song sounds almost creepy, like it’s coming from another, and not very welcoming room. It never reached me like those other songs did, and sometimes I still skip it when I play Slip Backwards on Spotify.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 4, 2021 14:45:54 GMT -5
Hope you don't mind my responding to all of this with my own rankings --- it's your thread, but it's really interesting to dive into these questions. #48: RENTALOne more from the debut, and yet again a song who’s by no means bad, but just feels a little too lush and shy. I get that’s the kind of vibe they probably aim for, but it lacks a little tension and release, some sort of at-stake feeling. There’s plenty of that in the lyrics, though, and as with so many other songs from the debut, Alright Alright have lifted my interest for that part of the songs many levels. I still think it’s interesting to hear how much and how quick Craig developed as a singer, and maybe most important, frontman. Half Dead And Dynamite was released in the same year as the self titled debut, and on that record, he’s a totally different beast. For reference, if your not that familiar with the records, just check out the opening 30 seconds of the opening song on Half Dead, To Live And Die In LBI. In that sense, it feels good to have songs like Rental - songs that display that both the band and Craig had a more sensitive, less confident maybe, side. Completely agree with this take. Prior to the more polished examples on later albums, most of the slower/quieter songs are low on my list, pretty much for the reasons you state. Another thing (and maybe Rental isn't as good as an example of this as, say, Slips Backwards, but it's not a bad example either): I have the impression that Craig got stronger as a singer/frontman when he stopped worrying about actually *singing* and embraced the shouty delivery of HD&D. Anyway, I have Rental at #51. #47: PLYMOUTH ROCKIt’s tough to rank songs less than a minute long against other, “real” songs. Plymouth Rock is cool as fuck, and it serves the function as an opener of the Entertainment And Arts EP in a perfect way. A fist in the face, a rush of adrenaline, a band just bursting onto the scene. From the opening screams and riffs, this quickly turns into a rock’n’rollercoaster, filled with backing vocals and sweet fills. And then, it’s over. It surely would have ranked a hell of a lot higher as a full song, but for a close to 50 seconds long intro to the EP, I can’t put it any higher. Also, re: what skepticatfirst wrote about Lake Street Is For Lovers: If I could shake the feeling that these aren't song-songs, both Lake Street and this would probably be well into the top half. They're both so damn cool, and they sound perfect as they are, doing the job they're supposed to do. I guess I just had to decide wheter they should rank as experiences or songs, and I've sort of chosen the latter. I hear you. For me, LSifL is long and colorful enough to distinguish itself as something more, but I feel the same way about Plymouth Rock. #48 for me. #46: 11TH AVENUE FREEZEOUTAfter getting pretty deep into Fiestas And Fiascos, my next step into Lifter Puller was (a illegally downloaded, which seemed to be the only option at the time) Soft Rock. I remember playing it a lot from my iPod Classic, sometimes on shuffle, and anyway without any real sense of when and where these songs were from. I think it took years before I realised that there were two full albums on those CDs. They were just songs to me, and that made me discover them in a way I rarely discover music. There was a stretch midway through the first disc I liked a lot, with Mick’s Tape, The Pirate And The Penpal, Langelos and this one. It had a different vibe than the songs that came before and after them, and I later learned that these four songs were outtakes from something right after Half Dead And Dynamite, pieces of what could have become a lost Lifter Puller album. 