Best of The Posies

Regler:
Max tre låtar per album.
Minst en låt per album.
Ordning=Noga genomtänkt, men ej rangordnad.
Spotifylista: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7xnVkKrTcbd1i8r81WkhVl?si=49005f2213ee4a27&pt=31037bd18df058203aeae76ac456e169

Kommentarer: "Butikspersonalen var van vid att den lite kraftige trettonåringen med Ozzy-frilla dök upp i gitarraffären i Bellingham varje dag efter skolan och spelade hårdrockriff efter hårdrockriff. På en skylt i entrén hade de skrivit hans namn under rubriken »Gitarrist som gjort störst framsteg i år«.

– Ken och en annan kille, Chip, fick höra talas om den här töntiga killen och en dag kom de dit när jag satt och körde skalor. De var blyga båda två, framför allt Ken som var superblyg och gömde sig bakom Chip när han till slut stegade fram och sa att de hade ett band." -Sonicmagazine.com om hur The Posies startade.

1. Låt: Daily Mutilation
Skiva: Amazing Disgrace
Årtal: 1996
Kommentar: Oj, vad detta spår har spelats. Jag kommer inte ihåg var jag hörde låten första gången, om det var på min kompis Henriks pojkrum, eller om det var i min vän Peters bil. Hur som helst så är detta förmodligen min favoritlåt med The Posies. Extra, extra. Bleed all about it!

"First, ignore the party line on this record: The Posies were ALWAYS bitter; it's just the music behind the lyrics never sounded angry before." -Michial

"The key word of Amazing Disgrace is turmoil. The band had lost its rhythm section (drummer Mike Musburger famously quitting after a physical altercation with founder member and future Big Star/R.E.M. alumnus Ken Stringfellow) and things were less than rosy in the camp. The mood is angry. Well, let's face it, if you record a tune called "Everybody Is a Fucking Liar", it's safe to assume you aren't a happy bunny. And the opening track is cheerfully entitled "Daily Mutilation". Jinkies. No one seems to be having a good time, but the 14 songs that make up the albums' original release are all, without exception, exceptional." -popmatters.com

2. Låt: Dream All Day
Skiva: Frosting On The Beater
Årtal: 1993
Kommentar: Ett av 90-talets bästa album. Chockstartar med Dream All Day och Solar Sister. 

3. Låt: Apology
Skiva: Dear 23
Årtal: 1990
Kommentar: "The gloves are off, Auer and Stringfellow have honed their freakishly potent vocal harmonies and they aren't afraid to use them. Guitars will jangle like mad, you'll laugh, you'll cry. They'll build you up just to put you down." -dwightfryed 

4. Låt: Ironing Tuesdays
Skiva: Failure 
Årtal: 1988 
Kommentar: Tonårsångest i all ära, men The Posies sysslar med vit medelklass, 20-årsåldern-kriser som jobbproblem, äktenskap och självförtroende-issues. Öppningsspåret Blind Eyes Open, Compliment och Ironing Tuesdays låter mycket som samtida power-popgiganterna Jellyfish och The Longest Line låter The Smiths. Det finns många fina bitar här som t.ex. The Longest Line, Under Easy, Paint Me, At Least For Now, Uncombined eller redan nämnda Ironing Tuesdays och Blind Eyes Open.

"Although Failure came out in 1988, it's still striking just how mature The Posies were as songwriters. At their young age, it would've been expected that their first album would consist of relatively immature takes on love and relationships, but they did so much more than that. Songs like "I May Hate You Sometimes," and "At Least For Now" demonstrate a skill beyond their years in such a natural way as to make other, more experienced songwriters a little jealous." -spectrumculture.com

5. Låt: Solar Sister
Skiva: Frosting On The Beater
Årtal: 1993
Kommentar: Why does '23' pop up everywhere?

From Thomas Durkin's Posie bio: There is one question, however, that is on the minds of almost all Posies fans: the name of their second album is _Dear 23_, the catalogue number of their first album was PL2323, they named their song-publishing arm Twenty-three Songs Music--what is the significance of the number 23?! "I'll never tell," Ken says with a devilish chuckle. Pressed further, he says, "You'll have to read the Illuminatus! trilogy. It was this kind of theme that we became obsessed with, that started taking on larger-than-life proportions." So why did it mean so much to the Posies? "We didn't mean for it to," Ken almost apologized, "it was suddenly just everywhere, and we couldn't get away from it. But I think it's okay now; it's run its course."

