[quote="GoldenRhino"]I guess maybe a more interesting question is: do you guys find yourselves *coming back* to My Foot? Like, I'll always come back to Happy Bivouac, or "Adult" by Tokyo Jihen. When was the last time you searched out the My Foot album to listen to it? Not really trying to challenge yall here, I just think that's maybe more of a useful metric to gauge relative interest.

In this case, us being pillows diehards, I think throwing the term "excellent" isn't particularly useful if we can't qualify it with listens. I'm just not imagining you guys queuing up Mighty Lovers and Kuuchuu Resistor on your iPods or whatever - or if you have in the past four years, doing so at a rate that's at least in the same ballpark as other music you'd call "Excellent" or "Amazing". But if I'm wrong, let me know.[/quote]

Well I never usually seek anything in particular, if I'm listening to music, 90% of the time it's on shuffle.

That being said, I gauge songs in my personal way, since I'm a shuffler, by if I press "skip" or if I let it play when it comes up on shuffle.

As previously mentioned, everything but Degeneration would get a play, and even sometimes Degeneration if I'm feeling it. I actually like the Pre-Chorus and Chorus, but I'll only let it play on some occasions.

However, there are times when I've searched for with the intent to listen to songs like Mighty Lovers (love the chorus and the solo), My Girl (genuinely really like that song), and Air Resistor (it's an oddball, so I understand that it doesn't stick for some, but I've always liked it).

I do get what you mean about throwing around the term "excellent," in that if everything we like is excellent, it really loses it's superlativity so to speak. As we both said, obviously the mid-late 90s were the golden years, and My Foot isn't on that level. But In it's own way (and I stress this because a lot of albums are very different. I'd have to be in the mood to listen to a PML-era song or have the desire to listen to a My Foot song. They're both great, but both different. You can compare them yes, but you also have to acknowledge the differences without just saying PML is excellent, so My Foot isn't good.

I hope that what I'm saying is being conveyed in the way I mean it, its hard to describe my thought process sometimes...

I wouldn't use excellent to describe songs such as Air Resistor or Mighty Lovers. I listen to Mighty Lovers probably once every two months or so. I listen to My Foot the album about as much. But it's worth noting that I have left Air Resistor, My Girl, and Degeneration off of my iPod. So those are excluded everytime.

Still, it's a solid album. I would say it is "great" in summary. It has some excellent songs on it, and it's a great album overall.

[quote="Tidusauron12"]I wouldn't use excellent to describe songs such as Air Resistor or Mighty Lovers. I listen to Mighty Lovers probably once every two months or so. I listen to My Foot the album about as much. But it's worth noting that I have left Air Resistor, My Girl, and Degeneration off of my iPod. So those are excluded everytime.

Still, it's a solid album. I would say it is "great" in summary. It has some excellent songs on it, and it's a great album overall. [/quote]

As I said, Air Resistor is a quirky one, I can get the criticism, but My Girl!? Come on Tidus.

[quote="MyFoot"][quote="Tidusauron12"]I wouldn't use excellent to describe songs such as Air Resistor or Mighty Lovers. I listen to Mighty Lovers probably once every two months or so. I listen to My Foot the album about as much. But it's worth noting that I have left Air Resistor, My Girl, and Degeneration off of my iPod. So those are excluded everytime.

Still, it's a solid album. I would say it is "great" in summary. It has some excellent songs on it, and it's a great album overall. [/quote]

As I said, Air Resistor is a quirky one, I can get the criticism, but My Girl!? Come on Tidus. [/quote]

I like the fiction version a lot. But something about the vocals in the album version bother me. There's some good shit going on for sure, now that I go back and listen to it. Honestly, this is the first time I've listened to the Document version in like two years.

Out of curiosity, which pillows records do you feel stand out as their own unique offerings?

Thinking thru the entire catalog, to me, you can only really pin TYMT and WUx3 as truly isolated entries in regards to style, and what have you. The first two albums sound similar. There were 3ish smooth jazz releases. Lostman and Little Busters are close enough in style. The punk rock phase lasted for a few albums. Anything from Penalty Life on sounds exactly the same, again minus WUx3 for me, somehow (I think it's the production).

So maybe when it comes to the pillows trying different styles and pushing themselves creatively, you have to consider the phases. For the past TEN odd years, things have been similar. But you know, what do they still have to prove? Nada.

[quote="ladybirdgirl"]Out of curiosity, which pillows records do you feel stand out as their own unique offerings?

Thinking thru the entire catalog, to me, you can only really pin TYMT and WUx3 as truly isolated entries in regards to style, and what have you. The first two albums sound similar. There were 3ish smooth jazz releases. Lostman and Little Busters are close enough in style. The punk rock phase lasted for a few albums. Anything from Penalty Life on sounds exactly the same, again minus WUx3 for me, somehow (I think it's the production).

