The Microphones - The Glow Pt. 2 POLL

Hmmmmmmmmm

Tough.

This is one of my favourite albums of the '00s but I still struggle matching the titles to the songs. 'The Moon' is the obvious standout for me although on some days I prefer the single version on the Song Islands comp.

i voted "the moon" as well, but the whole album is great.

my recollection of this album is that it is masterfully recorded and sounds great but most of the songs are kind of crap-- with a couple exceptions, which are quite magnificent.

that nine note melody toward the end of "i want wind to blow" is p neat

I WENT BACK TO BE ALONE

fuck. "feel"

This will be so, so hard

what's the wheezing sound in "i want wind to blow"? an accordian?

this thread reminded me to go seek out this old phil elvreum(sp prob) interview, so thanks this thread

the moon is probably the right answer but i voted for you'll be in the air. this dude is remarkably consistent.

First three opening songs are great. Have a soft spot for 'i felt your touch' but voting for the opening track.

Shape not touch.

I love the first three tracks to death but after that my attention wanders and I found myself more interested by the recurring distant bell than the songs themselves. By the by, have you heard "Tests", the album before "Don't Wake Me Up"? It is so good

Aha http://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/album/tests

Yeah, I found Tests in a dollar bin one time. It's one of those albums of his filled with fragments, demos and alternate versions iirc. Some good stuff on there though. Some good stuff on all of them.

Went with "I felt your shape"

Need to seek out "tests"

so is this the canonical microphones album? or is it just being polled at random? i prefer it was hot we stayed in the water, personally.

I always understood that this one was the biggest success. I think Pitchfork is to blame for that, mostly.

It's the biggest success, it's the longest, it's the one that just feels most canonical. I prefer Wind's Poem and It was hot... myself as well.

I love this record, and don't really like anything else he/they ever did including any of the Mt Eerie stuff.

Is Wind's Poem a Mics album or Mt. Eerie? Whatever the case, Glow 2.0 is my Elverum jam, for sure.

Wind's Poem is the Mt Eerie album from 2009, with all the black metal stuff. A masterpiece.

I like The Microphones "Mt. Eerie" best of all but I'm a sucker for that longform style thing
We could hold Pitchfork "to blame" but really I'm glad at them c.a. 2003 for pushing this guy so hard

agree with fgti. This came along at a time when i was fairly locked in with an 'indie rock' aesthetic, and if iirc it really challenged me. I remember seeing a show with Elverum soon thereafter, and feeling completely demystified by the whole thing. still, what's recorded seriously holds up for me.

Fgoon otm

I saw Phil live right after "Mt Eerie" the album dropped and it killed my adoration for him dead. I wasn't ready for acoustic, autistic Phil. This was around the time the same shit when down w/ Papa M live

I saw that same tour and yeah. He was wearing snowpants ;_;

But he did premiere "I Say 'No'' which imo is enough justification for many more good-not-great records, that song is very powerful within or without the guy's catalogue/persona

The one time I saw Elv(e)rum play a solo acoustic show around 2006, I remember enjoying his songs' lack of adornment; he's not a charismatic performer, but it never damaged my enjoyment of the studio albums. I also have a fond but possibly unreliable memory of his ending the set by teaching the audience a song syllable by syllable, holding each note until the crowd picked it up.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Lotta songs got shafted

Oops, missed this. Not sure how I would've voted, I also don't really know a lot of it by name. Agreed with those who rate "It Was Hot" higher, though I did think this was great when it came out. Just never listened to it quite as much.

Poll results affirm that this album is very front loaded (or a masterpiece of album sequencing, depending on how you look at it)

well also
* 14 votes on an album with 20 tracks
* people are more likely to remember songs near the beginning of the album which they've probably heard more often than those near the end

also tracks 1-3 here are among the best tracks 1-3 I've ever heard

how did headless horseman get shut out??

Not sure if they're my overall favourites but goddamn "Samurai Sword" and "I Want to be Cold" are fucking amazing blow-your-ears-out tracks

Surprised this original poll didn't have "I Want the Wind to Blow" as the clear winner.

This record gets better with age. Most of Phil's stuff does. He's a genius.

been revisiting this since the new one came out.. phil is an absolute madman for putting i felt your shape and samurai sword right next to each other on this

hahaha, yeah! samurai sword might be the hardest rocking microphones song!

i felt your shape is such a beautiful song. i really can't express how much this album changed my musical listening and playing when it came out. i was still 17 or 18 or so, and i had never heard experimental/indie music like this, the thought of burying "i felt your shape" near the very end of an album, after many passages of relative silence and quiet and distant barges...all of it. it just really blew my mind. "map" used to mean absolutely everything to me. i had this really basic physical set of movements i would sometimes do to that song, like it would just compel me to stand up and grind my arms in slow motion circles in opposite directions, like i was atlas trying to take the earth and compress it down to a tiny rubber ball. really fucking weird, and i'm glad no one ever walked in on me, but it's still weird to me to think that i was this totally sober kid doing this, in the dark with the lights off and headphones on. very hard to explain but this album will always be important to me

My Roots Are Strong and Deep deserves more love on this thread. I probably wouldn't have voted for it -- really hard to compete with that opening trio -- but I was obsessed with the echo on that piano for a long time.

Think all of the tracks deserve a revisit. “You’ll Be in the Air” is such a grand, succinct tune.

yup that's a good one too.

Having relistened to It Was Hot and Mt Eerie the album since Microphones in 2020 was released, I still think this one stands handily above them. Just the right mix of catchy songs and his fantastic production decisions.

I can’t really hang with the vocals but yes this album is a huge accomplishment. I love all the stretches of empty space and I love when they rock the fuck out. What’s the song with the incredible droning strings and Mirah vocal? Is there more than one?

I saw Phil live around 2002. Towards the end of the set, a guy in a bear costume tied his legs together and lifted him up in the air with this pulley thing. So there’s Phil’s up in the air hanging up side down holding his guitar. He led the audience in a singalong of some spontaneous bear-related refrain and the bear let him down. It was pleasantly twee.

I want to be young again and listen to this album for the first time.

damn, yes. walking outside at night with this on headphones is something else. could never understand why 'it was hot we stayed in the water' didnt get bare love as well, though...

It Was Hot was "the" album for me, but Glow came out pretty soon after I got into it, so it was all kind of one big warm quilt of music in that time.

Saw the Microphones perform "Microphones in 2020" early last year in a Gothic Revival church in Brooklyn Heights --- it was absolutely tremendous, with the fuzzed-out bass vibrating through every stone in the building. A really special, brain-resetting show.

It Was Hot... was my introduction to the Microphones (about four years after it came out) and I loved it, then Glow Pt. 2 completely blew me away - the world of those albums felt so vivid and real. Elverum's body of work is incredible to me at this point really.

those two albums blend together for me too, i listened to them both a lot around the same time. the production/arrangements are amazing.