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Well, I did, like yesterday, wake up on the wrong side of the wrong bed today (This is not my bed, not my roof, most definetively not my day), whenever that happens (all the time), I’m feeling provocative, so I’ll start a thread, not about the best MP album, but the worst, the most overrated album from the band.
My least controversial opinion is that It’s a Lovecult isn’t a good album. It has some good songs, if they weren’t performed by MP, some of the songs are too focused on the singer, and that’s not to Bent and Snahs benefit, they’d be great if sung by somebody else with a, well, fuller voice (hopefully they don’t know where I live). Best song: This Otherness, a “hidden” gem in the MP catalogue overall – great lyrics, and a good performance by singin’ B, to contratict myself. Worst song: Serpentine – I mean, what the hell were they thinking?
It shines through that this is the end of the “pop-era”, and I remember when I got it that I thought to myself that this has to stop – when a year or two later Geb left the band, I was certain that Motorpsycho was history, but luckily I was wrong. I like the album much better now than I did back then however.
Most overrated: … I’m gonna have to say Black Hole / White Canvas. I’ve never been more expectant than when I put it on for the first time, reading the critics, with all “Motorpscyho is back”, “best album since Timothys monster”, “a double cd”! whoa, the associations, the expectations running high, and then this…
The absence of Geb is howling through the speakers, the song material isn’t the best to begin with, but especially the lack of a good drummer is obvious, they might as well could have used a beatbox.
Best song: With Trixeene Through the Mirror, I Dream with Open Eyes – It leaved me with some hope, and the band partially redeems themselves with Lucid moments afterwards.
what do you guys think?
Hmm, difficult one. I don’t really think MP has overrated albums. They have got weaker albums, but everybody seems to agree on which are the weaker ones (Lobotimizer, Love Cult, Barracuda), although i must say i like both Barracuda and It’s A Love Cult, with brilliant moments. But, not their best in my opinion. I think the main problem with It’s A Love Cult is that it doesn’t sound like an album, more like a collection of songs. No good flow.
I totally disagree with you on BH/BC. Better than Trust Us? Or Angels and Demons at Play? I don’t know, but it is one hell of an album. Very good, i love it. Songs like Kill Devil Hills, The Ace, Hyena, Triggerman, wow. I don’t agree on the drumming too. It is a litle weird now and then, but it fits perfectly and i think Bent did an excellent job.
Well, as time has gone by, I’d agree that Lobotomizer isn’t exactly a brilliant album, but, seen in a historical perspective, I like it, it oozes with energy and enthusiasm, but it’s absolutely not on my most played list, that’s a fact.
Now that you mention it, Love Cult doesn’t have any flow, good point. Barracuda is one of my favorites, hehe – It’s maybe the best car-driving-album I know, and I remember it as a big relief when I got it, but it’s not very complex album.
Trust us is for me the best MP album ever, hehe.
I’d say that BH/BC sounds like a sort of re-debut for the band, it’s a step in the right direction, but it lacks completely the “tightness”, if you know what I mean, I’ve focused on the drumming, Geb brought it all together before, but when he’s gone, the band doesn’t sound as they’ve played together much before – it sounds like a studio band. In my opinion. And I couldn’t have done better myself either.
-stalemate
Most overrated, hmm… I’m tempted to say Trust Us to stir things up a little, but I wouldn’t really mean it. Do the Tussler albums count? Because if they do, I’d say the second one from 2004 was a little overrated back then. We know, in retrospect, that MP at the time was a band who had lost direction and needed to find themselves again. It’s pretty ironic then, that they would shake loose by making an album where they put a lot of effort into making almost every song sound as it was conceived and played by another specific band or artist. The first Tussler album wasn’t perfect, but that may just be the reason why it’s so much more charming and sounds like a heart child more than a brainchild as opposed to Tussler 2. (Oh well, someone surely pointed this out five years ago, but I’ve always been kinda slow.)
And yeah, much of Love Cult is quite dreadful, I can barely listen to that album anymore. I do think that the full version of Serpentine is the highlight by far, though. Nyah to you, stalemate.
I hardly count Lobotomizer in this discussion because it’s their debut album and because everything (playing, songwriting, production) had improved so greatly by the time of the next release that comparison feels almost unfair. So, choosing the worst album among the rest: It’s A Love Cult, blah.
I have to agree with everything said regarding It’s A Love Cult. Though it got to number one in my personal end-of-year-list of 2002, simply becuase I still think there are a couple of songs that redeem the album (Uberwagner, This Otherness, Serpentine and One More Deamon). I hardly listen to it anymore.
To me BH/BC is an underrated album. Yes, you can hear that Geb’s missing, but the overall quality of most of the songs is overwhelming: Kill Devil Hills, Triggerman, Hyena, The Ace, No Evil, Trixeene, Devil Dog, all classics IMHO. I still play this one regularly.
In some previous polls Phanerothyme was voted as the most popular of the three pop-era albums, but I hardly ever listen to this one. I think it’s their most overproduced album, even though it has Slow Phase-Out and B/S to partly redeem it.
Personally, to me Demon Box is their most overrated album. It’s by all means not a bad album, but it is nowhere near the grandiosity of the four albums that followed it.
Phew, it’s difficult to point out an overrated album from the most underrated band ever (un)known to mankind.
I can only think of some songs that I don’t rate that high like others do. “Vortex Surfer” for example. I’d prefer Taifun by an ocean. But the album itself is my 90ties Physical Graffitti. And that’s a good thing. Also productionwise the best sounding MP record to me. On a sidenote, live versions of “Hey Jane” don’t move me nowhere as much as on record.
I don’t think Love Cult is overrated, because I don’t remember anyone praising it as his favourite. “Serpentine” of course woooohooooo is fantastic, that vocal line, those odd bass slurps into the chorus and that harmony instrumental middle part. But count me in on the “Neverland” bashers. Yes I know it’s a fun song.
And there’s a live bootie version with an awesome guitar solo part.BHBC gets my lovin’. The energy and the groove, almost only fast songs. I never thought it could work like this, since I had no idea about Bent’s drumming. It goes to show what happens when bass and drums are conceived in the same brain, felt in the same blood. But there’s “Beyond the Flood”, that one creeps me. I always see some Slash dude on a sunset lit monument valley rock noodling away. It’s “Year Zero”‘s evil twin.
Geez I have to find an overrated MP album….. So I go for Angels and Demons then. There’s a bunch of classics like Starmelt, Source, Passionplays, H-Mac und der Hund. I’d say it’s the least consistent (is that an english word?) of them all. With “In the Family” as the low point.
Blissard I could nominate as well. After “Manmower”, the experience is kinda gone, the music just drags on for 2 more ditties. It stumbles home, worn out and drunk. Nice image though. But leaves me somewhat unfulfilled.
Demon Box shines due to a bunch of mastodons-dancing-on-a-volcano numbers. But yes, there’s some rough edges, stuff that could have used more time maybe? Experimentation by a starting unit with a vision. Or not, actually. But that’s its appeal and I can’t think of anything bad there. Songs usually not on my A-list like Sun Child strike me breathless when I hear them once again.
Cake’n’Thyme… I like them. But there’s just a couple of songs on each that give me the bumps. Stained Glass, 30/30, Phaseout, For Free, Fool, NLMout. Other songs lie in the spaces between nice, impressive and bland.
Timothy, of course, is the one. Always will be.
For me, it’s all of the pop-albums. “Cake” is the worst, followed by “Cult” and then “Phanerothyme”. “Lobotomizer” I never play, but then again I never play any Beatles-records before “Rubber Soul”.
AADAP a bad album? ‘In the family’ a bad song? If only for the unison-lines of guitar and mellotron, that one deserves to be on my ‘best’-list. Again, a matter of opinion. And I am biased, AADAP was the one I started with.
Greets,
Thomas
Wow. This is a tough one.
I’m having huge problems pinpointing a worst album, but I’ll go for 8 Soothing Songs, if you count that as a proper album.
As for overrated, I don’t know, the whole band is so vastly underrated that it’s almost impossible to pick. You can’t choose which kid you love less. I really have no idea.
OT:
I have no problems with the pop-era albums really. It’s just another style of the psycho and they do make some pretty crafty pop songs. If nothing else, they can be used to convert non-psychonauts, and then you just push them further into true Motorpsychedelic territory later. True, the vocals have never been their strongest side, but the melodies and arrangements make up for that, I think.
It’s all a matter of taste off course. I’ve just finished listening to Blissard and i am stunned, i’v listened it a zillion times and it still grabs my full attention.
Worst album(s): not so hard, I agree with Thomas here, all the albums from the pop era. There is the occassional good song (but it’s especially the live renditions, like Painting the night unreal) but overall, not my thing.
Most overrated: I’d have to say Trust Us. Don’t get me wrong, I like it. A lot. It just doesn’t seem to get to me in the way it seems to get to a lot of others. Too many mediocre songs. Could have been a single CD without losing anything.
worst: “love cult” for sure.
overrated: that´s hard to say but if any album at all than it must be “trust us”. not because it is a bad album (wihch it isn´t at all) but because it isn´t better than AADAP, blissard, TM, BHBC…and man people hyped that album so for me it´s overrated.
Nice topic, huh thats ironic in a way!
I guess one could say that this forum is usually very fanboyish in many ways, but that’s really just because Motorpsycho is such a special act and holds a very special place in all the hearts in here I guess.
I know for sure they have rocked my soul a thousand times, both on record and live since the early days.
It is with a feeling of guilt that I put the following text down on “paper”, who am I to put down the work of such musical genius, a band which has given me my biggest musical highs again and again.
I pick Angels and Daemons at Play, coming after 3 albums which I to this day consider the strongest hat-trick of any band in the nineties, it was a tough album in the first place. It has a lot of songs which I absolutely adore, but I still remember the bad taste in my mouth when I heard Running in the Family the first time, still think it’s the worst MP song ever. When listening to the album
I tend to skip that one quicker than u can say “!”. So I almost thought I had written what Supernaut wrote earlier about this one.
I also agree on the 2 last songs on Blissard, but up untill that point it is for me a PERFECT record, so it stays firmly in my favourite list.
I am also not too much in love with the poppier albums anymore, liked them alot back then though, and still think they are nice work. Also they are not so highly regarded in the first place by most.
I don’t think they have any overrated album, but I can try to give my rating of their main releases:
Maiden Voyage
Nah, the only good song was recorded better later (Blueberry)
Lobotomizer
I really don’t like this album much. I do love live versions of Hogwash (especially the Paradiso version) though.
Soothe/8 Soothing Songs
I listened to this album a lot in the 90’s. Lighthouse Girl & Step Inside is songs I frequently listen to.
Demon Box
The album I started with and its diversity is what makes it so great, from acoustic ballads to metal. One of the the albums I’ve listened to most. Modern Classic!!
Timothy’s Monster
This album got released only a few months after Demon Box made me the Psycho freak I still am. I’d made the playlist a bit different though. All of the pop songs on cd 1 and the epics on cd 2. The Wheel is probably my all time favorite song. Golden Core, Time to Skate are also “up there”… Modern Classic!!
The Tussler
Fun when it came out and damn hard to find! Still fun when I’m in the mood for some køntri. Great movie by the way!
Blissard
Hmmm. Motorpsycho with good (read: not lo-fi). I loved Sebadoh, Sonic Youth etc, but this one by MP? It was good enough, but I wasn’t thrilled. I put it away for quite some time and listened again; pretty decent, no more/no less. Then a break again, some months after the release; Wow!!! What a fucking great album! Still is!
Angels & Daemons
Starting with one ep a week (or was it month), then came the box… Sold the three eps and bought the box with the eps. Wow! What a monster! Epic! Ballads, rockers (hard and soft), then the absolutly perfect K9! They managed to make a new Demon Box, but perhaps better(!?). Imo the best production they’ve had too. Modern Classic!
Trust Us
They did it again! I’m lost for words! Modern classic!
Let Them Eat Cake
A new era. Lost some fans, gained even more new fans. I liked it a lot, but not their best.
Barracuda
It was nice to hear them rock again, but I lost interest in few weeks and put on Cake again.
Phanerothyme
I didn’t quite get this one. Liked some songs and got bored by other songs. Tok me some years to really appreciate this album. I guess it’s my least favorite of the “pop trilogy”, but I really think it’s a great album.