"23 is partly a long running joke and partly an observation of a mental phenomenon. All the way through Illuminatus!, that number keeps popping up: important people get killed on the 23rd of the month and so on. The idea that there's something special about 23 is hammered home at every possible opportunity. It's all because of this global conspiracy that's running the world behind the scenes and finding ways to make people paranoid... such as putting 23's everywhere. "By the time you get to the end of the story, you're looking for 23's in real life. And the thing is, you find them because you're looking for them, and because you find them, you look harder, and you begin to wonder about the Illuminati, so you research them, and you find that the Bavarian Illuminati are (or rather were) real, as was Adam Weishaupt (mentioned often in the books), and you start greeting people with phrases like "Ewige Blumenkraft" and "Hail Eris!--All hail Discordia!" (note the latter has 2 words followed by 3 words), and you start putting 23's in your own life so you can confuse other people with them... In my case, at the time I read Illuminatus! many of my friends had also read it so we were tossing the joke back and forth and building it up as much as we could. "If you're a really sick puppy you start searching national newspapers for fnords. "And that's basically it. 23 is one of the world's craziest, longest-running, self-propagating hoaxes. You could almost call it a wetware virus."

6. Låt: The Glitter Prize
Skiva: Blood/Candy
Årtal: 2010
Kommentar: "I would say that I feel the songs on this one a bit deeper... there's stuff from way down in there that I think gives it a little more soul." -Ken Stringfellow

7. Låt: Looking Lost
Skiva: Success
Årtal: 1998
Kommentar:
"The Posies quietly head off to Splitsville after rocking for 10 years and putting out four criminally overlooked albums. Wrong place at the wrong time...

"Somehow Everything," the first track off of Success, is very good. It's happy, heavy guitar pop with a Partridge family chorus that is very contagious...

Success waits until the end to really take off. The final three tracks â€" "Farewell Typewriter," "Every Bitter Drop" and "Fall Song" are outstanding Posies songs. Very depressing. Very good. Stringfellow and Auer's angelic vocals are gorgeous. Bring your rain gear." -pifmagazine

8. Låt: Coming Right Along
Skiva: Frosting On The Beater
Årtal: 1993
Kommentar: The Posies slog aldrig så hårt som de borde ha gjort. Det fullkomligen kryllar av bra låtar på Frosting On The Beater.  

9. Låt: Squirrel vs Snake
Skiva: Solid States
Årtal: 2016
Kommentar: The Posies är melodisnickrare av rang, det är något vi lärt oss genom åren. Solid States blev (väl?) deras sista studioalbum och är som vanligt fylld till bredden med välsnickrat pop. Inledande We R Power, Unlikely Places, Titanic, March Climes, M Doll, allt är för fasen bra!

"– Den är politisk i ett bredare perspektiv. Ungefär som "var passar vi in i det stora hela?". På ett sätt är den lite av en existentiell låt. Som det är nuförtiden är det i många lägen vi måste ta ställning mot existentiella angelägenheter. Nu kommer det här att låta väldigt spejsat, men tekniken finns där ute, telefoner och alla möjliga prylar som gör att vi hela tiden kan observeras och spåras. Just nu är allting ganska öppet och lättsamt, man känner sig inte alltför påpassad, men allt det kan ändras på nolltid. Så det är en existentiell fråga." -Ken Stringfellow om Squirrel vs Snake.

