Ray LaMontagne

I've been revisiting Ray's discography this week so I thought I'd make a thread. I love his voice and this is one of my favourite songs ever:

Discuss.

 

Trouble is the only truly great record he's made, but it's given me such a permanent love of him that I will get on board with just about anything he does.

 

I love his first four albums, but the last two haven't really done much for me. Tbh I only ever listened to Ouroboros once and hated it. I might give it another chance sometime soon tho.

 

Supernova is his only true flop for me.

 

I'd love it if he made an entire album of songs like "You Are the Best Thing".

 

I consider myself a pretty big fan of Ray. I really enjoy all of his albums up to and including Supernova. I did not like Ourobourous at all, but I do respect him branching out stylistically and making the music he wants to be making.

That being said, I feel his albums are usually pretty inconsistent but when they are good they are really good. The man has an absolutely incredible voice.

I know he's battled with producers and labels in the past about what kind of music he should be making, especially on his earlier albums. You can google to read about what happened with his song "You Are The Best Thing" for example, and find the live versions on YouTube. But then with an album like Ourobouros it seems like he did exactly what he wanted and the results are less than stellar. I'm really hoping he comes back around to the style of his earlier albums at some point but maybe with more of the freedom to make the songs how he feels they should be.

 

I tried googling it but I couldn't find anything, what happened with that song? That's one of my favourite songs of his.

 

Basically, he originally wrote it as a slower song with much sparser instrumentation. A very different arrangement. Either the producer or the record label insisted he change it to sound like the version that ultimately ended up on the album. He explains it himself here and then plays a live version of it that apparently is more like how he originally wrote and envisioned the song -->

 

Labels aren't always right...but that time they sure were.

 

I can see both points of view. I really enjoy both versions of the song. If push came to shove and I really had to pick one, I think I come down on the side of the acoustic version as it just seems a little bit more natural to me. But the version on the album is great too and I will admit it's a stronger way to start an album.

He played a lot of shows around the time of the release of that album with a band that I'm pretty sure included the producer of the album, Ethan Johns, on drums. They played an even different arrangement, which is my favorite version of all. It's not just Ray and his acoustic guitar, it's a full band playing, but it's seems a little more of a natural fit for him -->

(I do realize this is going pretty deep down the unreleased Ray Lamontagne music rabbit hole...)

 

The slowed down acoustic version is 100% inferior to the studio version imo. It's actually really disappointing that he feels that way about the song, I guess it makes more sense now why he doesn't have any other songs that sound that way.

 

New track gives me CCR vibes - great stuff

 

Album finally out!

 

Jesus this is his best in 16 years by a country mile.

You could have been making this album the last sixteen years and just...didn’t?!?

 

empty is pretty close to a perfect song