Built To Spill - Keep It Like A Secret

it's david fricke!
think the only song i don't like here is "bad light"

Lotta good songs on this one but Carry the Zero is the best thing they've ever written/recorded. I don't think I can quite verbalize how very much I love the song--its central metaphor, the way one part flows into the next, it's just all-around wonderful.

think i might vote for "bad light" for how when it finally builds to an actual chorus, the song is over.

version of "carry the zero" here is kinda nuts http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=3881

I've written about this elsewhere, but the new Toby Keith single sounds remarkably like "Else":

http://tasteofcountry.com/toby-keith-made-in-america/

Right down to the kinda spaced-out twang at the end.

dialed this up on the ipod and now have been all "damn i should have voted for this one instead" on every successive song. fucking masterpiece.

yep

Lots of great songs on this one, but yeah, 'Sidewalk'.

everyone otm about carry the zero

i like how, for all the amazing guitar overdubs, it's really tightly arranged and controlled for the entire album until the end of broken chairs, the very last song which jams out into the cosmos

Else

i really like this album, and pretty much nothing by this band besides this album. voted for "Else."

Damn near a perfect album. Carry the Zero is unfuckwithable.

however, I voted for Else. Probably my fave BtS song ever.

"Carry the Zero," based on the outro alone.

'You Were Right'. Heard it on some American radio station via RealPlayer, shortly after recieveing a dial-up connection. I guessed it was Built To Spill, who I'd never heard a note of. Every impulse purchase of 1999 was a classic, insane as it now seems.

"carry the zero" is awesome. one of the best songs of a great music year

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i voted for You Were Right

's like a punch in the gut

As a long-standing fan of this album, I don't quite get the Carry The Zero love. I like it a lot, but don't get why it's a fave.

I voted for "Else."

Still think this record pales in the mighty shadow of Perfect From Now On but I guess we have already had that debate on other threads. I think it comes down to if this was your first exposure to BTS it might likely be your favourite. Thats my theory anyway.

you're right Perfect From Now On is much much better: Built To Spill poll

"carry the zero" love is all about the lyrics bridging into that massive crescendo. it is a major call to get off your ass, fuck the consequences. now we can't even touch it, afraid it'll fall apart

my first exposure to bts was the caustic resin ep, particularly 'when not being stupid is not enough'

it's tough, but i think i'll take 'keep it like a secret' over perfect, though i would trade out 'you were right' (blasphemy!)

"stop the show" is awesome but i'd take 'keep it like a secret' any night of the week. (and "you were right" should've been a b-side -- i get the joke; once is enough)

else

I really hope I'm not the only vote for Temporarily Blind. That song is firmly in my top 5.

i like most of you were right except the part that goes "don't youuuu ever think about it!" which always struck me as a little heavy handed.

i know what you mean but i never minded it

As a long-standing fan of this album, I don't quite get the Carry The Zero love. I like it a lot, but don't get why it's a fave.

― Colin Allstations (PaulTMA), Thursday, 28 July 2011 00:09 (14 hours ago) Permalink

i hear you

I always heard it as more of a stoner joke: "don't you ever think about it...man?"

it's funny, i saw BTS in the fall of 98 and they played you were right, but it didn't have that part! my friend taped it, so we compared/contrasted .... guess they thought it needed a little extra something.

Love the Time Trap intro so much, shame the rest doesn't quite live up to it. Voting Else since I'm a miserable bastard. Carry the Zero I pretty epic though.

Fuck why ain't this on spotify.

it is in the us

voted Else, although I love it all. I remember the first summer "on my own" (not in dorms, but still sharing a house with others) in college, and I didn't know the other roommates that well at all and was having trouble connecting in any sort of meaningful way. I was listening to some BTS and about halfway through Else one of the new roommates went "what IS this? it's awesome!" and it was the thing that allowed me to get to know them so much better and become friendz.

^ good post

haha, i was just about to bust in with the "that was the worst story i've ever told" comment

i wasn't being sarcastic btw

i remember listening to perfect from now on in my dorm freshman year and a dude knocking on my door saying "this album is SO GREAT." and i thought, ok, here's a new friend. but i ended up not liking him very much.

true story

As a long-standing fan of this album, I don't quite get the Carry The Zero love. I like it a lot, but don't get why it's a fave.

