THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: grrraham on 25 Jan 2007, 05:31
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true fact: Friend Opportunity is not only Deerhoof's most accessible album to date, it is also their overall best.
Right now it is also the best album of 2007.
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I listened to it today on my walk home from school. I can safely say it's my second favorite Deerhoof album, behind Runners Four :cry:
Why am I crying??
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It's tough choosing between Friend Opportunity and The Runners Four. They're equally good albums for entirely different reasons. I will say that Deerhoof are now officially one of my favorite bands, and I would say one of the best of the current era.
The funny thing is, I hated 'Look Away' the first time I heard it, but it's really grown on me.
p.s. I'll be seeing Deerhoof this weekend in Chicago, and I'm wondering how they're going to pull this stuff off live.
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i've never really liked deerhoof before. to be fair, i never really tried but whenever i did i just couldn't get into it. but all this has changed with this new album. it's really frickin' great. i never thought i'd be turned into a fan but i think this has done it. i'm gonna go back and listen to older stuff again. i'm finally starting to see what all the fuss is about....
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The funny thing is, I hated 'Look Away' the first time I heard it, but it's really grown on me.
Yah, Look Away is still my least favourite track, but it's started to grow on me. I think my biggest ongoing problem with it is that it's three or four times as long as every other track and just seems to drag on way too much, even for the last song.
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Yeah but when you consider that there are only 10 tracks on the album, 9 of which don't even break the 3:30 mark, the album would be criminally short if not for Look Away. Even if it does take a little longer to start to enjoy.
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It's not the length of the track. Deerhoof have had long tracks before: Reveille has an eight minute song and Holdy Paws has an 11 minute song. I think it's more the fact that 'Look Away' doesn't really make sense. Almost nothing in it is repeated, as if the band were writing the song as they recorded it. At first it feels like a bunch of chaotic, seemingly random notes and sounds, and there's the "ok....no, it's still going....ok....no, wait...." ending. With enough listens, though, it begins to take on a strange logic all its own, in the same way that bizarre album ending tracks like 'Revolution #9' and 'The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet' do.
It's still the weakest and most out of place track on the album, for what it's worth.
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No no, enough listens and "Look Away" suddenly makes complete sense. Its a brilliant use of space and restraint.
The whole album is like that really. Everything is more subtle.
Its really difficult comparing it to The Runner's Four though. I think that album had better songs but Friend Opportunity is so much more cohesive.
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I like that comparison but maybe that's because I liked both those Husker Du records.
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Apple O' is my greatest favorite.
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I would put it this way. The Runners Four is essentially a double album. It's got a lot of songs, a lot of variety, and the sonic feel of it is big, spacious, and patient. You feel like they really let the songs develop, and really fretted over the running order and flow of it. Friend Opportunity has approximately half as many songs and half the running time, but yet it is just as dense with ideas and sounds. The sound is fuller and more spastic than The Runners Four despite the band actually having one less member.
I don't agree with the hyperprog label that often gets flung at Deerhoof, but the sungs do have a definite progression that isn't the typical verse/chorus/verse stuff.
I guess what I'm trying to say is ZOMG LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM MOTHERFUCKERS
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I assume you're talking to me because of what me and my mother do when my family's out. So don't tell me what to do!
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I dunno. It hasn't grabbed me by the balls and made me scream its name the same way Runners Four did. Then again I haven't given it a good hard listening to.
Although +81 and Kidz Are So Small are catchy as hell.
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Shit guys. All I have is Milkman. It's... pretty shit. I cannot STAND that woman's voice on "Dog on the Sidewalk". Please, PLEASE tell me their other albums are much better than Milkman.
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Pretty much if you don't like Milk Man I see very little chance you will like any of their other stuff. 'Dog On The Sidewalk' is one of my favorite songs of their's, too :-D
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Yeh, Milk Man was definitely my favourite of their albums until I heard this.
You should probably just accept that they're not your thing and move on.
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have they given up on their random jamming at the beggining of songs, as if they all went deaf and forgot about the other band members? if so, I may check it out, cause that on Runners Four really ruined it for me.
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No, go away.
this isn't some unprecedented musical transformation Like between the first two Liars albums.
If you didn't like Deerhoof I cannot imagine you will like Friend Opportunity.
It's still Deerhoof, it's just Deerhoof at their very best.
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Decided to give this group another chance.
Still sounds like Yoko Ono raping a Pillows cover band.
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They do still sound awesome, yes.
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No, I mean, seriously, has anyone seen that Yoko Ono film where a fly crawls across a naked womans body for twenty minutes whilst Yoko makes silly insect noises?
I feel it's appropriate to mention.
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That's ART.
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The cover art is histerical..well at least the one with the pigs humping each other is.
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Pretty much if you don't like Milk Man I see very little chance you will like any of their other stuff. 'Dog On The Sidewalk' is one of my favorite songs of their's, too :-D
Guh. That song makes me think of "Cats on Mars" from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, except infinitely more dissonant and unpleasant to my ears. I'm sorry if I insult you with this, I'm really not trying to, but it really does hurt my brain.
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I'm actually listening to The Runners Four right now, and I find it pretty ok. Less ok than Apple O', tho.
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You didn't insult me by not liking a band that I like, Kim. That's how reality works!! I wish other people could be so reasonable about it.
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It's way too early for me to try to figure out which 2007 album I like the most yet, but Friend Opportunity is one of the obvious choices (Together with Of Montreal and The Shins).
The three Deerhoof albums I've heard have been right around the same level. Just missing my top ten. (Actually I think I put both Milk Man and Runners Four at #11).
Most weird bands are really inconsistent, but Deerhoof is one of the only ones that's been consistently really good.
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I, still traveling into the indie world, tried out Deerhoof's myspace ( http://myspace.com/deerhoof ) and i find the songs murdered by the singer. Am i doing this wrong?
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yes. there is something wrong with you.
as the responses in this thread indicate, absolutely everyone likes deerhoof.
nobody dislikes her unusual voice, or the bizarre unmelodic tangents they go off on.
it's okay though, just pretend to like them and we'll still respect you.
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But I have already expended all my energies pretending to like Pavement for your approval!
Actually I am just listening to this now, and I'm pretty fond of it so far, certainly a lot more than the only other album of theirs I heard, The Green Cosmos EP. The start of the first track is really appealing to me for some reason. It is like some sort of really ridiculous japanese cult vampire movie set in 2055, where vampire hunters roam the wastelands, hunting their undead prey in hovercars.
Like, I could walk around listening to this on headphones, strutting. it has a good groove to it.
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It's funny how I think two of the best albums by the respective bands are getting some of the lowest reviews of their career. I think Friend Opportunity and Wincing The Night Away are each one of the top albums by Deerhoof and the Shins, but the critics feel differently. Oh well.
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Deerhoof is one of those bands that you don't fully enjoy until you see them live. I learned that tonight.
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I disagree strongly. I absolutely loved Deerhoof based just on their studio output. I think seeing them live just gives you new and different reasons to like them.
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10 albums?? That doesn't sound right. Are you counting EPs as albums??
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There's been eight or nine, anyway
Friend Opportunity just came out
The Runners Four came out a year ago
Milk Man came out when I first started listening to them ...
Uhm, I think Apple O and Reveille were still new then.
And there's the man, the king, the girl ... and Halfbird
Either I'm forgetting some or there's not as many as I thought?
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I never did get my hands on that free live album they released called 'Bibi Di Baba Di Boo' or whatever it was...