I Don't Like the Drugs, But the Drugs Like Me

VS

#3 The Mountain Goats- We Shall All be Healed vs. #14 Sublime- Sublime

These rankings and matchups were done as "mathematically" as possible, and yet for the second posting in a row, I find myself writing about two albums that have some great similarities. In this case, the similarity is drugs. While not every song on both albums deals directly with the issue, each traffics (pun intended) heavily in discussions of the drug of choice, crystal meth and marijuana, respectively. And, ironically, while Sublime revels in the use of theirs and John Darnielle's experience seems considerably more harrowing, Darnielle's accounts of crystal meth users are at least in part fictional and he has come through that particular phase of his life seemingly none worse for the wear, whereas Bradley Nowell died of an overdose (though obvioulsy not of pot) shortly before this albums release.



The Arguments: I've owned Sublime since its release, and while I certainly listened to parts of it since that time, I don't think I ever really appreciated it until recently. And while I don't want to overstate its themes (not that I haven't already) I have to conclude that for 14 year old me, lyrics about 12 year old prostitutes, the LA riots, and, not least of which, the joys of pot didn't quite register with me. And while "getting" the nuance of a lyric like "finding roaches in the pot" (hes not talking about bugs, right?) doesn't make or break an album, I think I can appreciate both subject matter and the albums place in history better now. This album is so chock full of key songs that it feels like a greatest hits album (I had to wiki it to make sure it wasn't and I had just forgotten)...the songs that made Sublime famous, the "What I Got's" and "Santeria's" but also songs that I genuinely like now (those are fare too overplayed for me to have much of an opinion about, except to say that I don't think "santeria" or "wrong way" are the pinnacle of Nowell's songwriting. Songs like "Jailhouse" and "Pawnshop" and "Seed", which not only are great songs in themselves but harken back to Sublime's roots, but showcased the band's ability to genre jump from reggae to ska to hardcore and ultimately back to pop. And on a more subjective level, these songs are perfect for blasting on a warm smmer's day at the beach or in my car with the windows down, and regardless of what I thought about them back then, serve to remind me of a simpler time in my life (like the riots!) but with a better appreciation for the material now. With all that said, I don't think I'll ever love Sublime (or Sublime for that matter). Some songs are very good, but not all of them are--besides the skippable singles (While its probably a great song on some level, I think I could go the rest of my life never actually hearing "What I got" beginning to end and feel like I still got enough out of that song) songs like "Under My Voodoo" have never done it to me, and the less mature and complex songs like "Burritos" don't anymore.

I will try to delay my open love letter to the Mountain Goats for the posting that pits two of their albums against each other (though "his" is probably more accurate than "their" even at this stage in the Mountain Goats career), cause what else would I talk about? But suffice to say that if there is another band that my devotion to comes close to matching the obsequiousness I feel towards Bear vs. Shark it's this one (and, as a slight aside here, I am some what ashamed to note, after attending a Mountain Goats show on Monday, that my adoration of Darnielle's last five albums makes me a veritable dilletante compared to the rabid fandom of some of the other attendees). For the last 18 months or so, i have not listened to any band, or enjoyed any output, as much as the Mountain Goats, and We Shall All Be Healed is no exception. But, and pardon the blasphemy here (Julie), like the Beatles it is hard for me to single out one album, or one song, above any other...it just depends what I am listening to a lot at the time. We Shall All Be Healed is ranked as it is on the strength of its concept, and its housing my first favorite Mountain Goats song and one of my current favorites ("Your Belgian Things" and "Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, The Triumph of" respectively), and the fact that, like many Mountain Goats albums, it seemingly has no bad songs. That is a rarity for me, an album with no songs that are always or often skipped. There are worse songs and better songs, but none that I never want to listen to, or, more accurately, always don't want to listen to. The album tells the (semifictional) autobiographical story of bandleader and evil genius behind the entire MG operation John Darnielle and various friends in LA and PDX's struggle with meth addiction, a struggle that sees some dead, some in jail, and some just way to strung out to function ("When we go out in the sun we tell everyone we know it hurts our eyes/Even though the real reason we don't like it is that it makes it wonder if we're dying") The special thing about Darnielle for me is how his simple songwriting and phrasing can make small metaphors and simple lyrics carry so much power. The lyric "I saw the mess you left up in the east bedroom/A tiger's never gonna change it's stripes/I guess I guess but Jesus what a mess" isn't much to read on paper (at least not the way other fave lyricists like Blake Schwarzenbach or Elliott Smith's lines jump out at you) but the way Darnielle sings it, and its context both in the song and in the album as a whole, make it pack an emotional punch far beyond the meaning of the words that comprise it. Thats the thing about the Mountain Goats, I guess, the sum of the parts is surprisngly better then the parts themselves. Part of a song might not be great unless you listen to the whole song, and the whole song's meaning doesn't unfold until you've heard and digested the whole album. I don't think that's a truism that holds for as many bands as one might think. But even taken out of context, the album is full of great songs that show off both Darnielle's ability to write a beautiful, delicate song (like "Linda Blair was Born Innocent") or tell a story ("Palmcorder Yanja" and "Against Pollution" being two of many examples) while always managing to turn a phrase ("I can remember when we were in high school/Our dreams were like fugitive warlords). There might be songwriter who employs more clever metaphors in his writing, but I'm not sure who (just wait for Get Lonely's "And an astronaut could have seen the hunger in my eyes from space" Oh boy!)


The Score: I like Sublime a lot, but don't love it. I LOVE the Mountain Goats, though maybe the band more than any individual output, including this one. Doesn't matter this round though.
We Shall All Be Healed d. Sublime 75-52

Representative Tracks:





PS I apoligze for the tracks this time, esp the Mountain Goats one. Songza seems to have been nerfed somehow to include only videos and not songs anymore, and this was the song fromt he album I could find that had the best audio quality. In any case, if you choose to watch, enjoy John Darnielle's banter and trust the song is coming, he has, hands down, the best stage banter I've ever seen live ever. Ever.