Momofuku Poll #2 - Whaddya think?

[verbal gymnastics]

'No Hiding Place' is all about us, baby, and our fetching cloaks of anonymiteeeeee!

But these are our real names and locations aren't they?

[migdd]

'No Hiding Place' is all about us, baby, and our fetching cloaks of anonymiteeeeee!

But these are our real names and locations aren't they?

Pardon me, madame, my name IS migdd.

I've been thinking of changing it to "the artist formerly known as migdd" but I was afraid no one would recognize me!

[Otis Westinghouse]

My passport now says 'Otis Westinghouse'.

[wardo68]

I finally cast my vote. (You can all exhale now.) I put it somewhere between 'quite good' and 'freakin awesome'. I've been listening to it straight through, without skipping any tracks, but when I do, those will likely be the name songs (Harry, Stella and Feathers). The album starts great and picks up again at the end. A worthy successor to The Delivery Man.

[SweetPear]

I didn't read all of the posts but wanted to say that I got the CD for Mother's Day (and tix to EC w/the Police in Philly....9th row) and I've listened to it several times through. I think it sounds very
SPIKE-esque. I like it! It gives me a feeling of Elvis of the past. I think he's still got it and even though I've seen him a hundred times before, I can't wait to see him again.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Another returnee! Hello again Sweet Pear - nice to know you're out there and going to see Elv soon.

I'm getting more and more into it, I even found myself with 'Drum & Bone' on the mind the other day and had to reach for the iPod. There are a lot of great examples of Elv's classic song-writing here, in terms of how well the different parts work together, etc. The one song I can't really see the point of, or the one that gets others excited, is 'Go Away'. To me 'Go Away' is the most throwaway.

[Who Shot Sam?]

I even found myself with 'Drum & Bone' on the mind the other day

Yep, had "I'm a limited, primitive kind of man" running around in my head when I was driving down to the Red Bulls game yesterday. With those lovely "lalalalalalalas..." in the background.

The album is really growing on me.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Seemed a bit too low key to me today when I played it. I reckon it's a great song that needs a bit more of a feisty arrangement. Just revisiting the Ryman live version for comparison: yep works well live.

[John]

There are some of Elvis' albums that I remember just playing over and over for months. This is becoming one of them. I am loving all of it now, even a few that weren't initially favourites - Turpentine and Go Away especially.

Get Happy! was my first EC purchase. GH, Punch The Clock, King of America, Spike and Brutal Youth are the only other albums I can remember playing as much as this.

In another time No Hiding Place would surely be the lead single.

[Mr. Misery]

In general I'm loving the hard-edged tracks: 'No Hiding Place' (which is so good I had to play it half a dozen times before listening to the rest of the album!), 'American Gangster Time,' and 'Stella Hurt.'

But 'My Three Sons' is achingly beautiful and 'Song with Rose' is a masterpiece--the melody and lyrics are extraordinary.

SONG WITH ROSE

Between last breaths and first regrets
Days dragged on like cigarettes
In distance martyrs and martinets
Dally, dancing with the empty silhouettes of threats

So, where but heaven does love end
And where on earth does it begin
It’s not the kind of love that is pinned
Like a medal
Or presses pennies in a tin

There is hope, and after that, there is only faith
Love like a wraith
Never made me afraid
Consoled as I was by that shade...

Here lie the roses in the ashes
Deep as the barnacles that cling
Just like a lace that runs through everyone and everything

In that other still forever
In that time before the past
I told myself we’d be together
Can you promise me that it will be eternally?

There is hope and after that, there is only faith
And love like a wraith
Never made me afraid
Consoled as I was by that shade...

[legman open to offers]

Mr. Misery, good to see you, thanks for your points. I agree, No Hiding Place, and Song With Rose are the standouts for me. Whoever can use "barnacles" in the lyrics and make it sound beautiful is a genius!

[Otis Westinghouse]

Nice to see a new LP bringing some old timers back! Hello there.

