MASS ROMANTIC

Is it wrong to register a wee complaint about the production on this album?

i'm not a production guy but i get there's a wonkiness

uh-huh

being a dick aside this is one of my favourite randonm sooper-groop indie kids records

mah mah mah mah slow dissent

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I love this band (although I don't seem to have listened to anything they released after 2010, oops) but never been able to get into any of their other bands, Destroyer, Zumpano, Neko Case solo etc. nothing has grabbed me. Sum greater than parts for me I guess.

i gHear you GColonel

also i gAgree

i mean this gAlbum murders everything it's constituent parts gRecorded

except pissably gNeko

gBoys gBoys gBoys

What's with the nasal mutations? Is this now Dw i'n caru Cymraeg?

NV, w/ all due respect you seeem to have many wrong opinions about this band/music

i love "fake headlines" and i'm gonna vote for it

'CAUSE HOPE GROWS GREENER THAN GRASS STAINS

but “body says no” arguably has the biggest hook.

this hook is what really most impressed me when I first listened to it 19ish years ago and listening to it again today for the first time in years I am still amazed by it.

NV, w/ all due respect you seeem to have many wrong opinions about this band/music

alpine thank you for your repspect and respect for your kindness and i don't really know why this album is so otm cos it's not automaically a thing that i'd love

but i love the fuck out of it

which also makes me say daft things about it

"my slow descent" tho, that's a thing, that's a moment

was having a hard time choosing between tracks before i remembered "i've cried five rivers on the way here/which one will you skate away on?" and voted accordingly

I mean even the first couplet from that is incroyable: "I'm told the eventual downfall/ is just a bill from the restaurant"

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NV, w/ all due respect you seeem to have many wrong opinions about this band/music

loves, love to love love <3

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"letter from an occupant" is the academic answer.

"the body says no" was my first love, like someone else upthread. i think it was one of the more straightforward ones when i was 16 and wrapping my head around this album.

best live memory: neko's harmony on the end of "execution day." one of the moments when you have to step back and appreciate what a pure singer she is.

personal favorite and vote: "the fake headlines." "mass romantic" tells you that the band could produce a great single, but fake headlines is such a beast of a second song. i remember listening to this album cold, and all of a sudden neko is gone, this lispy guy is singing, and it's still a total banger. you're fully onboard with the record from there. it has a great lyric. i love that lyric transcription thread, i think newman is really underrated as a lyricist.

those are all beautiful answers and i agtee

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i keel evety last one of you

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lol

"slow descent" has slightly edged out "letter from an occupant" today

since this is maybe the most active a New Pornos thread has been in my 10+ years on ILM, i want to take the opportunity to say something i've said elsewhere: this band is responsible for the best recorded catalog of the 21st century so far. which makes this album the first all-killer-no-filler step on that incredible journey.

thank u carl, neko, dan, old drummer, new drummer, guy with the hair, guy with the beard, carl's niece whose name i really should remember, keyboard guy who looks bored as fuck during shows, new lady singer and maybe another guy if there's another guy i'm forgetting about (but i don't think there is).

luv u Noodle Vague

<<3 same and apologies for being drunchenhausen

it's a fucking perfect albumen tho while we're on

it and Electric Version, both, imo

sorry i said you had wrong opinions about this i guess i misread you earlier? idk

“Guy with the hair” maybe the guitar player Fancey, who put out an excellent indie summer AM gold record around this same time: https://open.spotify.com/album/0tCBKBJiuNyAzyBiVV0PfJ?si=2crCKnm9RU2OzsCEZT8xug

If we link to stuff can we link to YouTube and Spotify versions? Not everyone has given in to the Spotify hegemon.

Are you talking about the first Fancey album from 2004?

Yes 04

Whole album is great but this poll should have two fucking options:

Letter Bridge--->Chorus
Letter Outro--->Chorus

Either of these smoke everything else, no fools left standing.

Honorable mention (since no one else has?): In To Wild Homes, Neko handing the lower "to wild homes" off to the higher male (AC?) "to wild homes" then joining back in together.

The actually correct answer is "Letter from an Occupant" but I'm gonna throw a vote to "Jackie"

it’s amazing how all these songs exist in my head as a jumble of nonsense syllables. plenty of evocative imagery but as far as i glean any meaning from them, it might as well be in farsi

or maybe it’s more a language that i vaguely remember like hebrew or spanish where i excitedly latch onto the few phrases i actually understand

I voted "Mystery Hours" for the line about a "sticky glavin," which I am disappointed to learn is not only not the lyric, but is not even easily mistakable for the lyric.

ended up voting for the obvious one, but was tempted to toss a vote to Mary Martin Show

Want to point out that even before I knew of the anniversary this past week, I'd blasted "Mary Martin Show" because a workshop participant's manuscript mentioned Mary Martin. Weird!

i'm going to vote for "Centre for Holy Wars" because i know "Letter" and the title track are gonna finish 1-2, and rightfully so

i am legitimately interested to see how much "Letter" wins by.

weird, I've been annoying the neighbours with SALVATION HOLD OUT CENTRAL for a week as I noodle around on the piano.

EXACTLY WHERE WE ARRRE
in the center for HOOOLY WAAR

HOPE IT NEVER COMES DOWN AGAIN
LOATING IN THE AAA
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aw hell
that didn't work at all

Lol apologies for drunky over enthusiasm last night everybody

"Slow Descent" over "Letter"

needed to relisten to this start to finish for the first time in years to make an informed choice and I gotta say it hasn’t help narrow my decision at all

it’s amazing how all these songs exist in my head as a jumble of nonsense syllables. plenty of evocative imagery but as far as i glean any meaning from them, it might as well be in farsi

Me too. Maybe for that reason, I find that I have a hard time remembering which of these songs is which. I like them all, but they kind of blur together into one song in my mind. (Except Slow Descent, and maybe Fake Headlines as well.)

“Mary Martin Show” deserved better seeing the turnout.

We should keep this polling on to “Electric Version”

I love that this conversation exists and wish there were more bands containing multiple songwriters of equal skill with distinctive-but-complimentary qualities

wish there were more bands containing multiple songwriters of equal skill with distinctive-but-complimentary qualities

Sloan?

^^^^^^^^^^

I mean, I love Sloan, but couldn't guess the authorship from song-to-song with much (or any) accuracy

Agree with that. I bet hardcore fans could, though.

Uncle Tupelo comes to mind. And the DBTs.

Is Rolling Blackouts this way? Or do they write everything together and just trade off lead vocals?

sloan to me are more solid workhorses than "holy shit that song" type songwriters. which is not a dis!