Dave Matthews Band in tier list
Solid. A couple albums with songs that average way too long, but for the most part within reason. A couple albums I really quite like (Under the Table and Dreaming, Everyday), and everything else is pretty good. Might grow on me, might not
RELISTEN1: With their first three or for albums, particularly Under the Table and Dreaming, I’ve grown to like and appreciate the songs a lot since I first listened to them, and my tolerance for their length is far greater than it is for a given song by default. But these songs are all still too long, so many six+ minute songs, so many long long songs, I can’t condone the principle even though I like so many of them. I like these songs in spite of how long they are, but the length hurts them. Sometimes they’re long and elaborate, and I feel like you could just cut em in half and have two different songs. Sometimes there’s 3+ minutes of largely redundant instrumentals somewhere in there. None of them need to be that long. And yet, I still like a bunch of them, I like UtTaD, I enjoy it, I think it’s good. That’s saying something.
As I neared the end of this relisten, I did come to some good conclusions. I don’t love Dave Matthews Band like I was hoping I would. There’s so much specific stuff within the catalogue that I like, that I love, there are albums that I think are pretty strong throughout, the general sound and vibe is appealing to me. I really wanted to love them. Especially considering the last two albums (and the fourth to last, to a lesser degree)- those three albums are all super solid. Come Tomorrow in particular is I think my favorite Dave Matthews Band album. It’s song after song that I love, with one of my all time favorite songs, Black and Blue Bird.
But yeah, those albums are great, I wanted each album to feel like that. I was hoping and ready for each album to hit me as a solid, indisputable work, and I did not feel that. Only four, maybe four and a half, of their 10 albums really felt like that to me. Under the Table and Dreaming, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, Come Tomorrow, and Walk Around the Moon. That’s their first album, and then three out of their four most recent albums. But, they aren’t all like that. When I walk through everything album by album it’s not nearly as strong as I feel like it should be. There’s so much that just doesn’t quite cut it, that’s long for no reason, that isn’t as interesting as the rest. I wish I liked it more than I do, because there’s a ton of stuff I almost like, but I just don’t. It made this big five album streak in the middle where I still like them a lot, and there are lots of incredible songs, but none of the albums really stick the landing all the way through. That was pretty disappointing.
I really like the general sound of styling of all of their music, from start to finish. They’re always rhythmically interesting to me, the level of musicianship is super high, the songwriting is pretty great- pretty regularly producing incredible songs. So, I really like their sound, their vibe, I really like them, but that general album-level weakness through so much of their catalogue is gonna stop it from moving up to an A+, I’ll call them a high A
tunafruitsandwitch 