I mean, yeah, I hear you, I love that one too. "Your Silent Face" is just this whole other world though. Feel like I'm still discovering that song over and over all these years later.
Also, if you open it up to the non-album tracks from that era you've got "Thieves Like Us" to contend with, too.
I think it's the main one that could rival it, personally. I swear I remember Scott referring to TMOF as their "second best album" at one of those shows and I was wondering which he'd consider #1 if that was the case ... feel like it could be Pedestrian Verse
I've always loved "Raindrops + Sunshowers" and thought I was completely alone in this. My favorite of the MACHINA era, potentially.
As for others you shouted out...those Mellon Collie cuts like "Fuck You," "Porcelina," "XYU," "Bodies"...they're indeed all songs people don't seem to shout out as much. When I first got this album at about 15 or 16, those were some of the highlights for me actually. "Porcelina" is still one of my favorites.
Nice to see you and a few others mention "Sweet Sweet" as well. It's such a perfect, weird, beautiful little song.
You don't know how tempted I was to put that on the list. I saw them do that with the "All My Friends" tag in 2015, before they were doing it frequently, and hearing them unexpectedly play a mash-up of my two favorite songs just about knocked me out.
Yeah me either, but maybe you're right — it just sounds kinda bleak, thanks to the production and some of the songwriting, compared to a lot of their other records.
But man, you're talking about an album that's got something as weird and beautiful as "Of The Girl" next to "Insignificance," or the pairing of "Light Years" and "Nothing As It Seems." It's always been more than a stretch to consider it their weakest, IMO.
I like that they do the slowburn opener into a rocker, it's a great way to build dramatic tension ahead of a long show that's going to go in a lot of different directions. I think they used to do "Long Road" into "Hail Hail" a bit? Maybe that's just a dream setlist I'm doing in my head. Regardless, I'm in the camp that thinks "Low Light" is kind of an odd one with which to do so. It's just a pretty ballad, not a scene-setting, world-opening track like "Release" or "Long Road."
I put "Light Years" on my (admittedly pretty idiosyncratic) 10 Best PJ songs list back in 2013 and half the comments were people losing their shit over a Binaural song being on there. There are certainly some overlooked gems on that one.
That being said, I might ride for Riot Act as the most underrated/wrongfully-maligned album of theirs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You're not wrong, there were just some different things I wanted to focus on this time around — kinda said my piece about Irons in our No Code anniversary: https://www.stereogum.com/1896007/no-code-turns-20/franchises/the-anniversary/
I've actually never been a big fan of "Celebrate" personally! But I know people rank it highly.
"This Fear Of Gods" is awesome and almost snuck on here, but I wanted to highlight Sons And Fascination a bit more so, honorable mention. There are like 15 other songs I was considering for this list at some point. A lot to choose from.
This is what I was getting at in the intro: I don't consider it Pablo Honey status at all. I love a lot of those songs, and it's a very good album. But you're talking about an artist who leapt up from making a very good album to making (imo) three masterpieces in a row after that, and his songwriting, arrangement, and ear for production were all just on a different level then. Not trying to snub Wagonwheel, and you're right that the key WOD elements were evident, but I feel like those were fleshed out and strengthened on songs from the subsequent three releases.
Some honorable mentions:
LCD Soundsystem - "How Do You Sleep?"
Liima - "Two-Hearted"
Japanese Breakfast - "Diving Woman," "Machinist," "Boyish"
Mammut - "Kinder Versions"
The Horrors - "Something To Remember Me By"
The War On Drugs - "In Chains"
Strand Of Oaks - "Radio Kids," "On The Hill," "Passing Out"
Dream Syndicate - "Filter Me Through You"
Perfume Genius - "Wreath"
St. Vincent - "Masseduction," "Sugarboy"
Bleachers - "I Miss Those Days"
Paddy Hanna - "Bad Boys"
Fleet Foxes - "Third Of May," "I Should See Memphis," "On Another Ocean"
Fever Ray - "To The Moon And Back"
Nation Of Language - "Indignities"
Destroyer - "Tinseltown Swimming In Blood"
Pretty much the entirety of Kelly Lee Owens' LP
Father John Misty - "Pure Comedy"
I almost put "Yesterday To Tomorrow" on here but thought I'd already gone a bit overboard with Audioslave material. Aside from Cornell on that track...man, Morello's guitar solo is cool on that one.
I love the Waterboys' '80s records and I've been looking for some reason to write about them for a while. They really don't get their due, imo. And you're right, I think there's interesting stuff to consider re: these two Irish bands and what directions they went in.
I've shit on the record in a few pieces but my issue's more with the overall premise, and all the covers + live stuff...and then it still being counted as a sorta-album. But most of the studio material is amazing—"Heartland," "Hawkmoon 269," and then "All I Want Is You" is one of their best songs imo. Also there's that outtake "A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel," which is one of my favorites out of the songs where U2 go full cartoon Americana.
Yeah I actually agree that it's another underrated/wrongfully maligned one. I think it's also a frustrating one because it's so easy to imagine what could've been if they had pushed further in some of the directions suggested on it. Oddly there are only 2-3 songs I'd point to as being part of the problem, but I remember it as an album with very strong opening and closing thirds and a gaping hole in the middle.
Yeah, originally I mentioned that in the piece—I used to drive up Giant's Despair every day for my summer job during college.
Also, incredibly, Tim and his friend (who did the album art) had a plan to make a Lord Of The Rings style map of Wilkes-Barre as Middle-Earth but didn't do it. The Sterling Hotel was going to be Mordor.
You can't go wrong with most of the songs on that album, including "Nylon Strung." "If Rah" and "Ova Nova" almost edged out "I Exhale" for me, but "I Exhale" blew my mind when it first came out and still does.
Damn, felt like someone was missing. Thanks for calling that out, we added Vega in.
I actually saw LCD Soundsystem play "Bye Bye Bayou" in tribute to Vega at Panorama back in July; it was pretty amazing.
Yeah, this has always been my feeling, and was more so the point I was trying to make in that last paragraph than to suggest the old icons were more inherently talented than the newer ones. I think you're right that it's just impossible to be omnipresent on the same level that some of those '60s artists were.
Agreed re: Push The Sky Away, but I'm a little biased because that's around the time I really got obsessed with his work. Would say that's essential alongside Tender Prey and Let Love In...those three were my way in, and I think they hold up as classics within his career.
1. "The Mercy Seat"
2. "More News From Nowhere"
3. "Jubilee Street"
4. "O Children"
5. "Do You Love Me?"
If the studio version of "Weeping Song" sounded like how they play it now, that'd be on the list.
Wow, when you restrict this to bands it is really difficult to come up with any ideas to add to your list. Closest I got was that any of Pulp's '90s classics would technically count, except I think that's sorta cheating, like with Tusk.
I meant the comparison more in the sense that the song has bits of the mood/pacing of some of those other songs but now that I think about it the new song I was referring to does sound a bit like if "Hot As Day" was on Shriek.
As a defender of Local Business, maybe this is why I still really like those songs. I can hear what you're saying about those sounding related to that album.
Whaaaat..."Lonely Boy" and "I Lost My Mind" (+@) are squarely in the "Perfect" column for me. Totally agree with yr "Perfect" column otherwise, though. Actually, I'd make "Come On, Siobhan" and "A Pair Of Brown Eyes" trade spots.
Comments