My Top 1000 Songs #291: Off The Record

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

While My Morning Jacket have produced some of the finest albums of the past couple decades, they're another band that particularly shine on stage. The band's reverb-drenched, arena-ready rock songs feel like they're designed to fill large spaces. But "Off The Record," from 2005's fine Z, nicely bridges that gap, a compelling high-volume epic on LP that somehow takes on additional heft live. It kicks off with a rousing riff, an almost surf-rock-like hook, that announces a bold, lighter-hoisting monster that calls to mind  classic rock acts like Zeppelin or Springsteen, while given a nice fresh coat of post-indie-rock paint.

And after a few minutes of "let's crank 'er up" catharsis, the band subsides into an extended space-rock jam straight out of the early 70s Pink Floyd playbook. It's a best-of-both-worlds suite, part booming anthem and part headphone-friendly stoner exploration. For those of us who found "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" to be the coolest thing on Sticky Fingers, it's the perfect update.

Here's a video, but just the first half of the song:

The full suite:
Live, with introductory jam:

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