Best Jars of Clay Album?

[bloop]

True, but still not a 5-star album.

So, back to Jars of Clay.   

[murlough23]

Which is sad because it was a superior album, musically.

Agreed.

[ajyouthguy]

I feel that way about "Like a Child", but I don't miss it when it isn't played. Just because I love a song doesn't mean I need to hear it every freakin' tour.

I understand that, but i've NEVER felt like "Worlds Apart" was overkilled in concert like you seem to...i've seen them 9 times, and i know for a fact it wasn't played in at least 4 of them, including the last 2, as well as the VERY first one, when they opened for PFR.

[murlough23]

I understand that, but i've NEVER felt like "Worlds Apart" was overkilled in concert like you seem to...i've seen them 9 times, and i know for a fact it wasn't played in at least 4 of them, including the last 2, as well as the VERY first one, when they opened for PFR.

That's surprising. I've seen them 11 times (or 12, I lost count). "Worlds Apart" was played at each and every one of those shows, save for the GM tour and the time I saw them play 3 songs at a Billy Graham crusade (which doesn't really count as a Jars concert). "Flood" and "Love Song for a Savior" have also appeared nearly every time, with "Liquid" and "Like a Child" being not far behind. The other half of their first album, I've heard almost nothing from since the Much Afraid days (and I've never heard them play "Art in Me" live, which is apparently a rarity that some fans have been clamoring for them to bring back).

As far as other albums go, whatever I haven't heard live for myself from Much Afraid, I heard on Stringtown, so I'm OK with laying that album to rest. Same goes for most of Zoo (though it would be nice to hear them do "Goodbye, Goodnight" sometime). From TEH onward, there are large gaps in each album that I've never heard live and that I wonder if they've ever even played live. That's what bugged me up until GM - that large chunks of their newest albums apparently weren't getting played live at all.

When I go to see a band live that I've seen before, my primary interest is to hear them play stuff I've never heard them play live, and usually that's going to involve their newest album. I can understand that to some extent, older hits are necessary to keep the set exciting for long time fans or for casual fans who know a few songs from the radio. But I have a lot of respect for bands whose body of work as a whole still holds interest to them years down the line and who are willing to mix up their setlists in unexpected ways - Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, Barenaked Ladies, Dream Theater, etc. (Except for the DMB, I've never even seen any of those bands live).

Jars of Clay used to pull 2 or 3 song titles out of a hat on their 2003 acoustic tours... that was fun because there were some songs in there from the old days that weren't the expected, guaranteed hits. Obviously there were a finite number of songs in there because to some degree, they had to rehearse and work out the stripped-down arrangements... but it added a spontaneous feel to their setlist. They could use more of that sort of thing.

[valleycat]

If I Left the Zoo is my favorite..

it would be Who We Are Instead but I think the production doesn't match the songs.  Too squeaky-clean and nice, which is also my problem with most of their albums.  It's personally why I enjoy their debut more than most others too.

[murlough23]

If I Left the Zoo is my favorite..

it would be Who We Are Instead but I think the production doesn't match the songs.  Too squeaky-clean and nice, which is also my problem with most of their albums.  It's personally why I enjoy their debut more than most others too.

The thing about the production on WWAI is that, for the most part, I don't notice it. Other than a little drum programming here and there, it's not a record that needs a lot of studio tweaking. I don't think a producer has to make a performance try to sound more raw/lo-fi/flawed than it truly is just to try to make the feeling of the album more genuine. (It would strike me as fake if they did.)

[bloop]

I personally don't have a problem with a raw, lo-fi aesthetic, but I think it's wrong for Jars of Clay.  WWAI's production is clean without drawing attention to itself.

[murlough23]

I personally don't have a problem with a raw, lo-fi aesthetic, but I think it's wrong for Jars of Clay.

Agreed. I can live with the fact that some bands and some listeners really like that aesthetic, even if it's not my thing. But try to force that on every band or else say they're not "authentic" enough, and that's what really bugs me. "Authentic" is doing what your natural musical instincts lead you to do. For some people, that means making highly produced, precise, pristine music that can perhaps never be reproduced faithfully in a live setting. So long as the artist is the impetus for that and they do it because they love the sound (not just "this is how I think it should sound to be a big radio hit"), I'm cool with that.

WWAI's production is clean without drawing attention to itself.

