The Path of Wellness: yay or nay?

[Kankurette]

Sleater-Kinney's new album, first without Janet.

[Barry Admin]

Absolutely loved No Cities To Love, but I'm scared to dip into the next records tbh. "Broken" came on Spotify earlier and I went "who the fuck is this on the Sleater-Kinney stream?"

I'm not averse to artists trying new stuff, but I love Sleater-Kinney so much that I just can't bear the thought of them being mediocre.

[sevendaughters]

A very light yay. The album, which I've only heard once, is a bit of a facsimile of their early 00s work and a (cynical?) move back toward their bread-and-butter sound after the artistic and commercial failure of the previous record. There's definitely some of those great moments of interplay and whoever they've found to drum is clearly talented. But there isn't a song to hold a candle to any of their great cuts of their imperial phase.

The interview they gave to Vulture is incredibly defensive: https://www.vulture.com/article/interview-sleater-kinney-carrie-brownstein-corin-tucker-path-of-wellness.html?utm_source=tw

[The Crumb]

Nay. They seem to have completely run out of ideas musically and lyrically. Stuff like that vulture interview makes it hard to engage with it in good faith, when it seems driven by a total lack of self reflection and contempt for their audience. They can complain about expectations all they like, but if this music was by a new band it wouldn't be getting much attention.

[Kankurette]

I'm four tracks in and not sure yet. The Centre Won't Hold was far better. Also, Method is a decent song spoiled by terrible vocals. It's hard to explain exactly what Carrie is doing, but she sounds like a dog being kicked in the nuts repeatedly. It's like she's putting on a silly voice where she's yelping a lot and taking all these unnecessary breaths. Tommy Scott does exactly the same thing, and it's IMMENSELY fucking annoying. Sing normally, woman.

ETA: they really do not like being asked about Janet, do they?

[The Crumb]

ETA: they really do not like being asked about Janet, do they?

On one hand I can see why, they should be able to continue as a band without having to constantly discuss why one member  left 2 years ago. At this point it seems clear the band is the two of them now, and I don't see what people hope to learn at this point/

On the other hand, Janet said her piece which didn't reflect well on the others at all, and they never addressed her points or gave a real account of their side of the story. It's also grim how they're retconning her time with the band down from key member and songwriting partner, to band member who was just the drummer, to just one contributor out of many. For all Carrie's accusations of cattiness, they seem to enjoy getting their digs in.

In general they seem very rattled by the whole reception to TCWH and the surrounding drama. Carrie's attempt to reframe it at as a deliberate alienation of white male critics seems pretty ridiculous - music produced by St Vincent that clearly nods to Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails should be catnip to the critics. If anything, the critics were kinder to the album than the general fanbase. St Vincent herself got loads of unfair shit from the whole thing, the band were responsible for their interpersonal politics, and St Vincent did the best she could with the thin gruel she had to work with.

[Kankurette]

Yeah, Janet was such a big part of the band but now it's the Corin and Carrie Show. I guess when you're a newish member there's always the chance you'll get sidelined by the originals, and I do wonder if Janet felt a bit like a third wheel even before The Centre Won't Hold, since Carrie and Corin were a couple and then had a messy breakup. Carrie does come across as having more issues than Cosmo in her book.

I'm surprised The Centre Won't Hold got bad reviews, but among the S-K fans I know, it's a bit polarising. I'm one of the few I know who DOES like it.

EFA: trying to go back to an old style is risky. How many musicians have done that and made it work?

[The Crumb]

Yeah, Janet was such a big part of the band but now it's the Corin and Carrie Show. I guess when you're a newish member there's always the chance you'll get sidelined by the originals, and I do wonder if Janet felt a bit like a third wheel even before The Centre Won't Hold, since Carrie and Corin were a couple and then had a messy breakup. Carrie does come across as having more issues than Cosmo in her book.

I'm surprised The Centre Won't Hold got bad reviews, but among the S-K fans I know, it's a bit polarising. I'm one of the few I know who DOES like it.

EFA: trying to go back to an old style is risky. How many musicians have done that and made it work?

Feel like it's increasingly becoming the Carrie show with Corin, Corin's heart doesn't seem to be in her writing and performances quite as much anymore.

Carrie's book leaves a lot of room for reading between the lines, but it did seem like her and Janet were pretty tight, working together on Portlandia and doing Wild Flag.

Radiohead going somewhat back to basics on In Rainbows comes to mind, using (some) songs actually written 10 years before the album was made probably helped with that, though.

[sevendaughters]

Carrie is, in the age of the self-facilitating media node, spreading herself quite thin: musician, television writer, writer writer, columnist, actor, director. I'd argue that right now she is actually best at acting, unless her biopic of Heart turns out to be brilliant, which it won't.

[sevendaughters]

P4K not too impressed: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sleater-kinney-path-of-wellness/

I think they overblow the lack of righteous fury aspect, but generally agree.

