This reminds me of Esme in the organized crime AU Jinx and I have together- her early interactions with Joel, while she’s still with Taran. It’s also just catchy.
I’ve been hearing this song my whole life, but only just added it to my liked Songs. It’s older than I thought.
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I think you’re right here. My favourite albums of theirs might be Talahassee and Beat the Champ. One thing I like about Jenny From Thebes has this additional allegory of the seven against Thebes. It’s a totally left-field additional layer for a narrative sequel album, but it helps make it more of a distinct piece.
(Funnily enough, I first heard of the Mountain Goats through interactive fiction. Palmcorder Vajna appeared on the first Shufflecomp list, many years ago. Gradually I listened to more and more of them, and now I guess I’m a superfan, I like stuff in all their periods, including the early casette stuff.)
This is the thing. Take a song like, Water Tower. Musically at first blush, we can uncharitably say it’s slightly overproduced adult contemporary. But it’s elevated by the psychological lyrics, linking the corpse being disposed of to the feeling of the person disposing it. And you’ve got that extended Ancient Greek warfare metaphor in there too. One thing I love about them is they reward close listening.
The Mountain Goats have so many great narrative songs, but this might be one of my favourites from recent years, about a recently divorced woman going on a roadtrip with her wedding dress.
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I was going to mention Tallahassee and Beat the Champ in my original post alongside We Shall All Be Healed and The Sunset Tree. Those are the tightest conceptually and probably the best IMO. Three of those have autobiographical elements too.
Yeah, Water Tower is a very mellow song with very dark lyrics. I guess it contrasts that the murder has weight but is also a release for the character. (The next track takes a hard turn into the future and and her eventual desperation which is a strong contrast.)
As for “Picture of My Dress” … I don’t like being negative but that was one that rubbed me the wrong way, kind of blandly sentimental. It’s a more like one of the quiet songs John Darnielle would choose as an album closer, except it’s a single and an early track on “Getting Into Knives.”
In terms of production and craft it’s perfectly good though. I might be missing something, as always.
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I really like watching the animatics that people make for their original characters, and this one is fun to pop on loop in the background. Extravagant villains are always a treat.
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And Chromeo’s always fantastic. This one is my favourite of their songs at the moment.
I’m curious if they ever use any heavier drum machine sounds, or do they usually stick with the 808 sort?
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One of their best songs. Very underrated.
Butthole Surfers - Jet Fighter
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With a band with such a catalogue, there are bound to be plenty of songs any given person won’t gel with. I see what you’re saying about the sentimentality. For me, it’s not mawkish: the image is vivid and emotional reality real enough. It’s a fan favourite but I never really liked You Were Cool perhaps for similar reasons.
Picture of My Dress is technically a breakup song. They’ve got loads of these, but one of my favourites is Cubs in Five. The only thing I know about the Cubs comes from Andrew Schultz’s Fan Interference and this song:
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I don’t know anything about how music is made, so I’m not entirely sure what the 808 sound is, either! But I flipped through a few of their songs, and I think generally they keep quite true to their musical sound, and I don’t really notice all that much of a difference between the drums across songs.
It feels a little punchier in Jealous (https://youtu.be/RhmUnk454MA) but I think that’s more because it’s… louder? Which is done to similar effect in Words With You (https://youtu.be/T7w-Dp16hH0) I think. Going back to Night By Night (https://youtu.be/6XCcWlgVqHA), I don’t think the drums sound all that different to my untrained ear.
Probably the biggest change they’ve done is shifting to playing their musical instruments live during their songs, rather than mixing them in after the fact? But lyrically, and musically, I think, they tend to stick to variations on the same theme- you could easily blenderize all of their songs and the resultant jam would be fun and a bop to listen to, but not all that different from any individual song, if that makes any sense, haha.
They’re in the same ‘fun music’ category for me as Glass Animals, but much less experimental in their sound. They make what they dubbed electro-funk, and have a super distinct (if sort of one trick) style- they’re good at making what they make, but I don’t really notice any areas of artistic deviation over the years of their albums.
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Oh, they have a different drum machine model on “Jealous”. I prefer that one, it sounds punchier.
On “Words with You” it sounds more like a very dry drumkit rather than a drum machine in itself.
Oh, that “Night by Night” drum machine I instantly recognised - it’s the Linn LM-1. You’ve probably heard it in loads of 1980s songs, especially Prince’s. XD (And come to think of it, the synth solo reminds me a bit of the super-sped up classical synth passage from the end of “When Doves Cry”, a bit…)
I get the impression in general they’re really into 1980s funk-pop and the Minneapolis sound, hahaha.
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Picture of My Dress is technically a breakup song
That probably has something to do with it. I feel the same way about most tracks on “Get Lonely,” where the strongest songs don’t deal directly with the core breakup. “New Monster Avenue” and “If You See Light,” which have Frankenstein or movie monster imagery, are especially good IMO, but also don’t necessarily need the rest of the album for context.
In general I think Darnielle is better at portraying things that are in the process of breaking down than things that are already collapsed.
I’ve always liked “Cubs in Five.” It kind of reminds me of Weird Al’s “One More Minute” in a way, constantly trying to one up itself … but a bit less over the top on the whole.
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Yeah, agreed re the broader point - JD is best when his characters are right on the cusp of something, IMO.
One of the projects I will never get around to is trying to reconstruct the concept album about monsters that was supposed to happen around the Get Lonely / Heretic Pride era - I think between the songs on those albums that deal with the theme, and a couple B-sides and unreleased things played live, I think we’ve got a reasonable chunk of it.
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That’s a fun idea! A little while back I made (entirely for my own amusement) a playlist of songs that thematically would have worked on Beat the Champ, but either were rejected from the album or were written for something else but could have been about wrestlers.
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Trying to clean up some of my large folder for Prince and his associates’ music. Listening to Bobby Z.'s self-titled album from 1989. It’s good 
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Probably one of the most musically impressive songs I’ve heard. They perfectly hit every note.
I recommend listening the whole way - the most boring bit is the lead-up to IMO the best bit.
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I’m sorry
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Arguably one of the best alternative/grunge rock albums of all time.
Failure - Fantastic Planet (Full Album)
There’s a really cool stretch with the final 4 songs that feels like your floating in space, traveling further into the unknown. Stuck On You was their biggest hit, but if you listen to the whole album, I guarantee you’ll have others that you like more.
The guy who produced Nirvana’s Nevermind album, Butch Vig, recently said Fantastic Planet is in his top 25 albums of all time.
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This:
