The archetypal Kurt Vile solo record is 2013\u2019s Wakin on a Pretty Daze. There, more so than on his four previous records or his work as the lead guitarist with pre-fame The War on Drugs, he established the basic sprawling classic rock-influenced haze that would carry him through every subsequent album. Over time, especially starting with 2015\u2019s B\u2019lieve I\u2019m Goin Down\u2026, he discovered the concept of hooks, and his songs deviated once in a while from lengthy stoned jams. Philadelphia\u2019s Been Good to Me carries on this basic tension. You have songs like \u201c99th Song,\u201d a meandering 10-minute jam about the 99th song in his red loop pedal. On the other side, there are tighter-wound tracks like \u201cChance to Bleed,\u201d one of the sharpest pieces in Vile\u2019s whole collection. He repeats its hook of \u201cNow you\u2019ve got a chance to bleed\/ With that old time, lo-fi, DIY, rock \u2018n\u2019 roll nights\u201d more than is perhaps advisable for any other artist, but it\u2019s such a great bit that each repetition becomes more fun than the last.<\/p>\n
Vile goes back and forth between the two modes, managing to do both as well as he ever has. \u201c99 BPM\u201d billows with smoke and rides a vocal that feels like it\u2019s had a place at least once on each of his albums. The closer \u201cAvalanches of Snow\u201d stretches out past seven minutes and combines his familiar guitar idioms with an interesting, soulful sax line. \u201cYou don\u2019t know cuz it\u2019s my life\u201d is uncharacteristically busy at the beginning, where Vile sings animatedly about his life in Philadelphia and how it\u2019s the town where Sun Ra lived. He also mentions two fairly obvious heroes of his \u2013 Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen \u2013 who wrote songs about Philadelphia, which he takes an amiable umbrage with because they aren\u2019t from there. \u201cBut I still love you,\u201d he soothes them, because even when he\u2019s staking out his hometown territory, he still comes across as the friendliest guy with a guitar you\u2019d ever hope to meet.<\/p>\n
There are some experiments here and there to break up the rambling man jams. \u201cRed Room Dub\u201d combines his familiar guitar work with an electric piano accent, eschewing vocals altogether in service of working out new ways to state his old ideas. \u201cPiano for Sarah\u201d does the same thing, but strips back his usual layers to just a beautiful, stuttering piano loop over some affable rock drums. When his signature dirty guitar tone comes in at the end, it brings a new appreciation for the way Vile approaches his playing. \u201cEvery time I look at you\u201d brings a gentle, more wholesome vibe, with a delicate arrangement and a lyric about being proud of your kid. He\u2019s aging gracefully, letting his long hair grow even longer.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia\u2019s Been Good to Me fits neatly and easily into Kurt Vile\u2019s catalog, another comfortable guitar rock record played loose and breezy. He explores a few different avenues for his writing, but keeps it mostly centered around classic rock played slow on lazy afternoons. The lyrics are, as usual, stream-of-consciousness, studded with lines that feel like the way the wind blows through a tree at a certain time of day. There\u2019s meaning in it, but it\u2019s often gone before you can fully grasp it. All the while, Vile\u2019s guitar loops and swirls through his words and his structures like vines. The biggest indicator for liking his latest record is knowing and enjoying his style, but for those who do, it offers continued pleasures.<\/p>\n
\n| \n Summary<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tPhiladelphia\u2019s Been Good to Me fits neatly and easily into Kurt Vile\u2019s catalog, another comfortable guitar rock record played loose and breezy.\n\t\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sort of signifiers that Kurt Vile trades in \u2013 the affable dude who appreciates a good time,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":852310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,296278,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-852309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-kurt-vile","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116713100867281664","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |
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The sort of signifiers that Kurt Vile trades in \u2013 the affable dude who appreciates a good time, the slow, stoned vibe of that dude and his guitar and the slacker ethos that leads him to never quite polish his songs to a professional level \u2013 have not always fit well with similar artists. Jerry Garcia\u2019s solo work, for example, never held a candle to the stuff he did with the Dead, and Mac DeMarco\u2019s schtick was fun at first but wore out its welcome rapidly. What separates Vile from others is that he\u2019s just too damn likable for it not to work. Philadelphia\u2019s Been Good to Me, his 10th studio album and third on a major label, turns the same tricks as all his previous work but with more polish. He\u2019s as sloppy as ever, but the refined sense of control behind the songs makes him feel exactly as sloppy as he means to be. <\/p>\n