The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: littlefallsmets on April 28, 2007, 07:00:10 pm
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I have recently decided that this is pretty much Neil Young's best album.
Any other thoughts on this issue from the party people in this house?
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...don't go on the beach, Pat.
...but no, I have never listened to this album.
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"After the Gold Rush" is pretty damn good too. Definitely switches between those two based on which one I listened to last.
Also, have you heard the new official bootleg that came out- "Live at Massey Hall", it is amazing.
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I have a particular fondness for "Rust Never Sleeps". Also "Harvest". Also "After the Gold Rush".
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Neil Young has about 50 albums and most of them I would classify as fuck*ng awesome. On The Beach is definitely one of those. After the Gold Rush is a contender for greatest album ever made.
I feel a Neil Young jag coming on.
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Yeah, either On The Beach or Tonight's the Night I think is my favourite Neil Young album. Everybody Nows This Is Nowhere is great too, infact I think the only Neil Young Albums I'm not too fond of are Time Fades Away and some of the 80s stuff (Landing on Water, Trans etc)
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You are either going to rock a bunch of Neil Young or you are going to hate him. I'm loving Rust Never Sleeps, Harvest, Mirror Ball, On The Beach, After the Gold Rush, American Stars 'N Bars . . .
Of course, he's the same as Prince, or Jimi Hendrix, or Frank Zappa - he's got albums and albums in the vaults. As long as you don't mind his tedious rhyme scheme (side, side, hide, ride) - he's just fine. He's perhaps better after several bong hits.
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Well, what isn't? CSPAN is totally watchable if you're baked.
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Neil Young has never put out anything I'd consider a perfect album. Every album has at least one song I don't care for at all: Harvest ( "There's a World,""A Man Needs a Maid" ), After the Gold Rush ( "Cripple Creek Ferry" ), Rust Never Sleeps ( "Welfare Mothers" ). My tolerance for Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere varies: sometimes I think "Down By the River" and "Cowgirl In the Sand" are amazing tense jams and other times they bore me to tears.
That said, even though they're not perfect, those are all pretty great albums, along with Live Rust and Decade.
The Doom Trilogy / Ditch Trilogy records left me sorta cold. I like some of the songs off of Time Fades Away ( title track, "Don't Be Denied,""L.A." ); I tried to get into Tonight's the Night and failed; same thing with On the Beach. I'm listening to some OTB cuts as I write this, and I'm thinking it's time to give the Trilogy another chance.
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Neil Young has never put out anything I'd consider a perfect album.
Interesting. Now I'm thinking about albums I do consider perfect (if any).
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A "perfect" album, at the very least, doesn't have a single song that makes you lunge for the clicker or iPod. At best, a "perfect" album creates a tiny little universe unto itself, where the songs are arranged in an order that can't be improved upon, and that ideally makes you want to start the whole journey over again once it ends.
Led Zeppelin IV is a perfect album. Led Zeppelin III isn't because it ends with the unlistenable "Hats Off To (Roy) Harper." If it had ended with "Hey Hey What Can I Do," it would have been a perfect album.
Right off the top of my head, I'm thinking of:
Revolver
Kind of Blue
Paul's Boutique
siamese dream
Axis: Bold As Love
The Pearl
I can't think of any others right now.
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I think it is alright to skip the first or last track, as these do not disrupt anything. Also, "Taxman" from Revolver has basically no merit whatsoever. By my standards, though, this is Not a Problem.
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Really? I find it hilarious.
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um, wtf, that song is awesome! Fuck you!
also: led zeppelin 4? really? not so much. Going to California? Misty Mountain Hop? No.
Axis? really?
We obviously are opposite in taste.s.
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I'm all about Misty Mountain Hop myself.
I'd add Dark Side of the Moon and Halfway Between The Gutter and the Stars to that list. The Beatles' White Album would have made the list if they'd listened to George Martin and kept it a single album.
