Every year, there are a few albums that, when listened to on a lonely, rainy day, can trigger serious-ass self-reflection/nostalgia/general emotional openness. Maybe you cry yourself to sleep to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, or listen to Funeral whenever you need something soothingly depressing, maybe Static X makes you bawl like a baby every time, whatever.

The question is: what are the most emotional albums of the year so far?

My picks:

01. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette

The band name pretty much gives this choice away. "New Years Kiss" and "Bobby Malone Moves Home" get me all misty.

02. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time

I also find The Shins oddly sad, if that illuminates anything.

03. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Especially the title-tracks.

04. Liars - Drum's Not Dead

For personal reasons, this album makes me go all wimpy.

05. The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely

Yeah, I don't really love this album, but I can't deny how sad it is.

I dunno, if I were to do this, it'd be the same as my regular list pretty much. 'Cause that's just how I roll, yo.

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The question is: what are the most emotional albums of the year so far?

My picks:

01. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette

The band name pretty much gives this choice away. "New Years Kiss" and "Bobby Malone Moves Home" get me all misty.

02. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time

I also find The Shins oddly sad, if that illuminates anything.

03. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Especially the title-tracks.

04. Liars - Drum's Not Dead

For personal reasons, this album makes me go all wimpy.

05. The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely

Yeah, I don't really love this album, but I can't deny how sad it is.

Sorry, you've got some nice choices there, but as far as 2006 goes, the discussion begins and ends with Rosanne Cash's Black Cadillac...the only other album to even momentarily reach the level of emotion that permeates Black Cadillac is Alejandro Escovedo's The Boxing Mirror, particularly in Evita's Lullabye.

No offense, but the the artists you suggest are pretending their feelings compared to the authenticity on the two titles I've mentioned above.

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The question is: what are the most emotional albums of the year so far?

The real question is: why is "emotional" shorthand for "sad?"

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No offense, but the the artists you suggest are pretending their feelings compared to the authenticity on the two titles I've mentioned above.

Hmm, now this will lead to constructive debate. Nothing like a lively discussion over whose emotions are more authentic.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bryan_K,

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Hmm, now this will lead to constructive debate. Nothing like a lively discussion over whose emotions are more authentic.

Actually, there is a legitimate debate here, one that's gone on for ages in the arts...Cash and Escovedo are signing about specifically lived events in their own lives...Decemberists et al are not...

Doesn't mean that genuine emotion isn't surfacin g in the works nathanielkt mentions, nor that those works aren't geniunely moving, but there is a level of emotional transference in those works that doesn't exist in Black Cadillac and The Boxing Mirror, hence a justification in deeming those works less emotionally authentic.

I think a better title for this thread is "Saddest Sad Bastard Music of 2006".

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Actually, there is a legitimate debate here, one that's gone on for ages in the arts...Cash and Escovedo are signing about specifically lived events in their own lives...Decemberists et al are not...

Let me ask you a question, Illiniq. Can you really be absolutely comfortable making the generalization that Cash and Escovedo are always singing from personal experience while Darnielle (for example) solely works through whimsey or imagination? (Nice try at reducing nathaniel's list to the most obviously whimsical band it contained, though.) If not, who are you to confirm or deny their sincerity? Sometimes it's clearer than others when a writer has his tongue in his cheek, but we seldom have access to detailed backstories for works of art, and the times they matter at all are even rarer. If "Starry Night" were unattributed today, would it cease to be an "authentic" painting, because its creator may or may not have known the psychological instability it clearly exhibits? If an idea or emotion is beyond an artist's grasp, the artifact will betray that naievete.

More to the point, though, assuming Darnielle and Moloy never wrote a word that was literally "true," documenting personal experience doesn't give you a pass to some plane of emotional honesty that outsiders can't claim. If it did, no writer in the canon could treat death "authentically;" none has ever lived to tell the tale, so to speak. Nabokov didn't know the *feeling* of being a sexually exploited schoolgirl, nor had Shakespeare been betrayed by a child before he wrote Lear. But denying the *emotional* authenticity of these texts, to me, is rigid to the point of farce. (Is 50's semi-autobiographical Get Rich or Die Tryin' really more authentic than both?) "Emotional authenticity" is connection, conviction, empathy--not necessarily experience.

