[Chris Lawrence]

well, for 'best production for the songs' it's DIRTY hands down. that record slays. yes, i'm serious.

i still can't believe 'a thousand leaves' is getting so much praise in this thread. i LOVE the songs, but the production and the finished takes always felt very unbalanced to me. some songs are perfect -- 'karen' (minus the tape running out ending), 'snare, girl', maybe even 'heather angel' but.. well, i've said this so much before, i probably anticipated that album more than any other SY record when it came out, i was just the right age where music was the entire world to me, and they were premiering all of the songs live a year in advance and i just had such high expectations.. i often wonder how i would've felt about it if i hadn't been SO familiar with the material prior to its release.

basically, i think several of the songs with the most potential just were not captured well at all. i don't know what the hell happened to 'female mechanic' but when you compare the PBS 'sessions' version to the LP version, it just CRUSHES it.. and it's HALF OF THE SAME PERFORMANCE!! the bass on this album sounds like a joke.. the mix is a little topsy turvy overall.. blah, i don't know. i hate to be so negative about an album so many people clearly love, and I love it too, but i was just so disappointed with how some of it turned out. ever since then, i made a point to not obsess over the new material inside/out before the album is out... which i think works much better in the long run as much as i enjoy documenting the progress of the art of songcrafting.

the scary part is, i could probably write another ten paragraphs on this very topic. and like i said above, i've come around to it in recent years.. and i DO love all the songs... but i'll take a '98 tour soundboard anyday.