Okay, I see what you're saying. I never saw that as a bad thing. Yes, the narrative involving Charlemagne, Holly, Gideon, et al., is a loose one. Holly is the only character who really gets fleshed out, mostly on Separation Sunday. And any given song functions both within the narrative and as itself. Some of them ("Stay Positive") work as singles, even, divorced from the rest of it. I always thought that was a strength of the writing, less of a copout. A way better example than Aerosmith would be if Bruce Springsteen had written all his working-class angst songs about the same handful of characters. (Honestly, I think that's sort of what THS are doing. They are openly admirers of The Boss.)D.o.S. wrote:Yeah I like their first three records a lot, but a lot of the 'concept' therein is in PR and how the record is sold to you. The songs would be the same if Craig Finn diversified his male and female nouns to the point where they didn't repeat. Like, you could make the same argument about Aerosmith if they only wrote about Janie, to use the first example that comes to mind. Obviously there's a reason behind writing those songs the way they do (no idea if that's still THS's M.O.), but lyrically they're mining the same Lifter Puller territory and just using Name X instead of "he or She"casecandy wrote:As per usual, I can never tell how pedantic and snarky you're actually being, but you know that there's more to The Hold Steady than this, yes?D.o.S. wrote:So really you're looking for albums with a string of songs featuring the same unusual nouns.
Great live band, BTW. Saw them in 2010 and still think about that show. Apropos of nothing, surprising number of bros in attendance... never saw them as a "bro" band. Looked like a DMB gig up in there.
