the afghan whigs: black love

I might have to go with "Bulletproof" but it's tough to go wrong on this album

put on yr rose fur coat baby, cause it's 1973

worth revisiting from a certain ilxor: http://lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/gentlemen.html

btw 'faded' > 'purple rain'

hey that's a take I think I may agree with.

Between Faded and Crime Scene for me prob. Faded is the ultimate car belter.
idk, cant go wrong w any of these. Maybe ill throw a vote at summers kiss I D K

Saw them a couple months before they started recording the album and then a couple months after it was released. The first one seemed extra special because they were trying out some of the new material, including -- if memory serves -- the three final songs consecutively. Besides...

The night after the Red Wings lost the '95 Stanley Cup, the Whigs played Detroit and Dulli's first words were "How 'bout them Devils?!" A beer ricocheted off his chest and he laughed it off.

― Andy K, Tuesday, December 15, 2009 2:05 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this was also the night R*ck McC*ll*m got a ride to Saint Andrew's in a Detroit Police car. A bunch of us were standing outside and went silent as he got out and walked into the venue. I broke the silence with something like, "I have a good feeling about this one."

I am seeing them for the first time in April and I am so stoked, the setlist from their last tour looked nuts

this album is pretty much perfect from start to finish so this is extremely difficult. probably between Blame, etc. and the closing trio

just listened to this album for the first time, all the way thru, and im gonna say............................ faded

'My Enemy' but this is really tough. What a record.

And I mean, shit, from the now legendary 2012 reunion shows. I was at this one ...

aww at how thin Greg got for that tour!

saw them in November and there were still tix on the door: presale for co-headline with Built To Spill sold out in a day last week

this is one of the first records i bought, age 15, solely on the strength of a review (in select iirc) and man did i get lucky

what an album, fucking great from front to back. gonna need to think pretty hard to pick a winner here

every one’s a winner baby

I find it hard to settle on a favourite Whigs album, usually flitting between this and ‘Gentlemen’.

Still kicking myself I didn’t see the 2012 reunion show with Rick on board in London; I naively assumed they’d be back round again soon enough and would come further north, but alas.

I’ve seen the post-reunion Twilight Whigs a few times and enjoy them.

I find it hard to settle on a favourite Whigs album, usually flitting between this and ‘Gentlemen’.

Still kicking myself I didn’t see the 2012 reunion show with Rick on board in London; I naively assumed they’d be back round again soon enough and would come further north, but alas.

I’ve seen the post-reunion Twilight Whigs a few times and enjoy them.

Must've been at least 15 years since I've heard this. On memory I'd instantly say 'Faded' but will spin this again tonight.

when you say
now we got hell to pay
don't worry baby, that's okay...

Oddly, I've never heard this even though I played Gentlemen all the time at the time (I went through a break up and man is Gentlemen a break up album...).
Need to get a copy of Black Love asap.

^ this (minus the break up)

I saw them at t in the park 1996 when this album came out. They were the band I wanted to see most. Was not disappointed, they were fantastic.

Bulletproof if I have to choose but real answer is "all of them"

I love how it hits on familiar Dulli themes (motherfuckers, going to town, taking a ride, kissing) and the band completely slays from start to finish. Their best album imo.
I saw them a few times in the early-mid 90s and again on the reunion tour and they have never even come close to disappointing me. They are a top notch live band.

motherfuckers, going to town, taking a ride, kissing

great name for a Whigs comp

it's one of the last three, i just haven't decided which yet

as I throoooow the chaiiiins I foooorged in li-ay-ay-fe
toooo shaaaaater toooo the flooooor!!

and if you knew-hoo
just how smoo-hoooth
I could
stop
it
on
a
dime

holy shit @ that 2012 "blame etc." that josh posted

what a band

btw 'faded' > 'purple rain'

