Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Reunions (May 15, 2020) Album • Page 16

I even read the linked "Conservatives can be great songwriters too" and it's a pretty woeful list. It's full of people who are either not officially/actually conservative or are not actually great songwriters.

 

the only great conservative songwriters i can think of are nugent, and he hasn’t written a great song since i’ve been born, and kanye, who isn’t even really a “conservative” as much as he is edgelord MAGA dweeb

 

How bout none of us go to that shitty site again and also tell our friends not to

 

The first actually impressive name on the list, Alan Jackson, I can't find any evidence of his politics other than writing "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" which...isn't particularly conservative?

And Merle Haggard pretty directly refuted conservatives claiming him later in his career.

So that leaves you with Loretta Lynn. Short list.

 

I’m a pastor who does a lot of funerals and works quite often at a funeral home. Can confirm: nothing would be more heartbreaking to the older conservative crowd in this country than to find out Alan Jackson isn’t a Republican. I don’t know that he is or isn’t; but you’d be surprised how many folks think the Trinity is the Father, Son, and Alan Jackson. We’ve played his songs at dozens of funerals and visitations, and we barely have to ask - it just goes without saying that of course they want that.

 

I'm so in love with this album

 

the verse vocal melody in 'River' is very similar to the one in Billy Joel's 'The Entertainer' and i can't not hear it haha

 

Reunions is amazing, but last night I went back and revisited the new mix / remaster of the 2009 self-titled album as well as Something More Than Free.

I feel the same way about the new version of self-titled as I do about the new version of Here We Rest: they obviously sound great on their own, but I'm not sure they are better than the original versions, and I don't really see the need for remixes / remasters in the first place on either of those albums. I actually always enjoyed that those two albums were a little more electric guitar-driven or electric guitar-forward compared to the Dave Cobb produced albums that followed, and I'm not crazy about the reshuffled tracklist with the extra track. I like 'Coda' between Side A & Side B and "The Last Song I Will Write" as the closer.

Something More Than Free is obviously a very strong album, but I would be lying if I said I haven't always considered it a *slight* step down from Southeastern. I think a big part of that has always been the opener. Something about the instrumentation of "If It Takes a Lifetime" has always struck me as hokey or a little jokey, and as such the beginning of the album has always felt uneven to me. Even though I really like the songs '24 Frames' and 'Flagship' it's always felt to me like the album doesn't settle into it's groove as a worthy successor to Southeastern until the 4th track "How To Forget". Tracks 4 through 11 are all stellar and flow amazingly. I thought about playing around with the tracklist but it's always felt a little sacrilegious to F with the tracklist when I know how deliberate and thoughtful of an album writer Jason Isbell is.

Last night after a few drinks I put this album on and just let it play without overanalyzing the tracklist in my head and for the first time it played beautifully for me as is. I just listened to it as an album and didn't think about Southeastern at all. The opener is a nice fun way to start off an album that is going to hit some pretty heavy stuff later on. And this album is STACKED with fantastic songs. It is absolutely a worthy follow-up to SE in every possible way. I don't think it is better than SE per se, but I don't really like ranking Jason Isbell albums, I think they are all phenomenal, but if you told me you thought it was better than SE I don't think I could fault you for thinking that.

 

SE and SMTF are basically 1a/1b for me. Southeastern only slightly edges it out for me.

 

Also, I listened to SMTF again today while chopping wood and having a fire and I'm thinking now that I didn't put a lot of these SMTF songs high enough on my ranking list way back in this thread. I think it had been a while since I played the album. Damn this guy is incredible.

 

i honestly could see this one taking the top spot for me

 

SMTF > Southeastern and I will die on that hill. But this one might be better than either of them, stay tuned in the weeks and months to come.

 

Didn't know this was a thing, oof I do not like anything other than "Last Song" being the closer

 

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the original versions of those albums, only the remastered with apparently a different tracklist! That’s all they have on Spotify it looks like.

On a different note, I don’t think Jason will ever beat Southeastern for me, but that’s not to say his other albums aren’t amazing in their own right.

 

Yeah for the reissue last year they changed up the tracklist a little bit: they put "Coda" at the end of the album as track 12 and added "When My Baby's Beside Me" as track 11. I don't really care enough for the added song on an already long album that is filled with better songs, and I like "Last Song" as the closer.

 

And the Spotify version is remastered too right? This makes so much sense now, when I relistened to the s/t recently on Spotify I remember thinking that "Good" sounded different and bad and I guess that's why

Huh that's a bummer. Wonder if Apple Music is the same way

 

"Good" was really the only song where I felt the changes were really bad overall and hurt the song. They did a new effect on his vocals but also to me it sounded like they pushed his vocals back in the mix a little bit and made them harder to hear. Plus, this was an electric guitar showcase and Dave Cobb really turned those down in the mix also.

 

just going to rip the bandaid off

SMTF
Southeastern/Reunions
Nashville Sound
Sirens
Here We Rest
S/T

 

Masterpiece Tier: Here We Rest / Southeastern / SMTF / Reunions

Phenomenal Tier: Sirens / Self-Titled / Nashville Sound

(Full disclosure: my version of HWR drops "Ballad of Nobeard" and gains "Brand New Stone".)

If I try to look at the albums completely objectively, I can see that the other 3 masterpiece tier albums are probably a step above HWR, but at the same time HWR might be my favorite Jason Isbell album and it is certainly the one I listen to the most.

TLDR: All 7 of his albums are fantastic.

 

I've been listening to SMTF all day now, and I think "The Life You Chose" is my favorite song, and I never realized until this afternoon listening on the Amazon music player on my phone that shows the lyrics, that he says "Did I, kid?" after "Do you live with a man who knows you, like I thought I did back then. But I guess I never did." Holy shit am I bad with lyrics but also this makes what was already my favorite part of the song even better.

 

Like I said earlier, I can't quite say SMTF is *better than* Southeastern for me personally, but SMTF is so fucking incredible that I absolutely respect this take. I have been listening to it all day while drinking and building a sandbox for my kids outside in the yard, and I see this album now as an absolutely perfect follow up to Southeastern, and honestly in some ways a little bit of a continuation of SE.

 

Great album. Not surprisingly.

curious why nobody is mentioning It Gets Easier or River ??? Dug both immediately.

whole thing is good!!!

 

Haven't really mentioned any specific song because every single one after the opening track is basically perfect. Rivers is one of my favorites for sure. I've never memorized a whole album of his lyrics as fast as I did with this.

 

Oh, huh. If the reissue was just last year I must’ve heard those albums in their original forms before and just don’t remember the differences. I’ve spent a lot more time with his stuff since Southeastern, although I’ve been listening to his earlier stuff a lot more since Reunions came out.