Modest Mouse: The World At Large

Modest Mouse's 2004 album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News turns 10 years-old this month. It's okay to feel old. It's okay to feel a bit nostalgic.


A decade ago, you loaded it on your iPod. You were 16 or 26 or 36 and you related to the manifestation of frontman Isaac Brock's severe depression in the form of a CD or maybe 16 mislabeled MP3 files you pirated off Kazaa. Maybe you were wearing graphic t-shirts with quippy sayings in a time when graphic t-shirts with quippy sayings were a thing people were first doing and it was cool. Maybe your had angular bangs and hair colored to a dark hue that came out of a bottle. Maybe you heard this song on the OC. Maybe you thought indie rock was becoming "too commercial." Maybe you searched eBay for a copy of Interstate 8. Maybe you went to a Modest Mouse concert. Maybe you punched a girl in the face. Maybe you were in high school or college or wondering how you were on the downhill side of your 30s. But whatever it was it was definitely 10 years ago.

As Stereogum points out, the album, at the time, was a "total mindfuck," for everything it sounded like and everything it embodied, sound-wise and industry-wise. This was 2004—the halfway point between the 2001 arrival of the iPod and three years before the iPhone. Things were different for music. Things were different for you.

I still have a physical copy of Good News for People Who Love Bad News. The pink disc in the pastel green jewel case is one I can't bring myself to get rid of. I remember listening to it driving around my neighborhood in my beat-up Ford Explorer. I remember listening to it in a friend's parents house as we schemed ways to clandestinely smoke pot and sneak into concerts we were too young to attend. I remember burning "Float On" to every mix CD I made that year. That was all, somehow 10 years ago. And yet somehow, this album remains significant. [Spotify, Amazon, Rdio, iTunes]



I had a burned copy of this album that I remember listening to for the first time as my parents drove me to my grandparent's house. I remember seeing the music video for Float On on VH1 as my sister watched it before school. From there, I went to Kazaa or LimeWire or whatever I was using back then. I downloaded everything I could find by Modest Mouse and bought the albums when I finally got a job and money. I listened to them in my car, got all my friends into them. I saw them in concert a few years ago. I got a guitar pick from Isaac that I still have at my parents' house. I have T-shirts and everything. I always put all their stuff on my iPods when I get a new one. I still think their best album is Long Drive, but my favorite thing is the live version of Spitting Venom from when they played at The Electric Factory (link at the end of my post). I wish they'd put out some new stuff. It's been too long with only a few new songs being played live. I still love them though. I even went back recently and started reading around on the Interstate 8 forums. Not very active anymore...

As for whether "they used to be better," fuck your hipster attitude. They're good, their style just changed. There's no saying a band can't change over a 20ish year career. Let them do their own thing. If you don't like it, don't listen. Simple as that.

Spitting Venom live at the Electric Factory

Edit: Also, the Interstate 8 Forum