Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs POLL

"Opus 40." Great album. I hate "The Hudson Line."

LOVED this album but will have to listen again to remember which song I like best.

i'd forgotten how great this album was. 'the funny bird' blew my mind when i saw it live for the first time back in whatever year it was, so that takes it.

why do you hate hudson line :(

i guess "hudson line" reminds me of college. it's a song i got into when i made frequent trips back and forth to albany, NY when i was in undergrad. the song, and the band, is very quintessentially NEW YORK to me.

plus, suzanne thorpe, the violinist made sandwiches at a deli across the street from my apartment in albany!

http://www.opus40.org/

Anyone been?

Goddess On a Highway is the only song on this that's very memorable...

Gotcha beat cutty - I inherited the apartment where some of the touring band used to live, and hung out with them (the Hopewell / Silent League dues) every once in a while during the Deserter's era. Lost touch but still dig their stuff

I still go for "Holes."

"Funny Bird" for the psychedelic mindfuck it is

"Holes" for me by a long ways.

opus

"Tonight It Shows". Fantastic album.

"Opus 40"

I went for Tonite It Shows, but I might never listen to it again - I hate so much similar stuff now that I'm worried I won't like this.

I hate "The Hudson Line."
-- If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Friday, October 12, 2007 12:47 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

WTF?!!!??!

'the funny bird' blew my mind when i saw it live for the first time back in whatever year it was, so that takes it.

same here

the lyrics for 'Holes' spoil it a bit for me

Matt DC exactly OTM.

I went for "Holes"; the album version is great, and back when I was into this stuff and spending madd cash on (import copies of) Uncut they included a cd with a live version on, I think, Jools Holland, and instead of the (I think) mellotron solo near the end, there's a guitar solo that is heartbreaking, and so I'd vote for that over the album version but even a shadow of the good is still good.

Love this record but "See You On The Other Side" still beats it.

In answer to the poll, "Tonight It Shows".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Opus 40"...the "Golden Slumbers" chorus, Levon Helm on drums, and the women's backup vocals at the end.

"opus 40" is my choice too.

also love "hudson line" for reasons similar to what cutty posted.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I used to love this album and now I can barely stomach it.

but fuck me, this came out almost 9 years ago!

Forgot to vote for "Endlessly"

i kinda hate this album

I never understood why this album garnered so much praise. It's not horrible, but I rarely listened to it -- maybe once every other year or so to try to figure out what someone else saw in it. Finally gave it away last spring.

I would have voted for Goddess if I had ever noticed the poll.

i kinda hate this album

Yup.

Mercury Rev Announce Reissue of
Their Seminal Album Deserter’s Songs
on May 16 via Co-Op Music

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/1d59aca4aeedaab429816159e/images/Mercury_Rev_Lo_Res_Press_Photo_1.jpg

On May 16, Mercury Rev will return with a deluxe double CD reissue of their classic 1998 album, Deserter’s Songs via Co-Op Music. The release comes complete with a 13-track bonus disc of demos, b-sides, rarities and outtakes. And In honor of the album’s re-release, Mercury Rev have made their classic song “Opus 40” available for free download. Click HERE to listen to the song (feel free to post and share).

Even for Mercury Rev, who had become know for their arty, left-field pop, Deserter’s Songs was something of a revelation. Tweaking their reputation for harsh noisy freakouts, the album was a lush, orchestral counterpoint to the band’s catalogue at that point. Incorporating elements of folk, jazz, ’60s rock, and even Disney soundtrack fantasia, Deserter’s Songs was like nothing that had come before it. Tracks like “The Funny Bird,” “Holes,” and “Opus 40” were cosmic epics, whose arrangements were simultaneously grandiose and tender.

A paradoxical, unconventional record, the album turned heads and ended up an unexpected, worldwide hit. The album was named “Album of the Year” by NME, MOJO and many other publications. It was the record that broke Mercury Rev into the mainstream in the U.K. and Europe, with the album scoring three Top 40 singles in the U.K. for “Goddess on a Highway”, “Holes” and “Opus 40.” And in the U.S., the album remains a cult-classic, ready to be reintroduced to the next generation.

