In Which Two Worlds Collide

With a relative degree of safety I think I can say that my two favorite artists that are still formally together are the Mountain Goats and The Hold Steady. Other bands or singers may float in and out of my life like so many one night stands, but I am in a committed relationship with these two bands.

I suppose it is not entirely surprising that I like both of these bands- when you think about it they aren't really all that different from one another. If we were to imagine a Venn diagram, a large portion of the two separate circles would overlap.

Therefore, no great stretch of imagination is required to conceive that I might find a combination of these two artists "thoroughly awesome," right?

Because of this I am somewhat perturbed by the fact that the closest things to these two artists working together have been nothing if not disappointing. I am referring first to the now historic cover by The Hold Steady of "Dance Music" which you can listen to here. A more recent addition to this milieu is another Hold Steady cover of a Mountain Goats song- this time its "Southwood Plantation Road" from Tallahassee. (Still worth hearing though... it is The Hold Steady after all).

I think the obvious reason as to why I am not particularly crazy about these covers comes out of those aspects of each artists style that are present only in the peripheral sides of the Venn diagram I mentioned earlier. The most important difference is the style of each singer's delivery. Darnielle employs a very regular if often oddly structured, phrasing style in most of his songs- it would be difficult to accuse him of "speaking" his songs. On the other hand Craig Finn is almost diametrically opposite because in all likelihood you could remove a large portion of his musical accompaniment it would just sound like he was talking to his friends at a party (let me make it clear that I am not hating on either Darnielle or Finn's delivery here, I love them both equally). Furthermore, Darnielle's lyrics are very much entrenched in his unique vocal style, as are Finn's, making it virtually impossible so it seems for them to reconcile the two.

I don't want to imply though that I think these sorts of things should stop happening, quite the contrary in fact. My complaints aren't really complaints you know; they basically amount to worthless fanboy nitpicking. I guess that statement undercuts the purpose of most of this post. Whatever.