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Hmmm, if we're looking at it holistically, I can only think of a few perfect albums: The Soft Bulletin, Illinois, Document, and Life's Rich Pageant. (R.E.M. may have others, really.) I think every TMBG album has at least one eh/skippable song, but they each arguably have a perfect album's worth of material. Maybe Apollo 18, if you count "Fingertips" as one song and don't nitpick individual tracks?
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Neil Young has never put out anything I'd consider a perfect album.
Yeah, but you hate Vol. 4 (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:difpxqq5ld6e), so what do you know?
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Yeah, but you hate Vol. 4 (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:difpxqq5ld6e), so what do you know?
I don't hate it. But it's not as good as the albums immediately before or after it. It's funny that you linked to a review that almost mirrors my opinion. ( except re: "Changes." That song sucks.)
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Hmmm, if we're looking at it holistically, I can only think of a few perfect albums: The Soft Bulletin, Illinois, Document, and Life's Rich Pageant. (R.E.M. may have others, really.)
See I like the Flaming Lips (a WHOLE lot) and R.E.M., and think both have perfect albums, only they are not the ones you listed. Flaming Lips I would say that Clouds Taste Metallic and Hit to Death in the Future Head (without the "Speaker Hopping Static Assault") are perfect and for R.E.M. probably their first two, but Reckoning if I have to choose.
I am basically trying to say that there are alot of perfect albums, depending on who is answering.
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the two Flaming Lips albums you list, I have never heard.
That band put out so much good shit. Good lord.
Also: Murmur is, indeed, Perfect.
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Murmur and Reckoning are, indeed, perfect.
Transmissions From the Satellite Heart...I need to listen to that again to determine if it's perfect.
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Since everyone's talking about their perfect Flaming Lips albums, I'd like to toss in that I would give the magic 100/100 to Steve Burns' Songs For Dustmites. Not a Lips album, but it might as well be.
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I added Songs For Dustmites to my LaLa queue after listening to a few samples. Once I found out who Steve Burns was (http://www.lala.com/frontend/action/artist/Steve%20Burns?Q=Artist%3A%20%22Steve%20Burns%22).
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If I recall correctly, there is exactly 1 song on Transmissions... that I always skip. So, maybe perfect?
I don't know. I skip multiple tracks on my favorite album, so maybe I'm not the person to ask. There are only so many times I can hear "Gary's got a Boner" and "Black Diamond."
I have "Songs for Dustmites" on my computer but have never listened to it. Except in my friend's car, which is what convinced me to go acquire it.
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I can't find my copy of Songs for Dustmites, which probably means that I will buy another one, because I am uncomfortable with the thought of this album not being in my life. I think that might be a good definition of a perfect album, right there.
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Dang people I thought this thread was about Neil Young so I was ignoring it. Are you serious that there is an album called Songs for Dustmites? And look, it's the Amazing Disappearing Nabu!
Now I guess I better go make sure that the Pretend Baseball thread hasn't evolved into a discussion of baby sloths or something.
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It hasn't. They're earnestly going on about the original topic - which seems somehow quaint for TOUAMB.
I saw a news story about this guy, and immediately thought of you.
(http://www.wombania.com/wombat-pictures/southern-hairy-nosed-wombat-head.jpg)
You know, just in case you get tired of your sloth avatar someday.
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Awww.
I have accumulated some pretty good wombat pictures, actually, but if I changed my avatar I wouldn't be able to complain anymore about how much I hate it when people change their avatars.
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Inev: You should really, really hear Clouds Taste Metallic, and if you like it check out the other one I mentioned.
Clouds Taste Metallic was such a peak that they took like 3 years off (except Zaireeka) before coming out with their new style and Soft Bulletin.
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I've sadly never heard any early Flaming Lips albums, but I shall eventually. I've not even picked up their latest yet. My knowledge of The Flaming Lips is basically The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink *****s and She Don't Use Jelly. But those albums are awesome so I really need to get on the ball and expand my collection.
