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Slint--Spiderland (1991)

 

More known for its frequent name-checks than its actual music, Spiderland remains one of the most essential and chilling releases in the mumbling post-rock arena. Even casual listeners will be able to witness an experimental power-base that the American underground has come to treasure. Indeed, the lumbering quiet-loud motif has been lifted by everybody from Lou Barlow to Mogwai, the album's emotional gelidity has done more to move away from prog-rock mistakes than almost any of the band's subsequent disciples, and it's easy to hear how the term "Slint dynamics" has become an indie categorization of its own. Most interestingly, however, is how even a seething angularity to songs like "Nosferatu Man" (disquieting, vampirish stop-starts) or "Good Morning, Captain" (a murmuring nod to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner") certainly signaled the beginning of the end for the band. Recording was intense, traumatic, and one more piece of evidence supporting the theory that band members had to be periodically institutionalized during the completion of the album. Spiderland remains, though, not quite the insurmountable masterpiece its reputation may suggest. Brian McMahan softly speaks/screams his way through the asphyxiated music and too often evokes strangled pity instead of outright empathy. Which probably speaks more about the potential dangers of pretentious post-rock than the frigid musical climate of the album itself. Surely, years later, Spiderland is still a strong, slightly overrated, compelling piece of investigational despair that is a worthy asset to most any experimentalist's record collection. — Dean Carlson

 

I'd argue it is a masterpiece, but whatever. One of the most emotionally devastating albums I've ever heard; it's effect on me has been such that I learned the hard way that I should never listen to it while driving. The final minute of the album closing "Good Morning, Captain" wrecks me everytime. Fuck the posers; Spiderland is the sound of loneliness. Absolutely harrowing.

 

Use this thread to mention great, depressing music.

Guest Agent of Oblivion
Posted

Choken One is going to LOA all over your indie niche favorite. Thought I'd warn you before it happens.

Posted

I'll just say that Gary Jules "Mad World" is one of those songs that makes me want to kill myself. Fuck the Tears for Fears version. It's vastly inferior, and sparked a debate with a friend of mine who claimed that the original is ALWAYS better, no matter what.

 

Also, Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" is one of those wonderfully twisted songs...and I've had trouble listening to Frank Sinatra from time to time. Songs like "I'll Never Smile Again", and "I'm a Fool for Wanting You" get me every time.

 

Anything you can recommend off of that Spiderland album, Inc?

Guest The Winter Of My Discontent
Posted

I find every Joy Division song to be suicide-worthy. I guess it all makes sense in the end, but still, its depressing.

 

Depressing music isn't always that good. It makes me sad. And thats not good.

Posted

"Agaetis Bryjun" (the song) by Sigur Ros always makes me weep, mainly because I associate it with a chick I was in love with. "Roll Me In Cotton" by Ooberman and "Stevies (Days Of A Gun)" by Martina Topley-Bird always make me emotional too.

Guest Choken One
Posted
Choken One is going to LOA all over your indie niche favorite. Thought I'd warn you before it happens.

what does THAT mean?

 

LOA doesn't make "cry" music unless you are easily affected by the Storyline in the R.R.R album or you accidently hear the Whitfield Crane sessions which is a black moment in LOA history.

 

That being said The Live Acoustic version of "Let's Pretend" has edged me close to tears.

 

I must say "Lost Highway" by Jeff Buckley is one of my teary songs...

Posted

Sopor Aeternus is some of the most deliberately depressing music ever created. It doesn't help that they're also the weirdest fuckers on earth, with the main songwriter being an albino transsexual who claims to get its' inspiration from ghosts.

Guest Derek Bailey
Posted

Neutral Milk Hotel's "Oh Comely" makes feel completely empty, and it and Two-Headed Boy Pt. Two (both from In The Aeroplane Over The Sea) are two of the handful of songs that have made me cry like the pussy emo-kid I possibly am. Other albums that have a similar effect: Jeff Buckley - Grace, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness, Nick Drake - Pink Moon, Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica.

Guest The Winter Of My Discontent
Posted
Neutral Milk Hotel's "Oh Comely" makes feel completely empty, and it and Two-Headed Boy Pt. Two (both from In The Aeroplane Over The Sea) are two of the handful of songs that have made me cry like the pussy emo-kid I possibly am. Other albums that have a similar effect: Jeff Buckley - Grace, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness, Nick Drake - Pink Moon, Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica.

Oh yea, I forgot about Nick Drake.

 

That is music at its bleakest. Oh, and the Eels - Electro-Shock Blues.

Posted

The Electro-Shock Blues album by Eels is very bleak but it does have moments of hope and black humor, it also ends on a hopeful song in PS. You Rock My World. The way its treads through real life trauma but manages to come out the other side by the end is what makes it a great album. Good Shout on I See A Darkness as well, maybe a couple of smog albums could get in as well for being so miserable.

 

Two other albums that spring to mind are Red House Painters s/t album and Big Star's s/t 3rd/Sister lovers album. R.H Painters is a really emotionally draining album, brilliant but not that easy to listen to from start to finish as its certainly not short either. I don't think Big Star's last album is as depressing as some would say but something like 'Holocaust' won't brighten up your day unless you were planning to slit your wrists anyway.

  • 3 years later...
Posted
"Agaetis Bryjun" (the song) by Sigur Ros always makes me weep, mainly because I associate it with a chick I was in love with.

How odd. I have no idea who that chick was...

 

And to make this bump semi-meaningful, the video to Glossi by Sigur Ros makes me emotional. Anybody have any others?

Posted

i rarely listen to lennon's 'plastic ono band' anymore because it just exhausts me.

 

sinatra's 'in the wee small hours' isn't quite as good as 'only the lonely', but its sparseness makes it infinitely more depressing. a fantastic record to listen to on headphones with the volume turned up, as you can hear every little intonation of his voice. when he goes soft on the last verse of "can't we be friends," it sounds like he has nothing left to feel anymore.

Posted
Last Kiss, the cover by Pearl Jam always gets me. I can't listen to the song all the way through without getting depressed.
Posted
the video to Glossi by Sigur Ros makes me emotional

 

Is that the one that ends with all the kids jumping off the cliff? I thought that one was kind of silly, actually.

Yeah

 

Fuck you, it's beautiful <_<

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Vitamin X
Posted

How about Elliott Smith's From A Basement On The Hill?

 

That's a rather depressing one from a guy who committed suicide before its release.

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