Tindersticks : classic or dud

Tindersticks II is sprawling greatness from start to finish as well.

Tindersticks I I find just a little too sonically limited to be as sprawling as it is. I need to give II a relisten.

Is the consensus II over the first one? II over everything?

I would say
1.Simple Pleasure
2.Can Our Love…
3.Curtains
4.Waiting For The Moon/Trouble Every Day
5.Ypres
6.The Something Rain
7.l
8.ll
Need to spend me more time with all of the other ones. Ranting the first two last might be unfair but I never want to hear them.

my top four are:

1. Tindersticks
2. The Something Rain
3. Simple Pleasures
4. Tindersticks II

I listened to The Something Rain again last night. That is a great album. This Fire of Autumn is one of the best songs they've ever done.

The first album edges it over the second for me. There's something fearless about it that I like, they weren't afraid of just trying stuff out to see where it would lead them. They became a lot more conservative after II, which is a great shame I think

If I was making a home-made "Best of Tindersticks" CD-R, it would probably include a lot of mid-period tracks and not much from the first two albums ... not because those albums don't include some of the best work but because I tend to see them as "complete albums" from which it would be weird to isolate tracks.

I didn't rate The Something Rain but must revisit it.

top T-Sticks records:

1. Tindersticks
2. Tindersticks 2
3. Simple Pleasure
4. The Bloomsbury Theatre 12.3.95
5. Donkeys 92-97

This was the first poll I ever ran, back in 2009:

Can We POLL Again?: Tindersticks Studio Albums

Still can't believe the second LP did so badly in that poll, I also always thought it was the consensus pick and I'd still vote for it today.

Wow, that is a very surprising result. Always thought it was an even split between the first two albums.

honestly i think simple pleasure makes all their other music semi-redundant!

I wish someone would reissue Simple Pleasure. Vinyl copies are very pricey.

Definitely. I'd like them to do Curtains and Can Our Love as well. I've got the reissues of the first two albums but they're on Plain Records which has a bad reputation. I'm no expert but they sounded fine to me.

not OOP on CD

Driving home from work, I found myself pondering that I'd be intrigued to hear a Tindersticks DJ set/DJ Kicks based around their cover versions (Odyssey, Hot Chocolate etc).

Mind you, tonight I have also embarked on trying to create the perfect Tindersticks/drinking CD-R.

pls report back!

Well, the version I have at the moment is:

Tricklin'
Don't Look Down
Dying Slowly
I've Been Loving You Two Long
let's Pretend
Marbles
Trouble Every Day
(Tonight) Are You Trying To Fall In Love Again?
Can Our Love ...
How He Entered
Another Night In
Dick's Slow Song
Jism
Raindrops
Dancing
Bearsuit

It's definitely not a "best of", more a CD that I ended up with after wine. And didn't even get as far as including the second CD. Or the sound tracks, for the most part.

Looks pretty good! Any drinkin' Tindersticks mix of mine would def have "She's Gone" on it, though.

Yeah ... I reached a point where I had far more songs lined up than there was space on the CD, so didn't include the second album (and featured less from the first than I'd originally thought). I find them a strangely hard band to "compile".

"My Oblivion" should be on there, too. Not sure what goes to make room though.

Their cover of Pavement's "here" should surely make the cut.

But nothing beats the Odyssey cover. I didn't know it was a cover for many years.

I'd have to make room for "Can We Start Again?"

Tellingly, there's nothing here from the second incarnation of the band, which accurately represents the nosedive in quality that took place. The only recent song I would put on this drinking CD would be "Hey Lucinda", which dates from the first period anyway.

re: songs they've covered, I got curious about the full list myself. I think this is all of 'em (at least in terms of the studio recordings):

Pavement, "Here"
Odyssey, "If You're Looking For a Way Out"
David Bowie, "Kooks"
Otis Redding, "I've Been Loving You Too Long"
Townes Van Zandt, "Kathleen"
Lee Hazlewood, "The Girl On Death Row"
Lee Hazlewood, "My Autumn's Done Come"
Four Tops, "What Is a Man"
R. Dean Taylor, "Shadow"
Ann Peebles, "One Way Street"
Tom Waits, "Mockin' Bird"
Hot Chocolate, "Put Your Love In Me"
Psychic TV, "Just Drifting"

the nu-era still produces 3-4 great songs per album but it's definitely a different feel.

There's also the Bond theme "We Have All The Time In The World".

And you could almost have "Take Me" by George Jones, which is on a Chris & Carla album but is effectively a Tindersticks song as they all play/sing on it.

if there's ever anyone else, i'll understand, and kill him

"I've Been Loving You Two Long".

See, I really was drunk.

Could definitely have included more from "Simple Pleasure". "How He Entered" is from the most recent album.

"I've Been Loving You Two Long".

best otis redding song about a ménage-à-trois.

a very, very successful ménage-à-trois,

Post "curtains" I think this band have only had 2-4 good songs per album. But what songs they are! I say that as a huge fan. The hungry saw is pretty great.

New album in June:

https://tindersticks.bandcamp.com/

Weird. Only just heard this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyyVEiXCawQ

Like it so much more than the version that appeared on the album.

Will they ever tour the states?

i liked em way back when but damn that singer went to the dentist a lot

Great band. After the 2nd album I had the impression they are finished they are just repeating themselves. But somehow they managed to come back. I really enjoyed the something rain.

Tindersticks. Bottle of red. Jazz chair. Quietly contented.

Weird. I love Tindersticks but played "Falling Down A Mountain" and "The Hungry Saw" so little that playing them now feels like playing new albums, more or less.

"Pink Up" on the new Spoon album giving me mildly Tinderstickian feelings.

Are there (m)any more covers that on the list above and the emails that follows? Feels like there should be more.

You'd think so, but not that I'm aware of!

Felt sure that I'd be able to make an awesome CD based on their covers ...

"i liked em way back when but damn that singer went to the dentist a lot"

i don't know what that means

I feel lucky to have caught them live 3 times, once with elliot smith, once with someone else, don't remember; and last doing a film festival gig in front of Clare Denis snippets. would love it if they'd come to the states again. I imagine it's very expensive for them.

New album from Stu-y:

https://tindersticks.bandcamp.com/album/arrhythmia

Giddy with excitement about my Stuart Staples listening party at the weekend.

Me, the cat, a bottle of red. Enjoyed the new album. A curious one.

It is quite curious. Can't say it ranks among Tindersticks/Staples best, but even mediocre Staples is still Staples.