In any case, my earlier sarcasm shouldn't be taken to mean there's no room for discussion here (that should be obvious at this point ), but when you start dropping words like "inauthentic" in such a superior tone, especially on a message board, things are bound to turn ugly. You can issue the caveat that less "authentic" works may still be perfectly moving all you like, but the term is not value neutral. Nobody hears someone else take a shot at their favored artists' credibility and hears an invitation to civil discussion; it's a way of disparaging certain art and elevating the creators you think to be superior. It's a power-grab, really.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bryan_K,

quote:

Originally posted by Bryan_K:

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The question is: what are the most emotional albums of the year so far?

The real question is: why is "emotional" shorthand for "sad?"

It doesn't have to be. One of the most 'emotional' records that's not sad that comes to my mind is Richard Ashcroft's first solo record, which is chock-a-block full of emotional love songs dedicated to Richard's wife and kid. Not a sad collection, but palpably emotional. But I think people equate emotional with sad because there are a lot more sad bastard records that happy SOB records. Songwriters are a notoriously dysfunctional lot, aren't they?

I think Bryan makes a nice point. I can't say anything about the Decemberists, in reference to their emotional connection to the songs, but I don't think telling the story from your personal perspective makes the songs more authentic than telling them from the perspective of a 16th century sea captain. If the underlying story is about loneliness, I'm not sure it makes it less 'authentic' to put the message into characters, even if you've never been a 16th century sea captain. Sufjan Stevens seems to like to play fiction games (has he really visited all of the cities he sings about in Illinois?), and not many people are trying to call the meanings of his songs inauthentic. I can see why the Decemberists raise people's ire, though. I like them, but the sheer audacity of the songwriting can be a little pretentious.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: philosopherEric,

The most probably saddest record I know is "Nachtmahr" by "Janus", a mostly unknown german band (If you like to listen, there are some downloads at www.knochenhaus.de, aslo a Trailer of Nachtmahr). Yet it's much more easy for me to reproduce german lyrics and to understand what they try to impart. So there would be a lot of german records I could mention, but I think it would end up in some kind of a monolog.
So... this year I was very fascinated by "Ed Harcourt's" new record called "The beautiful lie", most of all the track "Rain on the pretty ones".
Further "Progress Reform" by "ILikeTrains" is a really great cd.

The one that I invested myself the most in emotionally is probably the Thermals new one, The Body, the Blood, the Machine - cause, as a Christian, it really gets the frustration I feel with where the religion's ending up. They invest enough talent and passion in their album, and it just gets me every time.

Get Lonely - "Moon Over Goldsboro" - some of the best lyrics of the year.

And Modern Times - just cause hearing Dylan still sounding that good is a beautiful thing.

And then tracks 9 and 10 on Six Demon Bag by Man Man are really good - you've got the bluesy-stomp and then the soulful goodbye (or whatever - I'm talking about "Van Helsing Boombox")

I'm trying to think of anything else...

Fading Trails - Magnolia Electric Co. That album is fantastic - "two black eyes to hide my secrets in..." that line gets me. That and most of the lyrics to "Steady Now," and that part in "Montgomery" when he says "Now let the twilight show the girls the town..." I think that might be my pick for most emotional disc of the year.

Gulag Orkestar is good, too. It's one of those epic-sounding things where, even though half the time he's just making sounds, you get the feeling there's something to be sad about.

"All Hands & the Cook" by the Walkmen. Love that song - really, just the drums and the barely-there guitar playing....it's one of the songs on that album that's just mixed perfectly.

"E14" - off the Vapnet album, Jag Vet Hur Man Vantar, is really good, too. It's in, I believe Swedish - but I'm not 100% on that.

"Through the Window Pane" by Guillemots - that one's okay, after a couple of listens it gets a little cheesy, but the guy has a great voice and "Trains to Brazil" is fantastic.