"Stringfellow and Auer have, of course, not been idle having performed with Alex Chilton's reformed Big Star until his death in 2010, R.E.M's touring band and Burt Bacharach They both have also acclaimed solo careers and they are producers in their own right." -pennyblackmusic.co.uk

10. Låt: Conversations
Skiva: Every Kind of Light
Årtal: 2005
Kommentar: It's Nice to be Here Again inleder Every Kind of Light. Det låter inte som The Posies. Jag får Monster Magnet-See You In Hell-vibbar blandat med Steven Wilson. Det är iofs inget dåligt betyg. Conversations är kanon och påminner närmast om Elliott Smith. Plattan börjar väldigt starkt. Efter de fem inledande kanonlåtarna tappar den lite i kvalitet, men det finns bra låtar även på andra halvan. Lyssna även till All in a Day's Work, I Guess You're Right, Anything and Everything, Could He Treat You Better, I Finally Found a Jungle I Like (Funparty!) och Sweethearts of Rodeo.

"From a certain point of view, this song may have set the tone for the Every Kind of Light sessions. On a personal level, it's offered here as an open invitation to someone very close to me to keep sharing an intimate dialog for as long as we are both willing to listen." -Jon Auer 

11. Låt: Throwaway
Skiva: Amazing Disgrace
Årtal: 1996
Kommentar: En något ojämnare historia än Frosting On The Beater, men här finns en hel del stänkare. Soundet är generellt hårdare. Daily Mutilation. World, Throwaway, Fight It (If You Want It), The Certainty. Song #1 och Please Return It är låtar som bör höras.

12. Låt: No Consolation
Skiva: Nice Cheekbones and a Ph.D.
Årtal: 2001
Kommentar: Auer och Stringfellow som duo. Magisk EP. De bidrar med två låtar var plus en cover av Byrds "Lady Friend".

13. Låt: I May Hate You Sometimes
Skiva: Failure
Årtal: 1988
Kommentar: 

14. Låt: Any Other Way
Skiva: Dear 23
Årtal: 1990
Kommentar: "Första skivan spelade jag och Jon in i en hemmastudio. Då hade vi spelat live två gånger som en akustisk duo. Från det ändrades soundet drastiskt, särskilt när vi la till fler medlemmar. Vi turnerade så mycket vi kunde när vi släppte albumet Dear 23 och jag har väl egentligen aldrig slutat turnera sedan dess." -Ken Stringfellow

15. Låt: Plastic Paperbacks
Skiva: Blood/Candy
Årtal: 2010
Kommentar: Mera experimentiell än tidigare plattor, men med samma starka hooks, precisa refränger och fantastiska texter.Blood/Candy inleder på bäst sätt med Plastic Paperbacks och The Glitter Prize. Lyssna även till So Caroline, Take Care of Yourself, Cleopatra Street, For The Ashes m.m. I princip hela platta är kanon. 

16. Låt: Fall Song
Skiva: Success
Årtal: 1998
Kommentar: "På ytan kan kronologin för The Posies från Seattle likna berättelsen om många andra framgångsrika grupper: barndomsvänner har en rockdröm och startar ett band, bandet slår igenom, stort skivkontrakt, framgången tryter, bråk, splittring, alla går vidare. Det som skiljer Posies från många andra är att bandet vägrade dö, trots att allt var över." -Sonicmagazine.com

17. Låt: Titanic
Skiva: Solid States
Årtal: 2016
Kommentar: "Don't worry, The power pop is still there, but behind walls of ethereal sounds and introspective lyrics. Every song feels like a new emotion that Jon and Ken are attempting to explore after a lifetime of playing music together. Between losing some of their closest friends to the uneven state of the world, these two manage to tell you all about their feelings and emotions in a way that never just feels like someone reading out of their diary." -latetothegame.com 

18. Låt: With Those Eyes
Skiva: Nice Cheekbones and a Ph.D.
Årtal: 2001
Kommentar: Makalöst bra EP. Alla låtar är kanon. Bjuder på två extralåtar som bonus.

19. Låt: The Certainty
Skiva: Amazing Disgrace
Årtal: 1996
Kommentar: Att The Poesies ger sig in i grungeträsket och rör om på Amazing Grace är inte konstigt alls. Dels var grungen redan död och dessutom kommer The Posies från Seattle, grungens hemstad.

