I do think (and in fairness to @stonerblue 's recent comments) that in my 'defence' of it, I've not focused on the fact that most of the time I just enjoy it for what it is and I simply find it good fun to listen to.
I think this album has a lot of humour (and warmth for the human condition) and many catchy moments. Mrs Spires knows this is the weeks pick and we have spent the last few days singing snippets at each other, not sure if I should be worried about how gleeful she is when she sings "go, get out of my house"; equally when I open the cupboard to find all the chocolate gone and I announce "I've got nothing, absolutely nothing" she considers this to be a juvenile but faintly amusing overreaction. I would argue in many places it's quite hooky albeit not in the conventional sense. I can highly recommend announcing "it was supposed to be so eeeeeeaassssy" as a way of dissipating your initial anger when something goes wrong
To run with your entertaining grand designs analogy, it might be an odd looking shape but in among some jarring features there's lots of fun and interesting ones too, and actually once you've lived in it for a while it's more liveable than the exterior might suggest.
Well a Grand Design don't come for free!
I get all that though. I suppose I should now go back and read your spolier-protected responses to others, the early comments put up and your initial write-up. As I have enough of a feel for this myself, with one listen still left to go. Leaving write-ups till the end is something I've been trying this round, incidentally. To see if I independenly come to similar conclusions etc.
What I have really enjoyed this week has been your ongoing engagement and responses to other posters. I honestly think it is something we don't do enough of, discuss things, argue them even. Is it a politeness thing, are we trying to come off as not being defensive? Sometimes it does feel like we put something forward, and then watch what happens, without challenging or adding to it. You have done it really well without it being a 'you're crap' defense of the album, it should be noted. I've found myself wanting to engage more, even say when I feel someone might be kinda missing the point, or maybe been to quick to compare this to another band they know and maybe that's where the engagement with an album seems to have stopped. Or just spend a bit more explaining the context or what it meant to me.
I've said it a few times, I don't really give much of a damn about the numeric score. I care if people 'got' it or not. My first couple nominations, I have to admit I didn't think people did, at least how I remember the feeling. Despite the 'scores' not being bad at all actually.
Rob recently brought up an observation that the scores as an average have been getting higher than some of the early rounds. Maybe that has to do with newer posters, maybe we have become more 'polite' to each other given the length of the thread. I do think though, and I base this on the more recent discussions more than the scores, we have collectively come to learn to listen to albums more for what they are, than what we are looking for out of them.
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