Elsewhere in Dreams

Jars of Clay was my introduction to good music. I was just coming out of the woods of Steve Green, Michael Card, & John Michael Talbot when Jars came along. I wasn't impressed at first, of course, being the horrible little turd that I was, but a few years passed, I turned on their self-titled disc, and I was enchanted.

There's something about your initiation into something. A different world of, say, adulthood, or a realm of things previously hidden. Jars of Clay made me think "wow, you can do that?" with music.

Since then, we've parted ways a bit. Where Jars of Clay has gone the way of accessible, Christian-friendly music, I've been plumbing the depths of the odd and unusual.

This would be where I used to nose the ceiling a bit, but let's just admit there's different kinds of music for different kinds of people. And that's a good thing. Not everyone like Sufjan Stevens, and not everyone likes Kelly Clarkson. That's just the way it is. I like music with adventure. That's just who I am. My taste in music isn't magically better than yours, but please don't take it badly if I suggest a few diversions from the tried and true. Again, that's just who I am.

This was were it all began. Strings boiling to the surface, fantastic grooves, obtuse or at least semi-opaque lyrics, and great tunes. The production here was obviously done on a shoestring, but none of the songs falter for it. Even its most celebrated child, Flood was an oddly monochromatic journey, an almost-minimalistic acoustic rock song unlike any I had heard before.

This album changed me. I don't mean to be melodramatic. It really did. I still listen to this release, not simply for the nostalgia (listening to MWS's "Change Your World" was built for that, I think), but also because it's really, really great music.

There must have been so much pressure on the group after the phenomenal success of their debut. It must have been awful trying to make music under that much pressure. But they did.

I'll admit, I didn't like "Much Afraid" when it first came out. I listened to it but didn't buy it. It seemed a radical departure from their sound (though I imagine they'd say their first album was the radical departure). It wasn't, at least to me, very Jars of Clay. Real drums? Regular tunings? No strange lyrical and musical twists?

Years later, I've come back and looked "Much Afraid" in the face. I can see why they named it that. I can see how much time and effort they poured into the record trying to make it solid and original, and I like it for that. The standout songs--not the obvious radio hits--are far better than I remember them. Overjoyed in particular is a wonderful tribute to the craft of songwriting.

I'm sorry I didn't get it for so long. I really am. But I'm glad I came back to this (and I have to thank Laura for that, mostly; she insisted on listening to it even when I didn't feel like it), and as time has worn on "Much Afraid" has gotten better and better.

I think every band has this record. They're sick of the grind, they're sick of the pressure, and they bring in a well-known producer to make a different sort of album. Of course, I hadn't exactly had enough time to get used to any particular Jars of Clay sound, so they didn't really have a left field for me. Then "If I Left The Zoo" came out of, and defined, their left field.

I get it. I do. You want to throw a curve ball. Some of the best music I've heard ("Kid A", anyone?) comes out of left field. But for me, this records felt, and still feels, over-produced. As if they're trying to hard to be different and original and weird and quirky. I don't like it. I really tried to like it when I first bought the record, but this is one record that really, really didn't improve with repeated listens. And now, staring down the barrel of history, it hasn't improved with time, either.

I realize I'm not supposed to like this album. It's straight-up radio-friendly pop. There's nothing challenging about it. It's smooth like wine from a box is smooth. And yet I love it.

Don't confuse me with a hipster, here. I don't like it because I'm not supposed to like it. I like it in spite of that. Maybe it was what I was going through at the time, but a lot of these songs hit a chord of unrequited love and longing. The songs still bring me back to that place, to a shadow of those feelings.

And that's the ball game. If a song can make you feel without feeling manipulated, it's good. It's really that simple. (Of course, not all music is built to make you feel. Steve Reich can pretty much fill up that corner of the room by himself. But feelings are a really, really great shortcut to the logic of living.)

Furthermore is how Jars of Clay does a retrospective. It's really cool. I love it when bands release two, three, even four versions of a song. I love to examine a piece of music from all angles, like a well-designed automobile or an elegant woman. Getting these stripped-down versions of classic Jars of Clay songs was a fitting gift for the band's fans, I think. And most of them worked very well, except for the songs from "Eleventh Hour", which sounded pretty much the same.

If I could ask for one thing, I'd be that every band's retrospective delivers like "Furthermore" did.

And I guess this is how Jars of Clay does a worship album. I'm sure this bad boy was stipulated in their contract somewhere. There's a lot of faint praise to be had for this album. If I say it stands head and shoulders above other albums in its genre, that's hardly a compliment.

It's solid, I guess. Some of the hymns sound awkward being shoe-horned into modern tunes. Also, it's hymns, right? I don't listen to Jars of Clay to hear somebody else's songs.

I'm probably not alone in having a hard time figuring out what this album is supposed to be. There doesn't seem to be a grand thread holding it together. More than anything, it feels like a collection of songs someone happened to have lying around, and a lap steel & slide someone else had just learned to play.

Not to say there aren't any great songs on here. There are plenty. A couple stinkers, but a lot of really great music. I'm hoping that "Who We Are Instead" improves with age like "Much Afraid" did. I really do want to come back to this a few years down the road and appreciate it more then than I do now.

Ah, "Good Monsters". How I hate you.

This is where Jars of Clay and I really parted company. I can't stand the sound of this record. It completely turned me off of Jars of Clay. I hate to say it, but it's true: This album is the point where I went from being a peripheral fan to not being a fan at all.

More uncharted territory for the band, yes. But not all uncharted territory is good territory. Nothing about this record plays to the band's strengths.

I listened to it a few times, pained, and I've never gone back.

When Derek Webb released "Stockholm Syndrome", I wasn't sure what to think. How could someone seemingly so deep in the countryside of acoustic music ever release an essentially electronic album? Of course, Derek always finds ways to surprise (and sometimes shock). It worked for him.

It kind of worked for Jars of Clay. Where they lean on electronica heavily, the album succeeds. Where they drift back into saccharine adult contemporary pop, it doesn't.

I really need to listen to this album again. Maybe even a few times, just to get a grip on what they've done and what they've tried to. But you know what? I'm not terribly driven to do it.

It's not that I've gone somewhere odd. I still like the same sort of music I always did. Caedmon's Call still manages to crank out great albums after all these years, albums that play to their strengths. I haven't started to look down on anything that isn't semi-ambient metal drone.

Honestly, I don't think it's me. I think it's Jars of Clay. I think they've taken the inventiveness of their earlier music and traded it in for a sort of comfortable living deep in the sleepy hills of the Shire. (Third wall: I almost typed "shite" there.) While the rest of the music world is doing things and going places, they're just sort of meandering along, making smooth song after smooth song.

If this depresses you, you're not alone. It's been a long time now; I'd love to plead with Jars of Clay to see the art in themselves.