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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Aug 28, 2019 12:31:55 GMT
Years ago - many years ago - when I was first getting into these artists like The Doors, the Beatles, Dylan, etc., I might've (probably?) invested in those 6 CD sets. Unfortunately, they weren't available. Now, my enthusiasm level has decreased somewhat and I've accumulated a lot of the catalogue(s). So, I find myself, instead of purchasing the 6 CD boxed set, just getting the one or two CD sampler that's usually offered.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 28, 2019 12:36:22 GMT
Ditto.
Maybe part of it for me is the novelty of unreleased material being released. Maybe it’s different time commitments that make it harder to find time to listen to Take 14 Without Strings. Maybe it’s the realization that I really almost never did give repeated listens to sessions.
Plus to be fair, the BBs were an anomaly with so much high quality, completed music to release as bonus stuff. Most bands have alternate takes, fragments, sessions...but nothing like the BBs.
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Post by kds on Aug 28, 2019 12:37:41 GMT
The last big box set I purchased was MiC, which I got probably four or five years ago. My Beach Boys fandom was still fairly new, and I really wanted all of those unreleased goodies. I still think it could've been a more compact box by leaving off already released material, thus being more affordable.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 28, 2019 17:55:29 GMT
A couple other artists with whom I’ve almost broken up with occurred to me, each with different circumstances. Prince. As I began buying music in the mid-late 80s, Prince was just a given: HUGE hitmaker. The earliest hits were already staples before I became a purchaser, but this era was still quite successful (and good): Around the World in a Day, Sign o’ the Times, Parade, Batman, Diamonds and Pearls, etc. I still liked the symbol album and Gold Experience to some extent, but things really started getting sketchy in the mid to late 90s with things like Chaos & Disorder. I figured I was done. Then everything was a comeback album or a return to form album, none of which really ever seemed to make much of an impression…except right BEFORE they were released. Yes, in the pre-release hype, I inevitably got just excited enough to give it a chance: Emancipation, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, Rainbow Children, Musicology, etc. One after the other, I just kept buying them. And while I didn’t buy each and every one, I bought most of them, only to regret it shortly thereafter. My iTunes contains about 1-3 songs per album from the last 20 years of his life, with the CDs packed away somewhere or other. I never did quite break up with Prince, as he beat me to it by dying. Of Montreal. The breakup hasn’t happened yet, but doggone it, it might. I fell in love with this band when they were a happy, twee little retro pop band in the late 90s and early 00s. I stuck with them as they evolved into a sort of synth-based funk influenced project. I was losing interest as it got “experimental” (which inevitably just means noisy and electronic in the pop world, despite that requiring no actual experimentation), but they changed just in time, returning with a couple of real-band albums again in the early to mid 10s. Buuuuut the past couple have been more electronic again, and what’s worse, not even remotely funky or catchy in the ways that made their mid to late 00s forays in that direction so fun. Honestly now it just feels like their leader, Kevin Barnes, is deciding which direction to go album by album by throwing darts blindfolded at a board of genres. But since he’s already cycled through almost everything, it’s just gotten pretty tired. I don’t know what the next album will be or when it’s coming out, but it MIGHT be the one where I have to say, “Sorry, Kevin, but it’s just not working. It’s not you, it’s me. [But really it’s you.]”
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Post by kds on Aug 28, 2019 18:06:40 GMT
I'm not quite there yet, but I'm close, with Metallica. Truly, one of the best, and most influential, heavy metal bands in history. But, I've found my overall interest in their music waning in the last several years.
I guess it started with the absolute POS album St. Anger in 2003. It took them five years to follow up that album with a much better album in 2008 called Death Magnetic. My interest in them was restored a bit. But, I found their 2016 double album Hardwired to Self Destruct to be overblown, overlong, and very short on tunes. I dunno. Maybe I need to give it another listen. But, I even find myself listening to Metallica's older music far less frequently, and that's not the case with most of my legacy metal bands.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Aug 29, 2019 21:19:05 GMT
kds, what's your "enthusiasm level" on this one:
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Post by kds on Aug 30, 2019 1:41:49 GMT
kds, what's your "enthusiasm level" on this one:
Meh. The few unreleased goodies don't justify it. Honestly, I'm a little annoyed that this is how the Delicate Sound of Thunder concert film finally gets a DVD release. They've been teasing its release on DVD for nearly 20 years. Hopefully, it gets a stand alone release at some point.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2020 14:23:55 GMT
Reviving an old thread because I realized that last week, Eels released a new album, Earth to Dora.
Eels (mostly a one-man bad by Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, with various sidemen incorporated to different degrees through the years) started in the mid-90s and had precisely one hit song: "Novocaine for the Soul," which hit #10 in the UK and #39 in the US (#1 in Alternative Singles) in 1996. I didn't like it.
