So, yeah–I’m not going to review the Dave Matthews Band’s new album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.
I’m not gonna, and you can’t make me.
I’m assuming that the five readers who regularly follow me here in Aimsterville are quite surprised by this turn of events, seeing as how every time this band takes a crap, I usually feel compelled to comment on it in some way (“While the recorded version was wonderful, hitting the toilet bowl with just the right amount of sploosh, the 20+ minute live version was an exhilarating relief.” Yes–I just totally made that up). But I just don’t feel that I can review this album. Not yet.
I’ll explain.
When Stand Up came out in 2005, I listened to it non-stop, starting with its release in April and continuing into sometime in early 2006. And then I stopped–I put it away, I started listening to the old stuff, I started listening to other stuff (because, contrary to popular opinion, I am aware that other musical artists exist).
And I haven’t touched it since.
Oh, I’m sure I’ll go back to Stand Up someday–I mean, I put Everyday in my car CD player in 2004 for the first time in probably two years, and while I was surprised that I’d forgotten how good some of the songs were (I actually like “I Did It” even though most people don’t), I was disappointed at how many songs I fast-forwarded through (the same songs I was skipping when the disc came out in 2001).
So, basically, I’m afraid to review Big Whiskey. I’m afraid that right now, I’m viewing the album through Blue Water-colored glasses, through that lens of excitement that I feel at hearing the first new recorded music from this band in over four years. I feel that I’m too caught up in the hype surrounding the release and the information from other reviews to be even remotely objective (and right now, Big Whiskey seems to be earning a solid B from most reviewers).
I’m not going to review it now, because I’m afraid that it’s not as good as I think it is. And right this minute, I think it’s really, really good–possibly the best thing they’ve ever done.
So I’m not even going to try to write an objective review. Instead, with my readers’ indulgence, I’ll just gush for a moment:
After almost three weeks of listening to this album in its various forms–including its leaked precursor (the “April Sessions”) and the Pandora.com stream (which was so crappy it sounded like the album was being streamed through a tin can. A tin can buried in someone’s backyard. Someone’s backyard in China) and then the “official” version that came out on June 2–I can say that I effin’ love this album. That’s love as in take it on dates and spend the night with it and cook it breakfast in the morning and ask it to marry me so I can grow old with it. Almost every track is solid, and even the one track that I really though was a dud on first listen–”Dive In,” which is perhaps the most uplifting song ever written about global warming–is now stuck in my head whether I want it there or not. This disc covers a variety of moods without coming off as suffering from some kind of multiple personality disorder–you can listen to “Shake Me Like a Monkey” or “Seven” when you want to get your dirty funk on; you can mellow out to “Spaceman” or “Lying in the Hands of God”; when you want to rawk or jam out, you can crank “Time Bomb,” “Why I Am,” “Squirm,”or the country-flavored “Alligator Pie.” “Funny the Way It Is” and “You and Me” were made for rolling down the car windows and singing along on a summer’s day, while “Baby Blue” and “Grux,” the sax piece from the late Leroi Moore that opens the disc, are for those quieter moments when you need to contemplate life and death and the meaning of it all (I do this regularly–don’t you?).
So, right now, I’m blown away. But I’m still listening and still discovering things, and I won’t know how this album really rates until I put it away for a while. For example, I was instantly blown away by Radiohead’s In Rainbows when I first heard it, and I listened to it almost constantly for weeks. The other day, I listened to it end to end for the first time in probably six months, and I was still blown sideways by how good that album is. My hope is that Big Whiskey will still floor me months from now, when I’ve stopped listening to it in its entirety and am only listening to the songs as they randomly come up on my iPod–I hope that I can decide one day to listen to Big Whiskey from start to finish and be just as in love as I am today.
And if that happens, maybe then I’ll write a review instead of a gush.
OMG, yes, you should be very afraid to review it because you, as a listener, have no idea. If you are listening to Stand Up and actually liking it, then you are no true DMB fan. In fact, I doubt that you even like their earlier works. DMB has put out utter shit since Before These Crowded Streets. While not a “jamband” CD, “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King” falls back on the elements that made DMB. The lyrics make you think and are still fun. Most of the music makes me want to dance but I have to admit Baby Blue makes me cry. It’s rare that a song illicits such an emotional response but it’s beautiful and tragic all at the same time. I think you misjudged an album that can easily stand against Crash or Before These Crowded Streets.
