Best Stephen Malkmus Solo Album

FtT>PL>SM>RET

r.e.t. is the only one of these i can deal with

Toe-ring

Pig Lib over SM

PIg Lib is the only whose affectations really grate.

Inspired by returning to FTT for the first time since 2006 and finding lots of good, goofy moments ("Mama," "Post-Paint Boy," "Freeze The Saints").

he's got some really great b-sides too

Dynamic Calories
Fractions and Feelings
Old Jerry
The Poet and the Witch (live)
Shake it Around (live)
Wow Ass Jeans
Walk Into the Mirror
Pennywhistle Thunder
Carl the Clod

never given him a second chance after the abortion that is his solo debut

face the truth is the only one i haven't really gotten into. not sure, i should revisit it.

I use those lines from "Pink India" all the time: "I had a crap gin and tonic/It wounded me."

^^^ love that so much

to me it felt like real emotional trash was the best one since the debut but I was listening to other stuff in '08 so I never really got to know it and now I totally have no idea where my copy of it is but if I turn it up well look out world

I'd probably vote for the s/t if the second side ("Ess-Dog" excepted) didn't drift ("vague space" is an apt descriptor).

<3 real emotional trash, but can't believe he left off "walk into the mirror" and "mr. jolly" -- both wonderful tunes.

apparently janet didn't like "walk into the mirror"

boooooo janet

i put on ftt the other day and was astounded by how downbeat it is once you get past those first couple tracks

love it

i have a radio session from around the time of face the truth that's just malkmus playing solo acoustic -- he could have a career as a psych-folk troubadour if he wanted to.

ummmmmmmm ysi?

do want

it's on disc somewheres, but i'll dig it out for ya when i get a chance.

yeah I would listen to that & be taking notes tbqf

can i post a yousendit link here? or will i get in all kindsa trouble. this is unofficial stuff.

if it's unofficial it's cool iirc?

i think this still works -- not my link, just where I originally got it: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=Q01HcXlpSWVtUUZFQlE9PQ lemme know.

Never heard the RET b-sides.

Expired link, tyler

doh!
i'll have to dig it out then ...

yeah i googled for this and no dice :/

and my googling is legendary

He played solo at Pitchfork that year as well, must be audio/video of that somewhere.

here's some of the session on video ... and i guess it is probably archived on the kcrw site?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3CCA2zHHg

oh ok kcrw cool

http://www.stephenmalkmus.com/punbb/upload/viewtopic.php?id=5843

pig lib > face the truth > stephen malkmus > trash

first 3 are all pretty close though, and the self titled has a few of my favorite solo malkmus songs ('church on white'!)

first 3 are all pretty close though, and the self titled has a few of my favorite solo malkmus songs ('church on white' the hook!)

Rob Sheffield wrote a moving bit on 9-11 in which he mentions wandering dazed around NYC listening to "Church on White."

yeah, church on white ... is that malkmus' best-ever guitar solo? maybe.

the song has always sounded to my ears like "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"'s dark angel.

i like "Deado" off the debut. gramted it's mostly for that "oh yeah!" sample. gets me every time.

man is that an sm7 he's using? kinda hating those lately /geek

that raga thing tylerw is pretty dope! what record is that on.

no more shoes? it's on face the truth.

I only really feel like I know Stephen Malkmus and Pig Lib so I'll go with Pig Lib. I really love the bonus Pig Lib bonus tracks cd with Dynamic Calories, Fractions and Feelings, Old Jerry etc. Would prob vote for that if allowed!

you can vote for that in one of the matador polls

¡Olé! It's the Matador Records Poll! Part Doce: 551-600
I almost did.

btw for any crazy geeks that want to mp3 that shit (since apparently the whole set of 6 songs is on youtube? or are there more tyler?)

listentoyoutube.com

v v v helpful

the first one is by far the best. some days i even like it better than terror twilight

yeah, the debut is the answer

i like all of them better than tt

man the solo malediction in that kcrw set is insane

pig lib owns! one (1) "vanessa from queens" and zero (0) "phantasies" is the reason it owns.

btw outside a pavement show the other night, near the tour bus zone, i saw a guy in a last plane to jakarta t-shirt showing his friend a recently-taken cellphone picture of himself with stephen (or, to paraphrase the gentlemen in question, "steve," as in, "hey, check out me and steve").

could've been some other guy named steve i suppose, i mean i didn't see the picture but he sure did seem awful proud of it

Pig Lib is the most Pavement of all the SM solo albums, but the self-titled disc probably gets my nod. It's an incredibly charming little record.