11th Avenue Freezeout sounds like a really accomplished song, an idea fully realised. But as with many other Lifter Puller songs, it’s rough around the edges, deliberate hard and rocky, not very melodic. Sure, there’s a melody here, but that seems a little beside the point. The seasick saxophone in the latter part of the song sounds almost creepy, like it’s coming from another, and not very welcoming room. It never reached me like those other songs did, and sometimes I still skip it when I play Slip Backwards on Spotify. So, funny enough, I have a soft spot for 11AF because it's just about the only fully-developed song in the Lifter Puller catalog (along with Nassau Coliseum) that someone who isn't Craig Finn can actually *sing*; and while I would definitely feel self-conscious about singing NC out loud, it's pretty damn satisfying to belt out "Juanita thinks she's a roller rink" at high volume. THS got better at the sing-along scriptures, but this kind of connection is pretty rare in LP. I have it at #22.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 4, 2021 15:54:37 GMT -5
So, funny enough, I have a soft spot for 11AF because it's just about the only fully-developed song in the Lifter Puller catalog (along with Nassau Coliseum) that someone who isn't Craig Finn can actually *sing*; and while I would definitely feel self-conscious about singing NC out loud, it's pretty damn satisfying to belt out "Juanita thinks she's a roller rink" at high volume. THS got better at the sing-along scriptures, but this kind of connection is pretty rare in LP. I have it at #22. First of all: I love that you respond with your own rankings, that's a really fun part of it. And, haha, I've never thought of 11th Ave Freezeout that way. I tend to sing along to pretty much every song, and I think lots of them are pretty easy to scream my way through. Not in the way Craig does, obviously, but still. I get what you say, though. It's a melodic vocal performance, and it's a rare case of Craig seemingly singing along with the guitar chords, like it's - from own experience - easy to do if you haven't fully internalized a song, singing it for the first time. The better you get to know a song, the easier it is to float above the chords, play off them with a third or a fifth, kind of playing inside the tonal universe. I forgot to mention how the guitar tone and the tempo reminds me a lot of Sketchy Metal. It's a song in the same vibe, sort of.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 4, 2021 15:55:21 GMT -5
#45: SOLID GOLD SOLE
Another pretty grim and disjointed jam from the debut album, and another song I think is pretty cool, but never grabbed me in a major way, emotionally. It struggles to find it’s right gear - or maybe that’s the entire point, the start/stop dynamic, shaky and searching.
It’s a decent middle-of-the-road example of what the debut album really is. Not a coherent statement or stylewise streamlined effort, but a pretty diversive mix of fuzzy indierock, postpunk, noise and grit, with occasional moments of pop bliss. Solid Gold Sole is a mix of all of this, but it sounds a little like a result by accident rather than something preplanned.
Listening back to it, I think it could have ranked even lower. I’m a little in love with the drama-building intro and the line about Normandy, but as a song, it’s pretty mediocre.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 4, 2021 15:55:48 GMT -5
#44: KOOL NYC
Another one of these songs who have a slight interlude feeling, but this is a little different. It starts out like a real song, but after one single verse, three small lines, the songs just disappears. Kind of like the even shorter version of the things going on in Candy’s Room (the hi-hat intro is pretty similar too). As with other short songs, it works well in the context of the album, and the clean little riff opening everything is damn fine. This could easily have been turned into a three minute long indiepop song, and it’s a little weird that they didn’t.
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tbob
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Post by tbob on Aug 4, 2021 18:00:33 GMT -5
#50: LAKE STREET IS FOR LOVERSJust like it’s hard to rank Crucifixion Cruise as a song-song, it’s impossible to rank Lake Street Is For Lovers. I love what it do for Fiestas And Fiascos, a jolly interlude, packed with funny and loaded lines. The entire vibe of Steve (?) hollering “smoking weed and making money!” is just perfect, and “the bathroom stalls is speaking volumes of your ethical slips” is extremely Craig-y. But after all, it’s mostly an interlude, and in competition with fully fleshed out songs, most of them really, really good, it can’t be ranked much higher. I would definitely have this higher. It is slight but every second is earned!