― mookieproof, Wednesday, January 31, 2018 8:12 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow, post of the year

put on yr rose fur coat baby, cause it's 1973

worth revisiting from a certain ilxor: http://lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/gentlemen.html

― mookieproof, Wednesday, January 31, 2018 7:10 PM (yesterday)

c/p:

By the time one gets through the ballad, “My Curse,” sung achingly by Scrawl’s Jody Stephens...

lol

yeah it's Faded

summer's kiss and didn't even have to think about it

at the 2012 show i saw they opened with "crime scene" and closed (pre-encore) with "bulletproof"/"summer's kiss"/"faded" and that was the moment i realized that black love was my favorite whigs album

oh yeah this really was the best show i've ever seen https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-afghan-whigs/2012/bowery-ballroom-new-york-ny-bdffd12.html

that setlist, my god. I only want for "my curse"

which i was lucky enough to see later that year, they invited marcy mays onstage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz11k12udBg

that was a really amazing atp too, it was really ideal to see godspeed playing in what felt like an empty airplane hanger. kind of entered a trance during the very late demdike stare set

Basically this album is like Let it Bleed if every song was trying to be Gimme Shelter.

just bought tickets for their show with built to spill oh my god i cannot wait

just got tix <3

wish we could somehow attend the same show spottie

aw me too!

somehow i never managed to see them in their prime, only ever saw them once and that was round the time of the sister brother single so yikes, 1990? still really good though

This is the best album, hard to beat the opening riff of My Enemy but I voted for Blame in the end.

Best part of this album is Rick McCollum's guitar, most notably his slide work.

For an album that is all about mood his presence is absolutely crucial

yeah there's no obvious standout to me, and it's kind of hard to think about the tracks in isolation, they're all a single darkly scorched thing

but also those last two minutes of "bulletproof"

― sophistipop 2 (stritram), Wednesday, January 31, 2018 7:21 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah for real. This record was definitely my soundtrack during Bad Times/Bad Choices and it fucking rules. UMS & I saw the Whigs on this tour, they were so fucking great.

Dulli: "We played this song at the Uptown Bar"
*someone in the crowd cheers*
Dulli: "Fuck you. Unless your name is Lori Barbero you weren't there"

Someone called out for "My Curse" and he said "baby not tonight, I can't do it tonight, you wouldn't me to fake it would you?".

Encored with "If I Only Had A Heart" and I think we all wanted to fuck him.

And haha unrelated but
The night after the Red Wings lost the '95 Stanley Cup, the Whigs played Detroit and Dulli's first words were "How 'bout them Devils?!" A beer ricocheted off his chest and he laughed it off.

― Andy K, Tuesday, December 15, 2009 2:05 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I once needled a crowd of Wisconsin townies that had stumbled into a show I was playing after a Packers playoff loss and the other band on the bill, some dudes who were very "confrontational" were scared we would get jumped in the parking lot. Haha.

i lived in minneapolis when this came out but was about to move to dc; the tour schedule was such that i managed to miss them in both places and didn't see them for another year or two

leaving the cities involved renting a truck, filling it with everything i owned, hitching my car to its back, and driving 16 hours straight to pittsburgh, during which i listened to this album ~several~ times on a boombox on the passenger seat while hoping my car hadn't fallen off

sometimes i miss having a car now just so i could drive at night with this on

here we go

get your ass up on the mountain, baby

I don't believe I'm ever gonna die

good album

it's absurd to me that Gentlemen got almost 2x the votes in the album poll thread. Black Love is obviously the better, more fully realized album.

your bad takes scourge me

1965 > Black Love > Gentlemen

^^^^ black love is my fave but any ranking of those records is legit

They are each incredible, emotive, savage, funny, thrilling records. All clearly come from the same writer & same players, working in the same genre - Dulli’s voice would be clear as a writer of words even if his vocals weren’t on them - yet each has a distinctive tone that holds for the whole album.

