Red Mosquito

hlniv wrote:The biggest flaw is calling this thing an album.

The songs themselves are pretty good, actually, with a few exceptions. But I'll never go back to the album as a whole because it doesn't work as a whole. They should have released the songs individually if the choices that were made were going to be this bad. Stip is correct when he says every song has something that knocks it off the rails, despite being decent individual songs. And without a cohesive album to fall back on, they just mostly fall through the cracks and into the garbage.

Getaway- neutered, no punch -- sounds about right
MYM- needs a crisper more relavent intro, but that's a stretch. This is the tune with the least flaws -- yeap, best song
MFS- Ed just can't seem angry anymore. Sorry doesn't work now -- I don't know, I think Ed sounds good, especially on the last verse, he kills it.
Sirens- plodding, yet too calculated -- hmmm, I don't know what to say about this one
LB- shakers and tambourines- go away! -- I like the shakers and tambourines
Infallible- ugh that chorus combined with that melody and those words... Most disappointing song in the catalog. Had so much potential -- yeap
Swallowed whole- acoustic guitar is horrible. Great song otherwise -- yeap
Pendulum- one or two tricks, then it's over. Needed further development. Guess they needed 8 years instead of 5 for this one -- yeap, though i like the song, it could use more
LTRP- goes nowhere. Nice stone lick with nothing meaningful around it. PJ plays the blues paint by numbers -- i like the bridge a lot, but im not sure stone's lick is really any good
SBM- great song- still should have been a Xmas single. Doesn't fit at all -- pretty good, don't care so much that it doesn't "fit"
Yellow Moon- cant get out of its own shell -- yea sure
Future Days- piano, cheap guitar. This is a middle tier Ed solo song -- yeap, it's not very good, but i think i like it more than most.


Overall- this nudges backspacer, but not by much.

stip wrote:

digster wrote:I think Mike mentioned early on that the album was a 'logical extension of Backspacer' and while usually Mike and all the other band members are talking out of their ass when it comes to the progress of a record, but it makes sense here. The two albums are relatively similar; LB just has a wider scope and is better. But the same problems apply; the songwriting has some major stumbling blocks, it's one of PJ's weakest albums lyrically, and there are some questionable production choices. The latter is really noticeable; songs like Yellow Moon could have been so much better than they were if they weren't spitshined within an inch of their life. So it's basically everything I thought about Backspacer, but the results aren't as poor as they were there, to me at least.

I'm sure I asked this before, but which are the songs (besides future days and sirens) that you think are the lyrical problems?

stip wrote:What are your thoughts are Infallible, Lightning Bolt, and Swallowed Whole?

McParadigm wrote:

stip wrote:What are your thoughts are Infallible, Lightning Bolt, and Swallowed Whole?

Most of the lyrics on this record that aren't terrible are just sort of unremarkable. And while nothing on the title track stands out as BAD, per se, it just feels like it was copy-pasted from about 800 other songs that were already not all that remarkable lyrically, themselves. Infallible has alright, if fairly overused, imagery in the verses. The chorus still sounds like a Christina Aguilara song penned by Greg? Graffin.

Actually, just on paper, they almost look like they could be lifted directly from a Bad Religion song, where the musical accompaniment would be more appropriate to the words anyway.

Edit: "You don't know where from she was thrown." Isn't that a line? That's a dumb line. If it's a line.

stip wrote:The best verse in Lightning Bolt is the second one, which sounds like a good late era piece of Michael Stipe advice column writing

stip wrote:I don't know what Post Empty Glass Peter Townsend means.

Leatherhead wrote:

hlniv wrote:The biggest flaw is calling this thing an album.

The songs themselves are pretty good, actually, with a few exceptions. But I'll never go back to the album as a whole because it doesn't work as a whole. They should have released the songs individually if the choices that were made were going to be this bad. Stip is correct when he says every song has something that knocks it off the rails, despite being decent individual songs. And without a cohesive album to fall back on, they just mostly fall through the cracks and into the garbage.

Getaway- neutered, no punch -- sounds about right
MYM- needs a crisper more relavent intro, but that's a stretch. This is the tune with the least flaws -- yeap, best song
MFS- Ed just can't seem angry anymore. Sorry doesn't work now -- I don't know, I think Ed sounds good, especially on the last verse, he kills it.
Sirens- plodding, yet too calculated -- hmmm, I don't know what to say about this one
LB- shakers and tambourines- go away! -- I like the shakers and tambourines
Infallible- ugh that chorus combined with that melody and those words... Most disappointing song in the catalog. Had so much potential -- yeap
Swallowed whole- acoustic guitar is horrible. Great song otherwise -- yeap
Pendulum- one or two tricks, then it's over. Needed further development. Guess they needed 8 years instead of 5 for this one -- yeap, though i like the song, it could use more
LTRP- goes nowhere. Nice stone lick with nothing meaningful around it. PJ plays the blues paint by numbers -- i like the bridge a lot, but im not sure stone's lick is really any good
SBM- great song- still should have been a Xmas single. Doesn't fit at all -- pretty good, don't care so much that it doesn't "fit"
Yellow Moon- cant get out of its own shell -- yea sure
Future Days- piano, cheap guitar. This is a middle tier Ed solo song -- yeap, it's not very good, but i think i like it more than most.


Overall- this nudges backspacer, but not by much.