best Nick Drake album

[Insouciant Western People]

They're all great, but Five Leaves Left is perfect.

[Molony]

'Pink Moon' for me. It was my first Nick Drake album and I remember being taken by its stark, intimate production. It's something of an unsettling album as well.

[andymacandy]

'Pink Moon' for me. It was my first Nick Drake album and I remember being taken by its stark, intimate production. It's something of an unsettling album as well.

Do you find it more unsettling because of the context?
I mean, because we all know it was his last album, and because he killed himself.

[clive gash]

Pink Moon for me with Bryter Later a close second. My two fave Drake tracks are on Pink Moon ,the title track and Road. Pink Moon has a reputation as a downer album but its direct rather than monotone.

[Molony]

'Pink Moon' for me. It was my first Nick Drake album and I remember being taken by its stark, intimate production. It's something of an unsettling album as well.

Do you find it more unsettling because of the context?
I mean, because we all know it was his last album, and because he killed himself.

Well, you know, I don't think it is that. I can remember finding 'Pink Moon' unsettling because it was (so I was told) about nuclear war. Also, there is something twisted about the lyrics to some of those tunes. I can remember finding the lyrics to 'Parasite' quite striking. All that lifting of clown masks business and the sense of 'otherness' in the sentiment. This wasn't someone playing at self-loathing like so many plastic-emotion artists do these days.

[Piggly Wiggly]

I'm taking the plunge.

It's good shit, JC.

Bryter Layter is most certainly the masterpiece in my opinion.

I think it glides along far more assuredly than the others (5LL will always sound a bit clumsy to me, "Time Has Told Me" and "River Man" aside).

[andymacandy]

'Pink Moon' for me. It was my first Nick Drake album and I remember being taken by its stark, intimate production. It's something of an unsettling album as well.

Do you find it more unsettling because of the context?
I mean, because we all know it was his last album, and because he killed himself.

Well, you know, I don't think it is that. I can remember finding 'Pink Moon' unsettling because it was (so I was told) about nuclear war. Also, there is something twisted about the lyrics to some of those tunes. I can remember finding the lyrics to 'Parasite' quite striking. All that lifting of clown masks business and the sense of 'otherness' in the sentiment. This wasn't someone playing at self-loathing like so many plastic-emotion artists do these days.

No, you know he wasn't playing at anything.
Its just that I find "Black Eyed Dog" and tracks like that grimly prescient given his suicide.I can't help but hear those tracks in the context of his death.
And of course, your comment about nuclear war is accurate too, its just that that context isn't really in our minds these days.

[C]

Five Leaves

You had to be there at the time....



.

[Molony]

No, you know he wasn't playing at anything.
Its just that I find "Black Eyed Dog" and tracks like that grimly prescient given his suicide.I can't help but hear those tracks in the context of his death.
And of course, your comment about nuclear war is accurate too, its just that that context isn't really in our minds these days.

I think that that's something I might have picked up on a great deal more later when I was more aware of the back story (I seem to remember a rather excellent Mojo article years ago). At the start of the 90s when I first picked up 'Pink Moon' I had no real knowledge of his personal demons or even the fact that he had died of an overdose.

[Kenji]

he killed himself.

his suicide.

Even if officially it was suicide nobody will ever know 100% sure ...

[Snarfyguy]

I'm taking the plunge.

Why now?

Why not?

I used to find Drake dull, myself. I came back to it years later and it was as though a veil had lifted; it just clicked and suddenly made sense.

[Charlie O.]

I used to find Drake dull, myself. I came back to it years later and it was as though a veil had lifted; it just clicked and suddenly made sense.

I had a similar experience, though it didn't take long. A short-term apartment-mate bought that Heaven In A Wild Flower comp LP back in '87, and was quite taken with it; it didn't do anything for me. Maybe a year later, I heard the original albums, and fell in love with them immediately. Perhaps Drake just doesn't "comp" well - that Way To Blue cd doesn't work for me, either.

[sensi]

Five Leaves

You had to be there at the time....



.

I couldn't I was only three

Five Leaves Left for me...I was late getting into Nick Drake but when I did my reaction took me by surprise...I never tire of Five Leaves Left.

[The Slider]

Five Leaves Left is perfect.

Bryter Later is perfect (in every respect apart from its Godawful cover).

Five Leaves Left has Man In A Shed on it - and that fucking awful electric guitar on Time Has Told Me. It may be the single most cliched bit of tossed off tat Richard Thomspon ever played.

[whodathunkit]

Buy the fucking lot Coan, you cheapskate!

And this one.......



......the one with Black-eyed Dog on it (and the rest of the four last songs)

[Snarfyguy]

I used to find Drake dull, myself. I came back to it years later and it was as though a veil had lifted; it just clicked and suddenly made sense.

I had a similar experience, though it didn't take long. A short-term apartment-mate bought that Heaven In A Wild Flower comp LP back in '87, and was quite taken with it; it didn't do anything for me. Maybe a year later, I heard the original albums, and fell in love with them immediately. Perhaps Drake just doesn't "comp" well - that Way To Blue cd doesn't work for me, either.

There's really no reason to anthologize an artist who only put out three albums.

What is the Slider's objection to Man in a Shed, I wonder. It seems pretty much of a piece with the rest of the album.

[toomanyhatz]

I'm taking the plunge.

It's good shit, JC.

Bryter Layter is most certainly the masterpiece in my opinion.

I think it glides along far more assuredly than the others (5LL will always sound a bit clumsy to me, "Time Has Told Me" and "River Man" aside).

And "Three Hours?" and "Cello Song?"

"Assured" isn't always a strength, you know. Sometimes things can be neurotically beautiful.

[Piggly Wiggly]

I'm taking the plunge.

It's good shit, JC.

Bryter Layter is most certainly the masterpiece in my opinion.

I think it glides along far more assuredly than the others (5LL will always sound a bit clumsy to me, "Time Has Told Me" and "River Man" aside).

And "Three Hours?" and "Cello Song?"

"Assured" isn't always a strength, you know. Sometimes things can be neurotically beautiful.

Thank you for also illustrating just how much 5LL flatlines by comparison to BL.

[toomanyhatz]

It's good shit, JC.

Bryter Layter is most certainly the masterpiece in my opinion.

I think it glides along far more assuredly than the others (5LL will always sound a bit clumsy to me, "Time Has Told Me" and "River Man" aside).

And "Three Hours?" and "Cello Song?"

"Assured" isn't always a strength, you know. Sometimes things can be neurotically beautiful.

Thank you for also illustrating just how much 5LL flatlines by comparison to BL.

You get sillier all the time, John. You can have your 6-minutes plus of the "assured" "Poor Boy." I'll take Drake warts 'n all.

[Piggly Wiggly]

You can have your 6-minutes plus of the "assured" "Poor Boy." I'll take Drake warts 'n all.

I'm sorry if you can't dig on that track.

Too warty?