I even saw them in concert back when She Don't Use Jelly was popular, but their awesome didn't register with me then. I remember that Wayne Coyne was wearing a suit covered with Christmas lights. I also remember that the crowd wasn't too appreciative of them and Maynard of Tool (the headliners) told us we were assholes for treating his friends poorly and he was going to give us a short performance because of it. Which may have actually done because they only played about an hour or so.
Anyway, I saw both bands again within a week of one another about 10 years later and I like to say that Tool put on the best show I had seen all year except that wasn't even the best show I had seen that week.
The moral of this story. The Flaming Lips and Tool are both kick ass bands and they give awesome concerts.
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really? I feel like... the book I read about them said that they were all really disappointed with it, and the public was too, so they took time off.
maybe I am imagining that.
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Warner Brothers and the public (the Warner Bros public. that is) probably were, but no, Ronald quit and there were only three members and they took time off to figure out what they could do as a three piece and... basically it was the peak of the early Flaming Lips. I am sure you have heard Christmas at the Zoo, This Here Giraffe, Lightning Strikes the Postman or Kim's Watermelon Gun before. Those all came from Clouds...
And seriously, you have OiNK so it is only like 45 minutes plus ten to acquire.
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and seriously, I already had it. I downloaded the whole discography of the flaming lips.
But no, I had never heard any of those songs. Now that I have a working iPod (yay!) I will listen to it in the car. This will happen.
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Right on.
Have you never seen them? I guess maybe I take that for granted, but they play Lightning Strikes the Postman every show, I think.
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I have never seen them, no. They have not played in Charlotte in a really long time, I think. Or at least, not since I've been aware of them... which is probably not a long time.
Apparently they almost broke up when they were supposed to play at The Milestone here. That place... basically sucks. It is tiny, and loud, and covered in (now, mostly faked) graffiti... I was expecting it to be really cool, but it's just a tiny depressing bar in a shitty part of town. I was really glad that my friend who is in the Air Force and is really fit was there. If it had been just my girlfriend and me... we would have definitely gotten freaked out and left. As it was, passing a sign "In memory of (name), killed on this spot by carjackers" with a date only a few weeks before... was terrifying. When we read the sign, we all screamed a little bit and started driving faster.
also: they came to St Louis right after I got to St Louis, but i had no money, and the show was sold out, and... basically I just didn't go. They were playing with Sonic Youth, too.
a guy I know went and saw them with sonic youth in asheville last summer. He said "that sonic youth band, they seemed kind of cool. Don't you like them or something? But the Lips were awesome!" I kind of wanted to punch him. He is the kind of guy who thinks he knows everything about music, and then says idiotic things that...
ok. basically I just hate him, and he could say anything and I'd still hate him. Anyway, he saw the Flaming Lips. And does not have appreciation for Sonic Youth, as, you know, they don't know how to play their guitars right.
my friend Katie saw them, and apparently screamed "Be my Father Figure!" at Wayne. She is pretty proud of that.
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If I recall correctly, there is exactly 1 song on Transmissions... that I always skip. So, maybe perfect?
If you skip a song, it isn't perfect.
I don't know. I skip multiple tracks on my favorite album, so maybe I'm not the person to ask. There are only so many times I can hear "Gary's got a Boner" and "Black Diamond."
I can understand skipping "Gary's Got a Boner", but "Black Diamond"? Really? That's like the only good version of a Kiss song, including the originals, sort of.
really? I feel like... the book I read about them said that they were all really disappointed with it, and the public was too, so they took time off.
maybe I am imagining that.
Your favorite band thinks they themselves suck.
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If you skip a song, it isn't perfect.
I mean... only if you don't like skipping songs?
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Yeah, if you skip a song, an album isn't perfect. On the other hand, people my age are welded to the idea of an "album" in a way that people your age aren't. Skipping songs is just the way people listen to stuff these days. ( Myself included, now that I listen to everything on an iPod. I seldom just listen to one entire album front-to-back anymore, even ones that I love. So. )
I saw the Flaming Lips twice back around 1989 or so. Once at a Hampshire College party, once at a club on the Lower East Side where they were opening for either Naked Raygun or GWAR.
