BEA Ranks: 4th of 2008; 76th of 2000s; 394th of All Time
Ranked highest by: Pastiche, 2nd of All Time
Soft vocals, soft music. Really good harmonies. And they know how to intensify the music at just the right moment in the song to punctuate the message.
"Grounds For Divorce", which is apparently the hit from the album, is really good, how-have-I-never-heard-of-this-before good. "An Audience with the Pope" is a catchy tune, with a Mediterranean quality. "Weather to Fly" has airy harmonies. "The Fix" sounds like it belongs in a noir style Broadway show. I know I've heard "One Day Like This" somewhere before.
An enjoyable album. Listmeister ranks: 6th of 2008, 46th of 2000s
BEA Ranks: 6th of 1999, 76th of 1990s, 387th of All Time
Four ranked it as Best Of All Time: IveGotToast, babyBlueSedan, Emrox, and rockplan
I feel I must apologize to the four for whom it is your all time favorite. I just didn't get it. I found the vocals amateurish and the music chaotic. I'm sure there's something here that I'm missing to account for its unexplained popularity, but i can't figure out what it is.
Jitters and Gyroscope are pretty good. Not phenomenal, not Best Of All Time worthy, but pretty good.
I feel I must apologize to the four for whom it is your all time favorite. I just didn't get it. I found the vocals amateurish and the music chaotic. I'm sure there's something here that I'm missing to account for its unexplained popularity, but i can't figure out what it is.
Jitters and Gyroscope are pretty good. Not phenomenal, not Best Of All Time worthy, but pretty good.
Sorry.
I wrote the above paragraphs before I was half-way through the album. That will teach me not to post before I've heard an album all the way through. The album got better in the second half. Maybe it's just that my ears adjusted to the band's style, but the tunes got catchier or something.
So, instead of putting in my "unranked" pile of albums I would be okay with never hearing again, I am forced to say, yes, I would like to hear this again at some point. I'm ranking it 20th out of 20 from 1999, but it's better than nothing. You won me over, Dismemberment Plan.
I wrote the above paragraphs before I was half-way through the album. That will teach me not to post before I've heard an album all the way through. The album got better in the second half. Maybe it's just that my ears adjusted to the band's style, but the tunes got catchier or something.
So, instead of putting in my "unranked" pile of albums I would be okay with never hearing again, I am forced to say, yes, I would like to hear this again at some point. I'm ranking it 20th out of 20 from 1999, but it's better than nothing. You won me over, Dismemberment Plan.
Glad you ended up liking it more. The first time I heard this I wasn't quite sure what to think because some of the songs are a little spastic like you said. What really got me to come back and continues to be my favorite part of this album are the lyrics, which were really impactful for someone who had just graduated college and was out on their own for the first time. All of the Plan's stuff is sort of emo for people in their mid-20s, and the fact that they have really fun and unpredictable music is just the icing on the cake. I agree the vocals take some getting used to, but when he uses them well (like on the climax of The City) they just can't be beat in my book.
Emergency & I is obviously my favorite of theirs because it's so adventurous, but their follow-up is also really good and is more similar to your typical indie/alternative rock. It's a little more restrained, the vocals are calmer for the most part, and the lyrics are still really great. You might want to check that one out too, this is one of the better songs from it:
Link _________________ And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.
BEA Ranks: 6th of 2015; 63rd of 2010s; 735th of All Time
Ranked highest by al132 (2nd of All Time)
This is her debut album. She has potential, but she has not quite mastered her craft. Her guitar playing is excellent, almost flawless; and the rest of the band is pretty good, but they're not always together. Her vocals, sung with an English-accented sensitivity (she's really Australian, but the accent sounds English to me), are delightful to listen to if you are a sucker for an English accent (as I am), except sometimes her vocals are off-pitch. It sounds like it is recorded in a small studio, it has that bathroom-tile reverb quality throughout.
On the other hand, she is an excellent songwriter. Her lyrics hook you in, and they are clear the first time you hear the album. Regarding the aforementioned off-pitchy vocals, she does not let musical precision get in the way of expressing the lyrics she's trying to say. Get a load of this:
Quote:
"Taxidermied kangaroos are littered on the shoulders / A possum Jackson Pollock is painted in the tar
Sometimes I think a single sneeze could be the end of us / My hay-fever is turning up, just swerved into a passing truck"
That's some really good word-smithing, right there.
