ABAAC Theory

[Tequila Cowboy]

I don't know. I saw a four show run in September/October and saw Feb 14 (twice), World of Hurt & Gravity's Gone.

[Tequila Cowboy]

stats on ABAAC tunes in 2010 just for shits and giggles:

Feb 14.- 24 times
Gravity's Gone- 38 times
Aftermath USA- ) 0 times
Goodbye- 0 times
Wednesday- 2 times
Little Bonnie- 0 times
Space City- 0 times
A Blessing and A Curse- 0 times
A world of Hurt- 9 times

that's 4 of the nine songs available to them and only 2 of them in heavy rotation. I'd like to hear Goodbye and Space City soon.

[Iowan]

Some days I think Goodbye might be my favorite song on the record.

Question:

Why do nearly all the debates about DBT start with this record?

they almost never play anything off it anymore

They played 3 songs off it when I saw them a month ago. It seems to me that ABAAC gets a ton more play than it did 2-3 years ago.

[Zip City]

Some days I think Goodbye might be my favorite song on the record.

Question:

Why do nearly all the debates about DBT start with this record?

they almost never play anything off it anymore

They played 3 songs off it when I saw them a month ago. It seems to me that ABAAC gets a ton more play than it did 2-3 years ago.

I guess I should say that when they play songs off of ABAAC, it's always the same 3 or 4

[Iowan]

they almost never play anything off it anymore

They played 3 songs off it when I saw them a month ago. It seems to me that ABAAC gets a ton more play than it did 2-3 years ago.

I guess I should say that when they play songs off of ABAAC, it's always the same 3 or 4

Yeah, I hadn't seen those stats when I posted. The lack of Aftermath is such a shame. One of my favorite DBT songs.

[mclain13]

This thread has been a great read and it is nice to see folks are just as torn as I am with this album.
Up until The Fine Print being released I had a hell of a time listening to this album all the way through.
Love JI, but Easy On Yourself and Daylight just never fit at all for me and really ruined the theme/mood of the album.
So, I replaced Easy On Yourself with When the Well Runs Dry and removed Daylight and now enjoy the album quite a bit.
I even like how When the Well Runs Dry gooes from Gravity to Aftermath...leading to Goodbye.
Nice way to end side one and to begin side to with Wed.
I also like that JI's only contribution is now lyrically so appropriate to his leaving and the remaining tracks act as a response.

Anyway, thought I'd share.

[Clams]

Some days I think Goodbye might be my favorite song on the record.

Question:

Why do nearly all the debates about DBT start with this record?

Because it's the only one people perceive as sub-standard?

Some days, I agree about Goodbye.

[Steve French]

It took me a while to realize that "Never Gonna Change" was not a Cooley song. (Is there a smiley for cringing? I think someone's going to hit me over the head with a rubber chicken.) Didn't stop me from loving it. Isbell seems to have picked up that remarkable way of crowding words into lines that Cooley has. In fact, I've thought for a while that some of Cooley's songwriting was rubbing off on Isbell, and that might have been a source of friction. But back to ABAAC: My daughter told me, while we were listening to it on her way to first grade that, next to cotton candy, "Gravity's Gone" was her favorite thing in the whole world.

beautifully put, and yes

[Steve French]

Some days I think Goodbye might be my favorite song on the record.

Question:

Why do nearly all the debates about DBT start with this record?

Because it's the only one people perceive as sub-standard?

Some days, I agree about Goodbye.

only WRONG people

[joecarlson]

Y'all for what it's worth. Monday night, Brighton. Patterson sang World of Hurt as one of the encores in between Carl Perkins and Get Yer Ass on the Plane. I have never heard a more beautiful song, with Neff's pedal steel soaring like a bird. The songs on ABAAC are all gonna stand the test of time. That was then, this is now.

[Tequila Cowboy]

e]

only WRONG people

Wrong about Goodbye or wrong about sub-standard?

[RevMatt]

I think Patterson and the gang may have read this thread. They played "Wednesday" the other night according to Trucker Tomer.

I would really like to hear "Little Bonnie". And "Aftermath" just for kicks.

[jimmyjack]

I haven't read this entire 4 page thread yet, but I plan to after dinner - I just want to say that ABAAC is highly underrated, and a much better album than TBTD in my opinion. I'd say ABAAC has at least four bonafide DBT classics ("Aftermath USA," "Gravity's Gone," "Space City" and "World Of Hurt") and a handful of songs that are better than their reputation would lead you to believe ("Wednesday," "Daylight," etc). The only stinker on here is the title track.

TBTD, to me, is mostly stinkers. Sorry.

Maybe after I read these 100 posts I'll find that someone has said this exact same thing! Wouldn't be surprised.

