Dear Colin Meloy

Dear Colin Meloy,

Stop.

http://www.decemberists.com/assets/images/packshots/Colin_Meloy_Sings_Sam_Cooke.jpg

tee hee

that's a joek, right?

omg it is not a joke

it's very real. >:(

i'm going to pretend it is a joke

Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke is a tour-only EP by Colin Meloy, lead singer of The Decemberists. It is the third in a series of EPs featuring covers of influential artists, which includes works of Morrissey (Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey) and Shirley Collins (Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins).

no it isn't

what fucking gall

haha, well if it's a tour-only EP, then let him have his fun, I guess. JUST KEEP IT FROM MY EARS. (and I don't even hate the Decemberists that much)

i'm afraid i don't want to let colin meloy have his fun.

Dear Coling Melloy--

Please stay away from Robyn Hitchcock. You are tainting him by association. You may engage Robyn as opening act, but you shall at all times remain at least fifty (50) meters from Mr. Hitchcock and you shall not provide any 'backing vocals', 'harmony vox', or anything that might be construed thereof, on his record albums. Yrs & c.

hahahahaha where did you get that login name from jon????

haha holy shit

Friends immediately alerted me to the cougar sightings via email b/c my mom lives in vadnais. My mom seems confident she will prevail against any alpha predator.

Will be coming for my xmas visit in late January this year b/c I ran out of vacation days ;_;

But that means I get to be there for the winter carnival :D

oh it's ok if Meloy talks up Hitchcock, he deserves it. What was irritating was stumbling across a fan review of Robyn opening for the Decemberists that was basically "lolz old english dude get off the stage" ... >:|

Wow. Would stab.

i don't want to be one of those guys who gets pissed abt stuff like this but come the fuck on colin meloy

oh you mean an actual cougar!!

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/music/colinmoz.jpg

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/shirley.collins/images/largerec/colinmeloysingstradarrshirleycollins.jpg
I hate an incomplete set!

I acually like the drawings on those last two.

hate this guy. kinda hate him even more for desecrating Sam Cooke

I believe his (ex?) girlfriend did them.

[removed illegal covers recs]

http://images.theage.com.au/2009/10/25/811968/story_morrissey-420x0.jpg
Morrissey reacts to the news of Meloy cover albums

wtf meloy, sez sam cooke
http://www.kalamu.com/bol/wp-content/content/images/sam%20cooke%2007.jpg

Who is his ex gf? Probably some portland cartoonist I know...?

give me a break, sez shirley collins
http://www.safpublishing.com/store/pages/html/shirley_collins.jpg

chris ott will review these EPs by stalking colin meloy's (ex?) gf

Colin Meloy Sings The Ex

Colin Meloy Dies, Via Guillotine, after singing a song about a young French Guillotine Artist

Dear Colin Meloy,

Your 33 1/3 was by far the worst book in the series that I've read, and I regret giving you the benefit of the doubt that a book about a great Replacements album would be readable and interesting even if it was written by a semi-famous guy whose music I have no interest in.

Okay, I'm as loathe as anyone to imagine how this sounds, just because the two men's voices work so differently (you can't much bleat or honk doing Cooke, unless you're Amy Winehouse), but good lord y'all are on some weird knee-jerking here: the guy routinely sells EPs on tour of himself playing covers on acoustic guitar, and you're mad because this time he chooses an artist whose songs are basically bedrock American pop-music standards? songs sung by basically everyone? from karaoke to open-mic night to wedding singers to professionals of a wide variety of genres? Maybe you guys have a different relationship with Sam Cooke's music than I do, but to me this is like singing Beatles covers or Broadway favorites or Elvis or Chuck Berry or whatever -- the same well of basic American songwriting that's sort of casually open to everyone.

you are colin meloy and I claim my five dollars

(If you're stuck on the notion of "soul singer" / "not soul singer," think of the number of Cooke's pop hits where the singing, in today's context, is pretty accessible to everyone -- I think just about anyone who sings any variety of pop can take a decent pass at "Twisting the Night Away" or something, even if I don't particularly want to hear Meloy try.)

