:: Track Listing

1. Wordless Chorus
2. It Beats 4 U
3. Gideon
4. What A Wonderful Man
5. Off the Record
6. Into the Woods
7. Anytime
8. Lay Low
9. Knot Comes Loose
10. Dondante

:: Record Review

My Morning Jacket

Z
(ATO; 2005)



Combined Rating: 82%


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Author
 Topic: My Morning Jacket "Z"
Chet
some skinny white kid

 This ain't your dad's MMJ. More like your hippie mother's.

Or your older sister's. You know, the one who has lots of wool scarves and listens to the Flaming Lips and Air... she smokes shit and/or she's a lesbian, and everytime she explains her current grad thesis to you, you believe in it even less than she does.

Okay, so I don't have a sister like that, either.
Chet
some skinny white kid


i failed to mention that i think i like this.
Chet
some skinny white kid

watch out, "Dondante" just blew my mind. sexually and metaphysically.
Newell
Blog Party

there's a sequence here where it sounds like the songs were written by

Coldplay
Weezer
Elvis Costello

it's like tracks 3-5

ew

and the caterwauling at the end of the otherwise fabulous opener is brutal.
Scott
Community Mantra

I love how it ends with that "Benny and the Jets" bit. How seriously can you take something like that?
Chet
some skinny white kid

and the caterwauling at the end of the otherwise fabulous opener is brutal

what you talking about, the caterwauling's fun.

 
Newell
Blog Party

I thought it was bad/forced

I dunno. i miss the rollicking from It Still Moves. This is contrived-sounding to me....trying hard to be slicker than I'd like them to be

I'm not really feeling this so far.
Newell
Blog Party

it's just

the coldplay song is structured like a coldplay song. pristine and shiny and build and climax and fade in a neat little pop packet. The vocals are unadventurous. Just. Like. Coldplay.

Just take Jim James out of the mix, and think about the instrumentals... coldplay/weezer, tracks 3/4.

the costello song is where James actually enunciates like costello...but i'm pretty yeah wrt coldplay/weezer...

i obviously hate myself about this whole ordeal.
Scott
Community Mantra

 Two times through, I like this a whole lot. I wouldn't really want them to do another ISM or At Dawn, to be honest. 70 minutes of each is enough.

"It Beats 4 U" is incredible. "Lay Low," too. The last two songs…

Aaron, you're completely wrong about this album. "What a Wonderful Man," especially.

 

Chet
some skinny white kid

yeah, i really admire them for doing something different. that wouldn't mean much if the songs didn't still work, but i think they do. in many ways, this sounds like the most focused record they've done.
Newell
Blog Party

Aaron, you're completely wrong about this album. "What a Wonderful Man," especially


did amir log on as scott?

it's ok. i could be jumping the gun. but i'm really disappointed on listens 1 and 2.



anyway since no one has my back on this, Abbie said the same thing "It's poppier, and not as interesting...". that should probably go in the “who has the smartest girlfriend” thread though.
Scott
Community Mantra

 "Off the Record's" the only song I'm not really liking, and even that's not half bad for what it is (and not much poppier than "Phone Went West," for that matter).

It's definitely not as interesting as At Dawn, but I really like that they're trying for a (comparatively) compact record after Dawn and ISM. I agree with Chet about it probably being their most focused, for better or worse. Kind of like Destroyer's This Night-Your Blues excess/reaction.

Plus I like the way some of the songs are structured. It's really Buffalo Springfield Again-sy, but with more solos.
Chet
some skinny white kid

Plus I like the way some of the songs are structured. It's really Buffalo Springfield Again-sy, but with more solos


Agreed. Is the album a little more poppy overall? Yeah, so what. I think there's a lot about this record that's very interesting, the structures being a prime example. They're tight without being by-the-numbers. Aaron, you criticize the vocals for being unadventurous on the "Coldplay" song but then call Jimmy's alien yodeling on the first track "brutal"? What are you looking for?

I don't really know how a record with "Into the Woods" on it gets called uninteresting. Sweet perversity. Or a record that has songs ending the way "It Beats 4 U" and "Off the Record" end. The production is a really interesting exploration for MMJ. And, once again, the soloing is on some Neil Young-level ish.