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 5, 2021 6:33:00 GMT -5
I forgot to mention how the guitar tone and the tempo [of 11AF] reminds me a lot of Sketchy Metal. It's a song in the same vibe, sort of. Yes, stepping up and down a really short scale of just three or four notes. Nice catch. #45: SOLID GOLD SOLEAnother pretty grim and disjointed jam from the debut album, and another song I think is pretty cool, but never grabbed me in a major way, emotionally. It struggles to find it’s right gear - or maybe that’s the entire point, the start/stop dynamic, shaky and searching. It’s a decent middle-of-the-road example of what the debut album really is. Not a coherent statement or stylewise streamlined effort, but a pretty diversive mix of fuzzy indierock, postpunk, noise and grit, with occasional moments of pop bliss. Solid Gold Sole is a mix of all of this, but it sounds a little like a result by accident rather than something preplanned. Listening back to it, I think it could have ranked even lower. I’m a little in love with the drama-building intro and the line about Normandy, but as a song, it’s pretty mediocre. Yeah, the "one week ago" intro and ending are actually good, and i like the "now these discos make her sad" verse too. But I agree that the whole middle expanse doesn't really add up to something more than the sum of the parts, or create much space for itself. I have it at #40. #44: KOOL NYCAnother one of these songs who have a slight interlude feeling, but this is a little different. It starts out like a real song, but after one single verse, three small lines, the songs just disappears. Kind of like the even shorter version of the things going on in Candy’s Room (the hi-hat intro is pretty similar too). As with other short songs, it works well in the context of the album, and the clean little riff opening everything is damn fine. This could easily have been turned into a three minute long indiepop song, and it’s a little weird that they didn’t. Agreement that this barely registers as a song in its own right; it's good but it's almost not there. #49 on my list.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 6, 2021 2:18:09 GMT -5
#43: LAZY EYE
For all the sprawling uncertainty on the self titled debut, there’s moments that shine with confidence and ambition. And while this doesn’t always translates into big songs, big art, big concepts, the look behind the curtains is intriguing in its own right.
Lazy Eye is that kind of song to me. Slow, dark, stretched out, but it’s building a subdued momentum in the way few other similar songs on the debut does. When the songs opens up and intensifies with the great “Let this be a testament…” part, it feels like a proper release, something coming into frutition. It’s still disjointed and murky, but there’s a vibe here that points forward not only to the v.2.0 of this style in Nassau Coliseum, but also to Hold Steady, and the way they constructed their best slow burners.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 6, 2021 2:18:37 GMT -5
#42: HALF DEAD AND DYNAMITE
As in the Hold Steady thread, I’m gonna repeat myself a bunch of times in this countdown. And here we are again at a song in the same vein as The Gin And The Sour Defeat, and also a couple of others to come: The hard, gritty, rytmic type of songs, cold and unwelcoming, with semi-futuristic synths making everything metallic and chromed. It’s a pretty perfect backdrop for Craig to go full-on manic street preacher, and it certainly adds something to Lifter Puller as a band.
But, again, I’m more drawn to the somewhat more rounded-off stuff, the songs with a few drops of sentimentality and warmth in them. The pure rawness in these tracks are cool, but difficult to really enjoy.
That’s not the case with the lyrics, though. This frantic ride through the underworld is filled with evocative images, barked out like they’re prophecies. This is Craig FInn, alright.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 6, 2021 2:47:34 GMT -5
#41: BRUCE BENDER
Bruce Bender could easily have fallen into an interlude category, but it feels like someting different. Bigger, more grounded, like a fully developed idea, though rather short. I love the internal drama in this one, the difference between what’s felt and what’s said, and how the dark, majestic (as much as Lifter Puller can be “majestic”) music plays along with that feeling.
It starts off like a song you might expect to pick up pace, to find another gear after the initial intro. Instead it descends into something grittier and heavier, and the repeated “Love is…” lines from Craig feels like a chant from someone stuck in something he can’t (or won’t?) get out of. It’s like time has stopped here, and that Bruce Bender is a report from an isolated capsule, where the narrator is reflecting over a pivotal moment.
