slowdive: classic or dud?

is there such thing as changing a posts title?

but all of their albums are great. the last one will be treasured by many someday. it is hard to convince people of this. i think i will go listen to it now. the first song is so 'let it flow'.

they do need to stop making solo albums.

mojave 3 albums are great. i listen to them a lot more than slowdive, who i adored. do i really need this re-issue business? i have all the albums, the early EPs on vinyl, and some mega-track thing called 'staring at the sun' or somesuch i snagged from slsk...

Slowdive have always been among my all time favourites, very influential for me, and I still absolutely love their music.

Souvlaki is a favorite for a lot of people, because it's them starting to be a *little* less full-on shoegaze, but not entirely. Pygmalion is kinda the art favorite, their Durutti Column tribute to a large extent.

Who do Slowdive most sound like? Well, jeez, in a way they ARE the ultimate shoegaze band! (MBV are in their own universe but obviously none of the other gaze bands could exist without them as an example.) As friend Stripey once put it to me years ago, "They'll be the band that most people will claim as an influence because they're both so atmospheric and so accessible." And she was right.

So basically -- mixed male/female vocals, often singing together, sometimes separately, LOTS of digital delay and zoned-out ambience, total goth fetish as well (early eighties Cure basslines in particular). Again, though, this is the earliest stuff in particular.

One thing that a lot of people forget about the band -- they could be LOUD. Saw them three times and while, again, they didn't achieve MBV levels of volume, they were definitely trying to really crank it up.

Whereas Lush and Ride, who are the first generation (i.e. not MBV) bands who I think of as utterly definitive of the genre seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Maybe that's because of the derivative tails on the end of their shoegazing careers (Britpop, Oasis, etc.) Or maybe because Slowdive hit the cliches the heaviest, so those looking for those cliches will be made happiest by them.

http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/Large/19/1032019.jpg

this is coming out July 29, 2008 on Brushfire Records.

d/l now however.

I just got a ticket to see him in August; didn't know that there was a new record, thought I should have guessed.

What's Brushfire Records? why did he leave 4AD?

Oh cool, I'll definitely check this out.

but the last solo record was a drag. and the last mojave 3 wasn't so great either.

about 2/3 of his first solo record was really outstanding, esp. 'Driving With Bert' which had a trumpet solo.

I loved that first solo album

I finally have SOUVLAKI. After listening to it in its entirety and then listening to LOVELESS... I've realzed that these two records are so different that they shouldn't really be compared. While the vocals are similar, the sounds from the instruments on SOUVLAKI are so much lighter (a la the Cocteau Twins). This really sounds like something you could sleep to, or you could have it gently wake you up in the morning. My favorite song is easily "Sing," which is probably better than anything on LOVELESS (fyi, Loveless is the best LP I've ever heard). It's definitely Sexier than anything on it. I immediately see a string of darkly-lit, slow-mo erotic images whenever I listen to it. Alas, the song after it is a let down.

am i crazy for thinking pygmalion is really, really boring?

Out.

(Just think of it as a Durutti tribute. Hell, they *call* the first song "Rutti.")

No, I don't think you're crazy, electricsound. There's a reason why I haven't played that since it came out.

pygmalion is super dull, as is the band that wasted rachels beautiful voice (mojave 3)!!

I guess this means I should start listening to the Durutti Column.

you don't need a reason to listen to DC

I haven't been listening to SOUVLAKI very much since then. LOVELESS still sounds so crazy next to it.

pygmalion is super dull, as is the band that wasted rachels beautiful voice (mojave 3)!!

Pygmalion is the only Slowdive album I listen to these days. Go figure.

Spoon And Rafter I like much more now, but that first M3 album is still my #1 choice. I wish that Rachel's solo album had some of that mystery X factor in it.

i have never been able to get into Pygmalion despite the love that it seems to get.

My choice for Mojave 3 is Out Of Tune but that also seems to be a unpopular choice.

loved Neil's first solo album (second ?) but hated Rachel's solo album.

I hated Pygmalion when it came out, then fell in love with it before ultimately not really caring much. "Rutti" is pure classic though