Vacant Horizon

Love-John

Maybe I'm Amazed-Paul

All Things Must Pass-George

Junk-Paul

Venus and mars>rock show (wings live!)-Paul

C-Moon-Paul

Put It There-Paul

Power to the people-John

Imagine-John

Dark Horse-George

Love-John

Maybe I'm Amazed-Paul

All Things Must Pass-George

Junk-Paul

Venus and mars>rock show (wings live!)-Paul

C-Moon-Paul

Put It There-Paul

Power to the people-John

Imagine-John

Dark Horse-George

i also love the song London Town

Good point. I'd never really considered that, but it's become clear (especially lately) that he admires a lot of really high-profile, even modern rock acts. I've even considered that he wrote/recorded Cardinology with the express purpose of playing it in arenas (which he did get to do, touring with Oasis).

it's ironic that heartbreaker opens with that argument with david rawlings about the smiths. it's like ryan saying, 'hey guys, i love morrisy as much as i love dylan'. just a thought.

i think he gave up the box set idea...?

why not just release 48 hours? wasn't it ready to be released after gold?

as far as cardinology, i've been hot and cold with it. i'm not a fan of LIH so stop, cobwebs, and even ships do nothing for me. way to much there for me, but i can see how others dig those songs. natural ghost may fit into that category as well. the album would've been pretty good had magick and stop been left off. but, take away ghost, cobwebs, and ships and we got an awesome ep. the easy songs, fix it, and born into the light along with evergreen are just good cardinal songs. i love guitar interplay between neal and ryan. very cool. wish there was more pedal steel. also, if ships, cobwebs and ghost were less bombastic, then we'd have a great album.

ps-i'm trying to make this cd worth the price i paid for it.

i've finally come to some conclusions about the album. after a few weeks on my ipod, i have deleted (not permanently) Bull Black Nova, You And I, and I'll Fight. I do like the song BBN, but it just doesn't seem to fit. It would worked better on a darker album like AGIB. You and I is just a complete toss off and should have been a bonus track. Pleasant to hear, but not too compelling. I'll fight is just terrible. I wish the band would've kept Let's not get carried away for this album as it would've paired well with BBN and made the disc a little less boring. the rest of the songs are just okay. nothing amazing. SBS had some great songs that made me play air guitar, if you know what i mean. One Wing and Deeper Down are classic latter era wilco songs. Solitaire is also good, but i hate the double tracked tweedy vocals. the band needs a mix up to keep things fresh i think.

I'm guessing they mean that DRA = David Ryan Adams.

didn't know that. thanks!

I don't know about that. I'm a huge (H-U-G-E) DRA fan.

But, (The Album) is a better album than Cardinology.

Easy Tiger is a better album than SBS.

Push, IMHO.

Both have not produced completely mind blowing work in a few years, but both are still far and beyond putting out better stuff than 95% of the other bands out there.

With the Cardinals break up, I can only hope when DRA works out whatever needs to be worked out he will come out of the gate with 05 quality stuff again.

The only problem; being content with life tends to limit introspection, etc, etc...

DRA = Darling Ryan Adams...?

anyway, kind of got into cardinology, but it's really not too good. i'll just stick to farrar and tweedy for new music.

I had a first generation nano which I was very fond of (black, square case) and used a moderate amount. The circular thingy stopped working several months ago and I have not replaced it, but I intend to buy another nano, which will have plenty of room for me, when I get a chance. Even nanos have a huge number of songs on them and I am not interested in other stuff except podcasts

 

LouieB

yeah, i want a nano too. i have a 5th gen classic and it is way to big!

concerning magnolia, i don't agree with pfork, but i do find it interesting that jason has recorded 6 other albums!

Bought this on vinyl at Pitchfork from the label. Have yet to iisten to it. Nice they threw in the download, now I just have to get around to downloading it and a new iPod.

