themuy yeah, right!

It Still Sucks

A funny thing happened to me yesterday. A song that was playing on my stereo annoyed me so much I had to stop what I was doing and go remove the CD from the player.

The song was off of My Morning Jacket’s It Still Moves, an album I bought because I wanted to try something new and had heard some good talk about the band.

I tried to like the album, I really did. I played it on my commute (1.5 hours round trip) for about three days. When that didn’t work, I took a break for about a week and tried again. No luck. This album sucks.

People talk about how great the singer’s voice is and how it’s so cool that the songs are bathed in an amazing amount of reverb. I just keep thinking how much it sounds like the Steve Miller Band.

It’s very puzzling to me because I have a very broad taste in music. I can listen to almost anything and find some redeeming qualities. But this band grates my very last nerve. Maybe it’s the fact that most songs are about 6-7 minutes long. Not because they have so much to say, more because they want to just “jam out” for no particular reason. I have never heard such pointless music. It seriously turns my stomach.

So, if anyone wants a slightly used My Morning Jacket album, let me know. I’ll sell it real cheap.

Wow, a review that sounds like I wrote it…..I am in a band in Louisville, KY, the semi-hometown of MMJ, and we played a few shows with them around town before they got “famous”. I never really thought much about them either way, they were an OK live act but were a little sloppy and I always thought Jim James sounded like Kermit the Frog, he has a good range but I can’t stand the actual sound of his voice. I truly think that his voice is what holds the band back from getting to that next level, some of the songs are catchy and heartfelt, but when he starts howling, drenched in reverb and slightly off-key (to my ears, at least) it ruins it for me. Oddly enough, if you get some of their earlier stuff, his voice sounds alright on the acoustic slow stuff, it’s just when he starts yelling that it gets unbearable. When these guys got signed it blew away most of the musicians I know around here…no one thought they really “sucked” or anything, but there are definitely better sounding bands in Louisville. Check out the story behind their signing sometime, it’s beyond amazing when you look at how it unfolded…they were basically a tiny, tiny indie band that were in the exact right place at the right time. OK band, but I, like you, have tried multiple times to “get into” their music and just don’t get it. Oh well, if we were all the same it’d be a boring ass world, eh?