Song With Rose is one that has really grown on me, and yes, fabulous words. I've had My Three Sons most on the brain this week, and its particular personal resonance of also being the proud father of my three sons (the middle of whom hits 12 tomorrow) has hit me right between the eyes. I love the sentiment of 'I never thought that I'd become...' and can relate to it. You desire it, plan it (maybe), make it happen, and yet it can also seem somehow unbelievable. I look back to my callow, insecure self in my 20s and try and imagine myself seeing my 43 year old self, and yes, I never thought... I particularly love this verse:

Here's your pillow
Go to sleep and I will follow
May you never have any more sorrows
That's not something you can count upon
Still I want it for my three sons

There's some real poetry here. As we learned with North, naked emotions of love rather suit Elvis.

[oily slick]

well it is just dandy to have this new record. it is a relief to hear it. WIWC was studied, though i love it, and TDM was fun, but disjointed (thank you sam for saying you could never find the story, cause me neither), but this is just largely raw and reminiscent and a pleasure to have. hard to pick favorites; after many listens, they haven't really surfaced yet. just enjoying almost all of it really. i couldn't even guess which ones will see prominent stage time. i suspect AGT, though i am clueless about it except i imagine i should be offended. mr feathers i could live w/o easily and my three sons is painful to listen to and i am a sappy old dad, so we just skip that one. do it if you want, but work at it a little. i love the raging rant of stella hurt, but i must be missing something with the evidently amateurish edit or i have a black market copy. i have been waiting for someone to talk about this, but maybe i have missed it or the bad edit is supposed to be there and carries a message or something i don't understand. obviously "1929" is edited on top of an earlier take where he sang "made in 29". you can hear the the "twe" right before he sings "1929". do i have the only copy of this or what's the deal?

[johnfoyle]

Stella' is by far my fave. track . At work I line it up when I'm tired and it really kick starts me again. The sudden ending is in the official release so is intentional. I'm sure it's a reference to some obscure rock classic , maybe some Action side from '66 that only Elvis has on a promo., white label disc or something. The '1929' verbal fumble is, maybe, a result of listening to Bob Dylan's radio shows. In them Zimmy always read out years in this way - 1929 would be 'nineteen and twenty nine ' as opposed to the more usual ' Nineteen Twenty Nine'. . Just a guess.

[oily slick]

naw, it's not a cool gritty stutter. it is clearly "made in twe nineteen twenty-nine". sound even changes. 2 different cuts. maybe that first whole 20 seconds of mr feathers is just a screw up nobody noticed hahahahaha!

[beyondbelief]

>Stella' is by far my fave. track . At work I line it up when I'm tired and it really kick starts me again. The sudden ending is >in the official release so is intentional. I'm sure it's a reference to some obscure rock classic , maybe some Action side >from '66 that only Elvis has on a promo., white label disc or something.

I'm sure you're right and that others have done it (do I remember a Pink Floyd song that ends abruptly like that?) but it reminds me of Night Rally. (Now if only they'd segue into a country stroll like Stranger in the House
I guess the MF'ing MF poll is closed already but put me down for the second from the top category - great and time will tell if it's up there with his all-time best. But I'm Mclovin' it
I can't decide my fave track, there's not a bad one in the bunch, and most are very good and growing on me more and more each listen...

Bill

[beyondbelief]

The poll isn't closed, I just must have somehow linked to the results directly rather than the poll. I did my civic duty and voted (pushing it to 50% in the second from the top category!).

Momofuku is the best thing EC's done in years (and I like TDM, WIWC etc.)

Bill

[Poor Deportee]

That great ending to Stella Hurt is most likely a nod to The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." Certainly that's what it reminds me of.

