Low: Classic or classic?

I'm listening to this and not sure what they are apologizing for?

maybe for being kind of boring, by the bands standard?

That album is BOOOOORING.

is that production though? Or just the songs? I feel like Plastic Cup, Amethyst, Clarence White and a few others stick out as being really good

but like I dunno, now I'm on "Just Make it Stop" and I'm not sure throwing like a bunch of digital degradation effects makes this a super amazing song

I just feel like Tweedy is a loaded term so to speak and people come into it with a certain view

I feel like it's a bit of both— the production doesn't help many of the songs.

If one has spent any time with Tweedy's work, one can immediately hear his imprint all over TIW whether they knew about his production credit or not. I do agree that if one knew beforehand, it would influence one's listening. But I don't really see how that somehow makes these songs any less lackluster as a whole.

I'm also listening to "C'mon" right now and actually saying to myself, "c'mon, let's get to a different Low album." TIW and C'mon are clearly the worst albums in their discography, imho, but again, that's coming from someone who worships Curtain, Long Division, and Trust.

I don't think the songs on C'mon are much better than the ones on TIW but the production is like a big warm blanket by comparison

Aw, 'Just Make It Stop' is a highlight for me. It's kinda nice to have a Low album with regular-ass unadorned production.

Agreed, Simon H. That's why I like C'mon a bit better.

C'Mon has some of my fave Low songs ever. And while I thought I liked heavily produced Low (Drums & Guns is the all-time classic for me), tbh the production on Ones & Sixes and Double Negative buries the songs to some extent for me. I wish I could get into them since they're apparently universally loved, but it's never clicked for me.

c'mon is fucking amazing

all of the songs are really excellent imo and yeah it's like a warm blanket of low sounds

Compared to the early records, it's not very good at all.

I really love a lot of the tunes on C'mon. Witches sounds so huge.

I guess this is just an irreconcilable sort of difference in Low fans' preferences. To me, it's perhaps beyond obvious that albums like Long Division or Secret Name or Curtain are masterpieces, whereas I rarely enjoy listening to C'mon, and don't think I've listened to anything from TIW in years...until this thread got bumped.

I guess I knew Tweedy was the producer but in all these years I have never let that color my impression of The Invisible Way. I agree it is among their weakest efforts, if not their very weakest. But I think it's the band and not the producer. For a band who has constantly been skirting around the criticism of having a "by the numbers" sound, this was their most by the numbers album. As much as there are good songs on it (all Low albums are, at minimum, good Low albums), Invisible Way seems to suffer from a lack of vision.

Also, it's great to see the love for C'mon. I think it's terrific.

I may have said this upthread, but I think there is so much love and warmth in C'mon. You can listen to it on its own terms and just think of it as a solid Low album. But if you listen to Drums & Guns, and then watch the documentary detailing how Alan basically fell apart at that time, and then listen to C'mon - I think that makes C'mon a very powerful album. So much of that album feels, to me, like Mimi helping Alan out of the darkness.

Meh, I still think it can't begin to touch their better records.

The longer I spend listening today, I'm also convinced that some of my distaste has to do with lyrical content. TGD marks a move toward a different sort of sound, yes, but also is perhaps the first record where so many of the lyrics are legible. The ambiguity, implications, and creepiness of the lyrics of records pre-TGD (with notable exceptions such as "Canada" etc) is one of the elements that I find most potent about the band. Some of that obliquity returned a bit in Ones and Sixes and Double Negative, which is why I tend to like them a bit better than TIW or Cmon.

Meh, I still think it can't begin to touch their better records.

― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Monday, December 14, 2020 bookmarkflaglink

It's possible for everything I said to be true and also for there to be a number of other Low albums that are better. No need to dismiss.

By the way I agree that the lyrics are weak spots for both TGD and TIW.

Low are like R.E.M. to me - a band with such a deep and rewarding discography that even True Fans can't agree on a proper ranking. There are defenders of every era and no consensus view.

Personally I think they've made three distinct masterpieces (Curtain, Things We Lost, Double Negative), three good-not-great (Trust, Great Destroyer, Invisible Way), and everything else is in between, occupying a still-rarefied tier of edging right up to pure excellence.

i would recommend going back to trust pgwp but you're def right that low are so consistent its impossible to reach consensus on their catalog

i feel like a weirdo when i say that trust and ones and sixes are my favorite low records but they are

I know there are a lot of Trust champions out there. I like it... I listen to it every so often (as I do with everything in their catalog). I don't know, I just think it's the only Low album that I have to trudge through. I've never really figured out what unlocks it for other people.

'Nothing But Heart' is the big C'mon cut for me, my favorite of that particular genre of Low song (one line repeated over & over into infinity).

