ok, well ive been ruminating over the events that have
transpired with sdre over the past months and i
decided to share my opinions . . .
the breakup has got to be dan vs. jeremy. bands dont
break up over record contracts or bad promotion, they
move to another label. its just a p.r. excuse so they
dont split their fans up over a personal issue. im not
saying that its hatred between the two or anger with
the work, but it seems like its 2 different views of
where sdre was headed. going from the introspective
masterpiece How It feels . .. to The Rising Tide is
extremely drastic. the direction sdre was headed with
songs like The Sharks. . . and Guitar and Video Games
doesnt add up with most of the material on The Rising
Tide. It seems to me that The Rising Tide was a
overtly Dan Record. Not that dan isnt a good song
writer or lyricst (the things he did on diary and how
it feeld are amazing) but that the songs which are on
TRT are really obviously dans music and dan's new
lyric approach. the problem that i have with TRT is
that you can tell right off the bat which songs are
dans and which songs are jeremys, and the lyrics that
dan wrote for the album arent that great. what made
sdre so important and powerful with their first three
albums was the intensely personal songwriting approach
that gave you slices of a story or inner emotional
battle. when dan starts to sound off on stuff like
Snibe and Killed By An Angel and television its
completely boring. art is made through dealing with
yourself to become universal when its actually
personal. dan's approach on TRT to most of the lyrics
is vague, unemotional diatribes about general issues
that really dont get any emotion across. Jeremys songs
like The Ocean, Tearing in My heart and Faces in
Disguise, Rain Song, Fool in the Photograph, work alot
better and get some emotion across cause he doesnt
tell you the whole story and tackles personal issues.
Im not saying TRT is bad, cause its a sonically good
album with some good songs, but Its not what they were
headed with How It Feels . .. it just doesnt make any
sense. . . anyways to my main point, i think Jeremy
wanted to go with the more subtle, softer material to
develop sdre's sound where dan was trying too hard to
please the fans clamoring for more rocking songs and
coming up with bland lyrics. im certain the
jeremy+will project will make some of the best music
of this decade, with many subtle layers, haunting
songs and amazing lyrics as jeremy always writes
really great lyrics.
next thing, why in gods name isnt there a b-sides cd.
its not like there are 400 songs that have to be gone
through, theres like what, maybe 15-20 songs that
could be released and i cant believe sub pop doesnt
want to cash in on them still. my idea: a double cd-
disc 1: b-sides, rarities and demos/ disc 2: selected
live performances (94, 98-00) and radio sessions. it
would make me happier tashn anything to get some of
the really great songs like spade+parade, 9, bucket of
Chicken in cd quality, digitally mastered and mixed
along with some band selected performances of their
favorite songs, not sub pop picking a show or crudely
taping a show to cash in.
the VH1 thing is really hard to fathom since as been
stated before there is nothing on Fugazi or Sonic
Youth. I mean SDRE is one of the most important punk
acts in history by creating a distinct sound that has
inspired a sect of the emo genre to completely rip
them off in most cases. i mean if you look at it
theres Minor Threat and Black Flag for Hardcore and
Fugazi(+rites of spring if you need to be anal) and
SDRE for the "emo" (i really hate usuing that word)
genre. but its hard to believe a station that plays
such shit as david gray, janet jackson, lifehouse of
whatever flavour of the month would actually do
something on a really great band.
anyways im open to arguing anything i said, so write
me, and not the list thank you, for replies. and buy
every Cursive cd you can get your hands on. its worth
every penny and then some.
Peter
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