"Robert Christgau wrote: "Of course it's not the Beatles or Big Star—merely emulated, the formal ideas don't sustain their excitement."[3] The Washington Post wrote that the album's "combination of pretty melody and ugly thoughts is utterly contemporary."[11] Trouser Press called the album "surprisingly sour but still delicious."[12]" -Wikipedia

"The name "the Posies" was chosen at the last minute as "a crazy joke," Ken says. "We just thought it was a stupid name in a way. It had a kind of annoying charm to it." And besides, "We had to commit to something to put on the tape covers..." -Ken Stringfellow

20. Låt: Matineé
Skiva: Nice Cheekbones and a Ph.D.
Årtal: 2001
Kommentar: "The songs on this record reflect the songwriters' grasp on the basic tenets of pop music: The sadness of love and the love of sadness...the ills of this ready-made readily-available world ("Chainsmoking in the U.S.A."), or the deceit of beauty ("With Those Eyes"), there is a self-reflective melancholy here. But with ringing guitar chords, sunny harmonies and bare bones but effective production, all is not gloomy. The Posies as songwriters seem to strive to write the perfect pop song everytime out." -popmatters.com

"Track 1: 'Matinee'. A jaunty exploration of the choice of living over that of dying. Closely related to the Posies own biography, indeed." -Ken Stringfellow

21. Låt: Start a Life
Skiva: Alive Before The Iceberg
Årtal: 1999

22. Låt: Every Bitter Drop
Skiva: Success
Årtal: 1998
Kommentar: I Love Myself med Wannadies har glatt lånat det fräcka gitarr-riffet från "Looking Post" från The Posies platta Success. Somehow Everything är en perfekt comeback-singel, Looking Lost perfekt rockriffande. Sen kommer det några låtar som inte lämnar några större avtryck. Start a Life leker med loopar och synthar, You're The Beautiful One är en snygg Posies-ballad. Grow, Farewell Typewriter, Every Bitter Drop och Fall Song avslutar plattan på bästa sätt.

"The album title seems to be a bit sarcastic." Avdelningen; No shit, Sherlock?

23. Låt: Somehow Everything
Skiva: Alive Before The Iceberg
Årtal: 1999
Kommentar: Hårt slår Posies i isberget med huvudet först. Tungt är fallet ner i det iskalla vattnet och fylld är räddningsbåten av gummi. Plattan är likt den liknelse, hård, tung och fylld med kanonlåtar. Tyvärr är ljudet kanske inte det allra bästa och sången något ojämn, men för jäkla bra är det. Kul att vi bjuds på finfina versioner av Start a Life, Somehow Everything och Please, Return It samt en cover av Cheap Tricks "Surrender".

24. Låt: It's Great to Be Here Again
Skiva: Every Kind of Light
Årtal: 2005
Kommentar:
"We recorded the majority of this music as four people playing off each other in a room together," says Jon, "and we tried to keep as much as possible of what we initially put down as a group." "Pretty much what you hear on this record is the first or second time we played the music all the way through," Ken adds, "and it really shows. It's alive." 

25. Låt: Take Care of Yourself
Skiva: Blood/Candy
Årtal: 2010

26. Låt: The Sound of Clouds
Skiva: Solid States
Årtal: 2016
Kommentar: "All that constitutes highly efficient power-pop is present and correct: Beatles-esque melodies (Scattered, Rollercoaster Zen), blissfully psyched-out harmonies (Unlikely Places, The Sound of Clouds), crunchy pop/rock (Squirrel vs Snake, The Plague), acoustic prettiness (March Climes), and an overall sense of musicians that know their chosen music inside out." -Irishtimes.com

27. Låt: What Little Remains
Skiva: Failure
Årtal: 1988
Kommentar: 1986 var året som The Posies tog sina första stapplande steg mot att bli en av världens allra bästa(Big Star, Jellyfish?) pop/rock/powerpop-band. 2021 bröt de upp. Kanske för allra sista gången?

28. Låt: Anything and Everything
Skiva: Every Kind of Light
Årtal: 2005 

Bonuslåtar:

Låt: King Midas In Reverse (Hollies)
Skiva: Dream All Day: The Best of The Posies
Årtal: 2000

Låt: Chainssmoking in the U.S.A.
Skiva: Nice Cheekbones and a Ph.D. 
Årtal: 2001