It’s also a precursor to what Lifter Puller would do a lot more on subsequent records, especially Half Dead And Dynamite: Put in these little showstoppers that change the pace and the mood of the album as a whole. Where some of the self-titled debut feels a little too stacked with (in a lack of a better word) non-important songs, just songs put together, one after another, the opening stretch (from Double Straps to Jeep Beep Suite) is pretty well sequenced.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Aug 6, 2021 4:11:21 GMT -5
Yeah, the "one week ago" intro and ending are actually good, and i like the "now these discos make her sad" verse too. But I agree that the whole middle expanse doesn't really add up to something more than the sum of the parts, or create much space for itself. I have it at #40. Again, it's natural to compare a song like this with what the band in general, and Craig in particual, were able to do a couple of years down the line. The songs are different, but listen back to Lie Down On Landsdowne, and hear what they do with the staccato this-and-that there. I sense some of the same lyrical vibe in the two songs, the scene-setting thing, listing up characteristics and scenery. In Solid Gold Sole, it's observational, laidback, like Craig is reluctantly telling about something he'd rather forget. In Lie Down On Landsdowne, he's fired up as hell, it sounds like he's on a real stage, in front of a real audience, pointing his fingers and waving his arms just about everywhere. A lot of it has to do with the rythm and flow the band lay down, a real backbone to both Craig's words and style, and the general mood.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 6, 2021 12:28:53 GMT -5
#43: LAZY EYEFor all the sprawling uncertainty on the self titled debut, there’s moments that shine with confidence and ambition. And while this doesn’t always translates into big songs, big art, big concepts, the look behind the curtains is intriguing in its own right. Lazy Eye is that kind of song to me. Slow, dark, stretched out, but it’s building a subdued momentum in the way few other similar songs on the debut does. When the songs opens up and intensifies with the great “Let this be a testament…” part, it feels like a proper release, something coming into frutition. It’s still disjointed and murky, but there’s a vibe here that points forward not only to the v.2.0 of this style in Nassau Coliseum, but also to Hold Steady, and the way they constructed their best slow burners. That forward-looking take is interesting. Now that you frame it that way, it's a look ahead at the intimate right-here-right-now relationship conversations like Almost Everything, too. The thing about Lazy Eye that most stands out to me is that of all Craig Finn songs, it's the one that feels most like it was written as a poem rather than a song. There's no verse/chorus/bridge structure, just four perfectly regular stanzas, with formal parallelism "(1) Let ... (2) Let ... (3) Let ... (4) Let ...," an almost quaint progression from (1) baseline 1 (2) baseline 2 (3) dramatic turn (4) aftermath, and expertly turned internal rhymes (the constancy of "clean/me/queen/esteem" reinforces the baseline across stanzas (1) and (2), letting "bomb" hit much harder than its volume would warrant). The language is uniformly subtle, speaking of bigger things from quiet angles. It's pretty impressive in that regard. Having said all that, for me personally, it's not a great *listen* ... just too slow, too subtle, too quiet. I'm almost embarrassed to say so, but I have it down at #47.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 6, 2021 16:41:06 GMT -5
#42: HALF DEAD AND DYNAMITEAs in the Hold Steady thread, I’m gonna repeat myself a bunch of times in this countdown. And here we are again at a song in the same vein as The Gin And The Sour Defeat, and also a couple of others to come: The hard, gritty, rytmic type of songs, cold and unwelcoming, with semi-futuristic synths making everything metallic and chromed. It’s a pretty perfect backdrop for Craig to go full-on manic street preacher, and it certainly adds something to Lifter Puller as a band. But, again, I’m more drawn to the somewhat more rounded-off stuff, the songs with a few drops of sentimentality and warmth in them. The pure rawness in these tracks are cool, but difficult to really enjoy. That’s not the case with the lyrics, though. This frantic ride through the underworld is filled with evocative images, barked out like they’re prophecies. This is Craig FInn, alright. HDaD is one of my favorites --- I have it at #12. So, so many great things about this song, but just to name three: 1) the commanding entrance of Katrina, queen of the clubs. A narrative thrill, and awesome drama. 2) the backhanded Finnian irony of "here's everything I remember" followed by total and merciless recall all the way through "that's everything I remember" at the end. 3) one of the lyrical highlights in the entire catalog, shouted at the top of Craig's lungs: Guess it all started with some guy walks into the bar And always ends up fucked up in some barfly's car
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