Dusting off The Turn Options

[kingparamecium]

Since I know many don't care for The Turn or acknowledge it as a Live album, I am not challenging anyone's opinion or taste nor trying to convert anyone. Obviously you're entitled to express your opinions, this isn't a "The Turn" Safe Space.

With that out of the way, this is the perfect time of year for me to listen to The Turn. I'm heavily influenced by memories of an album's original release, where I was in life, the drive to and from buying the CD, etc. So since I got it in October shortly after release, I'm prone to resonate with it in such a way, and my perceptions of the music are eligible for "season" bias,

but man, listening to it in Autumn is a whole different thing. I recall blaring Siren's Call driving on chilly evenings through rust-colored leaves, Don't Run to Wait playing while I cleaned out the garage in the afternoon to make room for Trick or Treat "tailgating" of hot chili and cold beer.

This morning I woke up and sunny and cold, and I went out back and could hear Natural Born Killers and Rodgerton playing in my head, remembering that peaceful but burned out feeling of November 1st, only slightly bummed and hung over that Halloween is over, but welcoming of respite.

So I had to go in and dust off The Turn.

Does anyone else have any personal associations/memories/experiences with the album that cause you to revisit it?

[Bob]

I've been pretty vocal on here that, to me, The Turn is Live's best album since TDTH. I adore almost every song on it, except the last one, 'Till You Came Around. I cut that one off the tracklist because it just doesn't fit the flow for me, but every other song for me is fantastic. Whenever I want to listen to Live, it's the first album I put on. I think that's because it's the "no BS Live" in recent times. Every time I listen to Ed now I instantly feel band drama, but not so with The Turn, so that's my go-to Live album. That's probably my best memory of this album. Shinn was supposed to be a fresh start for Live with no drama, and I was all in.

It was released on 10/28/14, so it's 7 years old now. Too bad Live won't give it the time of day.

[kingparamecium]

I've been pretty vocal on here that, to me, The Turn is Live's best album since TDTH. I adore almost every song on it, except the last one, 'Till You Came Around. I cut that one off the tracklist because it just doesn't fit the flow for me, but every other song for me is fantastic. Whenever I want to listen to Live, it's the first album I put on. I think that's because it's the "no BS Live" in recent times. Every time I listen to Ed now I instantly feel band drama, but not so with The Turn, so that's my go-to Live album. That's probably my best memory of this album. Shinn was supposed to be a fresh start for Live with no drama, and I was all in.

It was released on 10/28/14, so it's 7 years old now. Too bad Live won't give it the time of day.

I agree about the TDTH thing. I actually do like Live's worse albums, and even Ed's solo work, hell- I'll admit even as disappointed as I am about the band's "reunion" trajectory, I even like Local 717. The cheesiness and hot-adult-contemporary elements of the aforementioned works never really put me off because I listen to some really fey and corny music. What put me off the most about the latter half of the band's output was that it just didn't sound like very good studio and post-recording work. I'm not a technical genius, don't truly know the ins and outs of mastering and mixing, but something just sounds ...plasticky. Like I'm listening to it on earbuds even if it's on a good sound system.

Anyway, The Turn doesn't sound that way to me. Even if I didn't like the lyrics or vocals, the instruments sound properly handled and layered. I felt that way about TGF as well, so judging from Local 717, maybe it's not "all Ed's fault" or "all CCPs' fault", maybe they just really need Jerry Harrison.