A Truer Sampler 02 - Old 97's

OK, so here's the second of the planned Samplers......which I'm calling "A Truer Sampler" (clever eh). Now the Old 97's were my second musical obsession after I got burnt out on SCOTS. I first heard them on some sampler CD that came with some long out of print magazine...it was the song "Time Bomb" off their 1997 masterpiece album "Too Far To Care". Now I'm not one of those "indie cred" types that pretend they were into every band before they got popular, I think that is about as douchebag as it gets, so I don't have any problem admitting I was late to the game on them....as Too Far To Care was that one thing all those aforementioned indie douchebags hate to see....a MAJOR LABEL DEBUT (oh the horror). But I digress....I seem to have gotten off track.

So after hearing this song "Time Bomb" I went out to my favorite local record store (RIP) and picked up Too Far To Care.....sounded like heaven to my ears. Then I did what I always do with a band I get obsessed with, I dug through their back catalouge....which was pretty easy cause the only older album still in print was "Wreck Your Life", which is also a masterpiece.

Then out comes "Fight Songs" and I rush out to my local record store (RIP) to pick it up, jam it in my discman and the first song is "Jagged"..."holy shit! this is good" I thought. Then the others songs played on, but I wasn't as excited about them cause they weren't as "twangy" as I thought they should be....but it was still a damned good album. Then "Early Tracks" came out which was a collection of early singles....THIS was the old 97's that I loved, they even had a Johnny Cash cover on it, and it was a NEW Johnny Cash song...unheard of....but great!

Around this same time I was waiting for the much fabled "Ranchero Brothers" album (Rhett Miller & Ken Bethae acoustic) but I'm still waiting for that, as I'm sure alot of Old 97's fans are. What they did give us was Satellite Rides. Now I know alot of people out there love this album....but to me, all I could think was "what happened to my favorite band", "where did the twang go". This was the album where they really went downhill for me, and even the newest one didn't really do much for me....Rhett Miller's solo stuff REALLY didn't do it for me. But I still hold a dear place in my heart for those first three albums (I eventually got their out of print first album) and the "Early Tracks" EP.

So anyway, here is my collection of songs for you guys to check them out with....you'll notice that the tracks lean towards the early stuff, but like always I try to include at least one song from each album (and the later albums weren't all bad anyway). Really there is not a bad track on "Too Far To Care" though, I could have put that whole album on here. Rhett Miller really knew how to turn a phrase too, those early albums hold some of my favorite lyrics ever. I hope you guys enjoy this, cause I enjoyed compiling it.

Buy Their Stuff Here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_97

http://www.old97s.com/

MP3 @ 192

ATS02 - The Old 97's