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| osumarko
2013-07-09 4:32:19 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Amazon is streaming the new album for free. I'm seriously loving it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_379209802_4?ie=UTF8&docId=1001278131&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=hero-quick-promo&pf_rd_r=1X63B1BKD62WY8H2KAM6&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1578657082&pf_rd_i=B00CLF8400 |
| mistermatt1984
2013-07-09 6:21:18 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming On Pandora too. I like some of it. Sometimes Matt's lyrics just don't make any sense though. I'll be really into it and then I will be like, uh... I heard the 15 second previews Sunday and really didn't think I'd like the Album at all. It's much better than my expectations. |
| paulb
2013-07-10 01:46:35 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming The album preview did not excite me at all either. The production sounds so polished and clean, even more so than Modern Love. But after giving the album a good 5 listens already today, its certainly better than what I was expecting. Unfortunately the songs certainly are over polished and lack the real emotion that most Matt Nathanson songs have, I loved the tracks Farewell, December, Last Days of Summer in San Francisco and some of the vocals on Kill The Lights. Tracks like Annie Always Waiting and Kinks Shirt were a bit painful to listen to, like hes trying too hard to write something catchy. |
| andrew sharpe
2013-07-10 12:46:45 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming I was completely prepared to not like this album because: -I've bought every one of his albums on release day since Still Waiting and Modern Love was the first time I didn't like one of his albums as much as the one before it. I was worried the trend would continue with this new one. -I didn't like the preview. -Girl in the Kinks Shirt might be my least favourite song of his...ever. But...I like this album and really regret listening to the preview before buying it. Right now I'd say it's as good as Modern Love but not as good as Some Mad Hope (my favourite of his). Kinks Shirt is really the only track I still don't dig...and in the context of the album, I might come around on it. Some of the production, for example, a couple of the background vocals and some of the vocal effects do make me cringe (probably a result of being a fan from his acoustic days), and I do like the first half more than the second, but still a strong album. Couple of comments: -Birthday Girl is classic Matt...melody sounds just like something that could have been on Some Mad Hope (my favourite of his) or even Ernst. -Favourite track is Sky High Honey. -Favourite lyrics: "I miss how simple love could be." "No more late night trips to Boston. No more Cure songs to get lost in." (great original rhyme combo) "Where Geary meets the sea, you turned and said to me, This year was ours." "She had a Master's degree in disappointment." "My whole life's a movie, if movies made you want to jump off a bridge." "You be stunning baby, I'll be stunned. Keep glowing, I'll follow your explosions." I'll be at the record store on Tuesday as usual! Hope everyone else likes the album too. |
| squintyt4e
2013-07-10 12:57:00 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Of the three he released in full as of last week "Earthquake Weather" was my favorite, wasn't full sold on the others although the acoustic version I was getting into. When I saw him on Friday night though that changed and the songs opened themselves up to me. Mission Bells: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLXSy86gJV8 Sky High Honey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK9Q67lQDXU I wish he's done 'Quake as well. But these were pretty awesome to see. As for the rest of the album, thus far I'm not sold, but I remember really not digging Some Mad Hope after falling in love with Fireworks, and now SMH might be my favorite so who knows. Bp |
| mistermatt1984
2013-07-10 1:36:55 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Wow, I thought I would take an abundance of hatred for criticizing (happened before when I tried to actually give a critique) but I am glad to see I'm not alone. I like Kill The Lights and Heart Starts, even Earthquake Weather. Birthday Girl is pretty good. Farewell Decemeber isn't bad even though I barely even noticed it was a different song than Sunday NYTimes. Sky High Honey , Birthday Girl, Mission Bells are okay. I can't stand Last Days, Annie or Kinks Shirt. I loved Beneath These Fireworks. That was the first album I had of his when I started following in 04. Some Mad Hope was okay and Modern Love was there with SMH. This album might be my least favorite. There are a couple songs but it's nothing compared to what he started as. He really should just bust out the 12 string. Maybe get out a piano and do a strictly piano song and put down the guitar. Modern Love seemed too busy to me, and a lot of this new album is just weird. It actually kinda hurts to say this. Some of Matt's previous albums I really connected with. Nothing on this new one makes me really wanna play it over and over again. |
| mistermatt1984
2013-07-10 1:42:36 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Oh and Lastly... PLEASE get a haircut! |
| mistermatt1984
2013-07-10 1:58:14 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Sorry, I'm topic assasinating... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWvTpKk7Zyw This is pretty cool to see if you haven't about creative process. Disappointed some of the lyrics from the original faster didn't make it. |
| Dxblazer1499