I never thought I could like a Malkmus album as little as Real Emotional Trash, though.

Always repped for the self-titled, but listened to Pig Lib the other night and now think it's got the best mix of winsome Malk (Vanessa from Queens, Ramp of Death, Us) + badassery (Water and a Seat, Sheets, Dark Wave) + at least one underrated in-between song (Animal Midnight). The last two records are nice but I can't really think of too many highlights between them.

can i just btw thank u tyler for that kcrw set cause i have just had it on repeat all day and it is joy

Shocked at the hatred for R.E.T. Malkmus' solo career is one of the most underrated indie rock "things" of the 00's tho...So many great songs (esp. the B-sides...).

Face The Truth

i remember the early word on the debut was so bad and the cover/full page ad in spin mag provoked so much mockery and derision that by the time the thing actually came out it actually sounded fresh, definitely liked it more than terror twilight though i haven't heard it (aside from random hearings of 'jenny and the ess-dog' over the years) since 2001. pig lib i hated so much when it came out but have done a complete 180 on since, it's the only solo malkmus i've played with any regularity since. face the truth i loved a great deal at the time, it was almost everything i wanted a malkmus solo record to be, but i haven't played it in forever either. real emotional trash i think i listened to twice when it came out and promptly forgot. pretty sure 'church on white' would still be my fave song but voted pig lib.

also the debut feels like one of the last moments i can remember when indie rock still worked like that, when by and large the only way you heard a record before it came out was you knew someone at the local altweekly/college radio station/record store who got a promo, before leaks were a major factor, and before pitchfork was really setting the agenda. one thing at the heart of 'gold soundz' topping that pfork list is that its so about what loving indie rock was like in the 90s, it's a cuddlier 'gimme indie rock' basically, and that indie rock so doesn't work that way anymore, pfork sorta killed that specific sense of indie community (and if they hadn't something else would've). no more secrets.

Pig Lib was my favourite album of 2003, so that. The first one was lots of fun, kind of wacky for Malkmus, but also lots of pretty bits. The third one moved me barely more than an inch, while the fourth one just hasn't stuck, despite soem nifty guitar work.

think theres a noticeable difference with what he's doing on the jicks albums (pig lib/RET) and solo (SM/FTT). think RET and SM are the best of the two as complete albums, although theres good and bad on each. interesting that with the upcoming (beck-produced?) album he might be aiming between the two camps a bit.

b-sides album would be a serious contender, though.

think theres a noticeable difference with what he's doing on the jicks albums (pig lib/RET) and solo (SM/FTT).
always a little confused by this -- they're all essentially Jicks records, regardless of whether "jicks" is on the cover, right? Same people are playing on all of them, i think (aside from the drummer switch on the last one).

and glad people are digging that kcrw set, it is very cool. other sm solo shows i've heard are kinda rowdy singalong affairs, but the kcrw thing seems more measured and thought out.

all four of these are great, but pig lib's my favorite. never thought i'd hear something as zeppelin epic as "1% of one" or "witch mountain bridge" out of him

Real Emotional Trash > Pig Lib > Stephen Malkmus > Face The Truth

it's face the truth for me, but mostly by default...

think the jicks/non-jicks albums are separated by writing approaches. for FTT, SM has said how most of the album was demo'd and recorded by him, with the jicks adding some instrumentation later, compared to writing and recording the others along with the band in the studio.

He's clearly drumming on "I've Hardly Been."

Real Emotional Trash

SM did quite a bit of the drumming on the post-Gary Pavement records fwiw. I think BTC is the only one West got full reign of the kit on.

My prob with "Face The Truth" is a lot of it (particularly the song titles) sound like a self-parody.

just posted that kcrw session + another radio session over here: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/

oh man is that yer blog i <3 it a lot

thanks tyler

and great picture of malkmus on that post

no prob, dudes -- hope you dig it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

wow

look what whiney and lex did -- they drove voters into this thread.

could've been like steve malkmus :(

i would've voted Pig Lib, myself.

can someone explain the major RET love to me? i ask because i kind of hate that record relatively speaking. it's the one malk disc i never wanna throw on.

I can't quite handle the whole thing at one sitting, but this thread inspired me to pull out Pig Lib again after a long break. Do Not Feed The Oysters and Water and a Seat remain pretty great. Whole album makes me wish he'd collaborated with Yes or something like that. Definitely want more weird-o time signature stuff from him.

don't know if he has the chops yet to hang with chris squire, but he's getting there. pretty amazing that he's gone from mark e. smith jr in the early days to acidfolkprog jam dude. not many have bridged such extremes so well