Probably my favorite album of theirs. Thank you! Have you heard this excellent cover https://videosift.com/video/Superchunk-Girl-u-Want-Devo-cover ?

Straight from the original betamax recording.
Such a great album.
*promote

It is very different and poppy compared to previous stuff for sure. I like it in the context of the song, even though overall I prefer Tool's prog/metal melding.

I'm not a Maynard whisperer / expert, but my guess is that there are 2 motivations for the sound of this song/album compared to other stuff.

1) Although Maynard is the vocalist for Tool, APC, and Puscifer (which I haven't listened to much), he kinda wants to keep all those projects distinct. Tool is more dark and heavy, APC is a bit more rock, and Puscifer trending towards some electronic stuff. But that kinda oversells this, because mostly he is putting vocals down onto musical tracks that the members of those bands have already recorded without much or any input from him...

2) From my interpretation of the song itself, he's being (mildly) critical about getting caught up in triviality of celebrity gossip and nightly news instead of paying attention to stuff closer to home. While simultaneously accepting that we all do that, and that sometimes it takes the death of a far-off idol from our adolescence that we'll never meet in person to get us to consider our own mortality.


So the poppy sound with that dark edge right around the corner really fits -- at least to me.

I'm a pretty big fan of Tool, and Maynard (singer for Tool, APC, and Puscifer). Weird / eccentric, but very deep and meaningful. I've been waiting for a new Tool album for a long time, but this one from APC wasn't really on my radar in advance even though I like other albums of theirs also. Then these singles hit, and they grabbed me right away.

The full impact takes longer to absorb, for me at least, with Maynard's songs. Usually I don't pay much attention to lyrics, but he always puts a lot of depth and breadth in. I guess I might think that was pretentious with other bands/artists, but seems like he really enjoys hearing different listeners take away different messages without one/his being "correct".

Glad you enjoyed them also!

Yeah I completely disagree with performance. I'm all about well recorded albums. I couldn't give a shit if it can be performed live, they don't call it "recording arts" for no reason, recording/ mixing/ engineering is an art! Look at My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" - an album that is highly regarded and cost so much to engineer that it put a well known record label out of business. It took them 20 years or so to be able to perform that album live.

@MilkmanDan
@ChaosEngine

thanks for the love gentlemen.
these guys really brought me back to a time where we would drag our milk crates of our favorite albums to a friends house just to introduce them to new music.

music that we loved.

and these guys react in such a genuine and honest way that i found endearing.

(and yeah chaos,i wasted waaaay too much time on their channel,so i hear ya,the check is in the mail.)

fuck..is it really 4AM?

This was one of my 8 albums for $.01 from Columbia house, the rest were Kiss albums and a 2 album Star Wars...I still have all the Kiss and Star Wars, but Wild and Crazy Guy was played to death in a few short years.

I don't recall buying it myself, but was defiantly the first record i ever owned. My mom however had bought me a Bay City Rollers (i had no idea who they were) cassette years earlier.

(edit) now im on a tangent
The first albums i actually bought myself were Don't Look Back (Boston), Van Halen, and Best of Earth Wind and Fire. All three for under twenty bucks which i had received on my birthday.

The first album I ever bought.

I couldn't stand Floyd when I was in junior high and high school because of the Wall, Dark Side of the Moon & Wish You Were Here. Then I eventually found all of the stuff that came before all of this stuff and became a fan. Live at Pompeii is a fantastic document of the post Barrett era before these albums and of course Barrett era Floyd is ace.

Wish You Were Here is one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums... one of my favorite albums period, and this is one of my favorite channels, got beat to the punch here, so *promote.

A great documentary on the album

Why this awful sounding album is a masterpiece has been added as a related post - related requested by shagen454 on that post.

That album is a classic and more relevant today than the day it was released.

But dude... I love that you love this, and I feel wrong telling you how to react, but if you’re gonna listen to this: get mad. Appreciation of the music, the lyrics is great, but get fucking mad. This album should be a historical footnote: “shit, wasn’t it awful when things where that fucked up in the 90s”. Instead, things are somehow worse.

I was ashamed of myself when I first heard this album 2 years after it came out, how has this dude missed it for 25? It hasn't aged at all.