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December 12, 2020: I Love Me Some Keys!

 

Hi Brad and Brad,

I was a little behind on the podcast, but recently got caught up on the last 2 episodes.  This is a bit of a two-parter of an email, because I want to give my take on Riot Act and disclose my rankings of album openers.


I side with Lyons that the older I get, the more I enjoy the weird.  This probably explains why I continue to enjoy Riot Act more and more as time goes on.  To me, this is the last record (before Gigaton), that the band sounds raw and emotional.  The record was released at a contentious time, being a year after 9/11 and 2 years into the Bush administration.  The thing that I enjoy the most about this record, which distinguishes it from the rest is Boom.  My impression is that this record features the "keys" more than any of their other records.  From a musical standpoint, it makes me appreciate Riot Act that much more.  With regards to the tracklist, I'll end with this.  When I listen to the tracklist from front-to-back, it flows really well for me.  Even though the record is 15 tracks long, when I get a few tracks into a spin, it doesn't feel that the record drags on in any way.  However, for most of these tracks, it is hard to listen to most in a one-off situation.  Either in a playlist on shuffle, or in a live setlist, some of these songs can feel somewhat bland when not run next to one another.  This is probably me advocating for them to play Riot Act front-to-back in the near future. 

Now, onto my ranking of openers.  A while back, I had submitted an email to the ladies on The Porch Podcast with my top 5 in July of 2019.  It still mostly holds up today, but now I have the challenge of fitting in Who Ever Said.  I'm with Lyons that it ranks low at this time.  However, the main reason why for me is that the song is very long compared to their other openers.  I'm used to a 2-3 minute jolt or slow burn to start of a record, then followed by a contrasting song after it.  This is why Brain of J is my favorite, because of the intensity throughout and then Faithfull brings the ambiance down for a bit.  The last thing I'll mention on my list is I completely agree that Breakerfall is an underrated opener.  My list from last year had it #3, but now I have it at #2.

1.  Brain of J
2.  Breakerfall
3.  Go
4.  Last Exit
5.  Sometimes
6.  Can't Keep
7.  Getaway
8.  Once
9.  Who Ever Said
10. Gonna See My Friend
11. Life Wasted

Forced to endure, what I could not forgive,

Chris

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