It's a Wonderful Life

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Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide - Heather Phares
Along with the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse crafts strangely beautiful -- and beautifully strange -- music inspired by down-to-earth sounds as well as spacey experimentalism. But where the Lips are lovably loopy and Mercury Rev is arty and wry, Sparklehorse wraps deep-seated, often uncomfortable emotions in layers of metaphors and static. However, the group's third album, It's a Wonderful Life, is its most open and direct work yet. Whether this has anything to do with the fact that this is reportedly singer/songwriter Mark Linkous' first substance-free work is arguable, but regardless, it's a noticeably more focused effort. Though it lacks Good Morning ...
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Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide - Heather Phares
Along with the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse crafts strangely beautiful -- and beautifully strange -- music inspired by down-to-earth sounds as well as spacey experimentalism. But where the Lips are lovably loopy and Mercury Rev is arty and wry, Sparklehorse wraps deep-seated, often uncomfortable emotions in layers of metaphors and static. However, the group's third album, It's a Wonderful Life, is its most open and direct work yet. Whether this has anything to do with the fact that this is reportedly singer/songwriter Mark Linkous' first substance-free work is arguable, but regardless, it's a noticeably more focused effort. Though it lacks Good Morning Spider's sprawling brilliance, it's possibly Linkous' most effective, and affecting, collection of songs. It's also his most collaborative album, with co-producer and Mercury Rev alum David Fridmann adding just the right amount of warmth and weirdness and the Cardigans' Nina Persson and PJ Harvey contributing backing vocals that rival their work on Gran Turismo and Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. Persson's sweetly empathetic voice shines on "Gold Day" and "Little Fat Baby," while Harvey's passionate style fits "Piano Fire" and the brooding ballad "Eyepennies" perfectly. Driven by burbling keyboards, drum machines, acoustic guitar, and piano, and populated with spooky, homespun images of babies, teeth, nails, and horses, most of the album consists of gently unsettling ballads like the title track and "Apple Bed." Edgier, poppier songs like "King of Nails" and "Comfort Me" don't sound out of place, but the stomping, clunky, Tom Waits-lite of "Dog Door," which actually features Waits on lead vocals, is a distraction. The album's sweet, yet too strange to be conventionally uplifting songs like "More Yellow Birds" and "Babies on the Sun" convey It's a Wonderful Life's message best: Even at its weirdest, just being alive is pretty wonderful. Needless to say, so is the album.
Rolling Stone - Arion Berger
[three and a half stars]...Musing, eerie and oddly lovely, It's a Wonderful Life is almost minimalist -- it captures fleeting moments in a few chords and peculiarly evocative phrases.
Entertainment Weekly - David Browne
"A-"...The brittle keyboards and violins make for the sound of an Appalachian funeral. It's the O Brother, Where Art Thou? For the modern death-obsessed introvert.

"A-"...The brittle keyboards and violins make for the sound of an Appalachian funeral. It's the O Brother, Where Art Thou? For the modern death-obsessed introvert.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 8/28/2001
  • Label: Capitol
  • UPC: 724353470920
  • Catalog Number: 34709
  • Sales rank: 65,079

Tracks

Disc 1
  1. 1 It's a Wonderful Life (2:59)
  2. 2 Gold Day (4:14)
  3. 3 Piano Fire (2:43)
  4. 4 Sea of Teeth (4:29)
  5. 5 Apple Bed (4:54)
  6. 6 King of Nails (4:18)
  7. 7 Eyepennies (5:27)
  8. 8 Dog Door (2:46)
  9. 9 More Yellow Birds (4:53)
  10. 10 Little Fat Baby (3:40)
  11. 11 Devil's New (3:32)
  12. 12 Comfort Me (5:01)
  13. 13 Babies on the Sun (4:37)
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Album Credits

Performance Credits
Sparklehorse Primary Artist
Tom Waits Sounds
Dave Fridmann Bass, Piano, Glockenspiel, Mellotron, Wurlitzer
Mark Linkous Acoustic Guitar, Guitar, Percussion, Vocals, Moog Synthesizer, Sampling, Mellotron, chamberlain, Wurlitzer, Casio, Optigan, Prophet 5, Shortwave Radio
Scott Minor Percussion, Drums, chamberlain, Korg, electronics
John Parish Bass, Casio
Adrian Utley Bass, Dictaphone
Bob Rupe Bass
Jane Scarpantoni Cello
Joan Wasser Violin, Wurlitzer
Miguel Rodriguez Drums
Alan Weatherhead Mellotron, chamberlain, Lap Steel Guitar
Nina Persson Vocals
Margaret White Bass, Violin
Technical Credits
Greg Calbi Mastering
Dave Fridmann Producer, Engineer
Mark Linkous Producer, Engineer, drum machine, Orchestration
Scott Minor Orchestration
John Parish Producer
Joel Hamilton Engineer
Alan Weatherhead Orchestration
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