I like "clean". I don't think that has to mean something artificial is being done to the music to clean it up. I just figure you're hearing the instruments as played and the vocals as sung, without any intentional effort to make it cleaner or more ragged. (Dan's vocals are a bit ragged at times on that album, which at times bugs me, but it fits the style.) Obviously some effort has to be made in the mixing to be sure the different elements of the music can be heard as presented. It really bugs me - both in highly produced pop music that has like a million session players in the studio and in some forms of indie music - to have some instrument or other layer of the recording process that you can barely actually hear.

[danny316]

I only have two (fairly minor) issues with the production on WWAI that I haven't mentioned here before:

"Jealous Kind" has a few very quiet pops in it (near the beginning) that are only noticeable when listening closely with a good sound system. Once you hear them, though, they will start to drive you insane when you listen too closely (since they're not easy to notice, my first instinct when I finally noticed this in 2005 was to check if my CD had been damaged). It's hard to tell if this mistake was a bad idea on the drummer's part or something added in mixing, but somebody should have tried to stop that (and I might yet, if I ever get motivated enough to manipulate songs on the PC before burning a mix CD - the copy I made of WWAI was only "tweaked" to the extent that I dumped the worthwhile tracks from the acoustic Furthermore disc onto it).

"Lesser Things" has a fairly bland ending on the album, and it becomes much more noticeable in comparison to the 2004 live version (which ended with an interesting little jam when I saw them - I believe I pubbed it). I, for one, would have enjoyed hearing them loosen up a little more on the CD - there certainly was enough space to add a minute on there, and the extra piano and steel guitar bits would have been worthwhile to include.

I remain annoyed by the poor use of grammar in a band I'd otherwise hold up as great songwriters, but I like those songs enough for other reasons to outweigh my nitpicks on that front (and I know we've argued that out here before). Of course, "Show You Love" could afford to be more interesting, too, but it's not like it suffers much from clean pop production (and the other "poppy" songs were appropriately spiced up - the mandolin bits in "Sunny Days" in particular stand out).

I don't know if producers are involved with determining track order at all, but I'll stand by what I said on Jarchives regarding Murlough's complaints about "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" - juxtaposing JBNFMY with "Jealous Kind" was a brilliant idea and it works excellently in the context of the album.

Back to what Murlough said about not making bits nearly impossible to hear, I'd complain more about the quiet piano introduction to "Collide" (great to include, but it needs to be louder). In retrospect, now that I've familiarized myself with Radiohead, I'm interested in knowing who (either a bandmember or the producer) decided to combine the mellotron and guitar later in that song (a technique I thought was an awesome Jars idea at the time but now recognize they borrowed from "Airbag").

Of course, if we're talking about clean production - do I need to remind everyone how dull most of T11H and parts of Furthermore were? WWAI is when their self-producing approach got to be reliably interesting again. The mix might sound a bit clear for the style they're playing (but certainly not for when they were playing it - other people playing that style now have no problem with sounding clear or sparse) and the production is fine.

[murlough23]

"Jealous Kind" has a few very quiet pops in it (near the beginning) that are only noticeable when listening closely with a good sound system. Once you hear them, though, they will start to drive you insane when you listen too closely (since they're not easy to notice, my first instinct when I finally noticed this in 2005 was to check if my CD had been damaged). It's hard to tell if this mistake was a bad idea on the drummer's part or something added in mixing, but somebody should have tried to stop that

This is one of those things that I'll be sure never to go out of my way to listen for.

"Lesser Things" has a fairly bland ending on the album, and it becomes much more noticeable in comparison to the 2004 live version (which ended with an interesting little jam when I saw them - I believe I pubbed it). I, for one, would have enjoyed hearing them loosen up a little more on the CD - there certainly was enough space to add a minute on there, and the extra piano and steel guitar bits would have been worthwhile to include.

It's my favorite song on the album and I think the ending is excellent as it is (the key change in the final chorus and then going back to the original key for haunting intro is climactic enough for me). I heard the live version, and I was cool with the extended ending they came up with for it there, but that's one of those things I think they worked out after the album was recorded. In any event, what works in extended form live doesn't always translate to the studio.

I remain annoyed by the poor use of grammar in a band I'd otherwise hold up as great songwriters, but I like those songs enough for other reasons to outweigh my nitpicks on that front (and I know we've argued that out here before).

I'm not sure where I hear bad grammar on this album, except maybe a few parts where they're intentionally going for the more rural approach, language-wise.

