why owb is probably the best

[Cerberus]

DUBNO: Surfboy, M.E.
STITI: Blueski, Stagger
BF: Skym, Push Downstairs
AHDO: EssGee, Little Speaker
OWB: BoyBoyBoy, Cuddlebunny

Surfboy??? M.E.??? Stagger??? Little Speaker???

Four great tracks of course, I don't know why do you dislike ADHO so much...

And also, you never mention a great track in OWB: Glam Bucket (with Crocodile, B. Burnout, Best Magmu Ever and Loads Of Birds, the greatest in the last album).

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Cerberus

And also, you never mention a great track in OWB: Glam Bucket

then let me mention it. i'm friggin' obsessed with glam bucket. i just checked my last.fm stats and for every OWB track i've listened to, i've listened to glam bucket twice. i can't get enough of it. i want to listen to it loud, lots, and over and over and over and over. love it.

[dubman]

good thread.

for me the thing with OWB is that it has as many pratfalls as AHDO and BF, it's just that as with each successive album, the falls come a bit harder than last time. skym and mama just had really ill-advised moments, but were still listenable. Trim and DA3D were mildly embarassing to listen to overall, each one potentially displaying a band with its quality filters turned off and losing the ear for something special as opposed to just different.
on this album the lows are so low that its come to a love/hate fiasco. ring road, with its preposterous drums and a shouty pseudo-beat poet/unmusical vocals, is so brazenly unconcerned with sounding like anything we've heard before and tap into something really 80s about them that you'll eventually be charmed by it or just get disgusted. speaking of the 80's... boy, boy, boy is almost irredeemable. i didnt really want to hear it live, and nothing's changed because of that. i think it's bombastic and pretentious and overblown and shitty. it sounds bad from the first second with it's tinny beat to the last asinine string section. it is the worst thing they've done. worse than a grand majority of underneath the radar.

with that said, faxed invitation and glam bucket handily make up for it by showing them at their most brilliant (something which AHDO, for all its great tracks, never managed to acheive).
other songs range from decent to great. i keep warming up to crocodile AND the video for it (purely because i'm in my garage when i play it and i'm always walking around doing something... hmmm nicely familiar). BB is pretty good, but not innovative in the least. got into holding the moth pretty severely today, to heal is still very nice. I DONT SEE WHAT YOU PEOPLE HAVE AGAINST CUDDLE BUNNY. as far as atmospheric tracks go it's absolutely beautiful and real. i'm so glad they included something pushing them just that much more somewhere else, that and just the sounds of it are really inspiring. cockerel is great too. not a huge fa of mamgu as it's a drawl of downtempo with some pretty things around but totally aimless. i'll take it but least inspired closing from them ever. i may not be a fan of M.E. but it certainly attempted SOMETHING.

so if we're going by skipping tracks:

dubno: M.E
STITI: Juanita (sue me. it goes too long. i skipped it and listened to the rest and it felt so much more complete and whole)
BF: Skym and winjer 75% of the time. Jumbo 50%. something like a mama 25%
AHDO: Twist 25% of the time. Sola sistim, Trim, and DA3D 100% of the time. LITTLE SPEAKER AND ESSGEE ARE ALWAYS PLAYED BECAUSE THEY'RE GREAT
OWB: Ring Road 70% of the time. Boy Boy Boy 100%. i 'forget' to play Mamgu about 50%

[King of Snake]

I kinda liked Glam Bucket at first, but I've developed a dislike for it now for some reason. I guess it's because it's because the whole song is basically this buildup to those grating violin-like screeches that just hurt my ears. It just sounds depressing to me.
Boy Boy Boy for me ins't quite as bad as Dubman makes it out to be but it doesn't really do anything for me either. The vocoder on the live version added some interest. The ending with the strings is pretty bad, and I feel the same with the ending of Holding the Moth with it's noodly piano nonsense (i like the rest of the track up to that though).

[potatobroth]

Originally Posted by Cerberus

Surfboy??? M.E.??? Stagger??? Little Speaker???

