Hot Take/ Musical Confession Thread!

threesunrises said:
I saw Isbell once, at The National's There's No Leaving New York festival at Forest Hills, in 2018. I knew nothing about his music, other than many friends love it. First song I was, wow this guy can play! By the end of the second song, I was counting down the seconds until his set would end. 4th song, I was ready to stick an ice pick into my ear drum.
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I saw him on his coheadline tour with FJM with Isbell opening. Honestly one of the most disappointing concerts I’ve been to, he was pretty boring and I felt like FJM wasn’t wowing me either (which is crazy because all the previous times I saw him were my favorite concert experiences ever). I decided that night Isbell just wasn’t my cup of tea and the people in that genre I like (like Sturgill) are the exception to the rule
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I own a few Drive-By Truckers albums and zero Isbell solo records. I have liked every Isbell album I have ever listened to, he is an exceptional songwriter but I have never felt the urge to buy any of his albums and I rarely stream any of his music. It’s enjoyable but it fails to pull me in.

That being said I appreciate who he is as an artist and as a person within the realm of mainstream country music and am happy any time him or Sturgill or Childers have success.
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Add Stapleton to that list also. His music bores me to tears but I have massive respect for him and love to see him winning
 
Fleetwood-Matt said:
I saw him on his coheadline tour with FJM with Isbell opening. Honestly one of the most disappointing concerts I’ve been to, he was pretty boring and I felt like FJM wasn’t wowing me either (which is crazy because all the previous times I saw him were my favorite concert experiences ever). I decided that night Isbell just wasn’t my cup of tea and the people in that genre I like (like Sturgill) are the exception to the rule
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I went to that tour as well. FJM phoned it in. I had seen him on his Honeybear tour and he was electric. Here, very boring and I think he was already over his fame and sarcastic persona. Thought Isbell was great though. He made up for the lack of FJM charisma.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Those are the “big three” right now for mainstream popular country artists that sell a lot of albums, get nominated for lots of awards and yet never receive any airplay on mainstream country radio. I own the first two Sturgill albums and Childers debut none of their more recent stuff has pulled me in but I am very happy that all three exist and are successful.
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I absolutely love that Sturgill did his take on industrial rock right after getting so much acclaim in the country world for Sailor's Guide. I mean, I like SGtE quite a bit better, but still...

Fleetwood-Matt said:
Add Stapleton to that list also. His music bores me to tears but I have massive respect for him and love to see him winning
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I guess I'll lay my next hot take down...I find Stapleton a bit boring too. And his 'In the Air Tonight' cover for Monday Night Football is awful.
 
Melt Face Molly Drop said:
I went to that tour as well. FJM phoned it in. I had seen him on his Honeybear tour and he was electric. Here, very boring and I think he was already over his fame and sarcastic persona. Thought Isbell was great though. He made up for the lack of FJM charisma.
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Yeah you nailed it. I even wrote that he was “phoning it in” in my initial post but took it out because I didn’t want to be too negative lol. I’ve seen him 4 times before that (twice for Honeybear and twice for PC) and those 4 concerts are probably all in my top 20 favorite concerts (with the second PC tour show being my favorite concert ever). The difference between those 4 shows and the one with Isbell were truly night and day
 
Melt Face Molly Drop said:
I went to that tour as well. FJM phoned it in. I had seen him on his Honeybear tour and he was electric. Here, very boring and I think he was already over his fame and sarcastic persona. Thought Isbell was great though. He made up for the lack of FJM charisma.
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FJM was great the first 3 or 4 times my wife and I saw him. Talked in-between every song. Was hilarious. The first time we saw him at Coachella we both said we were surprised that he wasn't also a stand-up comic on the side.

Then the next time we saw him, he was just sort of gong through the motions and didn't talk to the audience at all.
 
Bohnjaggs said:
FJM was great the first 3 or 4 times my wife and I saw him. Talked in-between every song. Was hilarious. The first time we saw him at Coachella we both said we were surprised that he wasn't also a stand-up comic on the side.

Then the next time we saw him, he was just sort of gong through the motions and didn't talk to the audience at all.
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I was ok with him not being chatty at Coachella because of the set time restrictions. And with it being a week after the release of PC I was down to just hear the new stuff back to back
 
Fleetwood-Matt said:
Yeah you nailed it. I even wrote that he was “phoning it in” in my initial post but took it out because I didn’t want to be too negative lol. I’ve seen him 4 times before that (twice for Honeybear and twice for PC) and those 4 concerts are probably all in my top 20 favorite concerts (with the second PC tour show being my favorite concert ever). The difference between those 4 shows and the one with Isbell were truly night and day
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Bohnjaggs said:
FJM was great the first 3 or 4 times my wife and I saw him. Talked in-between every song. Was hilarious. The first time we saw him at Coachella we both said we were surprised that he wasn't also a stand-up comic on the side.

Then the next time we saw him, he was just sort of gong through the motions and didn't talk to the audience at all.
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I first saw him 2015 opening for Alabama Shakes, and I thought he stole the show even though he was an opener (only other time I felt that way about an opener was when Big Thief opened for Kevin Morby). He was up in the crowd and falling onto people (comically) while flinging around his microphone stand.

Fast forward to 2017 and his Coachella performance supporting Pure Comedy, which was a very dark and brooding work with some signature humor mixed in. He mostly played it straight the whole set. 2019 and I thought God's Favorite Customer would lighten things up a bit, but he mostly kept the performance style the same. Not a band thing, just not as memorable.
 
Fleetwood-Matt said:
I was ok with him not being chatty at Coachella because of the set time restrictions. And with it being a week after the release of PC I was down to just hear the new stuff back to back
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Maybe it's just me but I don't really enjoy concerts where the performer doesn't talk to the crowd. We had that happen with Camera Obscura once in L.A. Not only did they not say more then a couple of words but the set was extremely short as well and my wife and I both left disappointed.
 
Bohnjaggs said:
Maybe it's just me but I don't really enjoy concerts where the performer doesn't talk to the crowd. We had that happen with Camera Obscura once in L.A. Not only did they not say more then a couple of words but the set was extremely short as well and my wife and I both left disappointed.
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I think it depends on the music and the artist. Some gigs are just so damn immersive and all consumingly brilliant that someone saying hello (insert city here) and rambling on would just ruin the experience. Also artists who can hold an audience by force of personality, banal chatter destroys that.
 
Melt Face Molly Drop said:
I went to that tour as well. FJM phoned it in. I had seen him on his Honeybear tour and he was electric. Here, very boring and I think he was already over his fame and sarcastic persona. Thought Isbell was great though. He made up for the lack of FJM charisma.
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We considered going to see that tour, since I love FJM. We were up in Canada seeing The National, and the FJM / Isbell show was the night we flew back home. If I'm not mistaken, Isbell was up first that night, and we knew we were going to be tired from traveling, so we decided not to get tix. Had FJM been up first, we might have done it.
 
Viking Dan said:
Steve Hyden is a blasphemer, trading in 90's nostalgia in exactly the way that would have gotten him strung up by his balls in the decade he mines for content.
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I don't follow him too heavily, but find his writing style to be something that isn't terribly contrived and pretentious. I can see how some of the things he writes about are pretty low-hanging fruit though.
 
Melt Face Molly Drop said:
I don't follow him too heavily, but find his writing style to be something that isn't terribly contrived and pretentious. I can see how some of the things he writes about are pretty low-hanging fruit though.
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Its not how he writes - its that he chooses to "market" the things that should have been left to the garbage bin of history.
I have no respect for his slathering of songs like "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" or "Only Wanna Be With You" in 90s nostalgia.

They were obvious label money grabs forced down our throats in the 90s.
When he wraps himself in his "child of the 90" BS and tries to reconstitute the old garbage into a witty or thought provoking "think piece" he either: a) proves himself complicit with the machine: or b) proves himself be too stupid to understand the irony of what he is doing.

Either way - it makes me want to punch someone to think that we came all this way to get another corporate hack packaged as "pop culture" shilling the same shit all this time later.
 
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Viking Dan said:
Its not how he writes - its that he chooses to "market" the things that should have been left to the garbage bin of history.
I have no respect for his slathering of songs like "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" or "Only Wanna Be With You" in 90s nostalgia.

They were obvious label money grabs forced down our throats in the 90s.
When he wraps himself in his "child of the 90" BS and tries to reconstitute the old garbage into a witty or thought provoking "think piece" he either: a) proves himself complicit with the machine: or b) proves himself be too stupid and to understand the irony of what he is doing.

Either way - it makes me want to punch someone to think that we came all this way to get another corporate hack packaged as "pop culture" shilling the same shit all this time later.
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It's pretty depressing to me that probably the most read and most stably employed rock critic today mostly writes listicles.
 
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