![]() ![]() "This Forgotten Town" sounds exactly the way you'd expect it to with that title from this band. For the most part, this doesn't make for a radically different Jayhawks album. For the first time in the group's history, all four members of the Jayhawks (Louris on guitar, Marc Perlman on bass, Karen Grotberg on keyboards, Tim O'Reagan on drums) contributed to the project as songwriters and lead vocalists. 2020's XOXO is a bold effort to change that. ![]() Still, it would be a bit silly to suggest Louris hasn't been the dominant figure in the Jayhawks since Olson left nor would it be unreasonable to say his talented bandmates were often playing second fiddle to him. He shared those duties with Marc Olson in their early years (and on their twin classics, 1992's Hollywood Town Hall and 1995's Tomorrow the Green Grass), and even after he became the group's sole leader with 1997's Sound of Lies, he was hardly the only voice in the band. Gary Louris has never been the only songwriter or vocalist in the Jayhawks. The result is an album that, much like the band's lush harmonies, brings multiple distinctive voices together into a singular whole, a collection that, ironically enough, finds unity in individuality and identity in reinvention. In classic Jayhawks fashion, the songs here mix the influence of American roots music with British invasion and jangly power-pop, but there's a newfound vitality at play, as well, an invigoration of confidence and energy that could only come with the injection of fresh blood. Rather than marking a sonic departure, though, the collection signals a sharpening of focus for the band, an elevation in understanding of who they are and what they do best. #The jayhawks discography rar rar#Well packaged and featuring entertaining liner notes from bassist Tom Stevens and drummer Greg Sowders, The Best of the Long Ryders ultimately lives up to its title and is a concise but effective summation of what made them special, and why their music continues to resonate today.The Jayhawks - XOXO (2020) ĮAC Rip | FLAC (Tracks) + Cue + m3u + Log ~ 395 Mb | MP3 CBR320 ~ 136 Mbįull Scans ~ 196 Mb | 00:56:31 | RAR 5% Recoveryįolk Rock, Alt-Country | Sham Records / Thirty Tigers #66295CDįeaturing writing and lead vocal contributions from all four members, The Jayhawks' extraordinary new album, XOXO, is the most diverse and wide-ranging in the group's storied history. Leading off with the anthemic "Looking for Lewis & Clark" (a well-deserved hit single in England), this collection features 18 tracks that offer a healthy sampling from the Ryders three studio albums and their debut EP, a fiery tune from a 1987 live show, and a pair of non-LP single tracks, and while this hardly includes every memorable song the group recorded, their best-known tunes are here, and in 65 minutes, this disc captures the heart, soul, and mind of a band who managed to embrace rock's history while being ahead of their time (along with Rank & File, they were clear precursors of the alt-country explosion that would come a few years after their breakup significantly, guitarist Stephen McCarthy would later become a member of the Jayhawks). While Polygram released a superb two-disc Long Ryders anthology in 1998 (which is now out of print), for folks looking for an introduction to this great band's body of work, The Best of the Long Ryders is just about perfect. And as usual, the hipsters missed the point: the Long Ryders wrote and played smart, passionate, and unpretentious rock & roll with a C&W undertow and a ferocious backbeat their recorded legacy ranks with the best American music of the decade and still sounds strong decades after the band called it quits in 1987. They did find one, but only in Europe and the UK., frustratingly never attracting more than a fervent cult in their homeland, where hipsters pilloried the band for appearing in a beer commercial. While the other acts on the scene clearly drew their influences from psychedelia and garage rock, the Long Ryders swore first allegiance to folk rock (particularly the Byrds) and country-rock (lead Ryder Sid Griffin was a serious Gram Parsons fan who would later write a book on the Flying Burrito Brothers' founder), and though most of the other Paisley Underground bands seemed just a bit wary of the spotlight, the Long Ryders were clearly eager to break through to a larger audience. Paisley Underground scene in the 1980s, but they were also the odd band out. ![]() The Long Ryders were one of the very finest groups to come out of the L.A. ![]()
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