"The Crane Wife" is good - "When the War Came" is probably my favorite. I didn't get as worked-up over this one. It's one of my fave albums of the year - but songs like "The Perfect Crime #2." and "Summersong" don't....actually, yeah, "Summersong" is the chronic. Add that to my list of emotional-involvement albums.

What's strange is that my fave album of the year - Return to Cookie Mountain - isn't one of those I really invest myself in. It's one of those discs that's just unassailable on virtually every level. It's done so right, and so well...I respect it more than I enjoy it maybe? It's growing on me still - after a few months of listening to a bastardized leak and the actually UK copy, even.

So This Is Goodbye is really good, and Everything All the Time is too. Both of these discs seem to be explicitly demanding emotional involvement, but they don't get it from me as much as some of the ones I've listed above. They're both really good, though - don't think for a second they're not. The Junior Boys one made my top five, I believe.

On - and "The Letting Go" by Bonnie "Prince" Billy is really good, too. I love "The Seedling" like crazy - it's one of his best songs in, like, ever.

Yeah - like anyone read all that. But hey - I'll probably read it over and over again until lunch.

Tov, Mazel.

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Originally posted by Grunge Muffin:
And then tracks 9 and 10 on Six Demon Bag by Man Man are really good - you've got the bluesy-stomp and then the soulful goodbye (or whatever - I'm talking about "Van Helsing Boombox")

I've always felt like Man Man are at their best on these types of tracks. They still sound a little bit silly, but you can feel that Honus has a lot more emotion invested into these songs.

Picking a most emotional album is kind of difficult for me because I don't typically listen to a lot of music that would necessarily be catagorized as that. I will say that I think "Shiola" and "Brother" by Murder by Death probably give me goosebumps every time I hear them, which puts them at the top of my track list for emotional songs of '06.

Sigur Ros - Takk

Too easy... (although, anything by Sigur Ros wins on the emotion stakes)

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Originally posted by Grunge Muffin:
Gulag Orkestar is good, too. It's one of those epic-sounding things where, even though half the time he's just making sounds, you get the feeling there's something to be sad about.

"Mount Wroclai" makes me sad even though I have no idea what he's saying.

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"The Letting Go" by Bonnie "Prince" Billy is really good, too. I love "The Seedling" like crazy - it's one of his best songs in, like, ever.

Are those from the new album? How is it?

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Originally posted by ericg75:
I think a better title for this thread is "Saddest Sad Bastard Music of 2006".

No joke, can a moderater change the thread name to this? Great title.

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Originally posted by nathanielkt:

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:
I think a better title for this thread is "Saddest Sad Bastard Music of 2006".

No joke, can a moderater change the thread name to this? Great title.

You can change it since you started the thread. I think you just edit your first post.

Also, did anyone here ever see Guy Maddin's film The Saddest Music in the World? Some of you might enjoy it

This message has been edited. Last edited by: EricG75,

Doesn't the Jack Black character in High Fidelity make a comment about Rob playing 'sad bastard music' after Rob gets dumped?

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Originally posted by philosopherEric:
Doesn't the Jack Black character in High Fidelity make a comment about Rob playing 'sad bastard music' after Rob gets dumped?

Yeah, that's where I stole that from. If I'm not mistaken, Belle & Sebastian was the "sad bastard music" in question in that scene.

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Sorry, you've got some nice choices there, but as far as 2006 goes, the discussion begins and ends with Rosanne Cash's Black Cadillac.

Thread over.

Are those from the new album? How is it?[/QUOTE]

It's really good - like, I like it a little better than Superwolf. It's something different too - he has a female vocalist basically duet-ing with him on every song. And, as far as I can tell from the few listens I've given it - I think this is his first full-length with no strange sex songs on it (i.e., mountain-f*cking)

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I've always felt like Man Man are at their best on these types of tracks. They still sound a little bit silly, but you can feel that Honus has a lot more emotion invested into these songs.

If you liked their more emotional tracks from six demon bag, you really need to hear 'gold teeth' from 'a man in a blue turban with a face.' To me, that song blows anything from SDB away.