But I did like their 1998 album, the dark, sometimes funny, sometimes eclectic--which is Eels in a nutshell, by the way--album Electro-Shock Blues. It had a few more of the chamber pop-plus-beats stuff as the debut album, which isn't to my taste, but also more traditionally arranged and prettier things like this song, Climbing to the Moon.
For the subsequent 7 years or so, I was quite a fan. But after a while, the albums just kept coming ... and coming ... and coming. And to be honest they were all quite similar. This one would be a little more upbeat, that one would be a little more of a downer. This one more organic instrumentation, that one a bit more electronic or one-man-band. Much like the Flaming Lips, it just started feeling like "oh, another one? Oh. OK." And the best you could hope for was one or two standout songs. But even those tended to remind you of previous standout songs.
So I may or may not listen to Earth to Dora. I probably will stream it at least once. But unlike the days of excitedly waiting for a new release to buy asap, the odds of me actually purchasing and repeatedly listening are pretty slim.
Sorry, E!
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2020 14:29:57 GMT
While I'm thinking about this thread and having quickly looked through it, it's a little ironic that I happen to think the Flaming Lips (whom I'd criticized earlier) had their best album in years, and I've really enjoyed revisiting the later McCartney albums!
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Post by kds on Nov 6, 2020 14:50:20 GMT
My opinion on later Macca is unchanged.
But, here's an artist I'll add. Aerosmith. They were my 1st concert in 1998. They've not done a ton since. The lackluster Just Push Play album in 2001, followed by the blues covers album in 2004. They released an album in 2012, but in eight years, I never bothered to check it out. And, for one reason or another, I cannot recall the last time I willfully listened to Aerosmith.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2020 15:00:19 GMT
At least Aerosmith has the added benefit of not actually continuing to release music that doesn't interest you: they just don't release music!
They are, by the way, a band I probably should work through in more detail. I never have been a big fan, while I do like some of the songs I know. Their late 80s-90s comeback wasn't especially interesting to me, though--especially the boatload of seemingly interchangeable power ballads. The things I like are mostly from the 70s.
(Also, who the hell puts his daughter in the role of a sex symbol in his videos? What the...?)
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Post by kds on Nov 6, 2020 15:29:49 GMT
At least Aerosmith has the added benefit of not actually continuing to release music that doesn't interest you: they just don't release music!
They are, by the way, a band I probably should work through in more detail. I never have been a big fan, while I do like some of the songs I know. Their late 80s-90s comeback wasn't especially interesting to me, though--especially the boatload of seemingly interchangeable power ballads. The things I like are mostly from the 70s.
(Also, who the hell puts his daughter in the role of a sex symbol in his videos? What the...?)
Im a big fan of their 70s albums, Rocks in particular. I also really like their first 3 Geffen albums. But, yeah, having Liv as a video vixen is pretty icky.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2020 16:13:54 GMT
But, yeah, having Liv as a video vixen is pretty icky. I mean, I personally enjoyed it. Quite a bit. But it seems odd that he'd go for it!
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Post by kds on Nov 6, 2020 16:57:23 GMT
But, yeah, having Liv as a video vixen is pretty icky. I mean, I personally enjoyed it. Quite a bit. But it seems odd that he'd go for it! As a 13 year old boy when Crazy was on MTV, I didnt mind. A few years ago, I saw Eddie Money, and his daughter sang the Ronnie Spector lines on Take Me Home Tonight. Somehow, that was more strange.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 1, 2022 16:42:00 GMT
Of Montreal. The breakup hasn’t happened yet, but doggone it, it might. I fell in love with this band when they were a happy, twee little retro pop band in the late 90s and early 00s. I stuck with them as they evolved into a sort of synth-based funk influenced project. I was losing interest as it got “experimental” (which inevitably just means noisy and electronic in the pop world, despite that requiring no actual experimentation), but they changed just in time, returning with a couple of real-band albums again in the early to mid 10s. Buuuuut the past couple have been more electronic again, and what’s worse, not even remotely funky or catchy in the ways that made their mid to late 00s forays in that direction so fun. Honestly now it just feels like their leader, Kevin Barnes, is deciding which direction to go album by album by throwing darts blindfolded at a board of genres. But since he’s already cycled through almost everything, it’s just gotten pretty tired. I don’t know what the next album will be or when it’s coming out, but it MIGHT be the one where I have to say, “Sorry, Kevin, but it’s just not working. It’s not you, it’s me. [But really it’s you.]” There have been two Of Montreal albums since I posted that. While there were little, clever moments in each that delighted me, I didn't really like even one song off either. Today I read they have a new album due in July and I listened to the first single.
It might be time for The Talk. After listening to this, I'm not sure I want to bother even giving this album a try.
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