Interpol: Turn On the Bright Lights poll

just for posterity's sake, this what TOTBL almost looked like:

1. Say Hello to the Angels
2. NYC
3. Obstacle 1
4. Precipitate
5. Obstacle 2
6. Hands Away
7. PDA
8. Specialist
9. Leif Erikson
10. Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down
11. The New
12. Gavilan
13. Interlude
14. Roland

flappy thank you so much! check the post that says "Shared the Whole Folder".

i used to listen to this album all the time back in the day. it was perfect for rainy days spent bopping around town going to thrift stores and eating at Indian restaurants.

that poster shared a story about hanging out with the band circa 2005, this bit is so funny to me:

Paul had this vintage leather jacket on. The inner lining of the jacket had this paisley pattern which could obviously only have been seen if you could see the inside of his jacket. But he liked this pattern so much that he had cut a huge portion out of the section below the back of his neck, safety pinned it and folded it over, just so everyone could see the pattern on the inside of the jacket. This was the very first time that I was not impressed by his fashion sensibilities.
Later on, Paul attempted to tune an acoustic guitar to Carlos playing notes on a piano. Carlos would tell him what string he was trying to tune and play the note on the piano for him. Paul was having a hard time with this. Carlos kept telling him "You're making my ears bleed!" and generally made fun of him for not being able to tune a guitar to a piano, and it never got resolved. I was hoping for a magical music moment but it never happened.

haha.

i still really like this first album, as stupid and terrible as all the lyrics are. they were kind of on to something. I wish they'd gotten better at that.

Thanks Flappy!

I saw them in Amsterdam during their very first tour abroad. They just played TOTBL, start to finish. It was fantastic. Still one of the best concerts I've seen tbh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz7AhhTTpxY

quite nice

Hey, my best friend's a butcher, he has sixteen knives
He carries them all over the town at least he tries—oh look, it stopped snowing
My best friend's from Poland and, oh, he has a beard
But they caught him with his case in a public place, that is what we had feared

Leif Erikson is still one of the most beguiling songs I've ever heard. What a way to end a record. I loved Rob Sheffield's quote in the new NYC oral history Meet Me in the Bathroom - something like "I mean, to have your big debut record open with a song called 'Untitled' - the balls on these guys!"

going to see them perform this album live in september , should be interesting .

Could be a thread of its own, but has this always been a thing? Performing an old album in its entirety 20 or 30 years down the line? Always thought that was a band saying: we basically have given up on thinking we'll ever make anything nearly as good ever again.

i think it started at ATP or Pitchfork Fest about a decade ago

yup

Classic or dud: Bands that go on tour playing an old album in its entirety decades down the line

I didn't get to see Interpol live until 2011, and by that point, I guess they realized that they were pretty much only beloved for their first two records, and the setlist reflected that. i loved it as a fan, but i lost a lot of respect for them... it's just such a transparent move that says that the band has no confidence in their new material (and i think the third and fourth records are half good, the fifth one fucking blew).

Agreed on the fourth record being the end for them basically. I saw them on first their TOTBL tour and the one for their second album. They were fantastic, but after that I wasn't interested any more.

This album has such fucking awful lyrics.

the first 5 songs on the s/t record are fucking tremendous though, especially "Summer Well," which is just as good as anything on Antics (their best record imo).

I almost saw them in March 2005 but my family was going to be out of town, then the trip was cancelled and by then tix had sold out. Ugh. Fuck. They were so much better when they were all still coked up and drunk.

xp No way, the lyrics are fucking great

I'm curious to see how the TOTBL XV shows go. Paul's voice is just... awful now. it's all nose. I would post a video of them playing "The New" from 2015 but it makes me so sad. he sounds just awful... out of breath... weirdly ironic that Mr. Baritone only got more and more nasally as they went on, starting in 2005 and especially 2007.

& im not gonna go on anymore about how Paul is my favorite lyricist ever and there isn't a bad line on this album or Antics but we've had that discussion before, turrican... agree to disagree

At least the lyrics aren't boring and stuff.