 

LouieB

i remember a few years ago that you relented and bought an ipod. did that one break? just curious. i guess they are a necessary evil these days:)

for me, i'm just tired of revisiting the whole audiophile issue every few months. if i don't think about it, i don't worry about it. i'm fine with 256kbs mp3s at the moment.

I truly love Ryan Adams, but Cardinology is probably my least favorite of his records. And the quivery, cheesy vocals you describe are made doubly worse in the live show when Neal Casal chimes in. All of my boots from the last tour have Neal waaaay too high in the mix.

actually, i've been listening to cardinology and thinking about neil young's voice. maybe RA is doing some neil impression or maybe that's how his voice really is. i'm getting used to it.

If you can't hear the difference, it is best not to know. Sometimes it's worst off to know, because then you can't not ignore it and it's enormously distracting. Trust me, if I could ignore it, I would.

this is my big issue. the music i love, i really really love. as a result, i want it to sound the best. however, this is a slippery slope. do i go vinyl, do i get audiophile speakers, do i just do lossless, do i eschew cds, etc. it can really be frustrating.

It was Memory Almost Full.

okay, that's what i thought. that album sounded louder than chaos, which i thought was a great record.

very true. i consider myself to be a hardcore RA fan, hell, i have a Cardinals tat, and i've yet to check out 3/4 of his demos and such. there also seems to be a plethora of live recordings, he allows tapers to use the soundboard, and i haven't listened to hardly any of them yet either.

 

btw, Ryan just re-launched his Pax Am record label. looks like there will be some new recordings coming out soon

well, i bought cardinology on a whim a few weeks ago, and i'm forcing myself to listen to it. so far i like a few songs. some of it is just so dramatic, especially the vocals. as i said before, i just wish he was just sing his songs straight and not do all these quivering inflections etc. the band is amazing though. i really do love that cardinals sound.

A lot of people don't like Gold. Or, at least I don't. Anyhow, he is not for you. No big deal. I think there are some great songs on those unreleased collections. Like Wilco, his new stuff is more laid back, when it really needs to be more rocking somehow.

i think i'm a bit envious of the ra fans because he has so much stuff to get into.

The thread has kind of moved on from this point, however, I have heard Bob Ludwig address this very issue. I once saw him speak about a McCartney album he mastered. Paul wanted it to be compressed almost to the point of distortion, so that's what he got. Obviously, Bob could have done it differently if Paul wanted it another way. Based on those comments, I assume that Wilco wanted the CD to sound as it does.

what mccartney album? his most recent?

Yeah, if I had to pinpoint a major issue I have with the record it's definitely the production and the mastering. While it's not as distracting as Nevermind or an old Smashing Pumpkins record, everything is a little too loud and a little too compressed. Not making O'Rourke a Godfather offer to produce and mix everything from here on out after Ghost runs alongside canning Bennett as choices in retrospect I wish Tweedy hadn't made.

 

--Mike

yeah, i don't know why bands dick around with a good production formula they find. just stick with what works. tweedy has mentioned that agib is their best sounding album. i don't agree with the bennett comment though:)

agreeing with many of the other comments. agib just really nailed me. love that album, so warm and dark at the same time. sbs was 'meh' for me. this new one just 'sounds' like any other new adult alternative stuff that's been coming out the last decade. cant put my finger on why though. mastering may be the answer here.

All of this stuff has been floating around in various places for a while. It's nice that it is all together for someone to grab though.

well, i just finished my 3rd or 4th time trying to get into ryan adams. yet again, it's not clicking. i really wish i could get into him, but to my ears he just comes off as a more prolific jason mraz and not on par with farrar, tweedy, neil young. i really can't pinpoint why i don't like him. i think it has something to do with his persona. maybe short man's syndrome. maybe just immature. i should love heartbreaker, but i don't. i've checked out all of the unreleased stuff, and 48 hours should've been released after gold. gold is fun album...way too long...but one of the better/memorable adult pop albums from this decade. the last 5 albums have been very well produced. he just doesn't sing his songs. his voice is so affected. cardinology had that goofy, cracking vibrato that was totally annoying. not to mention all his piano songs sound exactly the same to me...slow piano vamp with a weepy voice. incidently, i love the song cold roses and his appearance on ACL in 05 was incredible. so what's up?

