All right, so I love Built to Spill, but as of just recently I only had Keep It Like A Secret, You In Reverse, There's Nothing Wrong with Love, and their Live album. The other night I went to Border's to buy the Elliott Smith book by Autumn de Wilde. So I sat down to read some of it and I skipped to the Ben Gibbard interview-- which, by the way, had some really insightful stuff. One thing that caught my eye though was that he said the album that made him realize what kind of album he wanted to make, and what he wanted to do with music in general was Built to Spill's Perfect From Now On. He said that he used to listen to it nonstop- in the car to and from work, then when he got home he'd take it out and listen to it around the house. So after reading this I immediately got up and bought it. And it has caused me to re fall in love with music. Get it.

If you don't listen to them yet, I suggest you start with Keep It Like a Secret first.

That was actually the first Built to Spill album I heard. It was a bit unaccessible to me as a first album (probably because of the track lengths) but I found my favorite songs. Then I think I got Keep it Like a Secret and fell in love. Coming back to it though, it's a really great album.

did you pick up that Afghan Wings album as well?
cause it's really good.
surprised there hasn't been discussion on this book, it's really really worth getting if you like Elliott Smith.

Keep It Like A Secret is better... but then again i might be that i'm too impatient for Perfect From Now On. I do believe that the songs are just generally better on Secret though.

It's interesting really because of how many Built to Spill elements you can hear on Something About Airplanes and the early death cab in general. Especially on stuff like Amputations and Prove My Hypothesis... And a lot of other songs.

I just listened through this again, and I'm sorry, but there is no way Keep It Like A Secret is better. I can sort of hear the argument that Keep It Like A Secret might be slightly better front to back, but Perfect From Now On's best songs blow away Keep It Like A Secret. Listen to all of "Velvet Waltz", the end of "Kicked It In A Sun" will make you love music, and how about 4 minutes into "Untrustable". Listen to those parts, and I think you'll hear where I'm coming from.