I'd say there are hundreds of albums where I wouldn't want to lose a single track.

Also, the blue album isn't one of them.

As far as a favourite MM album goes, I would have to say M&A

Best Modest Mouse album?

Isn't this kind of an oxymoron?

quote:

Originally posted by ProfAmaretto:
Isn't this kind of an oxymoron?

No, but it's almost a tautology

Lonesome Crowded West. Oddly, also the only MM album my sister-in-law hates. Strange how that is. But seriously, it's really the only album that I can honestly say I wouldn't cut tracks from. Plus, Bankrupt On Selling makes me all weepy n' stuff. Shut up.

quote:

But seriously, it's really the only album that I can honestly say I wouldn't cut tracks from.

I'd cut lounge (closing time), long distance drunk, and shit luck.

quote:

Originally posted by youandwhosearmy:

quote:

But seriously, it's really the only album that I can honestly say I wouldn't cut tracks from.

I'd cut lounge (closing time), long distance drunk, and shit luck.

Agreed.

But I would keep Lounge and chop Trucker's Atlas in half. Then it would be hard to beat.

As for best MM album, it's a toss-up. Both LCW and M&A are real gems, and depending on the mood I'm in, both can be severely affecting.

quote:

Originally posted by bushn:

As for best MM album, it's a toss-up. Both LCW and M&A are real gems, and depending on the mood I'm in, both can be severely affecting.

I think this is where I'm at. I really like Modest Mouse, but there are really long periods of time where they just don't interest me at all. I get bored or frustrated with them when I hear them. and then all of the sudden I wake up with something like "Out of Gas/Out of Road" or "I wanna live in a city with no friends or family" and I get the craving again. I have to listen. And I love them for like a week and then they disapear for a long time.

I have to be in the mood, but it isn't like a daily mood, it's like a life mood. Everything has to be working together to make me want it.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadrach:

I have to be in the mood, but it isn't like a daily mood, it's like a life mood. Everything has to be working together to make me want it.

I strongly agree. The difference is that I have spent years at a stretch in that mood.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadrach:

quote:

Originally posted by bushn:

As for best MM album, it's a toss-up. Both LCW and M&A are real gems, and depending on the mood I'm in, both can be severely affecting.

I think this is where I'm at. I really like Modest Mouse, but there are really long periods of time where they just don't interest me at all. I get bored or frustrated with them when I hear them. and then all of the sudden I wake up with something like "Out of Gas/Out of Road" or "I wanna live in a city with no friends or family" and I get the craving again. I have to listen. And I love them for like a week and then they disapear for a long time.

I have to be in the mood, but it isn't like a daily mood, it's like a life mood. Everything has to be working together to make me want it.

I think i totally agree with your view of Modest Mouse. I have a very love/hate relationship with them; sometimes i can't listen to them without getting irritated, sometimes i can't listen to anything but them. I don't know if that's a compliment to their music, but i suspect that it is.

That said, Moon & Antarctica is usually the album i go to first when i've swung out of my Mouse-hating funk.

And We Were Dead i find incredibly interesting, definitely better than Good News, or at least more consistent. I'm surprised no one has picked that one just to seem unique or fresh. It's up there on their discography... perhaps their 3rd best album all-around?

While I enjoy just about all of Modest Mouse's albums, it really comes down to LCW and M&A.

The Moon and Antarctica is moodier and more melancholy, and in some ways more mature.

But Lonesome Crowded West is just so rockin', I mean, "Teeth Like God's Shoeshine," "Trucker's Atlas" and "Cowboy Dan" are just immense, plus "Doin' The Cockroach" and "Convenient Parking" are hard to beat.

I think I'm going with Lonesome Crowded West by a narrow margin.

This is actually a pretty hard question. Lonesome Crowded West has some duds, in my opinion, but the tracks that are good are really good. "Teeth Like God's Shoeshine" and "Cowboy Dan" are two of the most intense songs I've ever heard. Plus I think the sound of Lonesome Crowded West sets itself apart from other bands more then anything else Modest Mouse has released. I can't think of a band that has really captured the essence of that album. However, The Moon and Antarctica is a much more consistent work on the whole, and certainly attains that "album" feel.

But...I'm going with Lonesome Crowded West just because if I wanted to hear some Modest Mouse right now that's what I'd reach for.

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

Cuneyt81 and sans_success nailed it, but I'd like to hear some opinions on their other albums. Even a casual Modest Mouse fan shouldn't stop at LCW and M&A.

I would pick Building Nothing Out of Something as #3, although I don't give the more modern MM albums enough attention. I think it has LCW's feel but without the cohesiveness (I think it's a compilation, so that makes sense). So, echoing CleverName84, can we decide on a bronze medal?

I think Goodnews For People Who Love Bad News is a very good "album" and also contains a lot of Modest Mouse's signature style. It's more polished than I would have liked, but it has a good flow and some really awesome tracks. I love how often it makes the band seem like a bunch of backwater yokels that would kill you if there weren't other people around. It's very sinister.

Lonesome Crowded West makes me feel like my mom left me in the car while she went shopping and I stumbled upon a radio station I'm not supposed to be listening to. It's amazing and intrigueing, but almost in a morbid or guilty way. And the songs don't seem to combine into an album. They seem to just run on forever. I don't feel like we start at the begining and then travel through to the end. The album's begining and end are as arbitrary as everything inbetween. The result is that I come away feeling like I peeked into something much larger. Whether that's good or bad changes.

I kind of agree with what a few others have said. Moon & Antarctica is the best whole cohesive album. But even it to me is too long and has too many slow moments. But it does hold together nicely as an album. Lonesome Crowded West however has far more amazing songs. When I want to listen to Modest Mouse, I put on "Heart Cooks Brain", "Trailer Trash", "Polar Oppposites", etc. Those are the songs that define Modest Mouse to me and what makes them special.

After LCW and M&A which everyone seem to regard as favourites, I would put We Were Dead... in close third place. It's really quite a good album.

Or, Ugly Casanova - Sharpen Your Teeth, if that's allowed. Very underrated, that one.