solace

i said a GREAT song bad... get that straight surely a merely good song can be hurt by bad production.

those types of things are not usually considered part of production sorry, that's part of the songwriting craft (ESPECIALLY tempo, but what instrument to use as well) now if you're talking what amps, pedals, effects, etc. used, fine.

true... while this is a higher quality stream than a lot of albums, i can definitely hear a lot of compression artifacts.

the melody is there or it isn't. and that can be a guitar melody, vocal melody, keyboard, whatever. find me an amazing song that is only great because of it's production and that has nothing to do with it's bare music being good.

live it's no contest... the Shins are an average live band (still i've somehow seen them 5-6x over the years), and MMJ are one of the best live bands in America.

as someone who has worked in a studio and def notices production more than the average listener, i feel bad for you if the first thing you listen for is the production. listen for the songs first, then judge the production. great production can help a good song be better, but no amount of shitty production can kill a great song (see most any song recorded prior to 1968)

i'll bite. it's their best pop song and best melody line since 'Shot In The Arm'

considering this is now their 4th record to be streamed way ahead of the release date and considering their views on album leaks in the past, i wouldn't say this was "forced" as much as it was they were monitoring it closely and had the stream ready to go at will. guess you can call that "forced", i'd call it carefully planned out.

fair enough... not saying this one is up there with my favorite Wilco records (BT, YHF, & Summerteeth), but i'm enjoying it way more than I expected to and def more than I liked the last 2 at first (AGIB was the first new Wilco album i was totally let down by upon first listen). kind of thought it'd continue my interest loss from the last 5-6 years, but this might just be what i needed to reel me back in. i have that same poster only in orange, from the Missoula show

Alan... if you were saying that about SBS i could agree and understand... that album felt much more lazy than this one (granted it grew on me and now i like it quite a bit), but this album def has more energy than SBS at least. p.s. your avatar is Pearl Jam, a band who i've seen 30+ times live but have coasted in the studio for over a decade now

yup

give me good music over experimental any day...

it's Rolling Stone... do you honestly think they know shit about shit?

thread locked.

imagine they'll stream it on Wilcoworld within a week or so after this...

although like we said on IM, unlike Spiders which felt like a cut & paste krautrock hybrid, this song actually feels pretty naturally weird (if that makes sense), and not forced.

i don't see them going above 8, but who knows with them i guess. i think the review will be positive but the score is always a group decision, which will probably lower it a decent amount.

it did ok, but it was still pretty mixed... and obviously compared to YHF...

not just you... musically it's a workout and super fun, can't wait to hear it live... but there isn't a lot of memorable in the way of vocal melody for me. i can see how lots of folks will call it a highlight, but is it one of the best songs on the album? after 3 straight listens i def wouldn't put it in my top 3

this will def get better reviews than the last 2 did by far... i'd say that the finicky Pitchfork will give it a 7.4

Jeff's vocals on Bull Black Nova sound so so weird (in a cool way). did i read somewhere that a lot of what made the album version was basically a demo and built around that?

no i figured it was a joke (esp the ranking ), but wanted to nip it in the bud anyway

oh christ, let's not go there for at least weeks ok?

i dig it more than a couple songs upon first listen, but def not a fave obviously. you're right tho, lead off was totally the right place for it

is there some sort of bells going on in the background on that track? i swear i can hear something resembling them around 1:58 might just be the keyboards