Albums I don't own: Kid A, London Calling, Harvest
Albums I do own: They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Almost every album on this list has a decisive critical consensus, some of the ones that don't include this one & Kings of Leon's Only By the Night. What interests me is that both examples indicate a divide in critical opinion between the US and Europe. The 1001 book entry for Liars reads: "Although critics in the United States were not impressed by the album, European audiences embraced the nightmares." Similarly, the KoL Wikipedia article reads "A discrepancy between ratings of the North American and the UK press can be noted."
The latter kinda makes me sad, I think it's a pretty great late aughts album. This album being more divisive makes a lot more sense. (I still don't understand why the critical divide would be split geographically though)
The tense, claustrophobic atmosphere of "Broken Witch" sets the scene brilliantly for a horror-inspired rock album. The off-putting dissonance is weirdly kept in check by the danceable rhythms in "Room on the Broom" and "They Don't Want Your Corn". I feel like I've heard just enough no wave and gothic rock this year to give that balance some historical context. Twenty years before this album, Bauhaus was putting out some freaky dance tunes as well.
How well they maintain that horror atmosphere through the whole album is up for debate. "Broken Witch" and "They Took 14" are proper, chaotic bookends, while the actual album closer, "Flow My Tears", unwinds into dark ambience and nature sounds- I suppose it works as a denouement while still staying relatively spoooky. "They Don't Want Your Corn", "Hold Hands" and "Room on the Broom" are more conventional but they sound far less like forest-bound pagans and much more like their noisy garage rock contemporaries. I want to single out that last one though, as iTunes lists it as my most played song on They Were Wrong (from today, but also April when I first listened to this). At about 15 seconds in, the most horrible distorted vocal starts, and repeats throughout the song. As far as anti-musical moments in albums, it ranks up there with the dog whistle at the end of Sgt. Pepper's.
So WHY do I keep going back to that song >:0
WHY is it so catchy >:0
The editors were probably right to cull Liars from subsequent editions, but I find the list less interesting without them.
Karen O: "Wait! They don't love you like I love you"
the guy she's singing about: "I NO LONGER. WANT TO BE A MAN. I WANT. TO BE. A HORSE."
HL: "Broken Witch", "There's Always Room on the Broom", "We Fenced Other Houses With the Bones of Our Own", "Read the Book That Wrote Itself", "Flow My Tears the Spider Said"
December 14, 2024
