[exploding plastic candle]

the moon and antarctica is also a great album

[DJ Rick]

In 15 years when everyone else wakes up to the fact that the late 00's were the best halcyon age for underground music since the late 70's/early 80's, you will be bummed that you wasted all your time analyzing why a band that peaked in the late 90's sucked so much during those magical late 00's.

Imagine a punk rocker in 1977 ballyhooing then about "Why does Ted Nugent suck so much now?", and trying to analyze why.

Imagine someone at the time and place of the explosion of jungle/dnb wondering "Gee...will the Art of Noise ever make another record with Max Headroom? And whatever happened to Taco of 'Puttin' on the Ritz' fame?"

Imagine someone walking out on a SunnO))) performance wondering, "I wonder if Bret Michaels will actually get his music career back on track."

Imagine a basketball fan in Maimi clicking off the TV during a highlight reel of Dwayne Wade only to wonder, "Gee...why did we ever trade Ricky Davis?"

[Pax Americana]

I love Lonesome Crowded West and The Moon and Antarctica. I even thought Good News... was decent. However I could not get into their last one at all. I tried. Some friends of mine really liked it, but I simply could not get into it at all.

[Theremin]

The Moon & Antarctica is whitout a doubt one of the better albums this lousy millennium has conceived so far.
Also, we were dead before the ship even sank >>> good news for people who love bad news. Though the first one doesn't have an instant 'hit single' a la Float on the latter implodes spectaculary somwhere around track 9 and has some of the worst songs MM has made to date. Their last album was just overall decent.

[Jeremy]

Modest Mouse are excellent. Long Drive and Lonesome Crowded West are both amazing records (Lonesome being one of my favorite records of all time), BNOoS is a great singles collection (And top to bottom one of their best records I think), Moon and Antarctica is great, the rest is decent. Sure they aren't as good now as what they were, but when they were on, they were ON.

~Jeremy~

[atsonicpark]

DJ Rick is right on. In my opinion, this band who hasn't made a listenable song since "Breakthrough", and I'd much rather focus on the overwhelming amount of amazing new music being released every day rather than mourn the loss of Modest Mouse -- the undisputed queens of forgettable Pixies-worship alternative rock. We might as well start having some Toadies and Nada Surf threads going on! Haha... hah.

Actually, speaking of Toadies... I COME FROM THE WATER! I COME!!!!!!!!!! I COME FROM THE WAT-ER!!! Man, that album was awesome. Fucking "Rubberneck". The one they released after that one kinda sucked except for the first one but damn "Rubberneck". Maybe we SHOULD start a Toadies thread. No?... okay.

But in all seriousness... Most bands who achieve some level of success seem to start becoming shitty afterwards, so it was inevitable they'd eventually be unlistenable garbage. Those old albums are still available if you want to break them out (and I gotta say, Lonesome Crowded West .. while overlong .. is a pretty nice record), but we might as well face the facts... they're just going to get worse from here. Which should be funny, if nothing else. Didn't the lead singer stop drinking? And they became shitty afterwards? Let this be a lesson: Keep drinking.

...not really. I hate alcohol. Almost as much as I hate Moderate-Rock Mouse's new stuff.

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Watching you attempt to be just like atsonicpark is excruciating.

Haha, I'm not going to directly respond to this "insult". Your posts speak for themselves. Take that for what it's worth... Or better yet, stop bringing me up when I haven't done or said anything out of the way to you (just your favorite bands.. I guess?! Who knows?). That's more "duh-du-douchebag"-gy than anything I've ever done.

[DeadDiscoDildo]

Everyone shut the fuck up, Rob has already ended this thread.

Modest Mouse was good, had potential to be even better, but alas.

One trick pony.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

Haha, I'm not going to directly respond to this "insult". Your posts speak for themselves. Take that for what it's worth... Or better yet, stop bringing me up when I haven't done or said anything out of the way to you (just your favorite bands.. I guess?! Who knows?). That's more "duh-du-douchebag"-gy than anything I've ever done.

If the act of consecutively posting dismissive-but-offensive posts weren't so characteristically you in my mind (I'm particularly thinking of another band that shares the same initials), I wouldn't have mentioned you at all. Admittedly, I think you've been more amicable since then and it is unfairly insulting to keep that against you. I doubt you'd care if I apologized, but I would.

And actually this really has nothing to do about any bands, Modest Mouse or otherwise, just that I find consecutive shitting to be childish and predictable. Say shit, sure, but running a bulldozer over it is redundant and egotistical. I leave this at that.

[DeadDiscoDildo]

Blah Blah Blah why don't you two get a room ffs!

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by pbradley

(I'm particularly thinking of another band that shares the same initials), I wouldn't have mentioned you at all. Admittedly, I think you've been more amicable since then and it is unfairly insulting to keep that against you. I doubt you'd care if I apologized, but I would.

Apology accepted. My whole "tearing apart the band with the same initials" thing ended well over a year ago (maybe about 2 years ago by now?). I mean, I still listened to and said I didn't like the new album but I'm trying to be more pleasant about these things now. I try to offer my opinion without breaking anyone's heart......... I just don't like being randomly insulted when I am pretty sure I haven't said or done anything out of the way in a while. Either way, fair enough, no hard feelings. What you said did kind of hurt my e-feelings a bit, at the time, though.

