Static_Martyr
01-15-2010, 05:55 PM
It always worries me when I'm listening to an album and I really, really like the first song. On the one hand, yeah, I'm glad it's a good song (and to be fair, on almost every single album I like, the first song is one of the best, if not the best). But it always seems that the first song is so much better than the rest of the album, save for a few gems. Not that the rest of the album is bad, per se, but....I guess I mean that if the first one is the best, it's all downhill from there.
Not that this is always true, of course. But I noticed on the new Collective Soul album (tentatively known as "Rabbit"), the first song, "Welcome All Again," is the most stylistic on the album, and has the most paced diversity. Almost every other song on the album is pretty straightforward, and while I like all of them ("Love" is a favorite, and "Staring Down" reminds me of their earlier work, songs like "After All" and "Turn Around"), Welcome All Again still stands out as the most unique song on that album. Even the last song --- the only one that's not straight-up pop rock --- is just a piano ballad. They used to have songs like "Needs" and "Compliment" that were like some weird fusion of piano/orchestra ballad and rock song. Now it's usually just one or the other --- rock or pop, none of the in-between.
But I digress....some examples of albums that do this, IMO (although I do still like them):
-NOFX, The War On Errorism (alright album, but Separation of Church and Skate just seems like more work went into it than Irrationality of Rationality or Franco-Un-American)
-Green Day, Insomniac (really, every song on here is stylistically similar, but the first one just stands out more. I guess 'cause it comes before the rest of them and therefore feels "more original"*)
-The Descendents, Cool To Be You (The first two songs on here are two of my favorites by this band ever, but everything after that -- except for a few gems like 'Merican -- just kind of bore me)
*=I think this may be part of it; any time you pop in a new album, the first song is going to sound the most original, because with each subsequent track you hear, you have one more previous track to compare it to....so later tracks are going to be compared with earlier ones, and if two tracks sound similar, whichever one came first gets the BOD and the second one gets blamed for being a "soundalike" or a "rehash." So it could be that two or three songs are stylistically diverse, but in the same way, so "if you've heard one, you've heard 'em all," and the first track just gets an unfair advantage.
Some albums have a wider-scale version of this same problem, I've noticed --- instead of one song being "unique" and the rest being kinda "meh," the album starts off really strong and stays that way for 1/4th or 1/3 of the way, then suddenly has a drastic change that interrupts the flow of the album. Some guilty parties (IMO) would include:
-The Offspring, Rise And Fall (love the album and most songs off of it, but I still think ALLM was in a weird place....one of the slowest songs on the album coming right after one of the fastest, most manic ones, kind of disrupts the energy built up by those first few songs...it's like having tons and tons of foreplay and then kicking back and watching a movie instead of directing all that energy into having sex...all that energy is kinda wasted 0.0)
-Green Day, American Idiot (the first like, 1/3 is gold on this one, and while I like the rest of it, the second half -- save Homecoming and Whatsername, and maybe MAYBE September -- just isn't as remarkable to me. I usually only listen to Boulevard because it sets the mood for Are We The Waiting [which sets the mood for St. Jimmy and makes it sound a bit more climactic], and after St. Jimmy finishes, I usually pop in something else)
-Bad Religion, The Empire Strikes First (it's the very beginning and very end of this album that stand out to me; the first song is very, very experimental for BR, being a gothic chorus leading into a superfast punk song....we get several gems to build steam, up until about Let Them Eat War....shortly after that, the mood kind of tapers off and the second half just feels weird. It's all good material, don't get me wrong, but the flow is kind of distorted. It's hard for me to listen to this album in one go, same with American Idiot and Rise and Fall)
Thoughts? Opinions? Don't-Give-A-Shits? :D
Not that this is always true, of course. But I noticed on the new Collective Soul album (tentatively known as "Rabbit"), the first song, "Welcome All Again," is the most stylistic on the album, and has the most paced diversity. Almost every other song on the album is pretty straightforward, and while I like all of them ("Love" is a favorite, and "Staring Down" reminds me of their earlier work, songs like "After All" and "Turn Around"), Welcome All Again still stands out as the most unique song on that album. Even the last song --- the only one that's not straight-up pop rock --- is just a piano ballad. They used to have songs like "Needs" and "Compliment" that were like some weird fusion of piano/orchestra ballad and rock song. Now it's usually just one or the other --- rock or pop, none of the in-between.
But I digress....some examples of albums that do this, IMO (although I do still like them):
-NOFX, The War On Errorism (alright album, but Separation of Church and Skate just seems like more work went into it than Irrationality of Rationality or Franco-Un-American)
-Green Day, Insomniac (really, every song on here is stylistically similar, but the first one just stands out more. I guess 'cause it comes before the rest of them and therefore feels "more original"*)
-The Descendents, Cool To Be You (The first two songs on here are two of my favorites by this band ever, but everything after that -- except for a few gems like 'Merican -- just kind of bore me)
*=I think this may be part of it; any time you pop in a new album, the first song is going to sound the most original, because with each subsequent track you hear, you have one more previous track to compare it to....so later tracks are going to be compared with earlier ones, and if two tracks sound similar, whichever one came first gets the BOD and the second one gets blamed for being a "soundalike" or a "rehash." So it could be that two or three songs are stylistically diverse, but in the same way, so "if you've heard one, you've heard 'em all," and the first track just gets an unfair advantage.
Some albums have a wider-scale version of this same problem, I've noticed --- instead of one song being "unique" and the rest being kinda "meh," the album starts off really strong and stays that way for 1/4th or 1/3 of the way, then suddenly has a drastic change that interrupts the flow of the album. Some guilty parties (IMO) would include:
-The Offspring, Rise And Fall (love the album and most songs off of it, but I still think ALLM was in a weird place....one of the slowest songs on the album coming right after one of the fastest, most manic ones, kind of disrupts the energy built up by those first few songs...it's like having tons and tons of foreplay and then kicking back and watching a movie instead of directing all that energy into having sex...all that energy is kinda wasted 0.0)
-Green Day, American Idiot (the first like, 1/3 is gold on this one, and while I like the rest of it, the second half -- save Homecoming and Whatsername, and maybe MAYBE September -- just isn't as remarkable to me. I usually only listen to Boulevard because it sets the mood for Are We The Waiting [which sets the mood for St. Jimmy and makes it sound a bit more climactic], and after St. Jimmy finishes, I usually pop in something else)
-Bad Religion, The Empire Strikes First (it's the very beginning and very end of this album that stand out to me; the first song is very, very experimental for BR, being a gothic chorus leading into a superfast punk song....we get several gems to build steam, up until about Let Them Eat War....shortly after that, the mood kind of tapers off and the second half just feels weird. It's all good material, don't get me wrong, but the flow is kind of distorted. It's hard for me to listen to this album in one go, same with American Idiot and Rise and Fall)
Thoughts? Opinions? Don't-Give-A-Shits? :D