xpost - hahaha I think I'm mostly just worried some sort of filter is making it say "Sam Cooke" for me when to everyone else it says "James Brown"

my hatred is pretty simple

Sam Cooke has an amazing voice, one of the best voices ever. his phrasing, his *woahs,* the scratchiness of his voice--everything. when I think of the song Cupid, I, like many other people, think of Sam Cooke and Sam Cooke alone. same with about ten of his other songs. it's all the voice, and his voice is the best.

Colin Meloy voice sounds like a bleating sheep, and his band is lame. The band is lame part doesn't matter as much as the bleating part.

sure the songs are standards. that really has nothing to do with it, though.

well I agree with you that Meloy's voice seems like an odd fit for Cooke songs.

I'd note, though, that there are a pretty good number of people in the world who think of "Cupid" and think of Johnny Nash, or the Spinners, or even Winehouse. I dunno, I think it's that "desecrating" line above that gets me -- like everyone on the planet can sing a shitty version of "Yesterday," but no one's gonna get annoyed by that, right?

Anyway, if anyone from Portland was gonna cover Sam Cooke, I wish it could have been Exploding Hearts

'bisco duck, you do realize that you running to the defense of any cutesy indie shit that people talk down on this board is at least as kneejerk as anyone else's reaction at this point?

that would be an interesting point if I ever did that or even posted much?

(btw, "I never want to hear this" is not really a "defense" -- to be honest I feel like what I'm defending here is actually Sam Cooke songs, which I actually think are good enough that they don't need to be defended from lots of people singing them)

OK everybody if you've never seen nabisco be all "haters gonna hate" about something like this before raise your hand and prove me wrong

i'm defending sam cooke songs too. i think they're good enough for lots of people to sing. not colin meloy though.

(hand not raised)

like everyone on the planet can sing a shitty version of "Yesterday," but no one's gonna get annoyed by that, right?

sam cooke is a waaay better singer than paul!

and what's wrong with hating a band? i love certain bands, why am i not allowed to hate certain bands in your weird little universe? i have my reasons, just like you have yours.

fwiw this board as a whole definitely doth protest too much when it comes to certain types of indie/lefty/intellectual arts and culture, and to a degree i think nabisco usually offers a worthwhile response or corrective, but dog the degree to which you consistently play that role is exasperating sometimes

>>Who is his ex gf? Probably some portland cartoonist I know...?

Carson Ellis. http://carsonellisshop.com/

I'm pretty sure when I used to see the Decemberists as an opening act in L.A. Colin mentioned that he and Carson were together. And then I think I read somewhere that they weren't together anymore. So, I hope I'm not spreading groundless rumors.

Next EP: Colin Meloy Sings Tiger Woods.

I had no idea the guy who did the Mats 33 1/3 was the guy from the Decemberists. I guess that explains how that piece of crap got published.

nabs the answer to your initial set of questions is yes

the guy routinely sells EPs on tour of himself playing covers on acoustic guitar, and you're mad because this time he chooses an artist whose songs are basically bedrock American pop-music standards?

well not really, the objection is to the first part of this sentence, not the second. it's the "colin meloy sings..." in "colin meloy sings [x]" that's hilarious and offensive -- not whatever [x] is

xpost - dude, I barely even post here anymore, partly for this reason (i.e., instead of talking about Sam Cooke we are now somehow having a meta-discussion about what my opinions are "always" like, which is really a pretty boring topic)

I would swallow that, goole, except that I doubt anyone here would have minded or been surprised when he did Morrissey. (His voice isn't as good as Morrissey's, either, though the gap's smaller.)

anyway I certainly never said there was anything wrong with hating a band. I'm just surprised that the idea of someone singing Cooke songs, even someone you hate or whose voice is ill-suited for it, would present as some sort of sacrilege, something terribly out of line. It'd probably bug me as a release, but as a merch-table souvenir, I mean ... Cooke sang a lot of good pop songs.

