Sparklehorse- I just dont get it

Couldn't really explain what I like about them.
They're not remarkable.

Connection? Um think Cardigans.

Gareth do self put downs = circle, for my sake I hope so.

Having trouble sleeping Kilian? "wonderful life" will cure even the worst insomnia. Dont do it, you might never wake up.

but yeah, if IAWL is the only album you've got, don't look to it to represent what's good about them.

Still, I’m a sucker for their sound.

So Im hanging out for the follow up- with big name buddies all over it. He was off the drugs, this was going to be a more focused, coherrent, effective, albulm. A masterpiece perhaps?

Yeah right.
Life is wonderful but you wouldnt know it listening to this albulm. Its certainly inoffensive but Dull... with a capital D.

IAWL is easily his third-best out of three
Tell me why, what songs have even a mummur of a heartbeat?

ps I think it would be dangerous driving music, but you are right there is a real dearth of singer songwriter discussion here but you can change that- "go nu-ilm".

Umm, third-best out of three means last place. That was another way of saying that IAWL is not as good as Vivadixie or Spider, or -saying that it's his worst album. I guess you're disputing the implicit idea that it is actually a good album, which I do think it is.

IAWL is definitely a somnolent record and not as various as anything Linkous has done before, so I don't know what to say about pinpointing a "hearbeat," but it's that slo-mo feel that I like about, say, the title track. I'm not sure I can give you a track by track defense of the record. I just like some of the melodies and many of the lyrics. At its best it makes me feel like I'm floating. Is that OK?

whoops -so it does ha Im a bonehead

Good Morning Spider had some marvellous moments on it (Chaos of the Galaxy, Painbirds, etc), but it had a fair few completely superfluous songs on it.

By Good Morning Spider it felt like 'just another Sparklehorse album', as if Linkous was just trotting out grubby xeroxes of what he'd already done better before. They're the flipside of the coin to Godspeed, who have got progressively better at doing essentially the same thing over the course of a few albums. Sparklehorse have got worse.

OTM.If I was a bit cleverer I would have said something like that.

What's weird is that I kind of agree with you, but also think that each of his records sound completely different from each other. I really don't see how Spider is made from the blueprint of Vivadixie, to say nothing of IAWL, which is totally different.

Nonetheless, there is a certain sense of diminishing returns with Linkous, but with enough thrills along the way ("Happy Man" kills me sometimes) to make it worthwhile paying attention. If/when I recommend S'horse, I'll always point to the first disc.

I think that (well, some) people would be less disappointed with IAWL if he'd thrown in an anthem or two a la "Rainmaker" or "Sick of Goodbyes." (Maybe it was the absence of Mr. Cracker, who co-wrote both of those?) Linkous also seems to have ditched the country/folk style that served so well as a bedrock on much of Vivadixie.