I like Round Room, I prefer listening to it in the Winter. The thing I find odd about that album is that whereas I wouldn’t put the actual songs high up on my favourites list, the production is my favourite of all Phish albums. It sounds so warm, you can shut your eyes and feel like you are in the room with them.
I agree. I love listening to this album in the Winter and you really can close your eyes and pheel like you drinking a brew and chillin at The Barn on a regular day for the band. Very emotional stuff.
Round Room is my favorite Phish studio album ever. A few months after it came out, I wrote this on a (now defunct) blog of mine:
“…But I digress, what makes ‘Round Room’ my favorite album is the intimate feel and the songs. Some reviewers have mentioned that you feel like you’re sitting in on a Phish rehearsal as they work out songs–that’s true to some extent, but it feels more casual than that. Phish has always seemed to me like one of those bands who truly love music, that they’d still be playing even if nobody wanted to listen. That’s what this album captures, I think. No one member really steals the spotlight anywhere, and you feel like they’re just running through some cool songs while you sit to the side and admire. Nothing feels self conscious, you don’t feel like the band ever said “we need a slow song here” or “let’s end on a long jam”, it just flows naturally. Even the missteps–like the notorious ‘Mexican Cousin’, which will probably go down in history as one of Phish’s least loved songs, though I think it’s more tongue in cheek than drunk frat boy chic–just add to the character of the album. Without taking the title too literally, you really feel like you’re in a room with Phish as they play songs that they think are good. Whoops, I guess I did take the title too literally. But I digress. I love Phish, there, I said it.”
I also had a mystical/spiritual experience with the album. One weekend I had to open at work (I work at a small town grocery store in the deli/meat room) on a Sunday. I decided to just stay up 24 hours straight. The last thing I did before heading off to work was to listen to Round Room. It felt incredibly personal and intimate, but at the same time I pictured them in large arenas playing the song, and it seemed equally appropriate. As ‘Waves’ came to an end, I kept almost falling asleep and having weird short dreams and visions. Before I had ever heard the spacey jam that followed it at IT, I always pictured the song as going in that direction live…weird…
Waves might very well be my favorite post-hiatus song. I know that’s a pretty bold thing to say, but I’m comfortable with it. The version that’s on that sampler that they handed out at coventry is Phish at their very best.
And I love Mexican Cousin, I don’t care what anyone says.
I probably play this more than any other Phish studio album as of late.
I wish they had included “Scents and Subtle Sounds” on this album. I think it would have fit perfectly.
This thread is aaaancient…one o’teh_classics…
^
LOL, almost 2 years old…
I sometimes forget that this board actually existed 6-8 months before I joined.