Will Oldham/Palace/Bonnie Prince Billie: S&D

Viva Lost Blues has some wonderful moments on it. More Brother Rides is one of his best ever. I must be technically naive, because I think the band on this album sound perfect. I see a darkness was good but he didn't fuck any more mountains in the noughties.

It is sorta funny how everyone has a similar story - "Followed him rabidly from the beginning, then got his BEST ALBUM EVA I See A Darkness, and haven't paid attention since." Why is this? Seems like a weirdly common fan trajectory. Can anyone suggest any theories on this phenomenon?

feel like his style of music maybe just went out of style

indie fans be fickle, phony

Both correct, I reckon.

i like lots of his post darkness stuff the best

i went to see him in concert at an art museum theater and it was pack tho, he still has lots of fans i think

He regularly draws big crowds over here in the UK too.

I'm the same as posters upthread in preferring pre-Darkness material. Something about the quality of his voice changed after that record, I think- it lost, the cracked, slightly keening edge which IMO made him so interesting as a singer. All the rough edges have been smoothed off these days.

i like lots of his post darkness stuff the best

me too, just don't have much to say about him.

yeah, i'm the same. maybe i'm just bad at talking about music qua music, but the narrative of 'guy who quietly and consistently releases very good albums' isn't something i feel the need to be particularly expressive about. that said, i do think lots of the arrangements in the recent albums have been lovely.

I've loved him pretty straight through and enjoy the early Palace stuff as much as the glossy "...Sings Greatest Palace Music" disc. Some stick with me more than others, but I've really liked the last few major releases (and the Bonny Billy and the Picket Line live thing as well).

"Lie Down in the Light" is a really great, low-key album

i still jam to ease down the road

that was actually the last one i vibed to

Ease Down The Road is definitely my favorite. He took some singing lessons after Darkness, so maybe the haters/boreders caught on to that.

Listened to 'The Letting Go' yesterday whilst driving through a very misty part of East Anglia, maybe my favourite post Darkness record.

The live albums Summer in the Southeast and Is It The Sea? are arguably the greatest things he's released IMO. However, nothing will ever touch Viva Last Blues for that early ramshackle vibe. I find him, by far, the best and most consistent English songwriter of the modern era that I can think of. It's plainly outrageous that hasn't been anointed the contemporary Dylan/Young/pick-your-favorite, that failure of a critical consensus more than a lot of others reveals the bankruptcy of modern mainstream music criticism IMO.

arise therefor is by far his best tho fuiud

― ice cr?m, Sunday, November 28, 2010 10:53 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Co-sign on that. Sad to hear so many people here care less about Superwolf, Lie Down In The Light and The Letting Go, all my favourite WO

I just checked out a Bonnie Prince Billy album from the library yesterday. I donht know which one it is, but it's blue. I think I avoided checking him out for over a decade because of the name - what kind of renfest shit is this anyway? Wanna join my medieval militia?

But I'll listen to it tomorrow morning and report back.

I've picked up a bunch of his releases over the years, but I think I could live with just Lost Blues and Other Songs, Superwolf and Ease Down the Road.

by far, the best and most consistent English songwriter of the modern era

This is preposterous. I like the guy fine, he's made some nice records, but come on - dude says absolutely nothing. With Dylan, you need an annotated bibliography. Scholars can hold annual symposiums on single verses. Oldham, on the other hand, exists and seems quite comfortable beneath a veil of willful obscurity. He's cultivated his own 'impossible to know' myth from the jump, so his persona, by his own design, signifies exactly nothing. Everything he does comes off like some sort of ironic, unfunny in-joke. His music is mostly pleasant but, to me, his act gets incredibly tiresome.

well songs arent just lyrics so...?

True, but take away the vocals on a Bonnie Billy album and you have...?

lol i guess (some ppl think) good songs

not me

Everything he does comes off like some sort of ironic, unfunny in-joke.

I couldn't feel more opposed to a single opinion. He has written (not just the words, but the singing, the choices of instrumentation, intonation, the choice of players, etc.) some of the most beautiful, open and honest accounts of varied human experience I have ever heard. I hear very little irony in his lyrics, and when it is there it seems very intentional. Obviously no two people will have the same listening experience, but I've never encountered this particularly opinion about Oldham's work. Different strokes.

