Anyone listen to The Decemberists? (1 Viewer)

[Ilov80s]

Amazon had The King is Dead for $3.99 so I figured I would try it. Still not sure about them though.

I am not a big fan of that one. It has a few good tunes, but the bulk of it is too country rockish for my tastes, and they seemed to abandon their quirkiness for that record as well.

Which album do you suggest?Amazon's List Hazards of Love for $5?

Hazards of Love is basically a concept album. I'd start with Picaresque. That's there most accessible album IMO.

 

[kupcho1]

Which album do you suggest?

Amazon's List Hazards of Love for $5?

My rankings:The Crane Wife

The Hazards Of Love

Castaways and Cutouts

The King Is Dead

Her Majesty The Decemberists

5 Songs [EP]

Picaresque

Always The Bridesmaid: A Singles Series

Long Live the King - EP

Picaresqueties

The Tain

 

[Disco Stu]

Which album do you suggest?

Amazon's List Hazards of Love for $5?

My rankings:The Crane Wife

The Hazards Of Love

Castaways and Cutouts

The King Is Dead

Her Majesty The Decemberists

5 Songs [EP]

Picaresque

Always The Bridesmaid: A Singles Series

Long Live the King - EP

Picaresqueties

The Tain

Picaresque is shockingly low.

 

[Jaysus]

I finished listening to The Hazards of Love tonight... I really dig it!

 

[YSR]

Been listening to Hazards of Love quite a bit lately. What's the backstory to this one? There's some dark dark stuff going on around here.

The back story is that it's awesome.More in depth info from wiki...

The original plan was for The Hazards of Love to be a staged musical. However, it seems that the story was "unstagable" in such a format. Instead the band played the entire album start to finish at each concert on the spring tour. A press release read: "The album began when Meloy – long fascinated by the British folk revival of the 1960s – found a copy of revered vocalist Anne Briggs's 1966 EP, titled The Hazards of Love. Since there was no actual song with the album’s title, he set out to write one, but was soon immersed in something much larger. The Hazards of Love tells the tale of a woman named Margaret; her shape-shifting lover, William; his fey forest queen mother; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake, who recounts with spine-tingling ease how he came "to be living so easy and free" in "The Rake's Song". Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden deliver the lead vocals for the female characters, while My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Robyn Hitchcock and The Spinanes’ Rebecca Gates appear in supporting roles. The range of sounds reflects the characters’ arcs, from the accordion’s singsong lilt in “Isn’t it a Lovely Night?” to the heavy metal thunder of "The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing"."

Love them. Saw them do "Hazards of Love" live as a rock opera and it was terrifically enjoyable.

 

[Jaysus]

Ranking: The Decemberists From Worst to Best

 

[Ghost Rider]

New album is out. Sounds good so far.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Ranking: The Decemberists From Worst to Best

I'd probably swap 5 and 6 (I am not a big fan of the country rock direction they took on The King Is Dead), but overall, those rankings are nearly spot-on. 1-4 is in the exact order I would put them.

 

[kupcho1]

My rankings:

The Crane Wife

The Hazards Of Love

Castaways and Cutouts

The King Is Dead

Her Majesty The Decemberists

5 Songs [EP]

Picaresque

What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World

Always The Bridesmaid: A Singles Series

Long Live the King - EP

Picaresqueties

The Tain

For now I'm slotting in WATW,WABW in just under Picaresque (which I think is ranked too highly by most. I'm going to ascribe this to Picaresque being their first album to really garner attention, but I welcome other theories).

I like WATW, WABW in parts. It feels like a greatest hits album of songs that never appeared before in that they're covering a wide range of styles from previous releases. Cavalry Captain sounds like a Picaresque song. The Singer Addresses His Audience like a Long Live the King [EP] tune. Anti-Summer Song from The King is Dead. You get the idea.

Why don't these other rankings consider all of their material? The 5 Songs [EP] for example, is awesome. And I found the Always the Bridesmaids releases to be some of their catchiest tunes. Hell, even Picaresqueties has its moments

 

[YSR]

Make You Better - great song, terrible video.

 

[YSR]

Also, fun article from October: link

 

[kupcho1]

Also, fun article from October: link