Indeed, I'd suggest that this record shows off as well as any what's perhaps Elvis's essential, career-defining trick - that of being BOTH Lennon and McCartney at the same time. You've got grinding, demented Lennonish tracks like 'Turpentine' and 'Stella Hurt,' and the kind eclectic, melodic pop McCartney specialized in during his best years ('Mr. Feathers,' 'Harry's Worth'), colliding frutifully together on the same record. The sentimental melodicism of 'My Three Sons' could, of course, belong to both. The check out the wonderful backing vocals on the coda of 'No Hiding Place' (ooo, oooo, oooo, oooo....AAAH!)! Straight out of Abbey Road.

A track like "Go Away," with that organ, also wafts straight out of any number of records from about 1966, it seems to me.

This is such a surprising record, in my opinion, because it finds EC landing so HARD back on his home domain of 1960ish pop - it's as if he never left, as if he picked it up right from Blood and Chocolate or Trust: the urgency, the intensity, the imaginativeness and above all the immediacy of it is simply classic middle-period Elvis, but with themes of the present (internet, old age) and with a voice deliciously thickened by time. Only Steve Nieve's keyboard parts sound deliberately nostalgic to me (and slightly disappointing as a result; sure, the *parts* are good, but the sound is identical to This Year's Model).

I also think that reports of EC writing most of the songs in a 2-week period leading up to the session might be revealing. The *older* songs he had - apparently, the co-authorships with Cash and Lynne - are actually two of the less successful tracks. I'd speculate that that's because Elvis works best when he simply blasts songs out and doesn't think too much about them, either as compositions or recordings. Hopefully he does more of this sort of "instant" stuff in future.

This is about an 8/10 on the Elvis meter. I'm really surprised by all the lukewarm responses earlier in this thread.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Returning to the issue of 'disgrace' sounding like 'discus' on NHP, it is kinda ridiculous. The 'disgrace' is more or less rhyming with 'place', yet the use of terrible means he has to stress 'dis' over 'grace' as there just aren't the syllabus available to end on the stressed syllable and it does make it sound very like 'discus'. If he just sang 'real disgrace' he could have said it fine. In a different category is 'Saigon correspondent' which is much more Dylanesque in its self-conscious incorrect last syllable stress to force the rhyme.

[Emotional Toothpaste]

Lets be honest. The album has about 3-4 good songs, 2 mediocre, and the rest should go on Goodbye Cruel World or some lesser b-sides release or not released at all. Turpentine and Stella Hurts? Lack of melody and no groove or hook. American Gangster Time is plain awful. Bright spots are No Hiding Place, Flutter & Wow, Pardon Me Madam, Go Away. Thats it. This just isn't in the same league at all with Blood & Choc, TDM, Brutal Youth, or ATUB, no where close.

[bambooneedle]

Bright spots are No Hiding Place, Flutter & Wow, Pardon Me Madam, Go Away.

I was going to ask you to, try to get you to, elaborate on the merits of Go Away, but why not do so on a new thread where other people may post on it as well?

[LessThanZero]

In the orchard apples are witherin
In the shadows something is slitherin

[the_platypus]

Lets be honest. The album has about 3-4 good songs, 2 mediocre, and the rest should go on Goodbye Cruel World or some lesser b-sides release or not released at all. Turpentine and Stella Hurts? Lack of melody and no groove or hook. American Gangster Time is plain awful. Bright spots are No Hiding Place, Flutter & Wow, Pardon Me Madam, Go Away. Thats it. This just isn't in the same league at all with Blood & Choc, TDM, Brutal Youth, or ATUB, no where close.

"Let's be honest"? Let's state our opinions as fact, why don't we. I actually love the songs you wrote off. I found the album as a whole fantastic. I like it ten times better than The Delivery Man, and put it right beside Brutal Youth and ATUB. And if you really think "Turpentine" lacks a melody, you'd be better off revising your concept of what "melody" constitutes.

[Emotional Toothpaste]

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I can't help it if mine just happens to be the most accurate.

[Mr. Average]

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I can't help it if mine just happens to be the most accurate.

As Billy Bob Thornton (Karl Childers) says in "Sling Blade":

"I lack the way you tawk- uh huh"