Z is a very special album. I don't want to hear "it has a few songs I have to skip through". Fuck that, its a masterpiece. My first MMJ album and I will always think of it that way.
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Z is a great album...but I put it below ISM, At Dawn, and TTF....I personally like EU better than Z. But it is still an awesome album. I personally love "Into the Woods." "Lay Low" is also a classic. I'll probably get killed for this though....I was never a fan of "Gideon."
QuoteZ is a great album...but I put it below ISM, At Dawn, and TTF....I personally like EU better than Z. But it is still an awesome album. I personally love "Into the Woods." "Lay Low" is also a classic. I'll probably get killed for this though....I was never a fan of "Gideon."
I am not a fan of "Gideon" either. While I do enjoy listening to this album from time to time, I usually only play "Lay Low," "Anytime," and "Dondante." I like the album as a whole, except "Gideon," but I rank it as my least favorite album. If EU is as good as some of the live recordings, then I think "Z" will remain my least favorite.
I understand your feelings though, True, as sometimes hearing that first album holds a special place. I also go back and forth between TTF and At Dawn as my personal favorite. At Dawn was my first album I got a hold of and TTF shortly after.
I'd place it below both At Dawn and It Still Moves. Z has basically zero filler and is a lean mother but lacks the spooked rural twilight feel of At Dawn and the unruly, epic ebb and flow of It Still Moves both of which appeal to me slightly more at this moment in time. Part of this is down to the simple fact that I was backpacking for 6 months with a cd player (pre ipod days) and ten cds one of which was Z so I kinda overdosed on it during that trip. However Z is their strongest track for track basically and their most self contained. If anybody wanted to start with the band I'd point them in Z's direction and tell em to take it from there.
One thing about Z though is I would have liked to have seen the exurberant melodic swirls of Chills and How Could I Know on there perhaps but it's hard to know where to put them as the album is sequenced very well. Perhaps Chills could come before the woozy In The Woods ending the first half of the album. HCIK doesn't really fit in though does it? It belongs on At Dawn probably. It's also their best sleeve by a distance I think. I really dig the artwork and have been meaning to get a giant poster for a while now.
And Into The Woods is absolutely glorious - one of the best songs the bands ever done.
get the vinyl it has chills
i place 2nd after ISM---i only skip into the woods---cover to cover....stellar album...i think their songwriting improved from AD and TF to Z--(as far as honing the craft of a great song) i've had friends tell me that once they heard Z, they could appreciate it but felt they had to accept the fact that this was a different band--i laugh at that--i love it that it sounds different--- it's like they are narrowly tailoring the (reverby blustery) sound that gained their following while also delving into new territory.
i don't know what any of that meant...Z is a phenomenal album...
Quotei place 2nd after ISM---i only skip into the woods---cover to cover....stellar album...i think their songwriting improved from AD and TF to Z--(as far as honing the craft of a great song) i've had friends tell me that once they heard Z, they could appreciate it but felt they had to accept the fact that this was a different band--i laugh at that--i love it that it sounds different--- it's like they are narrowly tailoring the (reverby blustery) sound that gained their following while also delving into new territory.
i don't know what any of that meant...Z is a phenomenal album...
I'm with you on this. With the exception of Into the Woods, Z is stellar from start to finish. I find that I listen to it more than It Still Moves. For me, Evil Urges comes in 3rd, but still very good.
Quotebut I put it below ISM, At Dawn, and TTF....I personally like EU better than Z. "
>:(
To me, Z is a more successful experimentation and extention of their sound than Evil Urges. I also think Leckie did a better job with production than Chicarelli.
WC ROCKS MY FUCKING WORLD!!! :)
I like Z enough I suppose. The only track that really irks me is Anytime. I will occationally skip the middle of the album, listening to 1-3, than skipping to 8-10. I feel that the sequence of the last 3 songs is possibly the strongest 3 song sequence on any of their albums. Lay Low just destroys, and I often imagine that song being on It Still Moves (it has a similiar feel imo), Knot Comes Loose is a haunting, tragic beauty, and well Dondante is, ....Dondante. Calling that song epic is like calling the sun warm.
IT BEATS 4 U
I think its the best album of the decade so far. Narrowly beats At Dawn. Every song is a rock and roll classic.
QuoteI like Z enough I suppose. The only track that really irks me is Anytime. I will occationally skip the middle of the album, listening to 1-3, than skipping to 8-10.
Ludicrous, this thread is for the purpose of praising Z.
QuoteI think its the best album of the decade so far. Narrowly beats At Dawn. Every song is a rock and roll classic.
Very well done, everybody take a good hard look at this post.
Why does "Into the Woods" get so much hate....it is an interesting song and the chorus "I went into the woods, where did I goooooo" is so great. I hated it at first but it grew on me.
QuoteQuotebut I put it below ISM, At Dawn, and TTF....I personally like EU better than Z. "
>:(
I do agree with you that Philly does suck though.
QuoteWhy does "Into the Woods" get so much hate....