[jimmyjack]

Oh and the verses of "When The Well Runs Dry" = the chorus of "Tweeter & The Monkey Man" by the Traveling Wilburys. Can't believe no one else has caught that. Exact same melody, dudes.

[Teiz]

I like A Blessing And A Curse quite a lot. It's a bit short for a DBT album, but it was pretty much stuck in the cd-player for a couple of months after it came out. Most of the songs on that one work pretty well during a show too. Saw two great shows that tour in the Netherlands (Utrecht and Haarlem).

I think the main beef with this one - and this is probably newbie talk since you must've heared it yourself and debated it at length - that it's a step back compared with the run the band had prior to the release of A Blessing And A Curse. Without the knowledge of Pizza Deliverance, Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day and The Dirty South I would've declared this disc a classic. The fact that they pushed the level back up with Brighter Than Creation's Dark just shows what an extraordinary band DBT is: after Exile, the Stones never made a record that was equally good (Some Girls comes close though).

[jimmyjack]

Iafter Exile, the Stones never made a record that was equally good (Some Girls comes close though).

Crazy talk! Goat's Head Soup and Tattoo You (and yes, Some Girls) are stone cold classics!!

[Teiz]

I think most stuff the Stones recorded (save the last two albums) is great, but the point is nothing that came after Exile came close quality wise. GHS a great album? hell yes! As good as Exile? Hell no! That was the point I was making in regard to ABAAC. Great album, just not as great as most of the other discs DBT have.

[beantownbubba]

Iafter Exile, the Stones never made a record that was equally good (Some Girls comes close though).

Crazy talk! Goat's Head Soup and Tattoo You (and yes, Some Girls) are stone cold classics!!

Oh no. Not this again! Did Tequila Cowboy put you up to this?

For the record (tee hee), I am firmly in the non-classic camp on both of those very average albums. "Waiting for a Friend," though, is at the very top of the list of great Stones' singles. I agree that Some Girls is a great album, but it's still a step below the truly classic Stones albums.

[jimmyjack]

We will agree to disagree.

I like the Stones at their, err, stoniest. "Coming Down Again," "Heaven," "Tops" - these are some of my favorite Stones tunes. Sorry to derail the thread!

[RevMatt]

I am a fan of both The Big To Do and A Blessing and a Curse.

I also like Emotional Rescue And Tattoo You. Not a fan of Goats Head Soup. Great songs, subpar mix. But it was The Glimmer Twins' first attempt at production and each subsequent album had a great mix.

[rlipps]

Oh and the verses of "When The Well Runs Dry" = the chorus of "Tweeter & The Monkey Man" by the Traveling Wilburys. Can't believe no one else has caught that. Exact same melody, dudes.

It was mentioned numerous times when the same came out years ago

[jimmyjack]

Ah. Figured it would have! Sorry, I'm new to the messageboards. Anyway, it's sorta the reason I don't like the song...

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Does anyone else think When The Well Runs Dry was left off of A Blessing And A Curse on purpose? Considering the mounting tensions within the band at the time I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

[Given to Fly]

[John A Arkansawyer]

A friend recently gave me a mix CD of DBT which a friend made for him. I gratefully received it, as it has tracks from the two and a half missing records of mine I've yet to replace.

It's an odd but effective sequencing, beginning with "The Three Great Alabama Icons"->"Wallace" (talk about a one-two punch!) and ending with "Days of Graduation". Right in the middle is the only track from ABAAC, "A Blessing And A Curse" itself. Taken out of the context of the record, it's a pretty good track. I never would have thought that before now.

[njMark]

Not to sound sacriligeous(?) But ABAAC to me is a much better record than BTCD wh ich to me is my least fav as a whole. All the emotions swirling on ABAAC make it a great listen. Knowing what I know now, thanks to all the folks here who know waayyy more about the band than I do, how the inner turmoil afected the writing on it makes it even better. Not to get off topic but it is really hard to type on a cell phone when you're fingers are freezing off at work. Thanks for all the talk about a really great record IMO.

[Tequila Cowboy]

Not to sound sacriligeous(?) But ABAAC to me is a much better record than BTCD wh ich to me is my least fav as a whole. All the emotions swirling on ABAAC make it a great listen. Knowing what I know now, thanks to all the folks here who know waayyy more about the band than I do, how the inner turmoil afected the writing on it makes it even better. Not to get off topic but it is really hard to type on a cell phone when you're fingers are freezing off at work. Thanks for all the talk about a really great record IMO.

