Favourite TMW Studio Versions?

[TripleJay97]

I'll allow revoting! I imagine people will change their opinion a lot on this

Obviously the people refusing to stream/download will have to wait until their respective release dates to vote!

I changed the poll to allow you to pick your top 3 songs: tom_cas1

[tom_cas1]

So tough. It's been Ice Cream Man, Ghost Ship and Pyongyang for me. Maybe change the poll to top 3 songs, Jay?

[101reykjavik]

Jesus. This is going to be all over the place for me (and others I'm sure). For now I said Spaceman. It will be something else shortly.

Spaceman, Pyongyang and Mirrorball are the complex heart of this album.

[davidsutter]

no fair man the other ones let you pick five

[tom_cas1]

I've changed the poll to allow people to vote for 3 options, a top 3 as it were like in the other threads. This thread can then continue to live as people become more familiar with the songs etc. Sorry Jay.

[TripleJay97]

Awh, I was gonna be evil and demand they pick 1

[bugman]

ice cream man and ghost ship for sure

but third.... spaceman or Pyongyang or mirrorball

[tom_cas1]

Awh, I was gonna be evil and demand they pick 1

[He's So High]

1. Thought I Was A Spaceman
2. Pyongyang
3. New World Towers

[TripleJay97]

Ghost Ship
Pyongyang
Thought I Was a Spaceman

[elasticaman]

So tough. It's been Ice Cream Man, Ghost Ship and Pyongyang for me. Maybe change the poll to top 3 songs, Jay?

im feeling the same
really not liking spaceman at all. had to resist skipping it many times

[Rubi]

Just listened to the album, first time.

First and foremost, it's a terrific record! Not a single bad track, the sheer variety of the songs, and so different from anything the band has ever done before. You just gotta appreciate the creativity behind these boys, and how they manage to pull one amazing album after another even after all these years and the hiatus.

Now, compared to the MODE gig, there's one thing that stands out the most: the album is much more electronic and much less guitar heavy. You could barely notice any electronic sounds in the MODE stream, for example in songs like I Broadcast and Pyongyang. But whereas I actually like the studio version of the former better, I think Pyongyang is much stronger live. Graham's rough guitar and Damon's vocals in the chorus give it an epic feel that the album version lacks. Not saying the album version is bad, but it's a completely different beast to its live counterpart. At least for me. I also miss those "la la la's" before the solo and during the interlude.

As for the rest, everything lived up to expectations. Really enjoyed Ice Cream Man and Ghost Ship (first time ever listening to them). Especially Ghost Ship was a pleasant surprise.

If I had to pick three favorite tracks right now, it would be:

My Terracotta Heart
Pyongyang
I Broadcast

[elasticaman]

pyongyang really could have been beautiful and epic, in a battery in ur leg way, but it never really soars in the way i had hoped it would, and it falls a little flat, which is a shame

[Sean]

It's too difficult. I vote for them all.

[Rubi]

pyongyang really could have been beautiful and epic, in a battery in ur leg way, but it never really soars in the way i had hoped it would, and it falls a little flat, which is a shame

I don't think it falls flat. It's like with Tender. The album version is very mellow, whereas live the song takes a life of its own. But that doesn't make the album version less good.

In this context, I think we're being very much influenced by the fact that we've been listening to the MODE stream for almost a month, and we created certain expectations in our heads about how the album was going to sound. But many times a live performance is very different from its studio counterpart, and this is the case with The Magic Whip. Just like it was the case with 13, and even Think Tank.