[Barry Admin]

Carrie does seem very dominant in that interview linked above, yes. And yet, Corin Tucker is the real heart of S-K for me, honestly. I think she's one of the single-greatest rock vocalists of all time, with an extraordinary range, and a more mature, deeper sounding voice as of No Cities To Love. Just an extraordinary talent, which isn't to say that I don't also love Brownstein's more laconic, slacker vocals - they make for a great counterpoint, when they're both on form.

[Kankurette]

Carrie does seem very dominant in that interview linked above, yes. And yet, Corin Tucker is the real heart of S-K for me, honestly. I think she's one of the single-greatest rock vocalists of all time, with an extraordinary range, and a more mature, deeper sounding voice as of No Cities To Love. Just an extraordinary talent, which isn't to say that I don't also love Brownstein's more laconic, slacker vocals - they make for a great counterpoint, when they're both on form.

Carrie was originally the vocalist I preferred BUT over time, Corin's voice has grown on me. She's got one of those voices that you immediately recognise, and she's wonderful when she sings in the lower register. Also, she doesn't put on stupid accents or do the yelping thing, for want of a better word, like Carrie does.

Disagreed with the review about Complex Female Characters, which is my favourite song on the album so far, but agreed about the overall sound. Because I am an idiot, it took a few listens of Modern Girl (and actually reading the lyrics) to realise Carrie was being sarcastic.

[thundarrshirt]

I'm quite enjoying it, despite myself. Didn't think TCWH was much cop, and the ousting of Janet was shitty (wasn't her statement on it something along the lines of "I asked if they thought I was an equal songwriting partner in the band, and they said nah," which bears out in the tone of that Vulture interview?). This is very light, but feels like a bit of a reset after all that Ministry-aping gubbins. Quite like how the syncopated rhythms of whoever's drumming work with the duelling guitars/vocals, it's all very tight, but it does feel rushed and is obviously not a patch on, uh, pretty much anything else they've done. Or Wild Flag. Or...

[Kankurette]

Basically, yes. Corin and Carrie do not come out of it looking good. Janet is trying to be diplomatic but it must have hurt a lot to be told that when she's been such an integral part of the band for so long.

[The Crumb]

"Creative differences" - a very professional, non-descriptive phrase available for bands to use when parting ways with one of its members. Unfortunately, it was not the phrase used by Janet Weiss (one of the greatest drummers of her generation) upon leaving Sleater-Kinney. Instead, Weiss unloaded details (dirty laundry) about her supposed marginalization within the band and sparked a fire of hurt feelings across the internet. An injury in a bad car accident further cemented her martyr status. Now nearly two years (and a pandemic) later, critics, fans, and trolls can still barely talk of anything else when the topic of Sleater-Kinney comes up. This is so sad. Not only does it potentially tarnish the legacy and dent the financial returns of the Sleater-Kinney catalog, it prevents people from coming with an open mind to any new S-K endeavors. I wish you had chosen the higher ground, Janet.

Enjoyed this unhinged take on Metacritic. Janet should have thought of the financial returns of the Sleater-Kinney catalog before martyring herself in a car accident!

Also, the more I think about this, the more it still makes Janet sound like the cool one.

[Kankurette]

Janet Weiss: not only is she great at playing the drums, she's also great at playing the long game.

Going to revisit All Hands on the Bad One for old times' sake.

[Z-Model Ford]

First post! And hurrahs echoed across the land. And so forth.

On the other hand, Janet said her piece which didn't reflect well on the others at all, and they never addressed her points or gave a real account of their side of the story. It's also grim how they're retconning her time with the band down from key member and songwriting partner, to band member who was just the drummer, to just one contributor out of many. For all Carrie's accusations of cattiness, they seem to enjoy getting their digs in.

Weiss signing off her resignation statement 'The Drummer' does seem, in hindsight, to be a rather pointed example of what the kidz these days are calling 'shade'. And Brownstein's line about 'women picking up the pieces' came across as incredibly sleazy at the time, given that, by her own admission, her mental health was in such a state in the run-up to the 'hiatus' that Weiss and Tucker were effectively acting as her babysitters.

As for the album, I've listened once and it's okay. There's stuff I like. But I can't imagine myself getting insanely excited about a new Sleater-Kinney record again, and that's a real shame.

[sevendaughters]

a real shame as Dig Me Out just came on and it still makes me feel like a teenager in the good sense

[Kankurette]

Dig Me Out will always be my favourite, though The Hot Rock is the album that got me into S-K, after I heard Burn Don't Freeze on the Evening Session. I'd never heard anything like it before and it was like, "Hmm, this band are interesting, wonder if I should buy more of their stuff." It was one of the albums I listened to a lot when I was in my late teens, Don't Talk Like always reminds me of taking the train to Coventry to see my boyfriend during my gap year. Tbh I'm not really keen on their pre-Janet stuff, except I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, which the bastards never played live whenever I saw them. Same with stuff from The Hot Rock, I don't remember them doing any songs from it back in 2005 - do they all hate it or something?