http://cdn2.libsyn.com/dsco/CMSTW.jpg?nvb=20091210213813&nva=20091211214813&t=0df84ee2a21f4052e4f30

I don't really know anything about Colin Meloy or The Decemberists but this thread is bringing the lols. Where does he rank on the Billy Corgan/dude from Placebo scale?

i think a lot of us just like sam cooke a lot and think he's really special, and dislike colin meloy a lot and think he blows, and are annoyed that this exists. i would not try to rationalize it, i think we are having emotional reactions to something that is lame.

xp to nabsico

i didn't know about the morrissey one either, and it bugs me too, in the same way. who does this guy think he is?

Why is everyone getting het up now? The Sam Cooke EP is 18 months old ...

Man, I'm angered by George Bush's latest State of the Union! We've got to do something about that guy!

nabisco i think what you're saying is

Sam Cooke & Colin Meloy - - -> sang/sing pop songs

therefore

Colin Meloy - - > can cover Sam Cooke and no one should be surprised

and even though i said my hatred was simple, it's not *that* simple, really. it goes into a lot more of who Sam Cooke is and what his voice is like vs. Sam Cooke just being a pop singer

hahaha went to play a video, forgetting that I'd been playing happy hardcore before I took off my headphones and was all "WOAH this is not what I thought The Decemberists would sound like"

I was about to say "wtf guys, this dude isn't that annoying" but then he went "ladidadida" and my urge to kill shot through the roof (song is "Sixteen Military Wives")

xpost - dude, I barely even post here anymore, partly for this reason (i.e., instead of talking about Sam Cooke we are now somehow having a meta-discussion about what my opinions are "always" like, which is really a pretty boring topic)

sorry, man, not trying to attack you, although the caveat that you apparently post less than you used to (which i hadn't noticed) doesn't really have any effect on statements about how you post when you do post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK3Ce9md96g

kick this dude in the dick, imo

I was about to say "wtf guys, this dude isn't that annoying" but then he went "ladidadida"

We call this The Meloy Effect

He's less annoying on some other songs, but . . . still pretty annoying.

And I like The Decemberists.

puncheminnadick WHAT?!
puncheminnadick BLAOW!!!

xp

I was about to say "wtf guys, this dude isn't that annoying" but then he went "ladidadida"

http://www.orangeglitter.com/ontd/baleout.gif

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha Ned

I listened to a couple of their albums and the only song I liked was something about an empress that was kind of heavy.

He also wrote a mash lyric about my friend Myl4 which is annoying.

He's got more and more annoying. Used to love the Decemberists, but The Crane Wife was poor, and The Hazards of Love is a terrible record. Seeing people I like enjoying that record is like living in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

I should say I freakin' love such stuff as Tull's Songs From The Wood too, but I cannot get with decembrist folk-prog.

I am certain that if I'd listened to Placebo's "Running Up That Hill" cover before listening to that Decemberists song, the Placebo song would have pissed me off, but instead it is coming across as really fucking cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEEXyRL0qE

I'm kind of impressed that they are as popular as they are -- is it like indie rock for theater kids? I don't even think the stuff I've heard is bad, necessarily, just not my cup o tea. He can do whatever he likes -- and I'm sure that Meloy is quite aware of the knee jerk reactions many people would have to his Sam Cooke ep ... I can almost hear the annoying npr segment about it in my head.

I think they jumped the shark with Picaresque when the cutesy-poo stuff took over. I still think Castaway and Cutouts and Her Majesty are decent records.

