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The Only Place

Best CoastAudio CD
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)

Price: $9.99 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Music

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Biography

Bethany Cosentino is a Los Angeles native with a brief stay in Brooklyn, and Best Coast’s influences reflects that: Beach Boys vibe with East Coast 60’s girl group influences such as the Ronnettes and Shangri-Las. Best Coast is brought to life with the help of her long-time friend/guitarist/producer Bobb Bruno and drummer Ali Koehler (Vivian Girls). The pair have received heaps of ... Read more in Amazon's Best Coast Store

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Frequently Bought Together

The Only Place + Crazy for You
Price for both: $16.98

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  • Crazy for You $6.99

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Product Details

  • Audio CD (May 15, 2012)
  • Original Release Date: 2012
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Mexican Summer
  • ASIN: B007HRXJVG
  • Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,225 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

1. The Only Place
2. Why I Cry
3. Last Year
4. My Life
5. No One Like You
6. How They Want Me To Be
7. Better Girl
8. Do You Love Me Like You Used To
9. Dreaming My Life Away
10. Let's Go Home
11. Up All Night

Editorial Reviews

The Only Place is the follow-up to the acclaimed Crazy For You and finds Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno maturing in both sound and perspective. This album finds front woman Cosentino transitioning into adulthood, with the feeling of uncertainty and self-doubt at the emotional center of the album. As with all of Best Coast's previous recordings, on The Only Place Cosentino handles all songwriting, lyrics, vocals and rhythm guitar, while multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno plays lead guitar, bass and drums. What's new this time is their decision to work with producer and composer Jon Brion.

Customer Reviews

I really wanted to like this album but I can't say I like a single song on it. Kazevoh  |  9 reviewers made a similar statement
Best Coast is one of my favorite bands, and their new album does not disappoint. ACS  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
Great Music at a Great Value. James  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 27 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Best Coast aims for big changes on The Only Place May 15, 2012
Format:Audio CD
For many of us, the summer of 2010 was curiously colored by a small town California girl named Bethany Cosentino. That was when her debut, Crazy for You, was released, a fun little record mish-mashing fuzzy surf rock with retro melodies and jangly pop hooks. It was a perfect summertime record with a refreshing lo-fi grimy sound.

Cosentino became an overnight guru on heartache, felines, and good ole Mary J. Despite that, though, it was hard to get over the feeling that the music was made by someone whose hair was perpetually unwashed.

All this set the stage for the release of the band's sophomore set, The Only Place. This record introduces marked changes for the band. Overall, it's a mixed bag. Cosentino certainly still maintains a penchant for writing simple pop songs that are short, catchy, and to the point. Barely a track breaches the thee minute mark. What's changed? Evidently Cosentino snatched a bottle of conditioner and trimmed those bangs, because The Only Place sounds much sleeker, cleaner, and sexier.

John Brion's production has enhanced several key elements. The most notable beneficiary is Cosentino's voice. It is much richer, cleaner, and syrupy sounding, which in turn allows her personality to shine through even more clearly and radiantly. She's come a long way from the days of early singles like "Sun Was High (So Was I)," which was such a muddled mess that it wasn't easy to pick out her vocals from the background instrumentation. Now, tracks like "Last Year" feature a beautiful aria from Bethany at the end. The closer, "Up All Night," may be the best track in this collection. Her tale of lost love and heartbreak tugs at your heart strings like no other song in her catalog.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Stoner Sleepers for the Secretly Straight-Laced May 21, 2012
Format:Audio CD
Weed, boys, breakups, hang outs, dreaming, staying up all night, cats and California. These are the things Bethany Cosentino, the singer / songwriter / guitarist behind Best Coast, sings about on her records. She plays guitar and arranges songs like Liz Phair did when Liz Phair was the coolest woman alive and, these days at least, Cosentino sings an awful lot like Neko Case - if with less twang and howl. And when Cosentino joins up with her single Best Coast cohort, multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, they make very hip music videos, play very hip shows, say very hip things, wear very ironic T-shirts and, in general, personify the fake-glasses-wearing portion of today's youth generation (you know: aloof, stoned, insincere, jaded, contrarian and ... well ... largely happy).

For their much anticipated second record, titled The Only Place (a nod to Cali, notch), Best Coast have tapped indie super producer Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Of Montreal, etc.) to help out with all-things-studio related. And while Brion's history would imply that the sound we heard on 2010's incredibly listenable Crazy For You would be here blown up into something more elaborate, that's not the case. Sure, there are some strings on tracks like "My Life" and all the vocals and guitars are now perfectly recorded. But, if anything, the sound of The Only Place is maybe even more lean than that of Crazy. The slight garage growl appeal is mostly gone, but the surf pop moods still hold strong, as does the low-key indie rockiness.