There’s no wrong way to rank them.

imo you can also throw twilight in there

Black love > gentlemen > 1965

I still find 1965 spotty & a tad embarrassing. Would not play it for someone who has never heard them to say “hey I once totally loved this band”
Black Love best communicates best what I love about this band.

Solidarity on the crying front, La Lechera!

Another thing about the impact of Summer's Kiss is how it makes a call to Suffering by Satchel: the lyric 'put on your old fur coat, it's 1973' features in both and I have no idea which was first and don't care.

Dulli is an unusual case. I like savage as a descriptor for him as he does have a wildness - in the pit of his voice and in the way he roams around within a bar, pressing at the boundaries, to the point where it feels improvisatory a lot of the time.

I think I'd take Congregation over 1965 tbh (despite a few incredible songs on the latter)

This is their best album by quite some distance - more fully formed songwriting than Gentlemen and not as hammy as 1965. Even if the hamminess is part of the point this album just hits the perfect midpoint between the fire, the sleaze, the darkness and moments of unexpected beauty.

my main arguments for Black Love > Gentlemen is the production is fuller and it has a real ending

imo you can also throw twilight in there

No less good, but entirely different players*, and the character is writing in a tone of regret & reaching toward redemption, instead of celebrating their assholism. Which makes for a great sequel, after the increase of swagger:self-loathing ratio across the last three, but further marks it as separate.

* bar a couple of guest stars obv

As I throw the chains
I forged in life
To shatter on the floor

chinaski i used to cry A LOT (like a lot a lot a lot) while listening to this album -- while walking, while driving, while seated at home. it wasn't nostalgia and it couldn't have always been pms, so i think this album has some magical quality that zings right to the feelings and electrifies them. bulletproof was my personal ultimate catalyst for uncontrollable weeping.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Saturday, 20 June 2020 13:38 (four months ago) link

This is just one of those rare albums that for whatever reason (I'm not really even sure what it is) it connects with certain listeners on level different anything else. Like if I put this record on right now it would completely wreck me or possibly send me on a drug/booze/crime bender

This album has duende

Just imagining the first wall of guitar in Summer's Kiss and is making me want to walk into the midnight sea.

I haven't heard anything by Afghan Whigs other than this. I remember a lot of wah-wah guitar and clavinet and no tunes, except Night by Candlelight, which I love and makes me think of Prince gone goth.

this is the best afghan whigs album but everyone who's ever liked them really needs to hear In Spades if they haven't already

"Faded"....jesus what a fucking epic song, actual goosebumps right now

This album has duende

― handsome boy modelling software (bernard snowy), Monday, November 2, 2020 2:19 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

love this. seems like a good thread idea.

btw 'faded' > 'purple rain'

I know it's a night for the biggest of takes, but this still shakes the foundations. And is true.

<3

still most amazed because i was much more a fan of ppl gazing at shoes than dulli's over-the-top entertainer thing . . . but somehow the shtick still worked on me

obviously it didn't work on a lot of people, and he certainly wasn't in prince's class, but he was much better at it than seems reasonable

I've been luxuriating in the Twilight Singers discography and the thing is Dulli is just a really consistently awesome songwriter

Considering some of the bands that DID get tons of FM Xradio play, I just don't get why they did not play these guys. I think that about a few of the other 90s bands too.

25 years ago today. pic.twitter.com/Xb9eBA9yNt

— greg dulli (@MrGregDulli) March 12, 2021

really it's about as perfect as rock albums get

Agreed

bought this the day it came out ffs

still an incredible record on every level

fuck

we should also be very thankful that Dulli's movie never got made, could have needlessly sullied this project if it sucked (which let's be real it probably would have)

It’s just Dulli in a belted leather jacket going for a ride/going to town in different settings and different times of day for 95-100 minutes

the weird thing about a movie is that presumably the characters would have to have jobs, whereas in greg dulli songs it always feels like everyone's occupation is "lover"

straight in

It was a Saturday
I came home early
Drunk with love
And other things