Word: albums
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Recently Ross received a phone call from a friend--Michael Jackson--who was also working on a new album. "Late, late at night I get a call: 'Hello, Diana?' I said, 'Michael, is that you?' He said he was working on an album, and the album would be out sometime in the year...
...When Martsch announced he had finished Built to Spill's sophomore album, everyone expected the long, languished and sometime lost guitar heroics that had dominated the first release. Once again, more hype for the band to prove wrong. With There's Nothing Wrong with Love, Martsch set his sights at pure pop bliss captured in the moments of everyday life...
...least that's how the story should go. Instead, Martsch decided that now would be the right time to create his White Album. The aptly titled Perfect From Now On left a lot of people (including the executives at his label) scratching their heads. With only one song under five minutes and most pushing eight, the album took an epic stab at capturing eternity in a few moments of sound...
...Fast forward to 1999: critics have finally learned their lesson and didn't even attempt to speculate at what Built to Spill's most recent release, Keep It Like a Secret would bring to the table. Keeping in character, this album turned out to be the one everyone should have been expecting. A combination of the pop of There's Nothing Wrong and the grandeur of Perfect, Martsch's latest manifesto of sound smoothes the edges but loses none of its weight...
...least not one I can tell you. Live, the band veers from one violently brilliant extreme to another. Some shows tumble into unbelievable 30-minute long jams on b-sides of singles released five years ago. Others are made up of drop-dead perfect sonic recreations of the album, filled out with the intensity of Martsch flailing at his guitar before your eyes. Then again, Martsch has probably completely rewritten the Built to Spill playbook by now, just to keep us critics on our toes. The only way to find out for sure? Check it out yourself...