Else (song)

''Keep It Like a Secret'' is the fourth studio album released by American indie rock band Built to Spill, and their second for Warner Bros. Records.

The initial tracks for the album were recorded in November 1997 at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington by Phil Ek, with overdubs recorded on mid-1998 at Avast! Recording Co. in Seattle, Washington. ''Keep It Like a Secret'' was released on February 2, 1999. The album spawned two EPs: '' Carry the Zero'' and ''Center of the Universe''.

Background

After feeling burned out from constructing the lengthy songs on his previous album, ''Perfect from Now On'', Doug Martsch made a conscious decision to write shorter, more concise songs for ''Keep It Like a Secret''.

Recording

Many of the songs on the album originated from a week's worth of band jam sessions in Boise. During these marathon jam sessions, which could last up to five hours at a time, Martsch used a foot pedal that triggered a tape machine to begin recording. He would later comb through the hours of recorded music and find parts that he liked, methodically building them into songs.

The song "You Were Right" features a collage of famous lyrics from songs by The Rolling Stones ("You Can't Always Get What You Want"), The Doors ("The End"), Jimi Hendrix ("Manic Depression"), Bob Dylan ("A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"), Bob Marley ("No Woman, No Cry"), Neil Young (" Don't Be Denied"), John Mellencamp (Jack and Diane"), Kansas ("Dust in the Wind"), Bob Seger (" Against the Wind"), and Pink Floyd ("Another Brick in the Wall"). "You Were Right" almost didn't make the album due to perceived copyright issues. At the last minute, Warner Bros. Records secured permission for the band to use the lyrics. In a 1999 interview with ''The A.V. Club'', Martsch described how he wrote the song: "...I came up with the chorus, 'You were wrong when you said, 'Everything's gonna be all right,' and then I decided the verse would be, 'You were right when you said...' something more pessimistic. And then I knew immediately that it was going to be a bunch of clichés, and I decided to use other people's clichés."

Reception

''Keep It Like a Secret'' received mostly positive reviews when it was first released. On Metacritic, the album has a score of 79 out of 100, indicating "generally positive reviews."

''Pitchfork''s Jason Josephes praised the album, writing "at the risk of hopping on a cliché wagon, I think I'm gonna tell all my friends about Built to Spill." In another positive review, AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called ''Keep It Like a Secret'' "the most immediate and, yes, accessible Built to Spill record," writing that the band "embraced the sounds of a big studio and focused their sound without sacrificing their fractured indie rock aesthetic." Kim Stitzel of MTV called the album "a great (and different) Built to Spill record, proudly displaying its strengths and reveling in its uniqueness even while making concessions to a changing world." Christopher Hess of ''The Austin Chronicle'' wrote that Doug Martsch's "guitar vocabulary ..gives 'Center of the Universe' an intrinsically bright tone, and infuses 'Else' with stunning beauty," while praising Scott Plouf's drumming as being "spot on throughout, providing active punctuation for the multiple layers of guitar." ''Spin''s Will Hermes also praised Martsch's guitar playing, writing that "Martsch is still ..making the most beautiful baroque electric guitar murals in modern rock. Robert Christgau gave the album a two-star honorable mention rating and selected "You Were Right" and "Center of the Universe" as highlights.

Not all contemporary reviews were positive. ''Trouser Press'' called ''Keep It Like a Secret'' "pure BTS, but without enough sparkle or rough-hewn beauty to be memorable." In another mixed review, '' Q'' wrote, "Built to Spill sound as if they're trying too hard, and ultimately both The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases