Friday Night Potlatch: "Dashboard"

Alternate Post Title: Even needs have needs, tiny giants made of tinier giants.

I linked to this song in my comment on the Benjamin thread, but it's so moving I'm going to link to it again:

Modest Mouse - "Dashboard" [mp3]

As Acephalous is neither Pitchfork nor Pirate Bay , I'll neither review nor link to the entire album.  But listen to "Dashboard."  Then tell me that the decision to bring Johnny Marr on board was anything less than brilliant.

Comments

[Chris Ervin]

As they say on the radio, "long time listener, first time caller..."

'Modest Marr' tears me up inside, because it is very good, competent, and interesting music that happens to be boring when compared to the early productions of Modest Mouse. And this new streak of optimism running though the big singles - 'Float On,' and 'Dashboard,' - reminds me too much of Tony Robbins.

However, I can think of no situation Johnny Marr could not improve.

[J.S. Nelson]

Yeah, I still personally prefer Lonesome Crowded West era Modest Mouse, but the new stuff is definitely interesting.
Modest Mouse is strange because they're one of those bands (like Against Me! and obviously countless others that I'm less obsessed with) which has actually been at least two different bands over the course of their history. Modest Mouse's pretty tangible split in both style and popularity around Good News makes it such that when talking about them you almost always have to make a distinction between which era. I think the new era is productive because they're doing something really creative and inexplicable with musical style (and getting played on the radio while doing it!) but it does feel like most of the anxiety and tension of the earlier stuff only barely manages to seep out from under the feel good pop stylings.

[History Geek]

The newest album is pretty damn good, and I wouldn't call most of their music optimistic by any standards. Nothing about Bukowski was optimistic, and it came from the same album as Float On.

You cannot judge a group by the singles that get the biggest radio play. Hell half the time it is the worst song on the album that gets radio play.

[Vance Maverick]

What became of the Scott who wrote, "I just don’t get appreciative criticism"?

Both here and at Berube's late lamented blog, I've frequently been astonished at the chasm between the critical styles applied to literature and music. Admittedly, textual criticism is special because the criticism and the subject are in the same medium. But for people who care intensely about criticism as an intellectual project to lapse into capsule-review style is strange.

That said, I enjoyed the song at hand (within sadly predictable limits due to formative experiences).