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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Love / Song Most Uplifting Songs Ever [Second in a Series]

Posted by on Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 2:25 PM

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[Most Uplifting Songs Ever (aka MUSE) is a series spotlighting tunes that are surefire mood-elevators. Apologies in advance if the songs featured herein fail to lift you higher than you’ve ever been lifted.]

“Empire State (Son House in Excelsis)” by Mercury Rev starts like Terry Riley’s In C, then bubbles into a glorious fanfare for the uncommon (wo)man. The song’s imbued with an artfully rendered buoyancy, a restrained optimism, until it bursts into Pharoah Sanders-like free-jazz ecstasy at 4:18, and then spirals heavenward, creating an image in my mind of a rocket whose slipstream becomes a rainbow of streamers.

This is the opening cut off Mercury Rev’s 1995 album See You on the Other Side; they never reached these heights again; no amount of critical hosannas showered on them for Deserter’s Songs can change my mind on this matter.

Once one of America’s greatest rock bands, Mercury Rev slouched into mellow, maudlin middle age in the late ’90s and have yet to recapture the mad, fiery genius of their first three albums.

(Sorry; embedding disabled by foolish major label.)

 

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Wasn't so impressed at first, but then that chaotic trumpet showed up and all was uphill from there. very nice
Posted by T.v. coahran on January 26, 2009 at 11:46 AM

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