Old White Lincoln (15) VS. Orphans (11) Red Violins (10) VS. Say I Won't (Recognize) (16) I'd argue that this is the most hotly contested round of matches. Also, Orphans for life!
Old White Lincoln has the most Tom Waits references therefore it wins the end. Also ill vote for Say I Won't
Thought about it more and revised my opinion: Bring It On The Queen of Lower Chelsea The Diamond Church Street Choir Boxer -- We Did It When We Were Young Old Haunts American Slang Orphans The Spirit of Jazz -- Stay Lucky
You've got my two least favorites in your top four, so I guess that explains our difference of opinion here.
Whaaaaaat? Which ones? Edit: To expand, what I love about American Slang is how they expand from the very same-y sounding songs of 59 Sound and still sound unequivocally awesome. Brian moves away from over-referencing, the band tries new tempos, and it feels like a journey into a secret world that lies somewhere on the tattooed arm of New York City. So my least favorite tracks are generally the ones that sound like pumped-up retreads of their more traditional "anthems". They're not bad songs and I get why they're there, but just not my faves.
I really love all the songs on that record, so it's usually tough for me to pick favorites/least favorites. I think I've landed on "Queen of Lower Chelsea" being my least favorite on that record, though, which is interesting because it was initially one of my top 3. I'm also not as enamored with "Boxer" as most people are. My ranking is probably: Old Haunts American Slang Orphans Bring It On We Did It When We Were Young The Diamond Church Street Choir Stay Lucky The Spirit of Jazz Boxer The Queen of Lower Chelsea I agree with your notes, in part. I like that the album switches things up, and I love the soul and R&B influences. But like I said a few weeks ago, I think "Old Haunts" and "Orphans" are the lyrical cores of the record. The themes of faded youth, trying to hold onto being young when you aren't anymore, etc. have always really resonated with me. I get that most from the songs I ranked higher.
Old Haunts American Slang Orphans The Spirit of Jazz Bring It On Stay Lucky We Did It When We Were Young The Diamond Church Street Choir Boxer The Queen of Lower Chelsea
Disagree on hook, just think Cowgirls is a more unique song and love that guitar, High Lonesome is great but falls into the category of "sounds a little too much like other songs on that album" to me. Always loved this lyric: And at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet It's a pretty good song, baby you know the rest
Tough to rank that album as it's still probably my favorite but I'll play. Think my answers are pretty different from the majority as usual. I honestly love every single song on here except for WDIWWWY, which is good too, but weaker than the rest, for me. Bring It On She Loves You Boxer Diamond Street Choir (love the doo-wop sound of this one, always have, so retro and so cool) Queen of Lower Chelsea Old Haunts Orphans American Slang Spirit of Jazz Stay Lucky (when a song this good is #10 you know it's a great album) We Did It When We Were Young
In a perfect world, i wish the band would've swapped Queen of Lower chelsea for She Loves You, and made it a b-side. It's the only song the record i don't really like. If that swap happened though, it'd be a perfect record.
Okay it looks like the voting has ended for this phase of Round 2. This means that Say i Won't (Recognize) will advance to the Semi-finals However...Old White Lincolnhas one more match to go through in order to advance. Old White Lincoln VS. Señor and the Queen GO!!!!