The same reason Highly Suspicious does and will on a larger scale once the album is released. Some people just don't have a sense of humor, is all.
QuoteQuoteWhy does "Into the Woods" get so much hate....
The same reason Highly Suspicious does and will on a larger scale once the album is released. Some people just don't have a sense of humor, is all.
Its not the sense of humor for me, i like the silly covers and Jim's boots and Oregon Trail attire. I like Into The Woods, but don't like Highly Suspicious.
QuoteQuoteQuoteWhy does "Into the Woods" get so much hate....
The same reason Highly Suspicious does and will on a larger scale once the album is released. Some people just don't have a sense of humor, is all.
Its not the sense of humor for me, i like the silly covers and Jim's boots and Oregon Trail attire. I like Into The Woods, but don't like Highly Suspicious.
I think Highly Suspicious is hilarious. I bet they have so much fun with it. :D
Z is sort of an oddity in that it was a transitional album, but a highly polished one. Even from the initial listen, it's hard to be captious when the damn thing just shines of gazillion-dollar production value.
Yes, there were a few songs that didn't stick at first listen. When you have three prior albums that are all in the same awesome vein, Z knocked me for a loop. "Into The Woods" was one of those songs, but now I think I play that song even more than some of the others on the album, lol.
"Gideon," to me, is the album's brightest gem. Jim is a freakin' vocal Godzilla on that track. It just sounds so...so...divine.
But all of that is just Jim James' posturing, if you ask me...holding back all these years with Z as the tease before he really drops the hammer -- with Evil Urges. Not to give it away, but 'Urges is the MMJ album that totally blurs the lines (maybe you all gather that from 'Touch Me pt 2.?). It's Z all over again and more.
z is a phenominal album. from start to finish. it's one of those rare albums you can put on and not skip any tracks because each one is equally boss.
into the woods is an amazing song. i don't get all the negativity about this tune. it's so detailed in its arrangement, and all the little touches--sound effects and all--make it one of those songs you could listen to on headphones and just say, "damn."
DAMN.
I had never really been a huge fan of Z, especially in contrast to their earlier body of work. People say that the band pushed their sound and really experimented with Z, but I think that the band went more out on the limb with their previous albums. Z just sounded more generic, mainstream, like it could have come from any other number of bands. (sorry for the hate.)
BUT... just recently, after hearing Jim play Z solo acoustically I have fallen in love with the songs and gained a new appreciation for the album. I guess it was mostly the overly synthetic production of the album that really irked me. And the omission of some choice songs like How Could I know, Chills, and I Can't Wait!... I mean how could this beauty never get recorded?
QuoteI had never really been a huge fan of Z, especially in contrast to their earlier body of work. People say that the band pushed their sound and really experimented with Z, but I think that the band went more out on the limb with their previous albums. Z just sounded more generic, mainstream, like it could have come from any other number of bands. (sorry for the hate.)
BUT... just recently, after hearing Jim play Z solo acoustically I have fallen in love with the songs and gained a new appreciation for the album. I guess it was mostly the overly synthetic production of the album that really irked me. And the omission of some choice songs like How Could I know, Chills, and I Can't Wait!... I mean how could this beauty never get recorded?
The point of this thread is to talk about how great Z is, having read a lot of posts like yours lately and I wanted to keep this one positive. There's nothing mainstream about this album, thats why it didn't do well in the mainstream.
"like it could have come from any other number of bands"=one of the dumbest comments I've read here. Start a Criticize Z thread if thats what you want to talk about.
Z was also my first exposure to MMJ and is also my favorite album. The amount of musical territory covered on that album on that album is absolutely amazing. It is so stylistically diverse yet manages to sound pretty cohesive. An absolute masterpiece. There's a few songs on there that I don't care for as much as others, but I feel I don't get the full enjoyment from the album unless I listen to it from beginning to end. The final 4 songs on the album (Anytime to Dondante) may be the strongest string of 4 tracks that I've ever heard. "Lay Low" and "Knot Comes Loose" are possibly my top 2 favorite MMJ songs.
However, I recently have listened to At Dawn and Tennessee Fire and I understand that longing for the haunting rural sound that characterized the band's earlier sound. At Dawn is such a spacious and stunning beautiful work. I'd probably place it as my 2nd favorite MMJ at the moment. I haven't listened to enough of TTF to include it in my rankings but right now this is what they would look like:
1. Z
2. At Dawn
3. It Still Moves
4. Evil Urges
I'm not a huge fan of Evil Urges. It has its great moments but it stumbles at times. It also has the first (in my opinion) skippable tracks of any MMJ album (Highly Suspicious & Two Halves). The great moments are truly incredible (Thank You Too, Touch Me, Pt. 2) and this where I can see Jim James' vision for the "new sound" come true but as a whole EU didn't do it for me. A really solid album, but not on par with the band's earlier work.
I just listened to this whole album for the first time in a long time. It really is a great album. Love the songs and the sound. Production is great. I can't wait to hear EU to compare. I hate when people are already comparing and the actual album hasn't came out yet!