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The Mountain Goats/Will Oldham: where do I even start??

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ScrambledGregs:
I haven't been around on these forums much for the past month due to participating in the National Novel Writer's Month contest (I completed my novel!!), but allow a poor drunk to make a self serving thread.

I currently own Get Lonely by the Mountain Goats and I See A Darkness and Superwolf by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy aka Will Oldham aka Palace Music aka a million other things...

So my question is this: where do I go from here?? They're both the sort of artists that I want to just rush out and buy their entire discography, but I'm finding both artists to have (shockingly, at least for me) deep back catalogs, and most of the albums are hard to find. I'm willing to resort to ordering off their websites/their label websites, but I need some guidance.

Much thanks in advance.

Inlander:
Mountain Goats: get the Sunset Tree and All Hail West Texas. Apart from some radical changes in recording quality and instrumental variety after signing to 4AD, the Mountain Goats discography is actually pretty stylistically consistent. Everything before Tallahassee is recorded onto a boom-box and as such is extremely lo-fi, and is almost always just John Darnielle singing and playing guitar. The tonal quality of the music scarcely changes from one album to the next, but the consistency is remarkably high. However, if you're just looking for a starting point for this period of the Mountain Goats music then I'd insist that you get All Hail West Texas.

The Sunset Tree is from the latter part of the Mountain Goats' career and as such is beautifully recorded, arranged, played, and sung. The song-writing on this album also represents John Darnielle at the absolute top of his game.

Will Oldham is a little bit trickier: do you want the rough & ready creakiness of the Palace/Palace Songs/Palace Brothers/Palace Music era? Do you want the more pastoral country sounds of the early Bonnie "Prince" Billy albums? Or do you want the more lush almost 70s singer-songwriter style of his latter albums? Personally I'd suggest getting the Lost Blues and Other Songs rarities compilation (Palace Music) and Ease Down the Road (Bonnie "Prince" Billy). Other people will recommend I See a Darkness, but I think Ease Down the Road is better.

yossarian07:
Not too familiar with Will Oldham, but I'm a huge mountain goats fan.
We Shall All Be Healed and Tallahassee are my personal favorites, but Darnielles never put out a bad album.
I'd also reccomend seeing them live if you get the chance. I caught them about a month ago and it was one of the best shows I've been to this year.

McTaggart:
I came in here to say exactly what Inlander said. Out of the last seven albums The Mountain Goats have released All Hail West Texas is the one that I keep coming back to. That's not to say that the rest of them aren't good, there's not really one that doesn't at some point just grab you make you listen.

Jackie Blue:
I am of the opinion that "older" Will Oldham is better than "newer", with the dividing line being I See a Darkness.

I'd say his best are Viva Last Blues, Lost Blues and Other Songs, and Arise Therefore.

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