By: TaraWVU on 06/20/2009
at 5:16 am
And I think you completely misjudged the point of my post. I think if you reread you’ll see that I don’t say anything negative about Big Whiskey. If anything, I’m saying negative things about myself and my lack of ability to be objective about the work of one of my favorite bands.
My point was that I don’t feel that I can objectively judge this album until the hype machine has died down and it’s had a few months to settle in. I used the fact that I liked both Everyday and Stand Up when they first came out as examples–I bought into the hype surrounding what turned out to be two inferior albums. Both my gut and my ears are telling me that Big Whiskey is probably the best thing DMB has ever done. But unlike music critics who get paid for a living, I have the luxury of not weighing in on this album immediately and taking the time to see if, when the hype dies down and the current tour is over, I’m still as blown away by it as I am right now (which I fully expect to be, by the way).
Your response to my post concerns me, however, on a number of different levels:
1. “If you are listening to Stand Up and actually liking it…”
Please reread. I liked it when it first came out. I wrote that I haven’t listened to it since 2006. Not listening to an album in three years wouldn’t qualify as liking it very much in my book.
2. “I doubt that you even like their earlier works.”
Just because I don’t mention the “Big 3″ anywhere in my post doesn’t mean that I don’t like them. Hearing Under the Table and Dreaming fifteen years ago is what drew me to the band, Crash stoked the fire, and Before These Crowded Streets took my fandom to another level (and I didn’t like BTCS when it first came out because it was so different than UTTAD and Crash, but after multiple listens, it’s now my favorite album and I think it’s among the best albums put out by anyone in the last twenty-five years. So, again, time can change one’s perspective on an album).
The fact that the “Big 3″ mean so much to me personally and are so good objectively is another reason that I reserve writing any kind of clear-eyed assessment of Big Whiskey until a later time. I want some time to pass before I’m ready to declare for a “Big 4.”
3. “DMB has put out utter shit since Before These Crowded Streets.”
I actually like The Lillywhite Sessions/Busted Stuff. “Grey Street” (in both its versions) is one of my favorite songs, and just about anything from LS/BS beats Everyday and Stand Up lyrically and musically, in my opinion. Looking back now, I think LS/BS is evidence that DMB was eventually going to stop wandering in the desert and put out something (Big Whiskey) that we all knew they were capable of based on their earlier work.
4. “If you are listening to Stand Up and actually liking it, then you are no true DMB fan.”
I return to this statement because it exemplifies what probably irks me the most about DMB fans in general. I have very little patience for the intellectual pissing matches that go on all over the internet about what constitutes a “true DMB fan”–I think these conversations make the fan base look just as bad as the people who go to “Dave” shows just for the scene and for the pleasure of drinking, puking on people, and starting fights. I’ve been to shows with people who know very little about the band beyond “Crash Into Me,” and they had just as good a time as those of us who know that we’re supposed to go ape shit if the band plays “Halloween” or “Blue Water.” Why? Simple–the music. The music is effin’ good. The music is downright amazing, and I would argue that even in their worst moments, the music that DMB produces is better than 95% of what’s out there (which doesn’t mean that I want them to let down their guard and produce albums like Everyday and Stand Up–it just means that I recognize their greatness in a larger context). I didn’t convert the non-fans to fans, but they agreed with me that the band is one of the most talented around.
The music. That’s what it’s all about. I think sometimes that the fan base is so busy being exclusive and hating on people who don’t conform to certain standards that we forget that DMB’s music is supposed to be about inclusion–it’s about love, baby.
That said, Tara, I admire that your passion for the band moved you to respond to me, and I hope I’ve cleared up any confusion you may have had about what I wrote. I’m passionate about DMB as well, as they’ve been part of the soundtrack of my life for many years now. I hope for both our sakes that the band continues to put out music and keeps on touring for years to come–maybe we’ll run into each other at a show sometime.
By: amart71 on 06/21/2009
at 4:41 pm
[...] Months of Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King After basically refusing to review the latest Dave Matthews Band disc, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, I wrote this review [...]
By: Six Months of Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King « Aimsterville on 11/24/2009
at 4:50 pm