WOWEE ZOWEE (38)

By: Judith Zissman
September 19, 2018

One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the subject of our favorite albums of the Nineties (1994–2003). A new installment in this series will appear each Wednesday during 2018.

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The flip side of Florida kitsch — everyone knows Florida kitsch — is Florida gothic, which is less well known. The thick hot air, afternoon thunderstorms, dark rot, venomous creatures in the shadows.

Florida and I broke up almost 30 years ago. Now we’re back together. Sometimes you end up with the one you were with when you were young, even though you know you’re no good for each other anymore and maybe never were. And the soundtrack for that is The Mountain Goats’ Tallahassee, which opens with this near-perfect Florida moment:

Window facing an ill-kept front yard
Plums on the tree heavy with nectar
Prayers to summon the destroying angel
Moon stuttering in the sky like a film stuck in a projector

And you
You

Tallahassee is The Mountain Goats’ can’t-quit-you-baby album, the novel in short stories about the Alpha Couple, who are broken and flailing and tender and, after many years, now stuck in the Florida rot.

Before Tallahassee, when the Mountain Goats was just this one guy, your secret boyfriend making you mixtapes with obscure names like Zopilote Machine, you thought maybe this was your twangy saint of smart people who keep fucking up relationships, and that one day he’d lead you out of that particular wilderness. He doesn’t, but you still keep up with his work, the bigger studio albums where producers start to weigh in with orchestration and song order and more musicians come aboard and everything is just a little shinier.

These later Mountain Goats records are glorious and fun and buoyant and heartbreaking and wonderful, but the messy broken bits of Tallahassee are still the ones I love most, the whispered stories of possibility in flames, the roads not taken, everything falling apart, the small towns of Florida, and you. You.

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WOWEE ZOWEE: Stephanie Burt on UNISEX | Anindita Basu Sempere on UNDER THE PINK | Mark Kingwell on DUMMY | Bill Nericcio on AMOR PROHIBIDO | Sherri Wasserman on HIPS AND MAKERS | Mimi Lipson on THANK YOU | John Overholt on BEN FOLDS FIVE | Jordan Ellenberg on GET LOST | Chelsey Johnson on PERSONAL BEST | Marilyn Snell on MAXINQUAYE | Dan Fox on DIFFERENT CLASS | Devin McKinney on IF YOU’RE FEELING SINISTER | Alice Boone on MTV UNPLUGGED (ALICE IN CHAINS) | Rob Wringham on SPICE | Joe Alterio on BEATS, RHYMES AND LIFE | Jason Loeffler on SECOND TOUGHEST IN THE INFANTS | Rick Pinchera on EITHER/OR | Josh Glenn on THE LONESOME CROWDED WEST | Jennifer Krasinski on SUPA DUPA FLY | Sara Ryan on DIG ME OUT | Luc Sante on MEZZANINE | Molly Wright Steenson on I CAN HEAR THE HEART BEATING AS ONE | Franklin Bruno on ENGLAND MADE ME | Michael Campochiaro on IS THIS DESIRE? | Adrienne Crew on CALIFORNICATION | Drew Daniel on I SEE A DARKNESS | Veda Hille on THE SOFT BULLETIN | Vanessa Berry on TEENAGE SNUFF FILM | Tom Kipp on GET SKINTIGHT | David Hirmes on DOPETHRONE | John Hilgart on YORK BLVD. | Deborah Wassertzug on JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT | Adam McGovern on INVINCIBLE SUMMER | Brian Berger on TIRED SOUNDS OF… | Michael Grasso on MUSIC HAS THE RIGHT TO CHILDREN | Jen Collins on HURRAH | Flourish Klink on THE TEACHES OF PEACHES | Judith Zissman on TALLAHASSEE | Lauren Oliver on SOUND-DUST | Jason Cohen on IS THIS IT | Matthew De Abaitua on THE RAINBOW CHILDREN | Jenny Davidson on TIME (THE REVELATOR) | Crystal Durant on LIVE THROUGH THIS | Gordon Dahlquist on GARBAGE | Erin M. Routson on WASHING MACHINE | Carl Wilson on TEMPTING | Jessamyn West on ALL HAIL WEST TEXAS | Kaleb Horton on STREETCORE | Tom Nealon on BAZOOKA TOOTH | Erik Davis on DOPESMOKER | David Levine on FEVER TO TELL | Deb Chachra on MASS ROMANTIC.

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Categories

Enthusiasms, Pop Music