The amazing Annotated Mountain Goats website left off with the release of Goths in 2017. This site is here to take the baton and run with it. Thank you for inspiring this project, and thank you to the fans across the web for coming up with sources & suggestions.
Please note that these annotations were all done in a whirlwind, fueled by procrastination and the slightly deranged, goofy spirit of someone up too late trying to finish a project. I trust that the reader will be able to distinguish personal takes (“The bass solo in Shelved absolutely rips”) from more objective comments (“The bass solo in Shelved is chorused and played high on the neck in a similar style to Peter Hook from Joy Division/New Order”). Though I will contend that both are true.
NO COMPED VOCALS
NO PITCH CORRECTION
NO GUITARS
LOOK TO THE WEST
Thank you to the Mountain Goats for making kickass music that is worthy of analyzing, and to their management for being extremely cool about people taping shows.
Special thanks to Richard O’Brien for his many excellent additions. To John Darnielle and Joseph Fink for answering my dumb questions disturbingly quickly, for allowing for the possibility of authorial intent, and for setting me straight about Ohio. To the anonymous commenter on Genius who put up the video of Robert Smith doing the spiderweb dance, which I cannot unsee.
As always, for Ryn, without whom I wouldn’t know or care.