2013-07-10 10:46:03 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Love this conversation, as I share the same sentiments as many of you. Ill copy and paste what I wrote to a friend after my first listen through : "Okay, just finished my first listen. And I will say that it's my least favorite complete album he's put out, and I don't think any amount of listens is going to change that. I will say that I do still admire his desire to continuously evolve his sound, as this album sounds a little more "old school" almost Americana rock-ish to me at many points, that I feel like is veryyyy influenced by the stuff he personally used to listen to. So when you consider that, I feel like this is exactly the album he set out to do this time around. "Sunday New York Times", "Farewell December", "Birthday Girl", "Earthquake Weather", "sky High Honey", "Last Days Of Summer" are my favorites by far. "Mission Bells" and "Heart Starts" are solid, if unspectacular. "Kinks Shirt" is fun, but not something I really look for in a Matt Song. And "Annie's Always Waiting" has a nice drive to it, but is probably my least favorite. His lyrics, as always, are still amazing, particularly on "Sunday New York Times" and "Farewell December" (which is a great closing track and different in structure from anything he's written before). But even with the bunch of really good tracks, I find myself missing songs like "Room At the End Of the World" and "Falling Apart", and also missing the "moodier" tone of songs like "Kept" and "Kiss Quick" from the last album. I feel like the album needs 2-3 more tracks in that vein. It feels...incomplete?" With that said, the album HAS grown on me quite a bit. But I still feel as though this will rank on the lower end of my favorite albums of his, with Some Mad Hope being my favorite and Beneath These Fireworks being a close 2nd. |
| andrew sharpe
2013-07-11 08:52:32 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming I enjoy these discussions too...kinda miss the old message board. One thing I try to keep in mind is that Matt doesn't and shouldn't always need to appeal to the same fan base. While Kinks Shirt sounds like a gimmicky jingle to me, it could very well end up a hit single and bring thousands of new fans on board. I don't begrudge Matt for swinging for the fences. |
| Robbie
2013-07-11 11:16:11 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Great talk everyone. This is what I've been doing with a bunch of my friends on Facebook too, just rehashing the album and giving it repeated listens to see if the songs hold up. Now I consider myself a GIGANTIC Matt fan, as I'm sure almost everyone here does, but I'm only 23. I started following him in high school right around the time that SMH came out, and I bought Fireworks, At the Point, and some of his songs from his earlier records, so I may not be as experienced in the depth of what his music used to be. Having said that, I can't get over "Kinks Shirt." I think it is just a great, catchy jam that is really about something pretty sad (the fact that he saw a chick that he wanted to get with, but couldn't due to his relationship). This could have easily been a sad, mournful, early Matt song, but he turned it into something that I could easily hear on a Mix radio station across the country. I showed it to my friend who is pretty bro-ish and he seemed to like it too, so I think Matt is pulling in some new fans, which is nothing to hate on. I understand it sounds a bit "cheap," or "shallow," musically, but the lyrics are pretty heavy: "Getting what you want can break your heart" = he wanted to pick this girl up, but in the long run he would have ruined his relationship. Having had a gf for 6.5 years, maybe I can just relate to this song more. Anyway, I like the album. I think it's less introspective than SMH, and more musically experimental than Modern Love, which is pretty cool. Also, I believe "Heart Starts" contains the first recorded instance of an f-bomb in a Matt song. Could be wrong. The only problem I see is what someone mentioned before, that I'm not sure how some of these would translate to a small acoustic venue. The risk of not doing 4-chord songs that are easy to write is that you need a full band to play some of the more upbeat ones. That's my 2 cents. Still love the man and would pay all available funds in order to hang out with him for 24 hours. |
| squintyt4e
2013-07-12 07:47:57 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming New interview with Ann Arbor radio station including Mission Bells, Sky High Honey & Kinks Shirt live with Aaron: http://www.annarbors107one.com/page.php?page_id=301 The album is definitely growing more and more with each listen. All of the songs are now on You Tube with lyrics and let me tell you, reading through the lyrics he's definitely selling me on the album. Great, crushing lyrics! |
| BHats0414
2013-07-12 12:30:11 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming I, too, am glad to see this conversation unfold here. It seems that the vast majority of comments on his Facebook page are so overly positive that I thought I was in the severe minority. I've listened to the album at least 4 or 5 times now through Amazon streaming. Each time I listen to it, I like it a bit more. But I'm surprised that a Matt Nathanson album has ever had to "grow on me". I can't tell what half of the songs mean. Matt's lyrics have always been emotional, but these have some sort of indie/emo vibe to them. If you follow Matt on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram like I do, you can see how this fits with where he seems to be in his life (for example, he's always talking about the new 'old' music he's picking up at record stores - and you can tell there are a lot of references to that in his songs). I don't know, I'm sure I will find myself humming some of these songs to myself in a few days, but for now, after I listen to this, my instinct is to throw on an old album (pre-BTF) and just listen to the songs that I love from him. I agree with whoever said he just needs a 12-string and a piano...less is more. I'm hoping he'll do a tour with just that one day soon! |