Tracklist:

Album:
1. Holes
2. Tonite It Shows
3. Endlessly
4. Collect Coins
5. Opus 40
6. Hudson Line
7. The Happy End (The Drunk Room)
8. Goddess on a Highway
9. The Funny Bird
10. Pick Up If You're There
11. Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp

Bonus Disc:
1) Piano vs. Telephone (Cassette Tape Player Demo)
2) Holes (Bill Laswell 1998 Remix)
3) Pick Up If You're There (DJ Nickel 1998 Remix)
4) Endlessly (Tascam 8-Track Reel to Reel Demo)
5) A Soft Kiss (for waking up) (Cassette Tape Player Demo)
6) Tonite It Shows (Tascam 8-Track Reel to Reel Demo)
7) Looking Back Now, I Can See (Unreleased Mix)
8) Opus 40 (Early Rough Version)
9) Hudson Line (Early Rough Version)
10) Judging By The Moon (Cassette Tape Player Demo)
11) Goddess On A Hiway (1989 Cassette Tape Player Demo)
12) Night On Panther Mountain (Unreleased Mix)
13) Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp (Early Rough Version)

[img]http://gallery.mailchimp.com/1d59aca4aeedaab429816159e/images/Mercury_Rev_Lo_Res_Album_Art.jpg[.img]

yeahhh. anyone know if the bonus trax are any good? or are they pretty much unheard?

christ that is an ugly fucking picture!

2) Holes (Bill Laswell 1998 Remix)

this sounds like a horrible idea

would rather somebody reissued the Grasshopper and the Golden Crickets LP to be honest

Sorta surprised the Chemical Brothers remix of Delta Sun isn't on here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB9fmzXb9V4

still a great album, but it is hard for me to celebrate it as such b/c it being the beginning of the end for one of my favorite bands sort of overwhelms its individual merits imo.

like I can't help but think that, if this had not ended up finding such a large audience, they might have eventually returned to weirdo guitar freakouts instead of locking grasshopper's stompboxes in a vault somewhere.

yeah he seems like such a wasted resource on the stuff that came after this.

never heard the grasshopper/golden cricket thing -- it's good? lol, just looked, selling for $.01 on amazon marketplace.

I hear he plays a mean bowed saw tho

xp

it is GREAT

I went for Tonite It Shows, but I might never listen to it again - I hate so much similar stuff now that I'm worried I won't like this.

― Matt DC, Friday, 12 October 2007 10:43 (3 years ago) Bookmark

Still OTM. Kinda tempted to go see the Deserter's Songs live tour thing, but I reckon I might find it a bit rubbish.

I saw the original tour, it was pretty awesome. it was LOUD. they did a fair amount of stuff from the first two albums too, closed with Cortez the Killer. wouldn't bother nowadays though.

i bet it'll be good -- they were pretty majestic on this tour. songs sound good in a big room.

Weird, I saw them in the summer of '99 (different leg of same tour, or different tour?...they were with Sparklehorse) and they weren't particularly loud at all. They were, however, fucking majestic. "Tonite It Shows" was utterly mindblowing not just because of how different the arrangement was from the record (I couldn't place the song until midway through the first verse), but because it somehow still managed to retain the spooky drama of the record's arrangement.

heyyy i saw them w/ sparklehorse in the summer of 99 too. great show, tho it was weird that mercury rev played first. just with their oversized thing happening, they seemed more like the headliner.

I did not see Sparklehorse, and at that time I would have been interested in seeing him. Don't remember who the opener was tbh. this was at Bimbo's in SF.

they did have some incredibly cool pseudo-theremin laser-light controller thing that I loved

Love this album to death
Nothing else they’ve done has connected with me though

Endlessly 2

shocked by this!

Was there ever a poll of the previous album?

This is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdHfWizyWE0

^ the loudest thing I've ever heard live.

I mean that's a nice song but when compared to the opening tracks of their first two albums it comes in a very distant 3rd

And I do think it'd be much better if it was recorded differently yeah. It feels weirdly muted on record

The instrumentals version of this album is gorgeous and perfect for long summer twilights.