See also: everyone on Drag City

" I hear very little irony in his lyrics,"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mPn21H3PC4

i thnink i'm gonna sell all my oldham records except for days in the wake, which i still return to occasionally.

lol there's loads of irony in a lot of his stuff but I think he swings the other way into super-serious confessionalism just as often (I don't think there are a lot of jokes on I See A Darkness, for example, altho there are a couple). this ambiguity is part of his appeal.

Saw him in October in a tiny bar with Emmett Kelley and the rest.

i went to see him in concert at an art museum theater and it was pack tho, he still has lots of fans i think

― there was usic in the cafes at night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, November 28, 2010 12:32 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

The live albums Summer in the Southeast and Is It The Sea? are arguably the greatest things he's released IMO. However, nothing will ever touch Viva Last Blues for that early ramshackle vibe. I find him, by far, the best and most consistent English songwriter of the modern era that I can think of. It's plainly outrageous that hasn't been anointed the contemporary Dylan/Young/pick-your-favorite, that failure of a critical consensus more than a lot of others reveals the bankruptcy of modern mainstream music criticism IMO.

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB), Monday, November 29, 2010 11:05 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

otm re: summer in the southeast. is 'is it the sea?' that live thing he did in scotland? cuz that rules. i dunno, i stan for oldham pretty hard, and in lol college would've made the claim that he was one of the best living songwriters in america, but i'm not as willing to go that far lately. like, i love the dude, and he has written some v v good songs, but he's not the best (our very own aero is better imo).

i mostly tapered off after Master And Everyone (live albums aside), and have struggled a bit to love his newest stuff as much as, say, Darkness or viva last blues. that being said, i think i'm gonna listen to oldham for the rest of the night now, thx guys

lol there's loads of irony in a lot of his stuff but I think he swings the other way into super-serious confessionalism just as often (I don't think there are a lot of jokes on I See A Darkness, for example, altho there are a couple). this ambiguity is part of his appeal.

― a big influence on me in a non-stabbing non-killing way (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, December 1, 2010 5:54 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

see, i've always read his confessionalism as being firmly tongue in cheek, should you decide its getting too creepy. it's almost goth, you know? yes, we're being serious, yes this is weird, but there's an understanding that there's a safeword or something and if you want to be amused by the darkness, you can, no one's gonna call you out for ruining the creepy vibe or w/e. if that makes sense?

I don't know why I mostly got off the bus after I See a Darkness - that album's great, I love a lot of what went before and what I've heard from after was not bad by any means. I think in some ways it got to feel like a chore to keep up with him, and I felt like I've kinda already gotten as much out of his schtick as I could, sorta like Beck. Like, his boundaries are pretty well defined now, I'm not sure what he could possibly do that would surprise/engage me again.

xp

i never really got off the bus at any point, i just can't keep up with all his releases. reading this makes me want to get those live LPs, though.

cf bill callahan, who ~kinda~ mines a similar vein of quirky macabre american gothic. i'm not nearly as familiar with smog, but what i have heard, and liked, is oldham but with a much smoother voice and a firmer handle on concrete imagery

xp beck comparison is a good one, actually---i abandoned that dude for the same reasons you did. also, lol, in high school i would've called HIM america's best living songwriter. ~suicides~

dude, omar, summer in the southeast is a fucking JAM.

also, if you want recordings of the show mississippi and i saw at the walker, lemme know and i can REDACTED

i would love to get a [mod edit] of that show if you can [mod edit] it my way via ilmessage

~standby~

-_-

one of the things i like about his later work is how much better of a singer he is now, people don't really talk about that but he must've put some work into voice lessons or something along the line.

man gbx

i was just thinking about his cover of "the world's greatest" by r.kelly at that show and how awesome it was.

dude he went from being kinda terrible to being legitimately v v good.

that was teh second set! i only made the first :-/

also omar check your whatever

i liken his early singing talent's roughness is akin to something like Libba Cotton's, not sure how blasphemous that is or if I can get away with comparing 2 such talents to each other, but hey, no worries brah.

(ie, not terrible unless you listen exclusively to broadway musicals and autotuned paedo-pop)

i will not be lumped in with musical theater enthusiasts and poptimists, thank u v much

gonna DL these as soon as i get home, thx homes

more comin

ok mississippi, i just listened to the world's greatest again and it's awesome

With Dylan, you need an annotated bibliography. Scholars can hold annual symposiums on single verses.

cool thx dad