Album Analysis III, Mental Jewelry Options

[Hoodstock]

The Idea - Analyze the album (in this case Mental Jewelry) song by song, stating whatever you want or whatever comes to mind about each song. Go into as much or as little detail as you want and then summarize your overall thoughts on the album at the end. Just speak your mind openly.

You can copy and paste the following to make it easy if you want:


1) Pain Lies On The Riverside

2) Operation Spirit

3) The Beauty Of Gray

4) Brothers Unaware

5) Tired Of "Me"

6) Mirror Song

7) Waterboy

8) Take My Anthem

9) You Are The World

10) Good Pain

11) Mother Earth Is A Vicious Crowd

12) 10,000 Years (Peace Is Now)

[Hoodstock]

1) Pain Lies On The Riverside - Good song, but placed wrong on the album. Has great energy throughout but I never thought it was as great as people hyped it up to be. Regardless, solid start to the album.

2) Operation Spirit - This should have been the opening song to this album. The album recording is decent, but the version on MTV Unplugged made this a great song and the best song on this album.

3) The Beauty Of Gray- I go back and forth on this song all of the time. More times than not I dislike it, but every once in a while I catch the vibe of it and it sounds great. The constant musical pauses takes lots of coordination but that's what drives me nuts with this song. At times, especially the refrain, this song really gets going and has greatness written all over it.

4) Brothers Unaware- The lyrics are bad and the song doesn't really have a great beat. One of the bad songs on this album.

5) Tired Of "Me"- A second song in a row that this album could have done with out. The music never seems to flow and the lyrics are bad. "Tired of the ..., Tired of the ..., Tired of the ..., Tired of this song"

6) Mirror Song- Great song with a great sound and a great message. Nice pace and nice sound. If you haven't heard it in a while give it another listen.

7) Waterboy- This song should have been on "The Waterboy" soundtrack. It wasn't because it's not that good. I appreciate the sound Live was trying to harvest with the lyrics and sound but they just didn't pull it off.

8) Take My Anthem- Nice song about conflict. (Live should have quit here with the war songs because the rest of their efforts on the topic are no where as good).

9) You Are The World- Everything comes together with this song. Simply a great sound.

10) Good Pain - This is from Death Of A Dictionary. It has a good beat but they lyrics tend to bring it down. It could have been just left on DOAD as the second best song on that album. I would have loved to see Savior For A Day rerecorded and placed instead.

11) Mother Earth Is A Vicious Crowd- On Mental Jewelry this is the best song. (See Operation Spirit). Great rhythm and sound to it. Love the lyrics.

12) 10,000 Years (Peace Is Now) - Nice ending to a good first album.

Conclusion:
This album was good in it's day and it's obviously Live's early work. The recording quality of the album is pretty low. Some of the songs and lyrics are really bad while others completely shine. The inconsistency of the album really shows Live's youth.

"Operation Spirit" and "Mother Earth Is A Vicious Crowd" are two gems of the Live arsenal. One of the best parts about this album was hearing the songs performed in other places such as MTV Unplugged. Songs that are alright on the album sound awesome off of it. I would love to hear some of these songs rerecorded now that Live has more exprience.

This post has been edited by Hoodstock: Nov 25 2007, 9:43 pm