Saddest songs ever

[Szykneij]

A fellow Tindersticks fan! 

Wow! I had never heard their music, but just checked it out. Some beautiful and haunting melodies, unique vocals, and awesome string arrangements. Make that Tindersticks fan x2.

[Karl Henning]

Some happiness in the "Saddest Songs" thread!

[Iota]

A fellow Tindersticks fan! They're one of those bands I obsess about - despite their best work being in their first three albums, i.e. up to about 97 I think, I still buy everything they put out. It's never what it once was but I don't give up hope! Saw them v.early on, October 93, in a tiny venue and have been fanatical for those early records ever since they began to come out.

Well clearly not the fanatic that you are, but I totally understand your obsession. I'm slightly obsessional about Stuart Staples voice and love their music, which seems to exist addictively in a sort of permanent twilight. But it's the thought of that voice which turns me back to their music periodically, an always-rewarding thing. I also saw them live once, in the early 2000s I think, a great gig which kick-started my enthusiasm.

Great song!

[Luke]

Wow! I had never heard their music, but just checked it out. Some beautiful and haunting melodies, unique vocals, and awesome string arrangements. Make that Tindersticks fan x2.

That's wonderful! As I say, for me their first three albums, and particularly the first two, self-titled ones, are as good as it gets. When violinist Dickon Hinchcliffe left the band they lost the electric charge that made them so alive, in all their bruised, battered glory; everything after this seems to be more a retrospective on what they once were but without that animating spark, like looking back on past glories.

The first album is really just the band, plus the intense trumpet of Terry Edwards on some tracks. Every track is a winner, such as the beautiful Raindrops...

but Tyed is the most claustrophobic and intense thing they ever did, an extraordinary sonic pallette for just a few players.

The second album is much bigger in scale, with a string section that somehow retains the wonderful raggedness of Hinchiffe's solo work. This album contains some incredible songs, from the slow growers like A Night In and Mistakes to blistering instrumentals like Vertrauen II...

and the tenderest most intimate songs like Cherry Blossoms...

But the oddest is My Sister, in which Staples narrates the story of a sad life growing ever sadder whilst music increases in warmth and wit behind it...

The third album, Curtains, is in a similar vein... But then they pulled the plug on this glorious, scruffy mess, stripped things back, cleaned it up. Their Wikipedia page makes his sound inevitable...

by the time of the third album, Curtains, however, it was clear that a change of direction was called for

but I must say Ivve never really understood that.

[Szykneij]

Some happiness in the "Saddest Songs" thread!

Somehow I missed out on King Crimson originally, Karl, even though they were active during my musical formative period, but posts you made a long time ago introduced them to me. I've listened to them ever since.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Great song!

I thought about adding "Starless" from the same album, which is very bleak and about depression. But it's not so much a song as a full-scale composition, with a long passacaglia-like middle section and a big coda.