Marcy Playground: Classic or dud?

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Set aside "Sex and Candy." Just forget about its tired ass completely for a second and listen to the eponymous album from which it was plucked. This is a really nice little album! Weird, inward-turned songs of a nerdy loner ("St. Joe On The Schoolbus") who can't quite manage existential despair and would really rather just be left alone to enjoy his Dungeons & Dragons games (see "A Cloak of Elvenkind"). There's a bit of grownup anguish ("Opium") but really he's just trying to get his childhood playmates to come back ("Sherry Fraser," probably the highlight). Throw in a few kind of pointless (but energetic!) story-songs - including "Poppies" with a riff so good you can't believe nobody thought of it until Marcy fucking Playground - and you've got a set better than anything you'd see at any open-mic you'd expect a band like this to be playing.

Like Bicycle's Bicycle, which I also just started a thread about, the Marcy Playground record is a hard thing to accept if you have a blanket distaste for late 90s production cliches; this time the roadblock is that acoustic-guitar sound that wants to be "organic" but somehow sounds a little too labored-over. But as with the Bicycle album, if you can get past all that, there's a very nice collection of songs to be had.

Oh, and "Sex and Candy," which is ungodly annoying and I really don't even want to discuss or think about ever again in my life.

Doctor Casino, Saturday, 13 October 2007 04:35 (seventeen years ago)

two weeks pass...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/khowrd/ddrkid.gif

stephen, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 21:19 (seventeen years ago)

^^^otm

Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 21:33 (seventeen years ago)

This is the best thing I will see on the internett today.

W4LTER, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 21:37 (seventeen years ago)

three years pass...

I can't think of a queasier hook that went big than "I smell sex and candy in here." At least from the 90s.

That asaid, I do think St. Joe is really good, and as I said in another thread, one of my best friends stans seriously hard for the album, which I will hopefully be checking out soon....

amphetamine fueled scholar (Drugs A. Money), Wednesday, 13 April 2011 16:39 (fourteen years ago)

seven years pass...

ooh i saw stars
fallin' all around your head

|Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Monday, 25 March 2019 14:34 (six years ago)

i have never listened to the s/t but i did see marcy playground open the summerland tour in 2013(?) which also featured gin blossoms, lit, sugar ray, and everclear. i thought they sounded like archers of loaf

jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 25 March 2019 14:37 (six years ago)

search: "Coming Up From Behind," "Sherry Fraser," "St Joe On The Schoolbus"
destroy: "It's Saturday"

billstevejim, Monday, 25 March 2019 14:46 (six years ago)

oh LAY YEE eeh heee

|Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Monday, 25 March 2019 14:47 (six years ago)

was at karaoke a few years ago and a woman did a sultry, completely earnest version of sex and candy in the direction of her partner and it was one of the most revolting sights mine eyes have beheld

( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 25 March 2019 17:38 (six years ago)

one of my best friends stans seriously hard for the album

Wait, ppl were using the term “stans” in 2011?!

What's that Phish song that goes "Bag it, Tag it"? (morrisp), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 01:53 (six years ago)

I think people have been using stan since the Eminem song came out

Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 01:58 (six years ago)

I would pay good money for a recording of the drunk karaoke torch version of Sex and Candy

Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 01:58 (six years ago)

xp I swear I never encountered it until 2016 or so (and I’m Fairly Online)

What's that Phish song that goes "Bag it, Tag it"? (morrisp), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 02:11 (six years ago)

First ILX use (in the accepted tense): 2002!

Jay-Z / Nas hip-hop throw down? & other throw-downs?

a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 02:18 (six years ago)

😯

What's that Phish song that goes "Bag it, Tag it"? (morrisp), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 02:39 (six years ago)

Nas uses the term stan in 2001 track "ether"

( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 04:12 (six years ago)

Reba

days of rags and noses (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 07:10 (six years ago)


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