I remember hearing that placebo song about a friend with weed or something when I was going to a chilis in 98

wait til you guys get wind of the Joanna Newsom does the Billie Holiday songbook double-LP, that's gonna really ruffle some feathers

all I remember about placebo is that they had a song about breasts and weed

Sufjan Stevens Sings Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry sings Animal Collective

huh I keep forgetting that I actually like Placebo

Rufus WAinwright Sings Judy Garland

Renee Fleming sings Tom Waits

The Shins Sing Robert Johnson

colin meloy sings sam cooke

Christina Aguilera sings Public Image Limited

Bob Dylan kills Colin Meloy, onstage, with his awesome voice

flying penis attacks gary kasparov

http://franklarosa.com/vinyl/BigImg/cathy.jpg

Colin Meloy Kills Christgau With His Big Fuckin' Dick

Morrissey sings Iron Maiden

Miley Cyrus sings Nina Simone

colin meloy sings the dhalsim level from street fighter II turbo

lol

Al Di Meola and Zakir Hussain play the Colin Meloy songbook

Melora Creager Does Miley Cyrus

Sebastian Bach sings Tay Zonday

Philip Glass Interprets Fleet Foxes

whoops xpost conversation has changed

haha some dude, as I understand the charges here, you are saying that about once a month there is a thread bagging on something you consider "cutesy indie shit" (I have no idea what you consider to fit in this category) and I come along and express the good-faith opinion that I don't think it's that bad. if this is a severe detriment to your quality of life, you can rest easy knowing that I have only posted to 19 threads in the past month, only two of which could remotely be considered to pertain to cutesy indie shit (this and Miranda July's short fiction), unless you consider grammar, recording equipment, rabbis on coke binges, or how to cook brussels sprouts to be cutesy indie shit, which maybe you do, I don't know.

anyway, I like Sam Cooke and roundly dislike the Decemberists and have trouble finding this all that odd or horrifying, is all I'm saying. this opinion might be informed by the fact that Meloy's Morrissey-covers EP is probably the #1 recording he's ever been involved in that I don't mind listening to, because it's just a guy with an acoustic guitar singing songs I like coffeeshop-style. so if people go home from Decemberists shows with a disc of a guy they like singing "Having a Party" coffeeshop-style, it's like ... okay, fine.

He also wrote a mash lyric about my friend Myl4 which is annoying.

This is totally their worst crime! The bit about her limp made me think he knew her, or something (possibly through trading blurbs with his sister), but I asked Myl4 once and she was like ... no idea.

Yeah she def. heard the song within a year or so of its release but had never met 'im in her life.

Colin Meloy Singt Bachs Grosser Kantaten

woah myl@ g01dberg who wrote be3 s3@son, right? ha.

colin meloy sings the entirety of bee season to the tune of "wonderful world"

colin meloy sings ned raggett's pi

colin meloy eats a sandwich, and thinks about victorian britain

colin meloy kills a truck driver

yeah, I think this should be a rule: if writing a song about someone who's not a friend but did blurb your sister's book, do not talk about whether she has a "crooked foot"

haha, does she have a crooked foot?

what else rhymes with sister's book

sam cooke

samuel cooke

colin meloy sings his rhyming dictionary

Colin Meloy Blurbs His Sister's Book

Colin Meloy! Live! In Las Vegas!

So who will write the 33 1/3 book about Crane Wife? Paul Westerberg?

xpost sorry I brought up my1@ in the first place but let's leave her alone now

yeah, I think this should be a rule: if writing a song about someone who's not a friend but did blurb your sister's book, do not talk about whether she has a "crooked foot"

sounds like a subsection of the Book of Songwriting Rules Created Because of Jewel's Crimes (see "Pieces of You", "Fat Boy")

every month a new billboard for some show in vegas is put up outside my window

right now it's Heart
but the font is all crazy I wish I could type it

This summer. . .Colin Meloy is. . . .OOOOO, BARRACUDA!

