1 - Lonesome Crowded West
2 - Good News For People who Love Bad News
3 - This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About
4 - The Moon And Antartica
5 - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
6 - Sad Sappy Sucker

haven't heard the other cds yet

and this is a long drive is an amazing cd. its very well written and its from the best years of modest mouse imo when issac was fresh with thoughts. NOT TO SAY that his later stuff was bad all of the cds are amazing.
and if we were including ugly casanova with this it would be number 3 that cd is seriously underrated. it brings new musical devices that modest mouse doesent generally have and does it really well!

Dollar, your list is pretty close to what mine would be. I would drop Good News..... down a couple spots but everything else would stay the same. Lonesome Crowded West was my introduction to them and will probably always be my favorite what with "Doin' the Cockroach," "Polar Opposites," and all those great venomous songs. I only recently purchased This is a Long Drive..... and I think you're right in that it is Brock's freshest and maybe most vital collection of songs. I'm listening to it now. Anyway, thanks for putting me in a Modest Mouse mood.

I would have to go wih Building Nothing Out of Something and "This is A Long Drive For Someone with Nothing to Think About" tied for first place. There's just something about entire feel of those two albums. Then probably, M&A and LCW.

Favorite Song Per Album
Building Nothing - Medication
This is a long Drive - Dramamine
M&A - The Stars are Projectors
LCW - Truckers Atlas

AGH I feel like I'm sitting in on a test where I see everyone getting the wrong answer, but I can't tell them otherwise.

Hint: It's The Moon & Antarctica by a mile

BContrat, you give us the answer (C) but it is clearly (D) Good News for People Who Love Bad News

you fail at scantrons

quote:

Originally posted by thegabriel4u:

Favorite Song Per Album
Building Nothing - Medication

What about Other People's Lives!!!

quote:

Originally posted by thegabriel4u:

LCW - Truckers Atlas

same, definitely a top 5 song on my list

quote:

Originally posted by Chamberk:
BContrat, you give us the answer (C) but it is clearly (D) Good News for People Who Love Bad News

you fail at scantrons

UGHHH I'm top of my class but everyone always second guesses my brilliance.

If you HAD to pick a wrong answer, B) Lonesome Crowded West would be more understandable.

(GNFPWLBN is still top 100 of the decade, oui?)

I love The Moon and Antarctica and Good News...i have to say its a tie for me

In my opinion the Lonesome Crowded West is the great and original rock music. It's their best.

I can accept practically any answer for #1 except for Good News or We Were Dead...!!

It doesn't even feel like listening to the same band. Post-Moon & Antarctica Modest Mouse sounds like a new Isaac Brock side project. Then, he has been the only constant besides Judy. Green is a much-missed asset to the band.

GNFPWHLBN and WWDBTSES are both good albums in their own right, but have an entirely different aesthetic that is by no means as emotionally affecting as their prior work: "Broke," "Night on the Sun," "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset," "Custom Concern," "Bankrupt on Selling," etc.

They might have more good work up their sleeves, but it just won't be the same. Something about Isaac Brock's gruff voice and profound/druggy lyrics just feels awkward when it's paired with their new super-clean production and Johnny Marr's jangly guitar.

Okay. I Googled "Best Modest Mouse Album" just to confirm what I already suspected: Most people on here discovered Modest Mouse POST M&A and therefore have a bent towards their more melodic, less quirky material.

As has been stated before, there really are no WRONG answers here (all of the choices are in the Indie-Untouchable Canon), but I'd argue that their earlier work (I voted for TIALDFSWNTTA) is most representative of 'why people like Modest Mouse instead of (band "x").'

By that, I mean that there are plenty of bands who can compose great songs (early DCFC et al), play with a great sense of melody (Shins et al), and inject snarky humor and quasi-philosophical musings with a slightly off-kilter voice (most of indiedom)... but it IS the abrasiveness, rhythmic complexity, unhinged histrionics, and cavalcade of bent / spiraling / twisting guitar lines that make Modest Mouse, well... Modest Mouse. That signature ~still~ marks the best of their songs today, but was all pervasive on their first few (legit) albums. "Tundra / Desert" "Breakthrough" "Beach Side Property" "Head South" "Exit Does Not Exist" "Talking $hit About a Pretty Sunset" "Edit the Sad Parts"...!?! These are among their best EVER and contain all of the elements that, IMO, keep Modest Mouse in a never-ending listening rotation.

1) This Is a Long Drive for Someone...
2) Lonesome Crowded West
3) Moon & Antarctica
4) Interstate 8
5) We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
6) Good News For People Who Love Bad News
7) Build Nothing Out of Something
8) Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks
9) The Fruit that Ate Itself
10) Sad Sappy Sucker*

*Strangely this is last, despite it being first and earlier in their discog... but it is generally half-assed and not fully-formed.

Just cannot get into Lonesome Crowded West, though Moon and Antarctica definitely has some good tunes. Once they got to Good News, though, they'd actually figured how to use drums, guitars, and vocals to make things called "songs" and did so consistently. So good for them.

