Favorites at Play

[Fred]

I used to have a couple bootlegs of Ronnie playing some JE songs live on guitar. They aren't the greatest quality, and some dude felt the need to sing along loudly.

[Dr. M]

If you ever find them please share them. I've never heard anything close to that.

[hokusman]

So I just got Favorites at Play in the mail today. I just got home from work and I am listening to it now. I am on track 4. Liking it a lot so far.

[starhawk]

It's a very enjoyable release. I think it is my favorite of his "side" albums and probably the most accessible and enjoyable release he's made in a few years. I hope the new JE main album has a sound similar to it.

[raybobindustries]

It's a very mellow, minimalistic, and restrained Joy Electric that seems to have covered only the bare-minimum required of each song without adding anything very new to them. But perhaps that is the best direction to take in order to attract more of the mainstream audience.

But amazingly, Ronnie somehow nails the vocals on this record, leading me to wonder why he hasn't been singing like this all along...

A very casual listen that goes down easy.

[deadliner]

Got the cd in the mail a couple of days ago and absolutely love it. Imo it's a million times better than MGTC both vocally and musically. I Miss You completely rules the album (although everything else is also grerat) and I hadn't ever heard the original before hearing the cover.

[unhappybirthday]

I used to have a couple bootlegs of Ronnie playing some JE songs live on guitar. They aren't the greatest quality, and some dude felt the need to sing along loudly.

Was that from the acoustic show at Cornerstone 6 years ago?

[Rogue]

So yeah, this covers album is pretty much pure awesomesauce. I agree with Deadliner, it's leaps above MGTC in production, and I hope Ronnie can lean a little more towards this style for the next album. Or not, maybe he can completely surprise us like with TOO and it's "bah bah bah" and "Ooohh-ooh!"

As for the songs, I don't think I know any of the originals other than "I Miss You," which I had heard on Wal-Mart radio all the time (and kind of hated). Funny because "I Miss You" is probably my favorite from this album. Ronnie made a song very fun & listenable, when I was previously annoyed with it!

Good one Ronnie (and Melissa?). Keep it up! Vocal layering won't kill you!

[Heretic]

I just got mine in the mail, finally, and have given it numerous listens.

To be honest I wasn't too thrilled about this when I saw the tracklist because I would have liked to have heard Ronnie's take on some older, less mainstream stuff. I would have loved to have seen an Erasure (like Sweet Surrender or something like that) or PSB cover (like Minimal or Red Letter Day), but that's just me.

(In fact, I was listening to Einsturzende Neubauten's In the Garden the other day and thought--this would have been a cool JE cover. But we're allowed to have fantasies about these things, no?)

But I have changed my mind and I think this was a good move for JE. I hope it is selling well. The Killers cover is actually really, really fantastic. The album's not going to change the world but it's a fun record. I am not really sold on "Say it Right," but that has less to do with the songs than with the arrangement.

What is strange to me is that while I really like the Killers cover, what makes the Killers version of "When you were young" great, in my opinion, is that they had a mix for the song that obscured the obvious pop song beneath it. The JE version uncovers it, but what I like so much about JE is that the pop song is buried somewhere beneath the "electronic wankery" (or whatever that phrase was that someone used a couple years ago). Does that make sense?

So it seems that doing a covers record is a bit of a deconstruction of the JE we've experienced through the Legacy years. It will be interesting to see what comes next...

[WhiteSongBoy]

I used to have a couple bootlegs of Ronnie playing some JE songs live on guitar. They aren't the greatest quality, and some dude felt the need to sing along loudly.

Was that from the acoustic show at Cornerstone 6 years ago?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecg4jkcHpSA

I found this on youtube a whiles back in another age. It's not cornerstone to my knowledge, but it is acoustic.

(Audio is low quality, but still neato)

[Dr. M]

Audio actually sounds pretty good for a live video. Thanks for sharing that.

[Rogue]

Wow, I almost developed a complex. I thought I killed this topic with my praise of the last JE release.

Heretic, Ronnie has said that JE is on hiatus. But that might mean nothing, plans and people change. If its true, and it turns out to be the end of JE, I'll think of "Cluster of Bare Trees" as the swansong. I love that song, BTW...

[Cletus]

Cool vid, WSB! By the way, What is it with Ronnie and that shirt?

[Dr. M]

I just can't get past the shorts. Oh nononononono