Anybody else noticing how "modern" the CD mastering is on the new album? To achieve that "loud" sound that's common on most releases today, it's compressed heavily, much more so than any previous Wilco CD. It has a really "pressed-to-the-lens" sound, and to be honest, as much as I hate to criticize an artist's output, it's fatiguing to listen to.

 

The vinyl however, is a world of difference. And it's not just the sound of the medium. They're actually very different masters: Bob Ludwig mastered the CD, and Bernie Grundman mastered the vinyl release. Grundman's master is much more conservative and has much more room to breathe.

 

I can't figure out if this was a conscious decision by the band to make the CD release so "smashed". They were one of the few contemporary bands making new releases which were NOT void of dynamics, or with that overly compressed "radio sound", and they've always seemed to be very conscious of the audio side of things. This CD stood out in how much it sounds like other pop records of today (in terms of mastering, rather than arrangement). And it does feel like one of the themes in this album is that one has to be freed of their self consciousness, and in some ways, perhaps, the acceptance of that modern smashed sound is part of letting go of ideals.

 

Ludwig is very aware of the war on maintaining dynamics in mastering, but he has also often made loud/super-compressed masters when requested by his clients or the record company. So I'm wondering if this has indeed been the case here.

 

Or was it just a stuff up?

i havent heard the vinyl, but i too have some reservations about the sound of this new album. it does sound compressed and loud. AGIB and SBS really felt as if there was space between the instruments. not the case with WTA. even though i like most of the tunes on the album, i haven't been listening much...at least not as much as AGIB. i also think there is a bit more production sheen on this album, ala summerteeth. lots of echoed voice and reverb in some spots. i miss that straight, warm, in-room sound of the last few albums.

in the comments following the review

 

...$10? pfft. I'd pay $60, I think tix are $80ish. Willie can play, Dylan is good inside in a small venue, dunno about outside. Saw him outside in 01 and that was good, 07 outside notsomuch. Sounds like Mellenhead is better now. I saw him in 97 and it was awful. He was taking smoke breaks during the songs. He sounded like shit.

dylan's band is great...dylan is not. he really isn't.

"Drown" would probably be in my top 20.

i would go to this show, if it was free. or maybe $10.

i didn't see any mention of wilco?

My favorite moment in any of Bob's XM shows is the way he pronounces "Lake Monona" when talking about Otis' death.

case in point to my post above...i downloaded the second season of the radio show. it took several days. i was hoping to hear dylan just talk like dylan, similar to the writing in chronicles. however, it does sound like he's just reading a script. now, if i had xm and happened to be in the car, i'd listen to it. but not worth the trouble of seeking out and downloading.

I am generally not a fan of someone taking their demos and adding parts to them, or deleting parts from them (for that matter), and then putting them out. Or something like that.

you mean an artist or a fan doing that? my point was that my experience has been that when i seek out bootlegs i'm disappointed with what i get 99% of the time. also, seeking this stuff out is a hassle, especially when there's different versions, like the basement tapes.

That was a joke. It's from Seinfeld.

 

But seriously, I disagree with his post.

A-Man, curious why you dont agree with my post above

seriously, just curious.

well, i got a tree with roots and it's nothing special. yes, i would love to have a basement tapes vol. II, but getting into bootlegs and such is just not for me anymore. artists, for the most part, do a good job of putting out their best material. even ryan adams. i spent a lot of time getting some of his unreleased stuff recently only to decide that the best stuff was released on demolition. and then the new jayhawks deluxe editions etc. i just can't get worked up about it. i like the way wilco makes their bonus stuff easily available on their site. other than that, i'm just too old for this shit.

ps-i do like dylan and the band's version of Big River though:)