"What a Wonderful Man," "Lay Low," "Knot Comes Loose" and "Dondante" are just fantastic.
Newell
Blog Party
Aaron, you criticize the vocals for being unadventurous on the "Coldplay" song but then call Jimmy's alien yodeling on the first track "brutal"? What are you looking for?


so, like, you're saying that he can't be uninteresting on one song and brutal on another? I guess I'm saying that each song has elements I don't like, and that these elements differ per song. I.e. he's brutal on one. On the other he's sort of boring. Or maybe it's just the arrangement of the song. C'mon. On the bridge w/ the piano, the little synthy bits - that doesn't scream stadium bubble gum to you?

?

I like the arrangement on the first track, but the howling is going to take some time - seems like overkill to me. Especially how he goes off into that soul-strutting "yeyeah" series at the end. I like it when Jim soars, no problem, but that ending is over the top.
Chet
some skinny white kid

I'm just wondering what exactly you're expecting of him. because MMJ aren't really doing what's expected of them on this record. I'm not sure what you mean by "adventurous" because I listen to how Jim's singing on "Wordless Chorus" and "What A Wonderful Man" and "Off the Record" and that Frank Black-ish snarl at 4 1/2 minutes into "Dondante," and I think that this is the most adventurous that he's been.

i can see how you'd think the yodeling would be over-the-top, but it's a subtly over-the-top song that's aptly called "Wordless Chorus." what Jim's doing at the end seems like the surprising yet natural conclusion. and, uh, don't you like Architecture in Helsinki? smiling emoticon.
Scott
Community Mantra

I think it'd be over the top if it were a part of any other song. The guy's covered Badu, Elton John, and "Take My Breath Away," you knew he'd do this eventually.

Plus the way that whole wailing section leads into "It Beats 4 U" is one of my favorite parts of the album. Like how "It's Oh So Quiet" leads into "Enjoy," except not nearly as extreme.

And I'm not sure I get the whole Coldplay thing. I'd love for Coldplay to make a record this good.
Newell
Blog Party

Chet – leave australia out of this.

Scott: he covered badu?

that's interesting

Rocket Man was awesome.

and Coldplay: "Gideon"

Especially after the 2:36 mark.

Anyway I'll admit to expecting something not as shiny from this record. But hearing JJ over some of these arrangements is offputting to me. sounds contrived/forced. It's a departure, which is fine, but it's a departure into sounding more like 'other bands' that are poppier/shinier/less substantial than i like to think mmj are. This MMJ-does-the-pristine-thing is not my bag.

consider how YHF was a departure for Wilco, but it still retained that Wilco country-groove throughout the whole record...I don't like JJ's new groove. It sounds more like it's part of Chris Martin's groove. Obviously I’m asking for some suspension of disbelief here when referencing “Chris Martin’s groove”.

anyway is there an emoticon for blue in the face?
Chet
some skinny white kid

Anyway I'll admit to expecting something not as shiny from this record. But hearing JJ over some of these arrangements is offputting to me. sounds contrived/forced. It's a departure, which is fine, but it's a departure into sounding more like 'other bands' that are poppier/shinier/less substantial than i like to think mmj are. This MMJ-does-the-pristine-thing is not my bag.

I can respect that. As my initial post indicated, I do hear some hints of other bands... some Flaming Lips, some Air textures... but it's really refreshing to hear that kind of stretch from MMJ. Like Scott said, we don't really need another It Still Moves. And I think the change just ends up making MMJ sound even more unique.

"Gideon" is the only track in which I hear any strong resemblance to Coldplay, but it's like a good Coldplay song. I mean, I think it's okay to like "Yellow" or "Politik."
Newell
Blog Party

yeah yeah yeah, but like...what does it mean when My Morning Jacket find it ok to write a Coldplay song, given the fact that everything they've done before has been so grain-silo and so awesome ...there's none of that eerie mystique on this thing... it's just "studio rock" now. The reason I liked the band so much was because they never compromised their brass section...they wrote songs for steamboats… they were the only revivalists worth listening to.

this is radio. this is the drive at five with Davey Z and Matty K.
 
The Staff :: 16 August 2007 |