Red Mosquito

Music for Airports is both relaxing and (in my experience) kinda just "exists" without particular joy or sadness. I love it as an unwind/meditative piece and go to it often.

I can see some Sonic Youth pieces being good for this too. Spinhead Sessions, Destroyed Room, etc.

I've always been a casual My Morning Jacket fan, so I misremember what songs go on what album half the time. I randomly popped in my copy of Z today and man, it's loaded with all of my favorites. I could have sworn half these songs were on other albums.

This may be the only MMJ I really need.

I tried about a dozen times with MMJ. Not a bad live band, but otherwise zzzz.

Ello Sailor wrote:I tried about a dozen times with MMJ. Not a bad live band, but otherwise zzzz.

Same. Seeing them live did absolutely nothing to heighten my appreciation for them. Their whole vibe just strikes the wrong chord with me.

Ello Sailor wrote:I tried about a dozen times with MMJ. Not a bad live band, but otherwise zzzz.

more like, my boring racket amirite?

Chris_H_2 wrote:

Ello Sailor wrote:I tried about a dozen times with MMJ. Not a bad live band, but otherwise zzzz.

more like, my boring racket amirite?

Chris

i'll just see myself out

I sold my copy of Z (my only mmj album) about a month ago. I got a little more than what I paid for, and one less record on the shelf that I never listened to.

Chris_H_2 wrote:

Ello Sailor wrote:I tried about a dozen times with MMJ. Not a bad live band, but otherwise zzzz.

more like, my boring racket amirite?

tragabigzanda wrote:it's their singer. He fuckin' sucks.

He definitely puts off an airhead vibe that doesn't serve their music well. That said, their music has always sounded kind of "undecided" to me, in a bad way -- it's like it's part standard-issue 2000's indie rock, part jam band, part singer-songwritery-type stuff, without really tapping into any of the elements of those things I might potentially respond to (or creating a compelling fusion of them that I'd respond to in its own way).

That said, I haven't heard their whole catalog, so maybe I'm missing the essential connective tissue. I've heard most of what (I think) are considered their touchstone works though, and really tried hard with Z back when it came out (the only songs I kind of liked were "Wordless Chorus" and "Off the Record," both of which sound more or less unpleasant to me now).

Maybe more than most bands, MMJ needs a backdrop to make sense. Z hit me hard last night as I was floating down the freeway at 3am, downtown shimmering in my rearview. The keyboards of wordless chorus breathed with the blinking city lights. I also can't hear Golden without playing a specific stretch of road in East Texas in my head. On my way back from a weekend of fall camping, clothes still smelling like woodfire and river. Sun setting.

I think objectively you guys are probably right about this band, and why I've never really sought out their discography past what I've always connected to.

As the MMJ apologist here, I think they need to be experienced immersively (which is why they are credited as such a great live band). This isn’t what you listen to while working or working out or setting the table for dinner. This is you alone with headphones at top volume with no interruptions and letting everything wash over you without needing to use your right brain to justify each nuance. You have to just give yourself away to the music without looking at the clock or what track comes next. Basically, getting stoned would help a lot, though I have never heard their music in any altered state. It’s at that point that it then clicked for me and I have never looked back.

Z is the easiest to listen to because it’s the album you need least submit yourself to fully enjoy, but in that mind frame, I have a hard time believing there are more than a handful of albums in the universe that can top the remastered It Still Moves (the original is great but when they remastered it the whole thing came to life in an unexpected way).

Edit: as a side note to this, I tend to find myself getting angry when someone interrupts me when listening to MMJ - like “can’t you see I am fully f&$@ing immersed!?”

Okay, I'm firing up It Still Moves now.

Kevin Davis wrote:Okay, I'm firing up It Still Moves now.

The 2016 remaster!

Inspired to throw this on now…the reverb vocals combined with the harmonizing guitars…it’s just awesome.

Not sure which version I queued up, but...just not my jam, sorry. I've seen them live and didn't enjoy them at all, so I'm guessing they're just not for me. (Granted it was on a quadruple bill with Wilco, Bob Dylan, and Richard Thompson, so probably not the best representation of what they can really do, but still -- there wasn't anything that made me feel like I'd like it more if only it went on longer.)