Video: Conor Oberst – “Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out”

From Salutations, due March 17 on Nonesuch.

So apparently Oberst’s last album, Ruminations, was just a collection of demos for this new album.

According to Nonesuch:

When Oberst wrote and recorded the songs on Ruminations, entirely solo—with just voice, piano, guitar and harmonica—he intended to ultimately record them with a full band. In the midst of putting together that band, the passionate responses Oberst was getting to those first solo recordings, from friends and colleagues, encouraged him to release the songs as-is, in their original sparse form, as his seventh solo album: Ruminations, which was released in October 2016. Meanwhile, Oberst simultaneously moved ahead with his plans to record with the band. Salutations includes full-band versions of the ten songs from Ruminations, plus seven additional songs.

So that’s kinda weird, right? Feels like a rip-off. Like maybe they should’ve just held on to the ten demos on Ruminations and included them as a bonus disc with Salutations. Who does Oberst think he is, Ryan Adams?

Then again, who cares anyway since nobody buys music anymore, and we can just stream them together or separately or not at all. The concept of the “album” as a cohesive piece of work is probably antiquated and anachronistic (and rockist!) at this point. Or maybe not. The only scarcity left in the music marketplace is people’s attention, and I’d rather not spend mine on demo collections when your ultimate intention is to put out a full-band album. But that’s just me.

Audio: Conor Oberst – “Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out” (Ruminations version)

Which do you prefer?

Video: Conor Oberst – “A Little Uncanny” (Salutations version)

Audio: Conor Oberst – “A Little Uncanny” (Ruminations version)

I love hearing demo versions of songs after I’ve gotten to know the “studio” version. But Oberst has flipped this idea by giving us the demos first. Which in some ways is kind of cool because it’s treating the world at large like his trusted confidants. I guess that’s cool. Or something… I dunno.