Probably Yousha, we seem to have quite similar tastes. Personally, I think they're the most addictive band ever. So many amaing songs, just put them on shuffle and could listen for hours.

Would rank their albums myself as:

1. Distant Plastic Trees/The Wayward Bus (Double album)
2. 69 Love Songs (triple album)
3. Get Lost
4. The Charm of the Highway Strip
5. Holiday
6. I
7. Distortion
8. Realism

As said, DPT/TWB is a 2for1 album, but I have it on one CD and always listen to it as one album, couldn't tell you which songs were on which album.



Here are a couple of my favourite MF songs if you want to have a preview, could listen to either on loop for hours:

All you n00bs should get Vol. 1 of 69 Love Songs and see what you think. Not their best disc, but it's the safest introduction and has a lot of wonderful songs on it (I was hooked when I recognized All My Little Words from S1 of The Shield). Then get Vols. 2 and 3, followed by The Charm of the Highway Strip. By that point you should be a fully fledged obsessive.

I've decided that Stephin's version of Plant White Roses is being sung to Highway Strip's narrator. Listen to it after Born on a Train and try telling me I'm wrong.

Forget that. Just download their entire discography (bar maybe their last 2 albums) and listen to it on shuffle. You will become addicted in no time and you will want to listen on shuffle for ever and ever and ever.

Everything up to and including I is absolute gold.

That's probably a better plan. While the last two albums are a step down, the acoustic/alternate vocal version of Nun's Litany is actually one of my favorite MF songs. Just listen to the way he sings "make them scream."

Fuck, why did it take me so long to get into WB/DPT? This is like a nineties shareware score brought magically to life. Wolfboy especially. Goddamn.

Completely agree. Think it may be my #2 album of all-time now. It's sooo good. Every single song is absolute gold. I've been listening to it on shuffle so much (as with every MF album, for some reason I find their albums work much better this way) over the past couple of months.

Apparently, there's a new album scheduled for 2011. I can't wait!

Haven't heard about that, but I hope they go through with their promise of using "almost exclusively" synths. More fucked up songs like this would also be appreciated.

Are you familiar with the Zinnias?

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the return of the synths too, after the "no synth trilogy."

Never heard that before, it was the B-side to All the Umbrellas in London single, wasn't it? It's definitely one of the oddest MF songs I've heard.

Never heard of Zinnias, no.

Stephin and Claudia's band from high school. They had one album, later remastered and retitled — a great curio that I'll happily PM to you if you're interested.

Sure, that'd be great, thanks. :) I really should listen to more of Stephin's stuff outside TMF.

I've been listening to I a lot recently, it dips towards the end but the first half is stunning.

That run of songs from "I Don't Believe You" through to "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" is just <3.

I never really got into i, probably because the opening track is so lame* that it always puts me off. But I listened to it on the train a bit after seeing your post and now I'm slapping myself hard. Evil Twin is really something. The two songs you mentioned are more obvious classics, and It's Only Time might be the best thing they've ever done. Still, I'm glad they're about to do away with the no synth gimmick, which has run its course to say the least.

*Openers ranked. I adore 1-5, like 6-8, and could do without the last two.

1. Young And Insane (gorgeous sad water park soundscape, riff is catchy as hell, SM at his peak lyrically, a perfect song no doubt)
2. You Must Be Out of Your Mind (their worst album, of course, but WHAT a fucking start)
3. When You Were My Baby (ultimate breakup song, loses some of its power outside that context)
4. BBC Radiophonic Workshop/Desert Island (fun atmospheric fantasy with some wild lyrics, kicks off an amazing three-track run)
5. Railroad Boy (they've never sounded so huge and so gentle at the same time, plus one of Anway's strongest vocals)
6. Lonely Highway (fitting if modest start to one of the great albums)
7. Absolutely Cuckoo (see above)
8. Three-Way (clever concept, good lead-in to Cali Girls... it's just a bit ineffectual on its own)
9. I Die (bleh, Merritt on autopilot)
10. Famous (this one just grates on me)

Bah! I love Famous. "Young And Insane" is great, but my favourite song on House of Tomorrow is "Alien Being"

I don't actually think TMF do great album openers tbh in the whole though, I think they generally do much better album closers, I'd rank the openers as:

1. When You Were My Baby
2. You Must Be Out of Your Mind
3. Famous
4. Absolutely Cuckoo
5. Young and Insane
6. BBC Radiophonic Workshop/Desert Island
7. Railroad Boy
8. Three-Way
9. I Die
10. Lonely Highway


And I'd rank the closers as:

1. 100,000 Fireflies
2. Take Ecstasy with Me
3. Courtesans
4. It's Only Time
5. Suddenly There is a Tidal Wave
6. Either You Don't Love Me or I Don't Love You
7. Zebra
8. From a Sinking Boat
9. The Dreaming Moon
10. Dust Bowl

Hahaha I think Dust Bowl is great, at least in context. So we're even. Young and Insane actually isn't my favorite from House of Tomorrow — that'd be the sublime Love Goes Home to Paris. Really neat little EP. I like all of it except You're So Technical: one of the few songs of theirs I find genuinely bad, and if I didn't understand the lyrics I'd swear it was playing in reverse. Dunno if you saw it but I posted some thoughts on Evil Twin here.

Closers:

1. 100,000 Fireflies
2. It's Only Time
3. Take Ecstasy With Me
4. Either You Don't Love Me...
5. Dust Bowl
6. The Dreaming Moon
7. Courtesans
8. Zebra
9. Suddenly There Is A Tidal Wave
10. From A Sinking Boat

1-3 are perfect tens, 4-8 are good to great. Last two are whatever.

Great stuff.

Though I think "Evil Twin" is a great song, it's nowhere near my favourite off I. As I said that whole run of songs from "I DOn't Believe You" through to "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" is just <3 Also, love "Tongue-Tied" and "It's Only Time"

I actually think track #3's on Mag. Fields albums are generally astonishing.

1. Lovers from the Moon (may be my favourite song ever)
2. All My Little Words
3. Born on a Train
4. Deep Sea Diving Suit
5. You Love to Fail
6. Alien Being
7. I Don't Really Love You Anymore
8. Smoke and Mirrors
9. Old Fools
10. We Are Having a Hootenanny

The fact that a song as amazing as "I Don't Really Love You Anymore" is at #7 says it all! I think the first 7 are all pretty much perfect 10s for me!

This is fun.

1. Born on a Train
2. Deep Sea Diving Suit
3. All My Little Words
4. I Don't Really Love You Anymore
5. Lovers From the Moon
6. Smoke and Mirrors
7. You Love to Fail
8. Alien Being
9. Old Fools
10. We Are Having A Hootenanny

Have you listened to Fabergé from the Zinnias albums I sent you? The opening to that was reworked into Lovers From the Moon. Pretty good song on its own, too. Also I was totally underrating When You Were My Baby before — the bridge in that song ("now you've gone away...") is maybe their best ever, rivaled only by The Sun Goes Down from 69LS.

Did you ever catch the Strange Powers documentary? I don't know if it was released in your country, although the BBFC rated a VOD version. I'm still waiting for the DVD to come out here. It's supposed to be pretty awkward due to Stephin's disdain for public exposure, but how could I pass it up?