If Beck can do it. . .

[cusuman]

Whether you like Beck or not, any person interested in music has got to repsect the guy. If he's in a mood, he can write 12 songs to suit that mood. And they'll be good. They'll even be exemplary for the genre he's feeling. I feel indie/folksy, I write One Foor in the Grave. I feel like a hipster, I write Odelay. I feel melancholy, I write Sea Change. I feel zany, I write Sex Laws.

I feel that with this Stand Up, DMB have kind of done the same thing. Many of their past songs had a dance feel to them (#36, One Sweet World, Recently, Stay) and with this album, each song seems to capitalize on that particular quality. They take the dance thing as far as they can. Even "Out of My Hands" has a slow dance sort of feel (not that I'd partake).

Like many others on these boards, I miss the lyricism of Dreaming Tree or Spoon. Like many others on these boards, I miss the complexity of Lie in Our Graves or Warehouse. Like many others on these boards, I miss the rage of Rhyme & Reason or Halloween.

But, I respect them so much more for putting all that on hold to explore a quality in their music that was maybe only a footnote before.

That's my take.

[goochylittlepig]

Whether you like Beck or not, any person interested in music has got to repsect the guy. If he's in a mood, he can write 12 songs to suit that mood. And they'll be good. They'll even be exemplary for the genre he's feeling. I feel indie/folksy, I write One Foor in the Grave. I feel like a hipster, I write Odelay. I feel melancholy, I write Sea Change. I feel zany, I write Sex Laws.

I feel that with this Stand Up, DMB have kind of done the same thing. Many of their past songs had a dance feel to them (#36, One Sweet World, Recently, Stay) and with this album, each song seems to capitalize on that particular quality. They take the dance thing as far as they can. Even "Out of My Hands" has a slow dance sort of feel (not that I'd partake).

Like many others on these boards, I miss the lyricism of Dreaming Tree or Spoon. Like many others on these boards, I miss the complexity of Lie in Our Graves or Warehouse. Like many others on these boards, I miss the rage of Rhyme & Reason or Halloween.

But, I respect them so much more for putting all that on hold to explore a quality in their music that was maybe only a footnote before.

That's my take.
i saw the second half of beck's performance on leno last night or the night before, and i was like..wow, and people think DMB's new album sucks. i thought beck was respectable. maybe im not being fair, cuz i heard half of one song, but i was like, wtf was that shit? and i love stand up...

[JonDMB]

i saw the second half of beck's performance on leno last night or the night before, and i was like..wow, and people think DMB's new album sucks. i thought beck was respectable. maybe im not being fair, cuz i heard half of one song, but i was like, wtf was that shit? and i love stand up...
I think Beck's CD Guero is about on par with DMB's in more ways than one. In one respect they are both decent, but not great albums. On the other hand, Guero is to Beck as Stand Up is to DMB in that Guero isn't at the same level as Beck's older stuff, and Stand Up isn't on the same level as DMB's older stuff.

[IlliniDave]

I understand the comparison here but I think Beck has a little more to live up to than DMB. I mean Beck from the beginning was a media darling and he has always been reinventing the wheel so to speak (most of his music is way ahead of it's time), and in the times where he doesn't it shows a little bit more. So I think it's a little bit different because Beck has become so avant-garde that the he's managed to surprise people by simply being Beck, meaning there isn't anything too surprising about his latest album. That doesn't make it a bad album by any means, but it's not incredibly experimental. DMB's album on the other hand, I feel, is a revolutionary if in no other way but by the way the band approached the album. What comes out of it on to cd is, while familiar, a lot different from what I think many of us were used to or expecting. Whether or not Guero or Stand Up is on par with either artist's array of past albums is always going to be up for debate, but I think there's a big difference between the reaction of the two latest releases.

[MonkeyDigsDMB]

Beck is an artist. He doesn't give a shit what his fans want or what people think of his music. He does something new with nearly every release. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not. More often than not, it's at least interesting.

DMB are also artists. They have created a new album by experimenting with a wide range of new sounds and emotional territory they have not yet explored. They could easily sit back and cater to their fans, wallowing in mediocrity, pumping out a dozen "live for the moment/seize the day" songs. But they didn't. Some people will like it, some people won't. But no matter what you think, DMB has integrity and are doing what THEY want to do so that THEY can grow as artists. They are creating new sounds and styles no one has heard before. This is exactly how they started- taking sounds you'd never heard before nor would ever dream of putting together and making something so unbelievably organic. So in my opinion, this album is THE MOST "old school" of all because they're doing just what they did in the beginning in a very new and exciting way.

-Monkey
:monkey

[nonewdirections]

I'm going to start creating threads like "If Interpol ..." "If Radiohead ..." "If Phish ..." "If the Bee Gees ..." "If Antonio Vivaldi ..." pretty soon, since it seems that almost any artist can be related to DMB.