I Only Listen To tHE Mountain Goats

Thinking back to the time period when I was in high school, it's not all surprising that a compilation album changed music for me forever.

It was the early 90's - we still had good terrestrial radio and we listened to it. We had many formats to choose from and we often had multiple stations on those formats. I remember having two 'new' rock stations, two Top 40 stations, two country stations, and depending on what part of town you were in you could get two or three classic rock stations. We actually paid attention and we made tapes off the radio.

Some of us were lucky enough to have cable, and that meant MTV. MTV was just becoming the reality TV mess it is now, and still played hours on hours of music. It was where we really learned about different genres of music, since MTV was at that time formatless. You could hear everything but country on that station over the course of an hour, or two, or three.

So of course one of my favorite compilations of all time I discovered on MTV. It was called No Alternative, and it was a fundraiser album for the Red Hot Organization. It. Crushed. You can still read about it here, as well as watch the MTV special for No Alternative's release here. 

Over the years I've had lots of comps, usually to harvest a track or two at first and rue the fact that I'd not kept all the other tracks later. In the depths of my iTunes there are many incomplete comp records, mostly from record labels trying to drum up business.

Recently, however, I was on my favorite website (bandcamp) and after clicking down a rabbit hole for a while came across a comp I never thought I'd see - a collection of covers of songs originally by the Mountain Goats. The vehicle for guitarist and songwriter John Darnielle, the Mountain Goats have been primarily known for lofi recordings of songs that strike to the heart of Darnielle's life. My personal favorite album of theirs, The Sunset Tree, sees Darnielle plumb the depths of his childhood growing up with an abusive stepfather, and out of that pain comes an album that both makes one sit up and recognize that pain while concurrently cheering the amazing 'I will make it through this' attitude of the narrator.

The strongest part of I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats is hearing how many different ways Darnielle's songs can be interpreted. There are the relatively true to the original covers (the standout here is "The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton" by Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!), there are the solid rock covers ("Fall of the Star High School Running Back" by Loamlands and "Fault Lines" by Craig Finn of the Hold Steady), there are the interpretations you could hear John singing himself ("Riches and Wonders" by by Eliza Rickman and Jherek Bischoff fits this perfectly), and the complete reinventions that you don't think would but somehow do work ("Balance" by Dessa and "Color In Your Cheeks" by Ibibio Sound Machine). This is a compilation of songs that started life in relatively the same vein, and have moved into all sorts of directions. Don't just take a few tracks because they're by people you know - take them all because they're by people you don't know.

Recommended tracks: "The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton," "Fall of the Star High School Running Back," "Fault Lines," "Riches and Wonders," "Balance"