I think I got a bad impression of who Modest Mouse were from their last album, which was the only one I've ever heard. Are Moon & Antarctica and these other albums head-and-shoulders above that album? I had no interest in listening to their music after I heard that album, but I'm starting to wonder if I should check out something more wholly representative of their talents.

crob - it's completely different, night and day. Personally I like their new stuff, but their old stuff is a little more slipshod and crazy, which appeals to a lot of people. I'd say check it out.

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:
I think I got a bad impression of who Modest Mouse were from their last album, which was the only one I've ever heard. Are Moon & Antarctica and these other albums head-and-shoulders above that album? I had no interest in listening to their music after I heard that album, but I'm starting to wonder if I should check out something more wholly representative of their talents.

Yeah, I think my advice to you would depend on wether or not you liked the last album. It sounds like you didn't. And you obviously weren't blown away by it, or you probably would have already checked out their back catalog.

Anyway. Modest Mouse has changed a lot over their career, similar to other great bands. But there has never been a clear moment of change. It has always been very gradual. I'm still in the process of figuring out your particular musical interests Crob, but I think you would be best served starting from their most recent album and working backwards sequentially until you can't handle it anymore. At least back to Moon And Antarctica. Keep going beyond this and you will find some great Man Man possessed by Spencer Krug rock jams. Some long freak out guitar rock and blow your mind trippy lyrics that are as uncouth as a cowboy. Maybe you are into that? Having some drunk guy laugh like a lunatic directly in your face in such a way that you think it's beautiful, genius, and you can't stop listening to it. That's classic Modest Mouse.

In direct response to your question though, yes, It's my opinion that their last album showed a significant dip in quality from what they had proven themselves capable of in the past. I'm not going to say it was a bad album, kindof hit and miss at times, but it was hated by many Modest Mouse fans that knew how much better it could have been.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadrach:

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:
I think I got a bad impression of who Modest Mouse were from their last album, which was the only one I've ever heard. Are Moon & Antarctica and these other albums head-and-shoulders above that album? I had no interest in listening to their music after I heard that album, but I'm starting to wonder if I should check out something more wholly representative of their talents.

Yeah, I think my advice to you would depend on wether or not you liked the last album. It sounds like you didn't. And you obviously weren't blown away by it, or you probably would have already checked out their back catalog.

Anyway. Modest Mouse has changed a lot over their career, similar to other great bands. But there has never been a clear moment of change. It has always been very gradual. I'm still in the process of figuring out your particular musical interests Crob, but I think you would be best served starting from their most recent album and working backwards sequentially until you can't handle it anymore. At least back to Moon And Antarctica. Keep going beyond this and you will find some great Man Man possessed by Spencer Krug rock jams. Some long freak out guitar rock and blow your mind trippy lyrics that are as uncouth as a cowboy. Maybe you are into that? Having some drunk guy laugh like a lunatic directly in your face in such a way that you think it's beautiful, genius, and you can't stop listening to it. That's classic Modest Mouse.

In direct response to your question though, yes, It's my opinion that their last album showed a significant dip in quality from what they had proven themselves capable of in the past. I'm not going to say it was a bad album, kindof hit and miss at times, but it was hated by many Modest Mouse fans that knew how much better it could have been.

Having a drunk guy laugh like a lunatic directly in my face in such a way that it's beautiful, genius, and addicting?

This sounds like a direct comparison could be made to Craig Finn and his lyrics in the Hold Steady (a great love of mine, as I'm sure you've all figured out). This gets me interested enough to check out these guys. Thanks Shad, and thanks Chamberk.

I guess either The Moon & Antarctica or Lonesome Crowded West, but even those start to bore me about half way through.

quote:

Originally posted by Chamberk:
Just cannot get into Lonesome Crowded West, though Moon and Antarctica definitely has some good tunes. Once they got to Good News, though, they'd actually figured how to use drums, guitars, and vocals to make things called "songs" and did so consistently. So good for them.

Hmmm...think you should widen your definition outside the narrow parameters of verse-chorus-verse pop music.
Just my opinion. Then again, they did that just fine in earlier work too, when they wanted ("Broke," "Gravity Rides Everything," "You're The Good Things," etc).

quote:

Originally posted by BContrat:

quote:

Originally posted by Chamberk:
Just cannot get into Lonesome Crowded West, though Moon and Antarctica definitely has some good tunes. Once they got to Good News, though, they'd actually figured how to use drums, guitars, and vocals to make things called "songs" and did so consistently. So good for them.

Hmmm...think you should widen your definition outside the narrow parameters of verse-chorus-verse pop music.
Just my opinion. Then again, they did that just fine in earlier work too, when they wanted ("Broke," "Gravity Rides Everything," "You're The Good Things," etc).

I listen to lots of stuff I just don't like Lonesome Crowded West because in my opinion it isn't good