Built to Spill - Perfect from Now On. poll

Huh. So as I explained on another thread the other day, I never listened to this album until very recently. Was trying to pick a standout track to put on a 1997 playlist, and, despite a friend's recommendation of "Out of Site," I went with "I Would Hurt a Fly." I dunno, I like the cello and the way it picks up at the end.

"I Would Hurt a Fly" is my favorite Built to Spill song. Musically it is pretty much perfect.

Was a grave mistake, but how could you have known
The temperature and distance of the su-uh-UH-uh-UH-uh-UH uh! uh! uh! uh! uh! uh!

It's weird how disappointed/frustrated I was with this record when it came out; it's now my favorite of their albums my a mile.

great, great album. going to dig this out and play it as it has been awhile.

used to be able to basically hum this whole album start to finish.

i admit that i ctrl+f'd my old username on this thread, expecting to find a really drunk 4 paragraph ramble about the brilliance of velvet waltz. the lyrics don't really make a ton of sense but i couldn't imagine anything different or better for it

i'd really like to hear what a louderized remaster could do for this, maybe push the drums to the front. it's such a flat-sounding sound space.

This is still a really tremendous record, and it's always made me mega confused as to how death cab ever got so big when they're basically a more emo, less interesting, less dynamic BTS tribute band

Out Of Site should have got more votes!

DCFC being a more emo, less jammy BTS is exactly why they got so big, right?

always assumed it was combined The OC / Postal Service effects

Yeah, I mean those were the sparks the got people into their music (though it's worth noting that they were still selling years after the peak of the Postal Service/OC). I just mean that it's not that baffling that a more accessible version of a BTS was able to ride that sound to greater success.

Like, why would being "more emo" in 2003 be a hindrance to DCFC's popularity?

DCFC are more poppy than this which is why they got so big; also, while Perfect and SEcret are great, everything after is boring a dumb, and DC stayed relatively interesting through Narrow Stairs then became dull as dirt.

Literally off the money in every possible way

Good podcast w/Martsch talking about the recording of Perfect From Now On:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1T0zYDE39sryomThLYP4gt?si=7d09fa7eed2c4cea

Is this CD currently out of print? Went looking for it on a nostalgia kick recently and couldn't find a decent copy for under $25. Weird

I had a chance to see Built to Spill in this last year but didn't make it. Looking over these songs now makes me mad I decided not to go.

One of you folks recommended the "Life of the Record" podcast, which is basically just an artist going track by track through one of their best known records, telling stories, revealing some of the process. I listened to the "Perfect from Now On" one, and boy, did I just jibe with Doug's ... ethos, I guess. He wanted long songs to keep them off the radio. He didn't want anything that sounded like what was going on in the Pacific Northwest. He resisted having a steady band line-up until he realized how much it would help him achieve his vision, and for that matter, at first resisted making the album sound too "good" until he recognized that all his favorite albums used all the tricks and tools (even basic stuff, like reverb or mic placement) he was too punk rock to enlist. He more or less through-composed all these tracks, or at least cobbled them together from various ideas, whereas the more concise "Keep It Like a Secret," *that* is the album that came out of jamming, ironically. He cites the Beatles as the biggest influence on the album, and I hear it, but the songs are so weird and epic that it doesn't always *sound* like the Beatles. And so on.