I don't know if producers are involved with determining track order at all, but I'll stand by what I said on Jarchives regarding Murlough's complaints about "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" - juxtaposing JBNFMY with "Jealous Kind" was a brilliant idea and it works excellently in the context of the album.

Interestingly, I've used a similar argument in defense of "Sing".

Back to what Murlough said about not making bits nearly impossible to hear, I'd complain more about the quiet piano introduction to "Collide" (great to include, but it needs to be louder).

It seems audible enough to me. The thing with piano is that it's a sound that can easily be canceled out by certain environments that have a lot of white noise (like driving) or due to crappy speakers.

Of course, if we're talking about clean production - do I need to remind everyone how dull most of T11H and parts of Furthermore were?

TEH seemed rather immaculately produced from my perspective (and in a good way) - it's just that there's a stretch of a few songs in its back half that aren't all that musically captivating, which I think would be true regardless of how clean or messy the production. Sometimes it's the fault of the song, not the sound.

And no argument about Furthermore.

[danny316]

I think the songs save T11H from being a waste - the production on there is clean and noteworthy as an example of how they do things when they produce themselves. It's hard to argue that they weren't messy enough when they buried the polyrhythm in the second verse of "Revolution", or threw in something as left-field as "Silence" at all, but overall it wasn't too fancy in terms of trickery (and let's face it, a surprising amount of impressing us is related to gimmicks, instrument changes, and time signature changes).

Bringing in the banjo on one song was a good idea production wise, but the song wasn't that good to start with. Some of the other songs on there with very clean production are well-written enough to be fine on their own ("Something Beautiful", "Disappear", "The Eleventh Hour"...)

Truth be told, I'm far more likely to listen to mp3s of my favorite tracks from T11H than I am to actually play the whole album. I think it's been a few years since I've heard "Scarlet" now...

[murlough23]

I think the songs save T11H from being a waste - the production on there is clean and noteworthy as an example of how they do things when they produce themselves. It's hard to argue that they weren't messy enough when they buried the polyrhythm in the second verse of "Revolution", or threw in something as left-field as "Silence" at all, but overall it wasn't too fancy in terms of trickery

You just named my two favorite tracks from T11H (I'll adopt your acronym since that way it doesn't look like I'm misspelling "THE"), and yeah, "Revolution" sure is tricky! I still struggle to play along with that one on my guitar even though the chords are basic.

If you were to hold a gun to my head and force me to make a "Best of Jars of Clay" mix and limit the entire thing to an 80-minute CD-R, "Revolution" and "Silence" would be the two tracks on that disc that I absolutely could not live without. (I'd probably still be unable to complete the project within the given constraints, and thus wind up with a bullet hole in my skull. But that's beside the point. At least I'd die with my integrity intact or something.)

(and let's face it, a surprising amount of impressing us is related to gimmicks, instrument changes, and time signature changes).

For me, it's something that upsets the status quo in terms of song structure, or rhythm, or instrumentation, etc., but that is still listenable and doesn't just pull the rug out from under you for the sake of being difficult. It's hard to quantify what that means. The vast majority of Jars songs are fairly standard in terms of their song structure, and they stick to an established rhythm as well. But there's something in almost every song that makes me feel like the band didn't write it on auto-pilot. That's really the big thing that bugs me with Christian music - the idea that it's OK to just paint by numbers because it's what everyone else does and it gets the "message" across most clearly. I want to know that some thought went into it, that somebody in the band spoke up and said, "Hey, what if we tried this instead?" That doesn't mean that every instance of upsetting the norm will impress me, but hey, I'd rather a hear band try than not try.

Bringing in the banjo on one song was a good idea production wise, but the song wasn't that good to start with.

I like "The Edge ofWater". It's not my favorite, but it ends the album well. The songs I liked enough on that disc to make them "mix-worthy" were pretty much the first seven tracks.

Some of the other songs on there with very clean production are well-written enough to be fine on their own ("Something Beautiful", "Disappear", "The Eleventh Hour"...)

I'm not a huge fan of the title track. It's OK. Seems a little plodding. I actually prefer the Furthermore version (the studio one with the dulcimer, not the totally unnecessary live version).

Truth be told, I'm far more likely to listen to mp3s of my favorite tracks from T11H than I am to actually play the whole album. I think it's been a few years since I've heard "Scarlet" now...

I like "Scarlet". It has personal meaning to me. Its chorus is a bit weak, though.

NP: "Telescope Eyes", Eisley