This thread makes me want to read Carrie's book again. Apparently at one point they had a manager who was super nice to her and Corin, but treated Janet like a hired hand. Which makes the whole 'Janet's only the drummer' thing even more depressing in hindsight.

[earl_sleek]

I listened to AHOTBO on the way to work this morning and it still fuckin bangs, but they've been dead to me since Janet left. Glad that the one time I got to see them live was with her, on the No Cities tour.

[sevendaughters]

saw them on The Woods tour and probably top 5 gigs ever for me, Clive. Loud as hell, really fun, and righteous as fuck.

great mix of hits but yeah, no Hot Rock
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/sleaterkinney/2005/manchester-academy-2-university-of-manchester-students-union-manchester-england-2bd06cb6.html

[The Crumb]

Apart from being a bit quiet/thin, this 2006 recording is so good, especially once they hit full stride around Let's Call it Love https://www.npr.org/2006/08/03/5583923/sleater-kinney-in-concert
Janet's drumming is absolutely beastly. Gutted I only managed to catch them live in 2020, was so deflating.

Either The Woods or The Hot Rock would be top for me. The Hot Rock sounds a few years ahead of its time, like an early and better version of ther 'literate' US Indie that became big in the mid 2000s. I love the mix of Carrie's more metaphorical writing with Corin's more direct approach on it. The ending run of One Song For You - The Size of Our Love - Living in Exile - Memorise Your Lines (One of my all time faves) - Quarter to Three is amazing. The Wooods  is just an absolute powerhouse album, although I wish they'd squeezed the track Everything onto it.

One Beat up to and including Step Aside is up there, but the second half is patchier imo.

[Kankurette]

I listened to AHOTBO on the way to work this morning and it still fuckin bangs, but they've been dead to me since Janet left. Glad that the one time I got to see them live was with her, on the No Cities tour.

I've seen them three times with her (Reading 2005, Manchester in 2005 before they split, and Primavera 2015) and one without (Manchester last year). The Woods is definitely up there, if only because it has two of my favourite S-K songs on it (Jumpers and Entertain).

[sevendaughters]

fuck it, ranked

Dig Me Out
One Beat
The Hot Rock
All Hands on the Bad One
The Woods
Call The Doctor
No Cities to Love
Sleater-Kinney
Path of Wellness
Center Won't Hold

[sevendaughters]

no Janet was never properly part of the band *eyeroll*

[Z-Model Ford]

This thread makes me want to read Carrie's book again. Apparently at one point they had a manager who was super nice to her and Corin, but treated Janet like a hired hand. Which makes the whole 'Janet's only the drummer' thing even more depressing in hindsight.

Not read for an age, but recall liking it a lot. There's a lengthy, early passage on the slippery nature of memory and nostalgia (oh the irony) which is just beautifully written. She also came across as far more self-aware than most musician memoirists do.

[Kankurette]

Carrie freely admits that she's an utter pain in the arse and that she was horrible to Corin and Janet at times. One time she called Corin a bitch and Corin told Carrie to get the fuck away from her when they were onstage.

I know a bloke who played with Corin when she went solo and has met S-K. He said Corin was nice but Carrie was up herself. Admittedly this is just one person but it made me wonder. She is a very good writer, agreed. The bit about her dogs murdering her cat was heartbreaking.

[Kankurette]

OK. I've listened to the whole thing now and the verdict is: not as awful as I thought it would be, and there are a couple of songs I really like, Complex Female Characters and Favourite Neighbour. First four songs are pretty lame and Method would be much better if Carrie stopped twatting around and sang in her real voice. Worry With You and High in the Grass are the two singles, but they're among the weakest tracks on the album. Shadow Town is when it starts to get good. Amusingly, Down the Line sounds like Achy Breaky Heart.

S-K albums, ranked in order of preference (except the first one and No Cities to Love, which I don't have):
1. Dig Me Out
2. The Hot Rock
3. The Woods
4. One Beat (I was going to rank it the same as The Centre Won't Hold, but decided not to because Step Aside, Oh!, Funeral Song, Oxygen and Prisstina are the tits)
5. The Centre Won't Hold
6. All Hands on the Bad One, though this may change in future as I've not listened to it that much compared to the others
7. Call the Doctor (sorry)
8. The Path of Wellness

I miss Janet.

[The Crumb]

Joining the ranking  fun

Absolute Faves:
1. The Woods
2. The Hot Rock

Not quite top but love them:
3. Dig Me Out
4. One Beat
5. No Cities to Love
6. Live in Paris

A slight step down but still really good:
7. All Hands on the Bad One
8. Call the Doctor

Not For Me
9.The Centre Won't hold
10. Path of Wellness

Not Heard:
11.Sleater Kinney

If live in Paris was the audio from this concert, it would probably be pushing for my favourite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r1-HTiwGiY

Bonus Janet Content

[Kankurette]

Is that you? And is she tiny, or are you very tall?

I'm talking to the bloke I mentioned earlier in this thread and he adores Janet. He has a planet-sized crush on her.