My first reaction after hearing The Only Place was "Dang, that was obvious. Not in a bad way, but not really in a fun way, either. I thought I was going to be getting smashed on the porch and playing this record over and over again all summer, but it's not that kind of record.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An Album-wide Anthem May 28, 2012
Format:Vinyl|Amazon Verified Purchase
I see lots of complaints about how this album is not as raw as the original Crazy For You album, which I understand, the very grimy old sound as if it was recorded 50 years ago was appealing and made the album one of the best I had heard in some time. However, just because the production quality went up, I won't cast this album aside for sounding a bit more hi-fi than its lo-fi predecessor.

Now that this is out of the way, to the actual album itself. When I first heard "The Only Place" title track on SiriusXMU a few months ago I was transfixed. I found it entrancing and a perfect anthem for California, it made me yearn to be there, to be in this wondrous place where life sounded superb, even ideal. I had to have this album the second it came out, and the vinyl arrived at my home on the day of release, allowing me to listen to it with the warm hum it deserves. The album from beginning to end, not just the title track, was an anthem to everything California. Love, Life, Work, Play, everything that makes California the ideal place is brought to fruition by Cosentino's wondrous and original voice.

If you are clinging too much to the lo-fi of Crazy For You, this album will not be good for you, go and pick up Green Day's Kerplunk instead. If you feel that you are ready to allow a band to evolve as they continue to make music, this will be a treat for you.
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15 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
When I discovered "Crazy For You" a little over a year ago I fell in love with the fuzzy guitars, the lo-fi sound, Bethany's carefree whimsical voice, and of course the cats. I couldn't stop listening to it all of the summer of 2011. It pretty much became the album that defined that year. Best Coast was very reminiscent of a washed out version of the Beach Boys, who l have a great affection for too. It had the 60's simple pop song structure mixed with a 90's sounding surf rock. I got super excited when I heard Cosentino had tweeted that they were already working on new songs around the fall of 2011. I expected to get lost in another world of summer all year round and her voice all over again.

As I started the first song of "The Only Place" I was a bit worried. They had kept the same 60's pop song structure, but the fuzzy guitar riffs and washed out vocals were nowhere to be found. It was almost as if someone had taken the original Best Coast sound and tried to purify it. As the album went on and ended I had lost all faith completely, I could not be more heartbroken. Nothing about their song structure had changed, but the repetition of lyrics just became annoying and tiresome without that singular sound. It's almost like the change in tone makes the repetition too entirely obvious that it ruins the simplicity of her songwriting. I listened to it a few more times through, but each time I just wanted it to be over as soon as she said a phrase or word more than three times in a song. In some ways the new sound almost reminds me of a much weaker Neko Case. "The Only Place" almost seems like the product of a band who got too big too quick. It seems to happen much too often to bands with fantastic first albums that gain too much attention.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Love this band!
Great Band! Great CD! Just Great! "Why would you 'buy' anything else?" ;) Helps me relax after a long day at work.
Published 13 days ago by Cheryl Hutt
5.0 out of 5 stars I LOVE this album!
This album is so crisp and clear even in my 13 year old car speakers. It sounds like a bluesy ABBA started writing surf rock. Read more
Published 17 days ago by Rachel A Palenik
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Tunes
The Best Coast has gone a little more singer/songwriter rather than indie girl group inspired rock. it's fine. They have a good full sound on this record with several solid tracks. Read more
Published 19 days ago by Dudeman5000
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent sophomore studio album
This album really shows Best Coast's instrumental and vocal talents. Now I am just waiting for Cosentino and the band to move away from Taylor Swift and Katy Perry style lyrics and... Read more
Published 21 days ago by Salvatore Talluto
5.0 out of 5 stars awesome album!
Everything about this album can be summed up in one word, awesome. "The Only Place" is one album you will never regret buying!
Published 2 months ago by zack spivey
5.0 out of 5 stars Just what my daughter wanted
Vinyl is cool again... So nice to see a current group embrace the style, sound and retro ness of it.
Published 5 months ago by Getting Prepared
5.0 out of 5 stars Cool surprise
I bought because i listened to it at iTunes but in the end all the musics are cool...and off course, it is cheaper at Amazon...:-)
Published 6 months ago by George Espinola
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Coast at their Best.
A HUGE step up in sound quality from their first Album, "The Only Place" let's Bethany shine in her vocals! Read more
Published 6 months ago by AshleyMalone
3.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant sunny pop with regrettably bad lyrics
The tone is pleasant, the guitars chime nicely, and the tempo keeps your toes tapping. But the lyrics are so shallow that they actively detract from the enjoyment of the music. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Aaron Brame
5.0 out of 5 stars West Coast IS the Best Coast.
This whole album is a delight. Enjoy each and every track listed on this album. Some of the songs are reminiscent of music produced by Phil Spector in the earlier part of his... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Eric M. Hurtado
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