Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Bonnie "Prince" Billy sings Greatest Palace Music

I think its his best work since Hope. Sure, he sounds as if he's phoning it in on several of the tracks, but that adds to his self-serving, don't give a fuck mystique (see Zimmerman). I think it's a great record.

Then again, I'm also a big fan of what you call AC 70's C&W, and pretty familiar with the Palace oeuvre .

didn't WEEN do this with lackluster results in 1998?

That sounds great. I'm really anxious to here this now.

Oh, I WISH it sounded "like mid-70's AC country and western." It's much more generic than that, even. (70's C&W has some bottom to it, after all!) And the miserabilist doing the singing doesn't make it any less generic.

Don't get this albums icy reception on ILM. It's no masterpiece, but surely no worse than his other albums. Gulf Shores is still an amazing track.

I love this album. I don't suppose it's meant to be a masterpiece but the musicians are great and the arrangements mostly work really well. The notion that Oldham meant it as a joke or a junking of his songs is just some clapped-out indie bollocks. But you can read those sentiments for yourself. Wd love him to record more stuff in this vein.

Yep, also love this album, and wasn't initially sure I would since plenty of the originals are also favourite songs (Gulf Shores among them), but it won me over and frequently I can't decide which versions I like more.

yeah i listen to this one more than any of his other stuff i have by a wide margin

the incest drama in "riding" just isn't the same though when it's played for laughs

True, and probably my favourite song off still my favourite album if that isn't Arise Therefore. And I prefer the original Ohio River Boat Song as well.

Weird that the first two tracks on this are the ones that are most obviously inferior to their originals (along with "I Send My Love To You", which just works so much better with the intimate, bedroom-recorded aesthetic).

Fucking love the pedal steel solo on "You Will Miss Me...", & the duet on "Agnes", though.

Oh damn, I forgot about the sax on "Viva Ultra"—another highlight, IMO.

Less sure about the call-and-response chorus on "Pushkin", but I do appreciate the sheer chutzpah of making this record, and the effort to stamp every arrangement with some unexpected flourish.

Wrt kamerad's post up thread: I don't really hear "played for laughs" in the remake of "Riding"; if anything the original seems to lean more in that direction?

Listening to this for the first time and don't mind it at all. Bonnie "Rounder Records" Billy.

My girl can't stand it. I'm curious what my old man (more of a bluegrass/trad-folk/alt-country guy) would make of it.

I know it's petty, but the fact that this record pissed off so many longtime fans increases my enjoyment of it by a good 15-20%

lol @ the reaction to this record

shades of the reaction to Dylan's "Self Portrait" (which is actually probably a worse record)

always meant to listen to this (this was a little after I got off the boat with Oldham) and now that I am I am kinda lovin it. It's weird to think that he has a fanbase that basically hates country music but maybe that's the case...? cuz that's what this is, a really sweetly done country record.

holy shit at this piano on "I Send My Love to You"

Lol yeah the honky-tonk stuff (wisely limited to a couple songs) can be kinda grating even for people who *don't* hate country music

Has "Best Troubadour" been on anyone's radar? Unsure whether it is disinterest or just quiet around here?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/16/bonnie-prince-billy-merle-haggard

I guess I should listen to this

Disinterest.

A compilation (Draft Version)

Strange Form of Life
Rich Wife Full of Happiness
Another Day Full of Dread
Hard Life
One With The Birds
May it Always Be
Death To Everyone
Just to See My Holly Home
Southside of the World
Love Comes To Me
So Far and Here We Are
I See A Darkness
Today I Started Celebrating Again
A King At Night
Stable Will (Pond Scum version)

(May edit to include some of Greatest Palace Music).

If you have a link, I'd gladly take this off your hands! (I've currently got no access to any Will Oldham stuff because life.)

I'd have to include A Minor Place. It's saved me too many times. And, probably, Raining in Darling. And Careless Love.

Also: it dawned on me recently that A Minor Place is like the underside of Everyday People - you can practically play the two simultaneously.

Currently pondering whether to drunkenly order "Wai Notes" or "Wolfroy Goes To Town" ...

Wai notes is pretty unearthly. I love The Letting Go but if you have that album, it's possibly not essential. Not sure about Wolfroy.

i guess i bought this when it came out but really only came around to it about 2-3 years ago.

Did anyone hear the self-titled from a couple years ago?

the last one i bought was the letting go but i don't think i got much out of it. the last one i loved was master & everyone, and that's been a while. superwolf was p dope too iirc.

i did see him live about 2 or so years back in nashville and it was great.

Has the BPB covers Susanna come up on any threads yet?

It's lovely, by the way.

i dig it but some of these are really hard to enjoy when i know the prior versions

Yeah otm. I adore Bonnie Billy, but also the Susanna album. These renditions mostly make me yearn for Susanna's song tbh. It doesn't really work for me.

had a dream i heard his new album. it was soundtracked via a trip through some rugged plains, it sounded avant garde - or shite tbh, is it like that

some of the stuff he's done with Mick Turner (Marquis de Tren, Dirty Three, et al) is bordering on free-form / 'out there', drifting song forms. I sometimes wonder about guys like David Berman (Silver Jews), Will Oldham, and others--making weird, spoken word / sound art shizz... Tim Barnes (played drums on American Water) does a lot of "avant garde" sort of percussion / sound art--often recording with others in the same areas of interest.

I assumed this was revived b/c he has another "self covers" album coming out - http://www.dragcity.com/products/songs-of-love-and-horror

Was the "Songs of Love and Horror" book any good? Pondered picking up the CD but it seems to be fairly unavailable, at the moment.

It's worth browsing, at least, because there are notes on each song as well as lyrics.

Ta, Eazy.

Pleased to have bought the book - it's a nice object and the comments often cheer me.

The CD seems kind of nice but inessential - and the inclusion of an old track and a cover seems a bit odd (or conceptually messy).

still love this record but i did not hear orig recordings first so whatevs. not a huge fan of will's full on pre-bonnie cracky voice when i have dipped into the earlier stuff.

I happened to revisit it last week... some really nice arrangements. (Though the songs I like most are the ones I liked most in their original versions; it didn’t open up any others for me.)