Hold Steady - Stay Positive
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CD Details
Artist: Hold SteadyBrand: Baker & Taylor
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-07-15
Music Label: Vagrant Records
Soundtracks:
- Constructive Summer
- Sequestered in Memphis
- One for the Cutters
- Navy Sheets
- Lord, I'm Discouraged
- Yeah Sapphire
- Both Crosses
- Stay Positive
- Magazines
- Joke About Jamaica
- Slapped Actress
Music reviews of Stay Positive
Music Review: They'll always have Boys and Girls in America
Rating: 3 Stars
After the major leap forward that Boys and Girls in America was, The Hold Steady stood a pretty good chance of having me completely forgive them for their first two albums. Perhaps singer/songwriter Craig Finn's Catholic Church would have required him to confess the musical sins of his past, but I would simply ask that he make another record comparable in quality to their third one. Unfortunately, their fourth album - Stay Positive - doesn't quite scale such grand heights.
On Boys and Girls in America, Finn's lyric writing had grown by leaps and bounds. On Stay Positive, it is still pretty good. The religious dimension continues to give his songs a fair amount of depth. Among the more memorable lyrics are "Me and my friends are like/The drums on `Lust for Life'," "In bar light, she looked alright/In daylight, she looked desperate," and "Sniffing on crystal in cute little cars/Getting nailed against Dumpsters behind townie bars." That last lyric comes from "One For the Cutters," the title of which refers to the names of the townies in the 1979 movie "Breaking Away" (props to J.D. Jansen for noting this in his review). However, Cleveland - the one city mentioned in this song - is quite far from Bloomington, Indiana, where that film takes place.
Alas, certain aspects of his songwriting aren't getting any less annoying. He still sings incessantly about being under the influence of one substance and/or another. He continues to name-drop cities quite a bit - including Ybor City, twice, in the last song on the album. Once again, he seems to get a kick out of referencing his own songs: There are two allusions to the title of the band's first album (Almost Killed Me), a quote from a song from that album's first song ("Positive Jam"), a repeat of a lyric from their second album ("she's gonna have to go with whoever's gonna get her the highest"), and one mention of the band's name ("We're the directors - our hands will hold steady"). All of these appear in the last few songs on the album, so I guess he felt like he had to squeeze them in.
Also, in the excellent "Both Crosses," Finn sings "You Catholic girls you start much too late." This, coupled with the mention of "Only the Good Die Young" on Almost Killed Me, makes The Hold Steady and Fountains of Wayne the unlikely co-winners of the "Most Likely to Quote Billy Joel in a Song" award. Whether this is a good thing or not is in the ear of the listener.
Musically, "Constructive SSSUH-mer" features chainsaw guitars and an E Street Band piano, the latter of which re-appears on "Yeah Sapphire." A harpsichord stakes out new musical territory on the aforementioned "One For the Cutters." "Lord, I'm Discouraged" and "Joke About Jamaica" have great guitar solos. "Navy Sheets," however, contains the absolute most annoying keyboard riff that I have ever heard in my life.
So we get it, Mr. Finn: you like to drink a lot and you constantly quote yourself. Good for you. Write about something else now. I am not optimistic about your next album, but consider this: I awarded one star to Almost Killed Me, two stars to Separation Sunday, four to Boys and Girls, and three to Stay Positive. Could the next one be a fiver? I'm not gonna bet the house on it, but I do think that you have a 5-star album somewhere in you. As you write your next batch of songs, consider this lyric from "Constructive Summer": "Let this be my annual reminder/That we can all be something bigger."
Description of Stay Positive
Limited edition packaging (50,000) includes 3 bonus tracks:Bonus Tracks
1.Ask Her for Adderall
2.Cheyenne Sunrise
3. Two Handed Handshake
The Hold Steady's ascent and eventual breakthrough with 2006's Boys & Girls in America was never pre-ordained. If anything they did it without the tastemakers' consent. Their shtick is old-fashioned through and through, beginning with Thin Lizzy and ending with Bruce Springsteen, performed by men advanced enough to have experienced those touchstones first or second hand. And look at them--not exactly The Strokes, are they? But it was precisely their enthusiastic unoriginality, the fact that the clichés were piled on so thick and so fast, that they triumphed. And placed next to that unapologetically feel good record, that Stay Positive sounds so immediately brighter and more muscular is undoubtedly a great sign. Production is really cranked up--see the horns wedged into "Sequestered in Memphis", the REM mandolin texturing of "Both Crosses" and the surprising harpsichord flagrancy of "One for the Cutters". They're clearly determined to not be so easily pegged this time around, though admittedly they never exactly go that far off-piste. "Our songs are sing-along songs," announced Craig Finn semi-helpfully, and though the spirit is right, with such a conversational lyrical style that is rarely the case. It's more about the rock gestures and knowing when to punch the air. And there are instances aplenty, from the Pete Townsend-esque windmill power-chords in "Constructive Summer", to the overblown solo in "Lord I'm Discouraged" that is so "November Rain" it's practically going through Stephanie Seymour's trash (those not watching MTV in the mid-90s, hit Youtube). --James Berry
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