Listmeister Ranks 11th of 2015 (out of 14), 47th of 2010s
BEA Ranks: 6th of 2015; 63rd of 2010s; 735th of All Time
Ranked highest by al132 (2nd of All Time)
This is her debut album. She has potential, but she has not quite mastered her craft. Her guitar playing is excellent, almost flawless; and the rest of the band is pretty good, but they're not always together. Her vocals, sung with an English-accented sensitivity (she's really Australian, but the accent sounds English to me), are delightful to listen to if you are a sucker for an English accent (as I am), except sometimes her vocals are off-pitch. It sounds like it is recorded in a small studio, it has that bathroom-tile reverb quality throughout.
On the other hand, she is an excellent songwriter. Her lyrics hook you in, and they are clear the first time you hear the album. Regarding the aforementioned off-pitchy vocals, she does not let musical precision get in the way of expressing the lyrics she's trying to say. Get a load of this:
Quote:
"Taxidermied kangaroos are littered on the shoulders / A possum Jackson Pollock is painted in the tar
Sometimes I think a single sneeze could be the end of us / My hay-fever is turning up, just swerved into a passing truck"
That's some really good word-smithing, right there.
Listmeister Ranks 11th of 2015 (out of 14), 47th of 2010s
Yeah, I love this album. it's a grower too. Don't know how many times you've listened to it yet, but it has staying power. Her debut EPs are great too. So sing them too if you get the Courtney bug.
BEA Ranks: 14th of 1985. 170th of 1980s. 1080th of All Time
Ranked highest by TimBou, 5th of All Time
My wish list has been accumulating for almost five years, and it's been growing faster than I've been listening to the albums on it. Now it's up to almost 600 albums, total. It seems that back in November, 2013, I added this Waterboys album to my wish list. Don't remember why, and I have no idea who the Waterboys are.
Whoever recommended this to me back in 2013, thank you. This is a really good record. Songwriting and musicianship are both top notch. Vocal harmonies about. There is a Big Band-ish kind of grandness to these songs. "The Whole of the Moon" was the hit from the album. That is, it was a hit in the UK, and probably deserved better than #27. It did not crack the US Billboard charts.
TILLY AWARD
Listmeister ranks: 6th of 1985, out of 16. 87th of 1980s.
BEA Ranks: 19th of 2015; 219th of 2010s; 2200th of All Time
Ranked highest by: dkarbo97 (4th of All Time)
Alex is a guy I work with, a fan of psychedelic music. We've exchanged recommendations, played albums for each other in our musically-relaxed place of work. Ten minutes ago, he came up to me and handed me a piece of paper, that said "Everything Everything. Get to Heaven". "You've got to hear this album, it's going to blow your mind." he said.
My first impression is: Rhythm-driven music behind some impressive vocal gymnastics. By the third track, I knew I would want to hear the album a second time. The album is musically dense in the way that Reflektor (2013) is. Lots of instruments, doing lots of things, and lots of voices working harmonies and counterpoints in all sorts of ranges. It all blends together seamlessly and the overall effect is beautiful.
It seemed like every song, I'd be thinking, "What do I think of this song? Should I Like this on my Spotify account?" Then the band would kick it up a notch. "Yes, that's a Spotify-Like."
After a really strong beginning, the tempo slows a bit in the middle, and it goes from super-awesome to just really good. It bounces back to super-awesome with Hapbsburg Lipp, which has a powerful riff, great vocals, operatic instrumentation, and yodeling. It maintains that high quality through the rest of the album, and then you get a special treat with the instrumental called "Yuppie Supper"
TILLY AWARD!
Listmeister Ranks: 2nd of 2015; 8th of 2010s. Might be in the Top 100, will need more listens to be sure.
BEA Ranks: 79th of 2013; 471st of 2010; 3944th of All Time
Ranked highest by dkarbo97, 5th of All Time
Pretty bland, I'm afraid. The drumming is unusually good, but the music is typical mello 2010's stuff, nothing we haven't heard from many other bands by 2013. There are elements of Surf, and Big Band, and even Disco, but not enough of this seasoning to make it interesting.
A few songs I liked, (Black Spot, Breakers and Wooly Mammoth). Wooly Mammoth especially is rich in harmonies and stellar drumming.
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