LOL I can almost imagine him singing the bridge from 'Crazy On You'

xpost - eh, she has a very slight something that you wouldn't notice immediately and I wouldn't even speculate on what it is -- like I took a class with her and only after a few weeks noticed she might have a foot or leg thing that changes her gait a little -- which if I were writing a song about how I thought she was pretty awesome (which I did) I'm not sure anything about either of her legs/feet would enter into it.

haha some dude, as I understand the charges here, you are saying that about once a month there is a thread bagging on something you consider "cutesy indie shit" (I have no idea what you consider to fit in this category) and I come along and express the good-faith opinion that I don't think it's that bad. if this is a severe detriment to your quality of life, you can rest easy knowing that I have only posted to 19 threads in the past month, only two of which could remotely be considered to pertain to cutesy indie shit (this and Miranda July's short fiction), unless you consider grammar, recording equipment, rabbis on coke binges, or how to cook brussels sprouts to be cutesy indie shit, which maybe you do, I don't know.

i don't even have an opinion either way about most of the stuff you do this with (including Colin Meloy's music), i'm just saying you have a certain way of responding when people dogpile on something with a bunch of "corny indie fux" grumbling. and again, i have no idea why you think you posting less than you used to has any relevance to what i'm saying.

colin meloy observes his classmates gait

Colin Meloy Spells Sam Cooke

I think nabisco's point is "get off of my jock and talk about music instead of me"

Colin Meloy Spells Sam Cooke

― tylerw, Thursday, December 10, 2009 5:40 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

We have a winner!

well that and "if you find me annoying, you can relax now"

Nabisco I think a puppy should join in this thread for extra meta

¯\(°_o)/¯ sorry y'all i didn't mean to be so tedious on this thread, i don't dislike nabisco but he's too smart to play dumb about the simple point i was trying to make

_
_|_|_
¯\(°_@)/¯

argh that was supposed to be a dude in a monocle and top hat

now it looks like a waiter with a monocle

http://www.iayork.com/Images/2007/11-29-07/EustaceTilley.png

http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/eustace-tilley-r-crumb.jpg

Nice that they shoul gie Sasha Frere-Jones a cover.

should give, dammit.

Mr. Meloy knows something about artful anachronism. In the last few years he has quickly established himself as one of the premier new songwriters in rock, charming critics and ever-growing crowds with songs set in a fantastical world of Victorian chimney sweeps and dockside prostitutes, infant ghosts and exotic royal parades. His lyrics giddily engage a Scrabble master's vocabulary; one song on the Decemberists' latest album, "Picaresque," rhymes folderol, chaparral and coronal.

Morrissey sings Iron Maiden

yo Mozz I don't know how hard you egosurf and at this stage of your life I'd be willing to bet it's +/- zero minutes per year but on the off chance you see this thread I will 1) pay you money that, proportional to my income, is ridiculous 2) shine your damn shoes for a year and 3) defend you against all enemies foreign & domestic as long as we both shall live if you make this shit happen

alternate scenario, just sing fuckin "run to the hills," I will make you the most delicious vegetarian dinner you ever had

think it over steve

when you really think about it, the distance between something like "The Trooper" and a lot of late Morrissey is not that far at all

looking forward to Chuck Berry sings AnCo tbh

"all the lazy harlots"

Panda B. Goode

Dear CM,

This project is misguided and should come to a swift conclusion as soon as you can manage to stop singing.

"Do You Remember Walter?" tells a wistful tale of lost friends and failed dreams, a classic story song that would fit comfortably alongside any of Colin Meloy's work with The Decemberists. It originally appeared on the 1968 album The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. Meloy says he decided to cover the Kink's music after passing on other randomly selected albums from his personal library. "I drew five different records off my shelf at random and determined myself to cover one of those artists," he tells us via email. "They were: Nico, Quasi, Clannad, Kinks and Don Everly. Briefly flirted with the idea of Quasi - particularly the remarkable body of work of one Sam Coomes - but I found that his range is way too high for me. I'm not good on Gaelic so Clannad was out; Nico and Don Everly? Nah. So the Kinks it was!"

lol @ The Kink's music

Sincerely,
LL

colin meloy sings the dhalsim level from street fighter II turbo

― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, December 10, 2009 5:18 PM (3 years ago)

lol