I dunno, the chord progression just feels so ~transcendent~.

Tbh, though, I've always been surprised that people like the song as much as I do. I know, e.g., that the major-7th chords are doing it for me, but presumably not everyone else is being taken in for that reason.

voted Else, glad to see it's got a real contingency here; Now And Then might be my favorite KILAS-era song.

"what IS this? it's awesome!"

played "carry the zero" one day at at my previous job and two coworkers rushed up to me and asked "what is THIS, this is awesome"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

*ponders*

If not for TB, it could have been any one of these for me.

i was afraid i'd be the only one to vote for "bad light"

but come on that ending

No track got zero votes, good showing.

Don't drag this out as much add I used to, but whenever I do, I wonder why I still spend money on other music.

also enjoy the live album for the full crazy horse freakout experience

Listened to Perfect From Now On last night and it is still Perfect.

for me, core bts is definitely tnwwt, pfno, and kilas

*tnwwl

TNWWL is great, but it feels like a different band than what came after. Perfect From Now On was a giant leap forward.

my friends and i were ravenously awaiting what would follow tnwwl and i remember there being murmurings that he had recorded and scrapped an entire followup but decided he wanted it to be 'more of a band concept'. i assume that was just noise, there's no lost material between the 2nd and 3rd albums is there?

The first time, frontman Doug Martsch attempted to play all the instruments except drums. He and Ek were dissatisfied with the results, so Martsch brought in bassist Brett Nelson and drummer Scott Plouf and recorded the album again. However, these tapes were destroyed by heat when Ek was driving from Seattle to Boise to record additional overdubs. The band rehearsed some more, then recorded the album a third time.

I knew about the melted tapes - iirc that led them to add the mellotrons & moogs & stuff - didn't know about the all Doug Martsch all the time attempt.

I go to Keep It Like a Secret because it makes me happy, just the sheer joy of how great a hook can be like in "Sidewalk" how the guitar parts are hooks in and of themselves, Perfect is also great but I don't listen to them often anymore and I tend to want to feel how Keep it makes me feel

TNWWL does feel like a different band in a lot of ways, but it is a classic too — i do like that Martsch's lyrics on that one are actually kind of funny.

That record just has such stunning pop sense, at least on its front half

Twin Falls, Idaho ❤️❤️❤️❤️

once.
WHEN I WAS LIT TULL SOME ONE POIN TAD OUT TO ME

witha sing-GULL FETH-yur

TNWWL does feel like a different band in a lot of ways, but it is a classic too — i do like that Martsch's lyrics on that one are actually kind of funny.

Yeah, that album was a really cool concept. I’ve always kind of been on the lookout for an album or a band that does with they did on that one—split the difference between jam band and indie rock, with a loose, lighthearted approach—but I’ve ever really found anything that quite feels like it. (BTS themselves certainly went in a different direction…)

I had some hot take but realized I was completely dismissing "Ultimate Alternative Wavers" because I've never heard it. Like the first Halfnelson record.

I remember exactly where I was the first time "The Plan" hit my headphones. 10/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2nRdIrM2Oo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dxc1h99oFo

Awesome videos. Time Trap is my favorite and I definitely remember where I was the first time I heard it. I bought the CD at a record store on South Street in Philly the morning after celebrating passing the bar exam with a bunch of friends. I started playing immediately after I bought it and left Philly and Time Trap came on as I was driving on the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike and I freaked out.

Aw, Reverb was the greatest. Filled me with the biggest concert envy when I was like 12-13, before I'd been to one. This is one of the episodes I remember best, along with the Pavement, Beck and Flaming Lips ones. Think I still have tapes of some of these...

happy 25th birthday to this amazing record

For me, Pop Rock BTS > Jam Band BTS

i need them both

pretty sure i voted 'carry the zero' in this, but 'broken chairs' is an incredible album closer

The one two punch of Carry the Zero and Sidewalks is so good.

idk if there is a song on this record i wouldn't consider voting for on the right day

i think maybe "you were right," just because i don't love the "do you ever think about it" ending as much as the rest of the song

the Marquee Moon of 90s indie rock