It’s a Love Cult
No matter what most psychonauts think, I love this album! Neither of the pop albums were instant hits in my hifi, but they’ve grown on me a lot and I still play them a lot! I had this stupid rule that Motorpsycho wasn’t really allowed to play these soft and really beautiful song, they should rock and be psychedelic, but why? Great music is great music!
In the Fishtank
Nice version of in the family, fun version of YoYo and Tristano is fantastic (after the toooo long intro). The rest is pretty boring in my book. Most overrated MP album? Maybe!?
Tussler 2
A nice comeback of the Tusslers, I played it a lot when it was fresh. Now I mostly browse quickly through it.
BH/BC
A great comeback from my heroes! They even rocked again! I played cd 1 over and over, never liked cd 2 (still don’t). The sound sucks though. Now I play it every now and then. Lots of good songs, but perhaps also the MP album with the most crappy songs (I really loathe Hyena!). @Supernaut: Slash on Beyond the Flood? Nah, more Dinosaur Jay imo!
Lucid
Wow! Long songs! I love long songs! Especially long MP songs! They’re back with a really great drummer! I still prefer Gebhard. Kenneth is more technical, but I think Geb had more groove! With Kenneth it’s a bit too much sometimes. LLM is not the album I play the most, but it’s a really great album. Maybe too much is happening to fast or something so I really have to be in the mood. I prefer the quieter, more psychedelic parts, but it’s one of the best albums (by any artist) in many years! Modern Classic? Maybe…
I pretty much have to join in on what’s more or less consensus here I’m afraid:
The worst album is of course Love Cult; I find some of the songs downright embarrasing, Carousel must be their worst songs ever (and What if…? Ouch.); the album totally lacks a flow – it’s an album by a band that’s lost its way, uninspired. I never play it. The other two ‘pop’ albums are much better – better songs, more coherent; yes, overproduced by usual MP standards, but very well produced. But the whole ‘pop’ era is in hindsight of course a sidetrack, a dead end.
Lobotomizer is of course a pretty bad album, but I can live with that since, well their young. And it worked at the time. And it got Hogwash (1000 times better live, but still).
BH/BC? No that’s a good one, underrated by many. A band in a transitional phase, lacks the prototype MP propressive psych stuff, but got some really really great songs (and a few really bad ones). Coherent, with a good flow (which is important for an album). Doesn’t however rate among their all time best. A few songs, like Critical Mass, 29th Bulletin and Trixeene, are sort of forgotten gems. On LLM they have found their (new) way, and that one is up there with the classic 90’s releases.
Barracuda? Simple, but effective. Totally lacks depth, but great fun. A great car album as someone said. But doesn’t of course stand up at all against the big classics – it’s not a significant MP album.
The most over- and underrated? The pop albums are overrated by those who love them of course. The less significant ones and the side projects tends maybe to be a bit overrated (Barracuda, Fishtank, Tussler I and II). They are mostly great fun and sometimes interesting, but not much more. Tussler live was of course a ball. Some of the EP’s fall in the ‘fun and interesting but insignificant’ category (on the other hand, there’s gems there as well). But the Demon Box-Trust Us row of albums, and later BH/BC-LLM, are simply extraordinary music that deserves the status.
Underrated? By who? Here in UK? Every single album!
Worst album is by far 8 Soothing Songs For Rut. Only three good songs (Have Fun, Loaded and Step Inside) and the rest are among MP’s all-time worst songs (esspecially The Wait, what an unfocused and uninvolving track)
Love Cult is also weak, but two or three redeeming tracks. Did I diss The Wait? Composite Head gives it hard competition in being worst MP track ever.
BH/BC: I used to think that this was yet another masterpiece right up there with the others. But in hindsight I might’ve been colored by the fact that I was euphoric about them being back. I think if they would’ve made a single album with the very best tracks, it would have been a wiser decision. A bit too many “autopilot” songs.
Here’s my BH/BC single CD edition:
1. No Evil
2. The Ace
3. Kill Devil Hills
4. Critical Mass
5. Before The Flood
6. 29th Bulletin
7. Sail On
8. Devil Dog
9. Bonny Lee
10. Triggerman
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