[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

DJ Rick is right on. In my opinion, this band who hasn't made a listenable song since "Breakthrough", and I'd much rather focus on the overwhelming amount of amazing new music being released every day rather than mourn the loss of Modest Mouse -- the undisputed queens of forgettable Pixies-worship alternative rock. We might as well start having some Toadies and Nada Surf threads going on! Haha... hah.

Actually, speaking of Toadies... I COME FROM THE WATER! I COME!!!!!!!!!! I COME FROM THE WAT-ER!!! Man, that album was awesome. Fucking "Rubberneck". The one they released after that one kinda sucked except for the first one but damn "Rubberneck". Maybe we SHOULD start a Toadies thread. No?... okay.

But in all seriousness... Most bands who achieve some level of success seem to start becoming shitty afterwards, so it was inevitable they'd eventually be unlistenable garbage. Those old albums are still available if you want to break them out (and I gotta say, Lonesome Crowded West .. while overlong .. is a pretty nice record), but we might as well face the facts... they're just going to get worse from here. Which should be funny, if nothing else. Didn't the lead singer stop drinking? And they became shitty afterwards? Let this be a lesson: Keep drinking.

...not really. I hate alcohol. Almost as much as I hate Moderate-Rock Mouse's new stuff.

Toadies are awesome and deserve a thread around here. And Hell Below/Stars Above I think is a better record than Rubberneck.

I see Modest Mouse get compared to the Pixies a lot and yeah, it's easy to see an influence, but to say they sound exactly alike is going way overboard.

~Jeremy~

[greedrex]

Originally Posted by afterthefact

I see them much the same as Death Cab For Cutie. When they truly were indie, they were great. When they signed to a major label and became an "Indie" band, they began to get much worse.

idem

[tesla69]

"holy shit, why do modest mouse suck now?"

at least they're consistent

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Toadies are awesome and deserve a thread around here. And Hell Below/Stars Above I think is a better record than Rubberneck.

I see Modest Mouse get compared to the Pixies a lot and yeah, it's easy to see an influence, but to say they sound exactly alike is going way overboard.

~Jeremy~

I didn't say they sound exactly alike. Did someone else say that? Hm. Either way, they do obviously worship 'em.

Now, about Toadies...

[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

I didn't say they sound exactly alike. Did someone else say that? Hm. Either way, they do obviously worship 'em.

Now, about Toadies...

Toadies are awesome, but damned if they aren't a Pixies ripoff. But then again the Pixies are near perfect in my eyes, so if you're going to rip off a band than The Pixies aren't exactly the worst band to ripoff.

Have you heard Feeler? It was what they originally recorded as their second record and had some HB/SA stuff on it, albeit in slightly altered form.

~Jeremy~

[DJ Rick]

Y'know I'm not much for talkin' shit, but....

If you are obsessed with why Modest Mouse sucks now, you are missing what's happening today. If you are still impressed with what Modest Mouse is doing and think that this decade is overall shitty, you are perhaps even more guilty of missing out on this halcyon age. Hint: Pitchfork and other pay-to-play and so-called-alt/indie-yet-all-about-idol-worship and mainstream media barely scratch the surface of it. Just look at the best of 09 so far thread......everyone's ravving about Wavves. That band probably won't even be a footnote in 15 years when historians talk about how special the late 00's were. I recognize Wavves' penchant for hookiness, but the lyrics are so insipid and apathetic, it makes me embarrassed on behalf of the youth of America. Woohoo...Boredom goth!

[summer]

I agree with you, Pitchfork sucks. So uh I don't get your point.
ANYHOW, not to be a devil's advocate here or anything (okay yeah I am) but why call Modest Mouse a one-trick pony when the band this board is for, Sonic Youth, are probably far more guilty? Hasn't most of their career been built off of song-noise breakdown-song? I mean honestly.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by DJ Rick

Y'know I'm not much for talkin' shit, but....

If you are obsessed with why Modest Mouse sucks now, you are missing what's happening today. If you are still impressed with what Modest Mouse is doing and think that this decade is overall shitty, you are perhaps even more guilty of missing out on this halcyon age. Hint: Pitchfork and other pay-to-play and so-called-alt/indie-yet-all-about-idol-worship and mainstream media barely scratch the surface of it. Just look at the best of 09 so far thread......everyone's ravving about Wavves. That band probably won't even be a footnote in 15 years when historians talk about how special the late 00's were. I recognize Wavves' penchant for hookiness, but the lyrics are so insipid and apathetic, it makes me embarrassed on behalf of the youth of America. Woohoo...Boredom goth!

You keep mentioning "halcyon age" but halcyon is how you make it.

It sounds like you care more about what history will record than what a person enjoys now.

[SYRFox]

Because a band will not be remembered in 15 years does not mean we cannot enjoy it right now. Of course Wavves' album isn't the best album made this year (there's a whole load of albums that totally blew me away), but it's still really a fun record. And, yeah, we are living a great era for music.
That said, I don't know what I'm doing in here since I don't really care about Modest Mouse.