So maybe when it comes to the pillows trying different styles and pushing themselves creatively, you have to consider the phases. For the past TEN odd years, things have been similar. But you know, what do they still have to prove? Nada.[/quote]

Hm. I see your logic, but some pieces don't fit for me. For example, I would never say that Moon Gold and White Incarnation are the same, stylistically, hahaha. The transformation between styles during the pillows' first 6 or 7 years is so mind-boggling. The sound was literally evolving on every record release.

For the most part however, there is a smooth transformation of the pillows' sound. I think the progression is very cool and flows very well up until you get to Wake Up! After that album, the pillows' sound settled on this poppy sound and hasn't gone beyond that point for the past 6 or 7 years. I agree with Sawao when he says everything was fine until about 2007. The first fifteen years are good. Then you get this latest batch of albums (I'd say starting at Wake Up!) where the sound kinda... stays in the same general area.

[quote="Tidusauron12"]
Hm. I see your logic, but some pieces don't fit for me. For example, I would never say that Moon Gold and White Incarnation are the same, stylistically, hahaha. The transformation between styles during the pillows' first 6 or 7 years is so mind-boggling. The sound was literally evolving on every record release. [/quote]

This I'd agree with. There are different phases for sure, or as the pillows call it, movements, but for the most part, there are definitely differences between albums as well, more or less. I wouldn't really say Lostman and Little Busters are super close in style. They're sort of similar, but definitely not as close as say WU!x3, Horn Again, Ooparts stuff. You can definitely hear the remnants of early pillows on PML, where as Little Busters is more straight up rock kind of stuff, the stuff they're most known for as it was used in FLCL. For example, it's kind of a stark contrast if you were to take a fan of the FLCL stuff like Little Busters, Hybrid Rainbow, even Crazy Sunshine, etc. and play them Moon is Mine or Ice Pick.

Oh, man. This forum. Been way too long since we've had one of these.

IMO, the last pillows album I could call a "favorite" is Penalty Life. And this probably has something to do with the fact that I was like 14 when it came out and it was their newest release at the time I discovered them. To be totally honest, it ain't that amazing an album. I listen to songs off of it now and then. They were already in a slight downward slide before Penalty Life anyhow, IMO. Smile and TYMT as albums were a bit weak to me even back then. Some gems on them, but some weaklings as well.

Just to put in my 10 cents...
what I am curious about is how do you guys listen to music..or the pillows for that matter.
I think that you can have a sort of distinction between 'album lovers' and 'shufflers'.
I am mostly a shuffler... just like MyFoot. I like the diversity that goes with different songs... in that way the pillows is a perfect band...
I mean overall they have a quite formulaic song structure..but how they play it differs widely over the years.
What this means is this: if there is a (new) album... even if it is not that great overall... if there are at least some songs..maybe a few..or heck maybe one truly gem.. it is all fine with me. I will add it to my 'shuffle' list ..and that's it.

Another factor in how I listen to music..is that I mostly listen to it when I am travelling... mostly by bike, sometimes by public transport.
If it is by bike... I do not even have the time to listen to a whole album straight. And sitting in my room... just only listening to an album..well, that is something I rarely do. But I'd like to know how you listen to music and when.

If there has to be a point in this story..then it is this one: for me...making distinctions between different albums feels like an arbitrary task, because I always listened to the whole discography (of the pillows) rather than to the albums separately.

I'm a lot like Ashinow. I'm a shuffler and tend to listen most while commuting or writing. What I listen to and for how long depends on my mood. Certain times of year, or when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic, I go digging through my collection for particular tunes. It's kind of hard for me to sit down and listen to an album track-to-track. Not every song will usually fit my mood, or I won't have the time. And when your collection gets to be a certain size (I think I've got like 50 or 60 gigs of muzak on my computer-- some here have more, I'm sure) it's hard to cycle through it all and not have certain albums or artists get neglected some of the time.

Thank You, My Twilight used to be my favorite album. Over the years, you get used to the songs, and you listen to other bands. You change. the pillows have done very little wrong in their careers, imo. I won't call foul on anything until we get to 2008/2009. Even if I didn't always like things before that point, at least they were trying out sounds they hadn't dabbled with before. That's why I could forgive any perceived weaknesses on Smile through My Foot. They managed to put out songs that were a new sound for the band, while capturing perfect essence.

Now, I'm not saying that they are a dry well, but that classic pillows feeling I get from various songs in their discography. It has been in a downward trend since 2008/2009. Even Wake up! had a few pillows moments (Boat House, Scarecrow, and The Pleasure Song, for me). Pied Piper had its singles... But after that, I hit a definite drought. Even though the Ooparts DVD saved the album for me (if you haven't seen that live, GO NAO!), I struggled to enjoy the pillows from 2009-2011. Horn Again came out and depressed me even more. Over the years I've come to dislike Horn Again, perhaps even more than Ooparts.