Four great tracks of course, I don't know why do you dislike ADHO so much...

And also, you never mention a great track in OWB: Glam Bucket (with Crocodile, B. Burnout, Best Magmu Ever and Loads Of Birds, the greatest in the last album).

I just overlooked Glam Bucket. I love that track.

Surfboy? are you serious? That track is so blah it hurts. Thats an easy skip for me. M.E. yep, its true I skip that track every time. Stagger bores me and Little Speaker is ok, but its so long and takes so long to get to the good part that I skip it or at the very least fast-forward it.

Thats not to say I don't like these tracks at all, its just that if I want to listen to say, AHDO, then I usually don't want to hear Little Spearker or Ess Gee.

And who said I disliked AHDO? I like that album quite a bit. Its not their strongest but there are plenty of tracks I really like on there: Twist, TMO, Luetin, Ballet Lane, Trim, among others.

My whole point was that with each Underworld album, there are songs that even though I may like them, I still skip a decent amount of em. Boy Boy Boy and Ess Gee = 100% skip. I really dislike those songs. Everytime I hear someone say that they love Ess Gee, I go back and see if I've missed something. Sure enough, I didn't. IMHO, its terrible and I can't get past that.

Cuddle Bunny isn't bad so to say, but it leads NO WHERE. Cuddle Bunny needs to lead right into Bamboo (the one played from the Oblivion Ball special) for it to be used to its fullest potential. Its as if Stagger were to lead into Ess Gee. It wouldn't make sense and CB leading into Faxed Invitation really ruins the vibe its created.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by dubman

ring road, with its preposterous drums and a shouty pseudo-beat poet/unmusical vocals, is so brazenly unconcerned with sounding like anything we've heard before and tap into something really 80s about them that you'll eventually be charmed by it or just get disgusted.

i have to say, i wouldn't have put it like this but i have to agree with your assessment. i was disgusted the first 2 or 3 times i heard ring road. but then the vocoded bits suddenly struck me as lovely and the character of the song charmed the pants off of me. now i love the track, but i realize that affection is an anomaly. if any other musical act had produced it, i would have never forgiven it. but as it stands, i absolutely adore it now in spite of the fact that i completely understand why people hate it.

i love it, but i would be too embarrassed to blast it in my car with the windows down. i don't want to be overheard listening to it. but i love it love it love it. it's a love that dare not speak its name.

[Rog]

track skipping.......hmmm....... i don't generally do it meself.i can understand why some don't like ringroad but my son loves it and thinks its the best tune on the album!.....he also likes occasional 'streets' tracks (the fool) so i can understand where he's coming from. Its the only track i'm ambivilant towards......as for other tracks i don't like moaner and half the tracks on AHDO but like all the tracks on STITI and dubno. 'Underneath the radar' is vile! i can't stand it and i will give the vinyl away to anyone who wants it..........

[//\/\/]

maybe that has something to do with not living in engerland? it sounds too similar to cod-poetry being hawked round on records over here that i just don't buy into (cf the streets, lilly allen, blah...) cramming words into unscanned lines etc - just not my cuppa apples and thank you and ta

...as for the rest - beyond the unbelievable opening 2 tracks (which the rest, understandably, fail to live up to) - most of it is growing nicely on me, bar the odd bit of soundtrack "deep voice" in particular - oh yes!

(and to whoever said "me" was no good - wtf?!?!)

[negative1]

Originally Posted by dubman

good thread.
STITI: Juanita (sue me. it goes too long. i skipped it and listened to the )

there's a 3 min 50 sec promo edit, that you might like....

i actually skip banstyle/sappys curry for the same reason
[too long], and the remix of banstyle is ok...

later
-1

[botkiller]

What I dig about OWB is that it's not a genre album. It spans all manner of emotions, sounds and feelings, and I think it's an album that UW really made for themselves, like they were not setting out to make another dance floor banger, or anything else, they just wanted to make an album, and do it as much with their hearts as always. They suceeded greatly.

While it is not my favorite album, it is definitely an awesome listen and it grows on me every time I load it up.