I did! I listened to the whole thing this morning. Some really great stuff. It's cool hearing her go for some dancy kind of radio pop stuff on it too. I need to listen to her more. I usually go years and years and years without listening to MB.
Nice! Glad you enjoyed it. Definitely some really interesting songs in the middle. The standouts for me though are Loud Music, Spark, If You Happen To Call and Sunset Cigarette. It fits in nicely going from The Spirit Room -> Paper Hotel -> West Coast Time. I wasn’t a fan of Hopeless Romantic. Haha I usually have a phase of throwing her 00s records on (and now West Coast Time) every year. Between her and Avril they both had so many spins in the early 00s for me. It's a shame we don't get as much good pop rock these days! Unfortunately Michelle Branch got screwed over by the record label which's why we didn't get a whole lot from her for over a decade. Apparently there's another unreleased album but nothing has ever surfaced.
Great new interview: Michelle Branch On Influencing Taylor Swift & Re-Recording 'The Spirit Room' She confirms that the Spirit Room re recording and the vinyl repress are coming March 2022. Also has a new album, The Trouble With Fear, coming in the Spring too. Also confirms that along with West Coast Time there's another album called Everything Comes And Goes that was also scrapped by Warner. Why won't they just put them out now?!
Maaaaan I'm not to stoked that her new album will be like Hopeless Romantic. Give me more pop rock bangers like what was on her early records and West Coast Time! Would be awesome if she got an official release of West Coast Time and Everything Comes And Goes. Seems there's a new The Wreckers album in the works too? Also her live stream of The Spirit Room is tonight!
The biggest bummer about her new album & Hopeless Romantic is that her husband is the drummer. IMO he's not only just a terrible drummer, but the way he tunes his snare drum drives me insane. Hopeless Romantic would've been 100x better if she used the same drum tones as her first two records.
Just discovered this thread! Super excited about all of the Michelle Branch stuff lately. The livestream was super enjoyable. Did anyone else catch the after show q&a? She played 2 more songs. Totally going to pick up the spirit room double vinyl when it comes out next year. I kind of wish the new album would be a bit different from Hopeless Romantic as well, but I bet it will still be a good listen. There are some really good songs on West Coast Time, so I hope it gets an official release some day (Here We Go Again is great). All of the songs from her 2 unreleased albums are out there in decent quality if you look for them, but I'd love to hear the full quality recordings.
Finally got a chance to listen to the stream, I was a bit gutted it wasn’t a full band performance but Michelle sounded awesome. Paper Pieces should have so been on the album.
New song released from the 20th anniversary re-recording. It’s also one of my favourites from The Spirit Room.
This is the video I saw that prompted me to search for the full album online. Wild that the album even got pressed and the label still didn’t release it.
Yeah she makes it seem like the label situation was just a mess during the making of those 2 albums. Sooner or Later even charted decently so it seems like kind of a waste.
This is actually pretty dope. It's what I'd have imagined the live stream sounding if it had been full band.
I am really enjoying this re-recorded version of "The Spirit Room." I still can't believe it's been 20 years since its release?!?