glad to see people actually recognizing Ghosts of the Great Highway as his masterwork. it's one of my top 5 all time fave albums and every song is stunning but part of what's so great about it is hearing him stretch his legs on stuff like Si Paloma, I think.
― caulk the wagon and float it, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 03:22 (twelve years ago) link
ghosts of the great highway is an awesome record that is very different from rollercoaster
hard for me to explain exactly how, but kozelek's sense for melody evolved a lot over the red house painters discography, and i think ghosts may be its zenith
― Whiney vs. (BradNelson), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 03:23 (twelve years ago) link
huh, totally missed this poll. might've voted old ramon -- it's not as INTENSE as the earlier RHP stuff, but now that I am well into my 30s it's the one I like hearing the most these days.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 03:40 (twelve years ago) link
i think i was the person who voted for april. can't remember if i voted in my own poll.
― Whiney vs. (BradNelson), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 03:51 (twelve years ago) link
missed this. would have voted ocean beach, probably, or rollercoaster. ghosts is great but those albums meant more to me when they came out. but I do think that duk koo kim is one of his greatest songs.
― akm, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 03:56 (twelve years ago) link
I missed this. Would have been stuck between Ghosts and Bridge, and voted the latter to make sure it didn't get a goose egg. Ivo did a great job making a mixtape with Retrospective too.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 04:31 (twelve years ago) link
...and somehow resisting the urge to call it "Redrospective"!
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 05:58 (twelve years ago) link
the original title was red perspective iirc but changed due to lameness
― some crap (electricsound), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 06:03 (twelve years ago) link
Mark Kozelek should write a ten-minute lament about how few people voted in this thread! Sheesh, what gives?!
i often weigh in on poll threads that are of interest of me, but then completely forget to vote. pretty sure this was one of those instances.
anyways, surprised that ppl like ocean beach so much. i think it's arguably his weakest?
april is underrated prolly. good record, that imo
― dell (del), Wednesday, 14 March 2012 04:22 (twelve years ago) link
april seems like a refinement of what he was going for on old ramon. just long enveloping, repeating things. would've voted for either record, but i think i prefer april. both are tangled up in times of not-great-life
― Whiney vs. (BradNelson), Wednesday, 14 March 2012 05:43 (twelve years ago) link
The new Desertshore album is pretty much a Red House Painters joint.
― henry s, Wednesday, 14 March 2012 10:47 (twelve years ago) link
Trying out the Desertshore/Koz album again, as it exists in a weird netherpoint between Benji and what came before. Pretty similar hit:miss ratio, though "Livingstone Bramble" might be the only song he's ever written that's actually kind of funny. The band pushes him a bit, to a creepy crawl on "You Are Not Of My Blood" and a pleasantly skippy pace on "Katowice or Cologne" and "Don't Ask About My Husband." "Brothers" is a really gorgeous closer that actually supports the confessional style nicely. The rest is a mess, sometimes in the same song - I don't care for "Sometimes I Can't Stop," but the way he climbs into his falsetto after mourning Jason Molina is very effective. I'm more bothered by his recent reticence to really use his voice than anything in his lyrics - the guy can still sing when he makes an effort.
One thing I find encouraging on listening back to other SKM albums is that he tends to change it up significantly from release to release, so I'll be surprised (and disappointed) if the next one is Benji, mk ii.
Anyway it's been too long removed for me to rank the RHP albums but as far as the SKM/collab stuff goes: Great Highway > April > Admiral Fell Promises > Perils From the Sea > Benji = Desertshore > Among the Leaves.
Never bothered with Tiny Cities or any of the eleventeen live LPs or Finally or (lol) the Christmas album.
― Simon H., Thursday, 29 January 2015 08:02 (nine years ago) link
and this is the tracklist for the new one, out in june
01 The Possum02 Birds of Flims03 With a Sort of Grace I Walked to the Bathroom to Cry04 Garden of Lavender05 Cry Me a River Williamsburg Sleeve Tattoo Blues06 Ali/Spinks 207 Little Rascals08 This Is My First Day and I'm Indian and I Work at a Gas Station
Can't imagine the critical resurgence will keep up if "The Possum" is any indication.
― Simon H., Thursday, 19 February 2015 03:54 (nine years ago) link
08 This Is My First Day and I'm Indian and I Work at a Gas Station
:|
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 19 February 2015 04:44 (nine years ago) link
I hope to hell that's an instrumental. (Incidentally, releasing a multitracked instrumental guitar album is probably the best thing Koz could do right now.)
― Simon H., Thursday, 19 February 2015 04:50 (nine years ago) link
Cry Me a River Williamsburg Sleeve Tattoo Blues
I'm sure there's gonna be some trenchant cultural commentary in that one...
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Thursday, 19 February 2015 06:08 (nine years ago) link
Fingers crossed for another cringeworthy account of his sex life.
― Dinsdale, Thursday, 19 February 2015 06:17 (nine years ago) link
"Garden of Lavender" obviously
― Simon H., Thursday, 19 February 2015 06:31 (nine years ago) link
song titles suggest more of that whole "stream-of-consciousness narrative" thing, but we shall see.
― charlie h, Thursday, 19 February 2015 07:59 (nine years ago) link
Visiting San Francisco earlier this week sent me back to the pre-stream-of-conciousness Kozelek albums. Such a shame there's so many people who haven't heard these album and won't even give them a chance. There's some deeply beautiful tunes on them.
Anyway, had the Mark Kozelek & Desertshore album been included here, I'd expect it'd have done well. And "Randy Quaid", on the first Desertshore album, really hooked me today. Lovely vocal over all that jangly swirl.
Oh, Ocean Beach wasn't as good as I remembered it, but Tiny Cities is still great.
― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Monday, 4 November 2019 01:10 (four years ago) link
I revisited Benji recently and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, though one replay was enough to tide me over for a while. I think it’s the kind of album I should revisit maybe once a year.
― o. nate, Monday, 4 November 2019 15:32 (four years ago) link
April is my favorite if i'm being honest with myself. ghosts and perils from the sea are close runners up though
― ciderpress, Monday, 4 November 2019 15:39 (four years ago) link
Been revisiting Mark's work and am now a convert to the brilliance of "Perils". As others have said, other albums are very nice but the emotional state required to listen thankfully doesn't come around very often.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Monday, 4 November 2019 16:50 (four years ago) link
Admiral Fell Promises all the way, though Ghosts scratches a different itch and becomes my favorite half of the time.
Been revisiting The Finally LP cover album most recently and it's really beautiful as well.
― Evan, Monday, 4 November 2019 17:24 (four years ago) link
Album poll is a bit unsatisfying. I like a lot of the Red House Painters'stuff, but think he peaked with the early Sun Kil Moon stuff - April, Ghosts, and Admiral Fell Promises are three of his my favourites, and Tiny Cities is very enjoyable.
Is Kozelek ever going to get the full ILM tracks and albums poll treatment?
― aphoristical, Monday, 4 November 2019 22:59 (four years ago) link
I probably totally overlooked this thread in 2012.
Would have been helpful if he retired the Sun Kil Moon moniker around 2013-14 and launched his unhinged blog raps project under a new name. It's exhausting to add a disclaimer every time I need to identify his music as some of my favorites.
― Evan, Tuesday, 5 November 2019 16:41 (four years ago) link