Brian Fallon - Local Honey (March 27, 2020) Album • Page 28

She Loves You is an incredible song. Maybe my favorite ever TGA ballad.

Dark Places is top 5 Fallon for me and as we all know that is HIGHEST OF PRAISE. And I love Have Mercy too. Get Hurt = Criminally underrated

Still not ready to give my thoughts on Local Honey quite yet.

 

Blue Dahlia has to be the one song the forums just love that I just do not care for. Maybe that's cause I think Handwritten is damn near perfect.....similar to what Craig is saying in regards to Have Mercy.

 

The greatness of TGA B-Sides overall pretty much live up to the hype for me.

Blue Dahlia a totally worthy song. Not upper tier or anything but as good as most of their album tracks. Mama's Boys and Sweet Morphine are also very good.

I know it's a cover but I ADORE Once Upon A Time as well.

 

Blue Dahlia is one of my favorites. Also we did it when we were young is the perfect closer for American Slang.

 

"Desire" is one of the very few Gaslight songs that I flat out do not care for at all. Just do not like it. "Stray Paper" is another one. Those really might be the only two out of all of their albums though...

I don't think "Break Your Heart" is that great either but it is just kinda inoffensive and there as opposed to actively bad.

 

I am fine with the idea of Blue Dahlia, Teenage Rebellion, Have Mercy, Sweet Morphine, Mama’s Boys, Hold You Up and Misery being b-sides. Great songs, but don’t all fit with the album as much as the songs on the album.

Halloween could have fit on Get Hurt, but I think the fact people had heard it justifies that song being kept as a b-side. I does fit with the making a weird song and heartbreak of Get Hurt though, and sets up the album.

Still feel She Loves You is so American Slang.

Lots of bands just write so many cool songs per album cycle and end up with great b-sides. Alkaline Trio, Jimmy Eat World, Thrice, and so many more come to mind.

 

I absolutely love Break Your Heart. I feel like I am in the minority there though.

 

I don't mind bands having incredible songs as b-side or bonus tracks as long as they make those songs available to purchase in some way to all parts of the world. Jimmy Eat World is bad for this and has a couple songs that I can think of right off the bat that only Japan or the UK are able to purchase, like "Sparkle" or the studio, non-demo "Anais".

It sounds greedy but I honestly do not mind dropping ridiculous amounts of money to get deluxe versions of albums / bonus tracks, and I would rather that money go right to the band / artist as opposed to some shady person on eBay.

 

I will say that if there was a weak point on Handwritten, I agree it would be Desire.
Pretty much agree on Break Your Heart. Feels just kinda filler.
Love Stray Paper. I think im in the minority on that one as well.

 

I really, really love Handwritten, largely because it came out at a really crucial time in my life. Only song I don't really care for is "Too Much Blood," which is just a little overwrought, IMO. I've never understood the hate for "Desire," though. It's a fun, breezy pop song with a great hook. I think "Blue Dahlia" works really nicely as an epilogue, after "National Anthem," almost like the role "Into the Airwaves" plays at the end of Everything in Transit. I wouldn't say no to it being somewhere in the tracklist proper, but I'm not sure where I'd put it.

American Slang is pretty close to perfect, though. Been spending a lot of time with that one lately because I'm writing something about it for the 10-year.

 

I almost mentioned this yesterday when I posted my tracklist for Get Hurt, but I felt like it was a little too crazy to share, but I am enjoying all of this Gaslight discussion too much not to, so fuck it.

My imaginary version of Get Hurt that exists in my brain would actually have "Dark Places" listed as the closer on the back of the album at track 12, and "Have Mercy" would play afterwards as a secret track, like the hidden track "Terry's Song" on Bruce Sprinsgteen's album Magic.

 

I like the idea of both "Have Mercy" and "Blue Dahlia" being hidden tracks. "She Loves You" too. I think that works.

 

I like how people in this thread can have nice discussions, even if opinions slightly differ. Everyone is Brian fan, and is respectful.

 

The one I can't wrap my head around is Brian Fallon in the studio with Butch Walker - who is from Georgia! - and they decide to not record the fucking amazing song "Georgia" for Painkillers!

I guess there is always the chance that he hadn't written the song yet, or they were really crunched for time in the studio. I am assuming that Butch Walker is pretty expensive to work with.

Or maybe for Butch Walker hearing a song about Georgia would be like me hearing a song about Massachusetts and just being like "nah that's lame, moving on."

 

Butch seems to work pretty quickly with the folks he produces, so maybe they just had the record they wanted and didn’t get to it.

 

I think Painkillers is pretty perfectly sequenced. There’s nothing I would change about that one, either.

As a related aside: one thing that seems to be said about Sleewalkers is that it’s too long. Most of us, though, want songs added to records, which makes them longer. It might be that we’d feel differently about all this in the alternate world where we go what we asked for (i.e. I may well be just as adamant that Painkillers is perfect if Georgia replaced, say, Mojo Hand, as I am with Mojo Hand instead of Georgia).

 

Sleepwalkers at 12 songs is perfect in my mind. Not a song I’d skip or take away.

I think Mojo Hand probably shares more in common with Sleepwalkers.

Thematically/stylistically I think Georgia could have been on Painkillers.

 

I think "Mojo Hand" is in a weird place on the album - I don't like it as the penultimate track.

 

The one song i straight up don't care for on the album.

 

I love me some Mojo Hand

 

SAME!

I just think it makes a better track 4 than a track 11.

 

I think the only direction Brian could take that I wouldn't love would be if he made a whole album like Mojo Hand

 

I don’t mind some Mojo Hand, but the song is a little quirky for Painkillers I guess. I don’t mind the song. It a little jarring as the set up for Open All Night.

 

The bridge on "Mojo Hand" always makes me smile. That song is a blast.

 

Please don’t bring out the pitchforks, but I’ve never really listened to him before, outside of the popular Gaslight work. However, I figured I’d give this album a shot and I love it. Where should I go from here?