Nels Cline is a huge part of it but Alan has really done it justice when I've seen them do it live.

Sorry, wasn't trying to be a jerk earlier, pgwp, and I think you're right in your analogy to REM.

Re: Trust, this is saying something, but I think it's their most *menacing* record. "John Prine," "The Lamb," and "Shots & Ladders" are all kind of scary songs! There's something about its darkness that I find deeply relatable.

The "Nightingale" -> "Something's Turning Over" stretch at the end of C'mon is beautiful. Maybe the only album I can think of that ends with my three favorite tracks

Re: Trust, this is saying something, but I think it's their most *menacing* record. "John Prine," "The Lamb," and "Shots & Ladders" are all kind of scary songs! There's something about its darkness that I find deeply relatable.

― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Monday, 14 December 2020 20:21 (yesterday) link

Yeah I think Trust really locks into the heavy murder ballads vibe (also has some of their best close harmonising IMO), which it seems people either find to be a kind of culmination of Low's attractions or verging on self-parody (or, possibly, a bit of both).

Whichever view you take (it's one of my favourites), it makes sense that every album thereafter has felt, to varying degrees, like the band were keen to establish some pre-articulated distance from any notion of an archetypal Low sound.

That Pitchfork review really got to them.

They're doing Christmas songs on Friday!

they've done Christmas shows at First Avenue, went to one was so beautiful, they had the stage filled with Christmas trees and had a church choir from a Lutheran church in Duluth with them.... finished with Merry Christmas (War is Over) by Lennon with the choir

one of my fav shows I've seen

the Double Negative tour was also amazing, best I've seen them and tbh almost diminished the album for me those songs sounded so great, also had great Pink Floyd style trippy video screen stuff which....ruled

last time I saw them was opening for the controversial Jeff Tweedy and Wilco, real chill fun vibe, friends hanging out, Low joined Wilco for Cinnamon Girl in the encore

I got to see them do a Christmas set here some years back, was pretty great (of course). Last two times I saw them was headlining in a chapel behind Double Negative, which was incredible, and opening for Slowdive, which was also incredible.

oh man Slowdive/Low what a bill

I've told the story elsewhere, but my first experience with Low was seeing them live on the Trust tour, and Mark Eitzel opened. It was pretty amazing, and blew my mind at 18. I'd also just seen GBV live for the first time a few months prior. What a world.

another dream bill

https://clcaudioclub.bandcamp.com/track/days-like-these-demo-by-low

Christmas songs were with the whole family! http://www.instagram.com/lowtheband <3

so good!

oh man Slowdive/Low what a bill

Remember having to miss that -- a damn shame, but at least I've seen them both numerous times.

It was fun, because I took a good buddy who I think had never heard either band (possible even never heard of Low), and left a lifer for both.

Beautiful show broadcast by John Peel in 2000.

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

^ great!

(btw, there's no "It's Friday I'm In Low" tonight, it's Christmas)

xpost that show includes a classic Low moment. The music was so quiet for so long they triggered the BBC's emergency tape to fill the air with upbeat pop music for 2 minutes in the middle of the live broadcast.

frustratingly, this emergency tape thing was never part of the peel sessions I had found online before (like on archive.org etc) so having missed this all this time is meh

Oh my yes. Saw them in Leeds, 1998/9 (?) Above the Firkin pub, supported by Vibracathedral or some other A Band thing. The sound of glasses being moved and cleaned throughout. Everyone was entranced.

Another session in 90 minutes (with their son and other guests, but without Mimi who has been away on family business)

https://www.twitter.com/lowtheband/status/1349988370001367040

https://www.stereogum.com/2113431/low-things-we-lost-in-the-fire/reviews/the-anniversary/

perhaps low's finest hour. it's my most played, now. other recordings feel more intimate and subdued, but the songwriting hit a peak, here. 'laser beam' there are some incredible bootlegs of performances from this era on archive.org... one including a cover of 'lord, can you hear me?'

I'm personally a much bigger fan of 'Curtain' and 'Trust,' but that was a lovely tribute. "White Tail" and "Laser Beam" are two of my favorite Low tracks.

Has Low been polled? Surely after 27+ years of good-to-amazing recording, they warrant it...

did a search, no polls. lots of threads going back to early days of ilm including a POO thread with no consensus. a poll would be very cool

There's almost no point, because it's all good. Maaaybe we could come to a genera; consensus on "least good album," but I bet that's about it.

I would love a Low poll now that I've heard more than half their albums. actually think the artist polls are way more interesting when there's so much good stuff. e.g. XTC is one of those bands with distinct periods, and not a lot of consensus about what's best, and I was very surprised by the winners during our artist poll