Lost and Gone Forever

Lost and Gone Forever is one of the best albums of all time. I say it now. I'll say it forever. This is an album at any point in my life you could have introduced it to me and I would have loved. It's perfection on a disc. The melodies are all strong, at least six songs (Rainy Day, Either Way, Happier, Fa Fa, Two Points for Honesty, What You Wish For) can give me the chills for various bits of awesomeness, and the lyrics...Guster hit peak form with these bitter bitter lyrics. To be honest, I've been a little disappointed at the last couple of albums because of the lyrics. I absolutely love the great melodies juxtaposed with some of the bitterest, meanest lyrics whether it be whimsical jerky like So Long or just flat out mean like Two Points for Honesty. So, I listed 6 great songs, but the second tier songs are standout tracks on anyone else's albums (I spy, So Long, Barrel of a Gun). I would use any of these nine tracks on a best of mix. Another point as to why this is the peak for Guster (it's okay to peak early, it doesn't mean that the last two albums have been bad at all...in fact Ganging Up on the Sun has 4 superb tracks of the first 5...Lightening Rod, Satellite, Captain, One Man Wrecking Machine)...it's the point where the plugged in/acoustic/and no sticks drumming converge. Parachutes is all acoustic, Goldfly is more acoustic, and Keep it Together represents the divergence from no sticks drumming (which is disappointing, honestly...Brian in concert was incredible without sticks. I had the chance to see him do Bury Me which was out and out awesome). As a go through other discs, the only other disc that I've found that outdoes LAGF, is Achtung with 8 chillworthy songs. Yeah, Achtung's the best album of all time.

Josh has this thing of his Nine, the nine albums that have changed his life. I've never really thought about mine...but as I relisten to albums, I realize the impact they've had on my musical taste. So, I can say that the following on first thought were life altering albums: Achtung Baby, The Bends, Dog Man Star, Lost and Gone Forever, Boy With the Arab Strap, Green. A couple of albums float around there vying for a spot. Surprisingly, Deluxe by BTE is one of those as it was teh first non-u2, non-rem album I ever bought. Also, Superunknown will always hold a special place in my heart as it was my first rebellious album I bought. My mom was so great about my decision to buy a black (duh) Superunknown shirt, black shorts, a black Automatic for the People REM hat, and black shoes as my new school clothes before I started high school. Black was so cool.