Trial gave me hope, and the Happy Birthday single has given me even more. Now that we've got the word from Sawao, I am very happy to hear that our problems with the pillows' music wasn't an insular one. Sawao has been feeling it all along, right with us.

There's only one move from here Sawao, R-E-V-I-V-A-L or BUST.

[quote="Lesser_Hamster"]I'm a shuffler and tend to listen most while commuting or writing.[/quote]
Yeah 'Number Girl' works great while concentrating on your writing..*ahem...ahaha. I'm A BRUTAL MAN! A BRUTAL MAN!

[quote="Tidusauron12"]There's only one move from here Sawao, R-E-V-I-V-A-L or let BUST[color=#0000FF]ERS[/color] take over where you left[/quote]

[quote="GoldenRhino"]I guess maybe a more interesting question is: do you guys find yourselves *coming back* to My Foot? Like, I'll always come back to Happy Bivouac, or "Adult" by Tokyo Jihen. When was the last time you searched out the My Foot album to listen to it? Not really trying to challenge yall here, I just think that's maybe more of a useful metric to gauge relative interest.

In this case, us being pillows diehards, I think throwing the term "excellent" isn't particularly useful if we can't qualify it with listens. I'm just not imagining you guys queuing up Mighty Lovers and Kuuchuu Resistor on your iPods or whatever - or if you have in the past four years, doing so at a rate that's at least in the same ballpark as other music you'd call "Excellent" or "Amazing". But if I'm wrong, let me know.[/quote]

Honestly, I find myself coming back to My Foot very often. And as long as we're being honest here, I will indeed seek out Mighty Lovers on my iPod, it's definitely one of my favorite songs on the album. I don't mean to make this thread a defense of My Foot or anything, but I think it's aged well. It's something I always do come back to, probably almost as much as Happy Bivouac. I feel like My Foot is an aberration in the pillows' discography. For all intents and purposes (and I believe many agree with me), TYMT was the end of an era, I've said this before. Penalty Life and Good Dreams were mediocre. So was WUx3 and Pied Piper. But My Foot... the only song I will skip is Degeneration. The Third Eye is probably my favorite song of the aughts... well maybe All the Way to the Edge of This World, but still, this album does not fall into the trap that the albums surrounding it did, and I remmeber when it came out, many people favored it more thanPeanlty Life and Good Dreams.

So I would call My Foot "excellent" in terms of music overall, and "pretty damn good" as far as the pillows' discography. I'd rank that album seventh on my all time favorite list for the pillows. As far as qualifying it goes, you actually prompted me to look at some of the numbers GR. This is't terribly accurate since I got my latest iPod in 2010, but kind of gives a gauge of recent listens:
The Third Eye: 31 listens
Mighty Lovers: 15 listens
Gazelle City: 12 listens
My Foot: 10 listens

In comparison to other songs around that time...
Scarecrow: 10 listens
Century Creepers: 6 listens
Tokyo Bambi: 1 listen
Terminal Heaven's Rock: 12 listens

And for a control of sorts:
Last Dinosaur: 30 listens
Strange Chameleon: 16 listens

Typically, I've tended to listen to albums more in the past 4 or 5 years, but with the pillows, there are times I will put their whole discography on shuffle. Still, I consider myself more an albums kind of guy. Getting back to the topic at hand, I feel like I haven't been able to listen all the way through the band's past 3 or 4 albums very often... they're just not interesting enough and you find yourself picking and choosing a select few songs. So I definitely agree with your post above, Tidus. Not the case with their earlier stuff obviously. It'd be great to see Sawao right another album with 9 or 10, even 8 real quality songs on one album.

Shit, I always forget about Good Dreams. I actually liked Good Dreams pretty well. I feel like it's underappreciated a bit. Personally prefer it to My Foot, tbh. My Foot was kind of meh for me even back when it first came out. It was all right, but it was the first album where I listened to it and really wondered "are they even trying anymore?" I'd toyed with that feeling now and then in the albums before it, but My Foot is the first that really made me examine their newer stuff more critically.

I think my problem with pretty much everything after Runner's High is that, with increasing frequency on each subsequent release, the songs SOUND cheap. Hints of cheapness in Smile and TYMT. A bit more on Good Dreams. More still on My Foot... by the time you get to OOPARTS and Horn Again, you're struggling to find something that actually stands out on an album of almost pure cheapness. Maybe "cheap" is a vague way to put it, but there it is

I really can't agree with your assessment at all on calling Smile or TYMT "cheap", or for even implying that Happy Bivouac was the beginning of all that. But I think we can all agree that everyone saw a dip in quality precisely at the point in time Sawao was referring to in the interview. There was a dip in quality before then as we've just discussed, but would we all be in consensus to say there was ANOTHER, distinctive dip right around the time WUx3 was released?