Interesting. See, for me, BTCD is a near masterpiece whereas ABAAC is a disaster narrowly averted, saved only by having a few of DBT's finest tunes on it. Most of the songs on ABAAC are good ones (with the notable exceptions of Jason's two godawful tracks) but the album doesn't flow well at all. BTCD, on the other hand, is seamless to my ears. There isn't one single song I don't like and the sequencing of songs (long a DBT strength with the exception of ABAAC) is close to perfect. The songs just flow so well into each other.

The ABAAC arguments are always going to be out there because it's so difficult to nail down. I'll listen to it one month and think I'm too hard on it and other months I find it unlistenable, it's just difficult to get a strong read, hell I gave the album a four star review on Amazon right after it came out and obviously no longer feel that way. Mostly what I think it really shows is that it is a bridge between two amazing "trifectas" (SRO, DD & TDS & BTCD, TBTD & GGB) and, really, that's not so bad.

[Iowan]

Not to sound sacriligeous(?) But ABAAC to me is a much better record than BTCD wh ich to me is my least fav as a whole. All the emotions swirling on ABAAC make it a great listen. Knowing what I know now, thanks to all the folks here who know waayyy more about the band than I do, how the inner turmoil afected the writing on it makes it even better. Not to get off topic but it is really hard to type on a cell phone when you're fingers are freezing off at work. Thanks for all the talk about a really great record IMO.

I couldn't agree more. I'll never understand why BTCD is considered some kind of masterpiece. It's a good album, at least worthy of 4 stars, but DBT has at least 6 albums that are better than it, including ABAAC. ABAAC is a tightly wound, wounded, bruised, snarl of emotion and conflict. This album took on an even greater resonance with me after watching TSTAHE. I absolutely love it.

[Clams]

Not to sound sacriligeous(?) But ABAAC to me is a much better record than BTCD wh ich to me is my least fav as a whole. All the emotions swirling on ABAAC make it a great listen. Knowing what I know now, thanks to all the folks here who know waayyy more about the band than I do, how the inner turmoil afected the writing on it makes it even better. Not to get off topic but it is really hard to type on a cell phone when you're fingers are freezing off at work. Thanks for all the talk about a really great record IMO.

I couldn't agree more. I'll never understand why BTCD is considered some kind of masterpiece. It's a good album, at least worthy of 4 stars, but DBT has at least 6 albums that are better than it, including ABAAC. ABAAC is a tightly wound, wounded, bruised, snarl of emotion and conflict. This album took on an even greater resonance with me after watching TSTAHE. I absolutely love it.

I don't agree that ABAAC is better than BTCD, I'm firmly in the Christgau camp when it comes to BTCD. But, I do agree that the new movie really puts ABAAC into perspective and helps to elevate it a few notches.

[Smarty Jones]

Not to sound sacriligeous(?) But ABAAC to me is a much better record than BTCD wh ich to me is my least fav as a whole. All the emotions swirling on ABAAC make it a great listen. Knowing what I know now, thanks to all the folks here who know waayyy more about the band than I do, how the inner turmoil afected the writing on it makes it even better. Not to get off topic but it is really hard to type on a cell phone when you're fingers are freezing off at work. Thanks for all the talk about a really great record IMO.

Interesting. See, for me, BTCD is a near masterpiece whereas ABAAC is a disaster narrowly averted, saved only by having a few of DBT's finest tunes on it. Most of the songs on ABAAC are good ones (with the notable exceptions of Jason's two godawful tracks) but the album doesn't flow well at all. BTCD, on the other hand, is seamless to my ears. There isn't one single song I don't like and the sequencing of songs (long a DBT strength with the exception of ABAAC) is close to perfect. The songs just flow so well into each other.

Watch out, y'all! Smarty speaks.

I'm with TC on this one. It may be that it was the first record of the band's that I ever listened to, but I have a soft spot for BTCD. This was the first time I listened to DBT, and I was in love by the third track. BTCD just flows effortlessly from one song to the next and, as a whole, is a terrific collection of DBT songs. There wouldn't be a thing I would change about it.

ABAAC, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired. I have a really rough time listening to the album from beginning to end. It just doesn't jive well together at all. It may be the fact that Jason's out-of-place contributions clutter the album and cause the disruption, but on the whole, it just isn't very enjoyable to listen through. This disjolted feeling I got from first listening to it was finally explained for me when I saw TSTAHE. The tensions in the band really come across in the tracks, and, just as they said it wasn't a fun record to make, it isn't a very fun record to listen to. The better tracks off of this album (Gravity's Gone, Aftermath, Little Bonnie, World of Hurt, etc.) are terrific when isolated from the rest of the album, like when they're thrown into a playlist with other DBT tracks. But I'm just not a fan of ABAAC as a collection of songs.

BTCD as an album is the antithesis of ABAAC, IMHO.