Songs from Black Mountain Turned 10, Your thoughts in retrospect? Options

[Unsheathed]

Quite a few months back Songs from Black Mountain turned 10 years old.

With a decade of retrospection, what are your thoughts on Live's last effort with the original lineup?

This post has been edited by Unsheathed: Oct 17 2016, 1:28 pm

[Hoodstock]

Quite a few months back Songs from Black Mountain turned 10 years old.

With a decade of retrospection, what are your thoughts on Live's last effort with the original lineup?

10 years? I haven't been able to force myself to listen to it from start to finish 10 times.

[Unsheathed]

10 years? I haven't been able to force myself to listen to it from start to finish 10 times.

I've only listened to it start to finish a few times myself. I listened to it the most when the studio tracks were leaked on the internet before release.

I sincerely think it's one of the worst pieces of art I've ever subjected myself to. But everything is subjective, and there are people out there that liked it/still like it. If you enjoy it, more power to you.

[Voodoo Lady]

I liked one track... "Mystery."
The rest of the songs on that album are garbage, IMO. But if one is a fan of Ed's solo stuff, then I'm sure they love that album, because those songs are comparable.

But I don't know how a LIVE fan can honestly compare anything on that album to the likes of "Stage" or "Heropsychodreamer" and not be like, "What the hell happened?!"

But "Mystery" is so darn catchy.

[mfitz804]

Can't believe it's 10 years...

I don't mind it at all. If you are concerned about how much a band "rocks", then it's not for you. Personally, I don't need to hear the same exact thing album after album, I am ok with some change. SFBM, on the other hand, was a sharp left hand turn off a cliff in terms of directional changes.

I listen to my music on shuffle most of the time, so SFBM is in there. If I were going to pull out a Live CD to listen to, I'd probably never pull out SFBM. Hard to venture beyond the first three in that instance.

[Fool_By_The_River]

I like SFBM, it's an album that sounds nothing like the previous albums. Alot of people hate it because of the poppy/christian sound. I understand why alot of folks hate it, i mean it is just not what LIVE is known for. I have never listened to a band who's albums are so different each time, LIVE is that band. The creativity or maybe it's multiple personality disorder (ha) is definitely what you get with this band and it's VERY RARE.

This post has been edited by Fool_By_The_River: Oct 21 2016, 5:06 am

[Lakini's Juice]

I was especially enamoured with Night of Nights, Get Ready and Show. That didn't change, for me still the strongest tracks on the album.
Some songs are better played live, like Mystery, Wings and Sofia.
The rest is still a huge 'meh' for me.

The cover i still find contrived, my opinion on that never changed. The artwork on TC, SS and TDTH was really strong and striking. They especially missed the mark with this one.

The fact they really didn't appear for PR outings together anymore (BOP and onwards) also was weird at the time. It was just Ed, doing acoustic appearances plus interviews.

Overall didn't really listen to it that much since its release. Went to their gigs and really enjoyed that, but that was about it.

Still rank it higher than The Turn, Alive and TGF.
Not my favourite album, but it has its moments.

[Fool_By_The_River]

Still rank it higher than The Turn, Alive and TGF.

Yeah, i don't get the love for the TGF album, i really like "Crying Time" and "Rest of You" but the rest are really not that good, average at best. The Turn is decent, i really like "Natural Born Killers" from that album.

[mattyeagles]

Yeah, i don't get the love for the TGF album, i really like "Crying Time" and "Rest of You" but the rest are really not that good, average at best. The Turn is decent, i really like "Natural Born Killers" from that album.

Ed's last solo album was better than SFBM

[Unsheathed]

Yeah, i don't get the love for the TGF album, i really like "Crying Time" and "Rest of You" but the rest are really not that good, average at best. The Turn is decent, i really like "Natural Born Killers" from that album.

I did not like it at all at first. But it has slowly grown on me over the years. I listen to it in the gym sometimes, or whenever I'm pissed off. I've grown to enjoy most of the tracks off of that album.

I've always enjoyed The Turn. It's not Live...but it sorta is...I don't really care...I'm glad they put their feelings into music and I really enjoy the music.

Ed's last solo album was better than SFBM

I'll have to listen to it again. I found Grace and The Garden to be unlistenable.

[Hoodstock]

Ed's last solo album was better than SFBM

The last solo album is the worst of them all. Need to lay off the Crack bro!

[Bremang]

The last solo album is the worst of them all. Need to lay off the Crack bro!

Hoodie happens to be the only one who believes that Alive was better than Flood and the Mercy

This post has been edited by Bremang: Oct 21 2016, 9:58 pm

[Liveman94]

In support of Hood the production was better on Alive than Tfatm - the band sound suited Ex. I think some of the songs were stronger on Tfatm though. Both not great.

I'll go ahead with an SFBM comment though; you are not alone is atrocious and always will be.
Home is lyrically anaemic and the guitar and vocals sound like grated testicles.
All I need is cheesy and the bridge is ok but overall not a good song lyrically or musically.
Sofia was a production misfire Ed's vocals were not good enough to make so prominent on what should have been a bluesy band jam of a song.
Love shines was ruined by the over long parentheses sub title and added "shine shines shines" triple Ed backing vocals - it was ok live.
Show lyrically was terrible and again neutered rock wise in production.

There's some good. The River catchy and light. Get ready and where do we go from here are the albums best IMHO - most fully formed ideas. Wings is cool but overproduced and night of nights is good but lacked chorus distortion punch and again was messy in production. Good idea though.

Overall I like the album although it disappoints me as a whole there's a few songs that make me feel like it had hope as an album if it'd been taken seriously by all of them and not just been a vehicle for eds "female bent" songs and a lazy producers unwieldy and epileptic hacks at song craft.

[aLIVEinNORWAY]

I think half the songs are good Live pop songs, But of course not Throwing Copper good....

[sellingthdrama]

I like it better now than I did ten years ago. I expected a lot more ten years ago, so in retrospect, its rating has gone up. But my grade on it is a D+. Maybe ten years ago it was an F+.

SFBM has some catchy moments and tunes - The River is okay, Mystery is okay, Show has its moments. But it's not lyrical poetry. It's not "Live"; it doesn't have the other elements. So still, it's kind of flat.

I thought TFATM was a noticeable step up from Alive. I actually bought a few songs from TFATM. They had some of of the magic I used to remember. I bought Take Me Back and Holy Water Tears.