"The subway she is a porno" is a shit lyric. Shit, shit, shit. Paul Banks has never been a great lyricist or a great singer, for that matter.

(Although, I guess that if The Subway were the title of a DVD that Frederik B owned, the lyric would kinda make sense.)

lol why bring fred into the interpol thread

what do you like about interpol, turrican. let's not rehash the PB discussion

I like how they're never on my stereo!

What ultimately sinks this band for me is that I don't think they're good songwriters and I really dislike Paul Banks' voice and lyrics. I like the sound of the band but I've heard many do that sound better.

nice, whats your fav song by them

None of 'em.

why are you posting in the Interpol thread then....

Because I've heard this album, which this thread is a poll about.

so is Carlos D doing this full album tour

no. they don't speak. he gave a really fuckin juicy interview last October detailing his whole history with the band and how it all fell apart in the late 00's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XABnMW5k834

Something about herpes.

banks comes off really well in lizzie goodman's book

haven't heard this since it came out but probably "Hands Away"

Saw them play a small bar in NYC the night before they went off to the UK to tour this album and...stardom! They had presence, I'll give 'em that. Can't believe it was so long ago now.

I was so obsessed with this album when it came out. It's definitely been tainted by what came after it. Antics is pretty solid, but didn't have the same urgency this did. Our Love To Admire was a heart-breaker for me. Such a halfhearted record. I'm surprised it got even worse with the self titled.

I would have voted for Untitled. Still one of my favourite openers of all time. Hands Away would be in second place. The way it builds until that bass appears still gets me. As for lyrics, this album is full of great lines. "I'm sick of spending these lonely nights, training myself not to care" is the obvious favourite.

lyrically this album and Antics are flawless imo. even Hands Away, which is easily my least favorite songs from both records, has this fucking killer line: "homespun desperation's knowing inside you're cover's always blown."

and from NYC: "I had seven faces / thought I knew which one to wear." one of my favorite opening lines to a song ever

as much as i love this album the lyrics often make me wince.

but i don't care because i saw them in a tiny capacity room twice around the time of this album's release and it was truly incredible and it was linked into a long distance relationship i was having and sharing this records. by the time i saw them in a large room less than a year later my interest had dissipated in both the band and the relationship... or so i thought at the time but i go back to this album over and over and sometimes i get a very sharp urge to listen to it RIGHT NOW.

I found these guys so stupid. Yet I love Duran Duran.

They are stupid. Duran Duran's lyrics aren't great either, but they're far more fun to listen to and I love the rhythm section on the first two albums.

i'll bring my timing in, seagulls gather on the wind, lady screaming, lady leave me out
cuz sometimes people stare, sitting down in electric chair, steaming crowds they gather and they shout

oh, Carlos...

The decision to record Turn on the Bright Lights in Bridgeport, Connecticut was insane (we lived in New York City, for crying out loud), but the Metro-North trips on the New Haven Line did offer certain advantages. During one early-morning ride, I found myself scraping at the tattered remains of a carefully folded paper envelope holding the last dregs of a spot of damp cocaine I’d purchased the previous evening at a club. (It was really the same evening, since I hadn’t slept.) I assumed that by the time these moist clots of white powder found their ultimate destination in my nostrils, they’d been cut many times, and noticed that the final mix included some pocket lint and candy bar crumbs. The early sun and the train conductor made fishing for the final hit an act of such clandestine finesse that it would have made a 19th-century French pickpocket proud.

that's good stuff but really doesn't make any sense. if you have the Pulp single "Sorted for E's & Wizz" it shows you how to make a little caring case to hold your coke.

if it's damp, it's no good

i mean it can be salvaged in some ways, but usually damp is best avoided

Speaking of damp, his prose is better than Paul Banks' lyrics.

It's not a big deal to do something illicit on a metro north. Basically you just have to have the awareness of a 6 year old.

kind of entertaining. though of course it's some myth building aughts hip-uncle-with-the-cocaine stuff

that podcast is really entertaining though. holy shit.

What podcast?