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Red House Painters - Songs for a Blue Guitar
| Media: | Audio CD | | Record label: | Island | | Release date: | 23 July, 1996 | | Our price: | $13.98 |
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Songs for a Blue Guitar |
Average rating:  |
 | All Mixed Up | | More of a Mark Kozelek solo effort than a RHP album, Songs for a Blue Guitar covers familiar ground in songs like "Have You Forgotten" and "Big Sur Revelation"; but the highlights of the album are its departures from the usual RHP format: the aching pedal steel and duet of the title track, the excruciating wail of "Make Like Paper", the cover of "Silly Love Songs" that sounds like it's being deconstructed by a house band during the last set of a drunken night, and the masterpiece cover "All Mixed Up" which you probably heard in the Gap ad. This is an overlooked album in which even the casual listener will find some beauty, but for those rock fans who know that the six-string was made for heartache, in other words RHP fans, this cd will be around for awhile. |
| Songs for a Blue Guitar - Red House Painters |  | have you forgotten? | | ok, this is basically a mark kozelek solo album. the slow, meandering, acoustic ballads that RHP fans expect are still here, but they are interspersed with a duet(the title track), some disorienting squeal(make like paper),and some interesting covers(long distance run around, silly love songs, all mixed up). the opening track will give you some clue as to whether or not your destined to become a RHP fan; "have you forgotten" is the defining mark kozelek moment: sweet acoustic strumming, melancholy lyrics, and the saddest and smoothest voice that popular music ever produced. "song for a blue guitar" is a quiet ballad that will remind you of mazzy star's "fade into you". "make like paper" is a musician having his moment to push his limits a little, and it fails in a way that works well within the context of the album. (make sense? no? it's true, though.) the other stand outs on the album are the cover of the Car's "all mixed up" and "revelation big sur", which together alone are worth the price of the album. let these songs play back to back while you're out on a date... trust me. there are seven commercially released RHP albums; i'm recommending you buy this first. if you like this, go on to no. 2 on my list OCEAN BEACH. |
| Red House Painters - Songs for a Blue Guitar | | A classic RHP album | | A masterpiece of understated, beautiful music, Songs for a Blue Guitar is a good introduction to the melancholy tunes of Mark Kozalek. Songs For a Blue Guitar is more expansive than past records by the Red House Painters -- Make Like Paper, for example, is a new direction for the band, as is Long Distance Runaround -- but there are ample moments of breathtaking, quiet beauty also. It is a terrible shame, though, that the RHP back catalog has lapsed into out-of-print status here in the U.S.; Ocean Beach, especially, is an absolutely amazing record and is equally as good as Songs For a Blue Guitar. The recently released Retrospective is also a good choice, but the old records are quite worth the effort of getting also. |
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