| andrew sharpe
2013-07-12 2:02:25 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Aha this is exactly what I was saying about Kinks Shirt. He's trying to expand horizons. Check out this quote from him on the Patcast: "Here's the deal. If the record comes out and my fans love it, that's fantastic. But I don't want to spend my life...I want to expand my fan base. I want this thing to sort of ripple outwards. I want more and more people to be liking it." - http://patcast.com/ |
| Shun
2013-07-14 3:36:57 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming To continue the conversation here: I think it is a pretty excellent record if only because Matt is mixing things up, playing several different types of songs, but still keeping the same introspective songwriter vibe he generally achieves with his acoustic/live performances. It has a less rock, more pop feel, with the exception of songs like Earthquake Weather (which feels as hard rock as Car Crash did back when SMH was released) and the punky but guitar driven Annie's Always Waiting. The poppier songs tend not to be as guitar-driven as his usual songs but are still infused with modern day production values. About Annie's Always Waiting... I really enjoy this song. It's got this obvious punk feel which is almost sarcastic since this isn't the type of song Matt usually writes. I feel like he was trying to think of songwriting ideas and said, "Fuck it, let's write a punk song." The chorus and post-chorus are so fast/hard but then the verse is this heavy drum riff that mirrors the edginess of the guitars. The final bridge with the raw vocal mic--yips in the background and all--you can tell the band and spectating yippers are just jamming out on this fast rock song. But it still fits with the rest of the record's diverse sound. I could say lots more but I'm still enjoying it--it's a cool evolution of Matt's sound. I'd love to hear the whole record live but I'm not sure he could pull them all off with his current band. I'm hopeful though--I just know his more produced songs like Kiss Quick haven't translated well live. Did anyone else catch the reusing of the line, "I can't get to what you need" at the end of the verses of Heart Starts? Matt pulling out all the stops--stealing his own lyrics. Love it. Should have named the song that to mess with us. |
| squintyt4e
2013-07-15 09:55:03 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Earlier in the thread it was discussed how the new material would translate live...I think the new songs sound pretty good so far. Kill the Lights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nU0V8cIazs Annie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mV0aK07D-8 Warning: The taper's mic couldn't handle bass drum or loud volume. |
| Shun
2013-07-15 10:20:57 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming I hadn't seen those videos (even though searching Matt Nathanson latest uploads on YouTube is a weekly habit of mine). Sounded pretty good! |
| mistermatt1984
2013-07-15 11:12:04 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming @Shun, Technically Matt could make the justification that "I Can't Get to what you need" isn't recycled since it was never released. I do have the studio version. It was the first thing I noticed when I heard the album the first time though. I thought it was clever to agree with your point though. |
| mistermatt1984
2013-07-15 11:17:04 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming I am a big fan of Kill the Lights and Farewell December. Farewell might be my all time favorite song of Matt's. |
| paulb
2013-07-16 4:57:45 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming @mistermatt Studio version of I Cant Get To What You Need?! Where!? I really want to hear that! |
| aheadofstraight
2013-07-17 09:08:37 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Ha, he mentioned Sharknado in the Kill the Lights vid! I'm still digesting the album. It is definitely growing on me with each listen. When I first heard Kinks Shirt on the USA Today preview, I immediately thought he was going the route of Train's newer sound. |
| derek
2013-07-19 10:32:49 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming I've always preferred the more upbeat songs and actually felt like Matt got away from what really got me hooked on him during the last few albums that had great commercial success. I'm glad to see the direction he has taken with this album. It feels more cynical acoustic rock. That to me was Matt's style. I haven't really listened to the full album enough but I'm loving Earthquake Weather, Kinks Shirt, Kill the Lights, Birthday Girl and Mission Bells. |
| derek
2013-07-21 7:54:47 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Kill the lights. Hands. down. the best song on the album |
| core013
2013-07-25 4:57:39 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming If anyone is interested, I did a full review on my tumblr page. http://core013.tumblr.com/post/56104860809/last-of-the-great-pretenders |
| andrew sharpe
2013-07-28 07:23:32 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Nice review core, you obviously know your Matt. I like this line: "There’s sort of an 80s feel to this one and I ain’t mad at it." |
| core013
2013-07-31 10:40:31 pm |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Thanks, Andrew! |
| mistermatt1984
2013-08-01 03:09:38 am |
+ Last of the Great Pretenders streaming Would anyone scan the credits and writing section of the album jacket. I am going to order the Record eventually, but I didn't get with my digital. PLEASE |