Both times, the routine was the same. Three guys came out onto a stage piled high with Marshalls and started playing this ungodly sludgy din at a volume that was literally painful. While all this was happening, they fired up the smoke machines. When the stage was completely blanketed in fog, they turned on the strobe lights. And left them on for an hour. Complete sensory overload. Oy.
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I mean... only if you don't like skipping songs?
Good point - I liked Initium (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:h9fwxqy5ldke) so much I couldn't listen to it all the way through even once.
Jough's favorite song is "Silver"
sorrows
sorrows
sorrows
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I was mostly kidding. I often listen to my favorite albums on vinyl, so... I am a pretentious fuck, I guess. I actually can't remember which track on Transmissions is the one I normally skip, so, I am not sure. I am a big fan of listening to albums all the way through... but I have a really bad attention span. So the only time I can really do that is when it's on vinyl and I'm lying on my bed late at night. Listening to "Spiderland" all the way through two nights in a row... that is like my Olympics. Normally I lack the willpower to listen to things all way through, and end up skipping something eventually. On vinyl, I end up not listening to the second side quite frequently.
on another note: is the sound quality on newer iPods better? or... the quality of the headphones they come with?
maybe my old headphones were just bad. but... it sounds like Jay Farrar is right there.
(PS I just found out that Uncle Tupelo, and therefore half of Wilco and Son Volt, are from Belleville. Where my roommate is from. They probably went to his highschool.)
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on another note: is the sound quality on newer iPods better? or... the quality of the headphones they come with?
I haven't noticed a real difference in sound quality between my old 20GB and my new 80. But headphone quality makes a huge difference. Don't even bother with the white P.O.S. earbuds that come with the iPod.
Invest in a pair of these (http://www.amazon.com/Sony-7506-Pro-MDR-7506-Headphones/dp/B0002H02ZY).
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damn. those things look like my old headphones that broke. Those were the best.
my new headphones (that broke) don't look like that.
the earbuds that came with my iPod don't look like that, either.
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Whoever invented earbuds needs to be beated with a flaming baseball bat. I decided that when I first got my Gameboy.
I like the in-ear headphones because then even on the Metro I can keep my iPod volume at like 10% instead of cranking it up and going deaf.
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I need to get me some of those.
Some part of me is wary of playing my guitar through anything but big honking over-ear headphones, though.
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I need to get me some of those.
Some part of me is wary of playing my guitar through anything but big honking over-ear headphones, though.
If it's the ear part of you, you should probably listen.
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ok. good to know that it isn't irrational. Or... maybe it still is.
I listened to a little big of Clouds Taste Metallic. I think it is going to be like Transmissions from the Sattelite Heart and In a Priest-Driven Ambulance in that... at first I don't get it, and then suddenly I realize that I love every song on it.
At least, I'm hoping that will happen with Priest-Driven Ambulance. It's in the works.
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I'm still at that phase with Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. I know I have some embryonic ability to love this album, and there are certain songs on it that I love, but... it's not quite clicking yet.
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I think I've just come to the realization that Captain Beefheart's Safe as Milk is a perfect album.
Other perfect albums that come to mind (without much serious thought given...)
The Band
Highway 61 Revisited
John Prine
Dark Side of the Moon (arguably also PATGOD and Meddle.)
Hot Rats
Both Revolver and Rubber Soul
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Highway 61 Revisited
God I love that album, but Queen Jane Approximately and Highway 61 Revisited bug me. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't, but they always seem a bit off. Anything with Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues and Desolation Row back to back can be considered perfect though. Especially once you add Ballad of a Thin Man to the mix.
Also, John Prine is awesome. A great band by the name of Spiritualized stole some lyrics from that album ("There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes/ Jesus died for nothing, I suppose'). Except for they use "my", not "Daddy's".
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Also, a perfect album that I have found in the last couple weeks is Easter Everywhere by the 13th Floor Elevators.
It is mind blowing.