The Only Place

Best Coast | Format: MP3 Music

Product Details

• Original Release Date: May 15, 2012
• Release Date: May 15, 2012
• Label: Mexican Summer
• Copyright: 2012 Kemado Records, Inc. D/B/A Mexican Summer
• Record Company Required Metadata: Music file metadata contains unique purchase identifier. Learn more.
• Total Length: 34:18
• Genres:
  • Alternative Rock
• ASIN: B007TTW8UU
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,430 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

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

By Brian E.

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.

The vocal performance on her more obviously retro themed pieces aren't too shabby either.

"No One Like You" is a 50s style soul ballad that wouldn't sound out of place on a Four Seasons record. The song sees Cosentino expressing her devotion for her sweetheart like a lost lovesick puppy. "How They Want Me to Be," another highlight, features 60s girlpop vocals and a theme that focuses on becoming more sure of yourself.

Other noteworthy tracks include the title track and album opener, which kicks off with a chord progression that sounds like something straight out of Juno, before launching into an unabashed ode about the joys of The Golden State. Lines like "we were born with sun in our teeth and in our hair" sound like a treatise on everything it means to be part of the under 25 crowd on the California coast.

Lyric wise, the album largely focuses on a downer motif. There are plenty of themes about being broke, heartbroken, and dealing with the pressure of trying to conform to the expectations of others. All concepts that young people can surely relate to.

Sadly, there are more than a few problems on this record I can't overlook. For one, there simply isn't much variety. This album stands in marked contrast to the sound presented on Crazy for You, but most of the tracks on The Only Place don't truly sound all that different from one another. Take the first two songs, "The Only Place" and "Why I Cry," for example, where even the basic melodies of each song are startlingly similar.

Every song is short, simple and catchy, but the flip side of that coin is that there's not a ton of depth to any of the songs. The main thrust of each song can easily be gleaned within a listen or two, which means repeated listens will be met with diminishing returns.

This record feels like it was produced for mass consumption. Some may not mind, but personally it reminds me how much I really miss the scuzzy lo-fi charm of Crazy For You and the silly vibe that Bethany brought to that record, as opposed to the dreary mood on The Only Place. Needless to say, we probably won't be hearing many more Wavves comparisons.

I truly want to like Bethany Cosentino. She's an engaging figure with a unique personality, and that shines through vividly in her writing. But this one is a real mixed bag. The improved production gives her voice a chance to shine, but at the cost of ripping out most of the charm they had on Crazy for You. She also hasn't really escaped the repetitive song structure that was one of the few major issues on that album. I can't help but feel like The Only Place takes a few steps forward, but several huge steps back.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Stoner Sleepers for the Secretly Straight-Laced May 21, 2012

By Gregory William Locke

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. It's more of a drink-tea-and-doodle sort of record." So no, I was not immediately blown away. The record's mellow immediacy didn't turn me off, nor did the slight sonic shift or added twang and maturity. The disc just felt too easy - too obvious and digestible. Over a few weeks I came to know the songs better, most of which I like quite a bit in a Neko Case Doing Demos sort of way. Opener "The Only Place," for example, is a damn good pop song about how great the Best Coasters think California is. An anthem, even. "Better Girl," too, feels like a small college radio hit, reminding me very much of some of my favorite female singer / songwriters from the mid-90s.

Mostly, The Only Place reminds me of a time back in the early Naughts, when Julian Casablancas and The Strokes were trying to follow up their classic debut. Jules and his Strokes had worked their whole lives on that great first collection of songs, and were almost instantly expected to follow it up with another flawless batch. The result was - like The Only Place - some quickly written, arranged and recorded tunes that, while good, couldn't touch the debut. And while some might beg that Brion helped Best Coast avoid this classic hurried misstep with his guidance and songcraft expertise, Cosentino is now right where The Strokes were when they released Room on Fire in 2003. She's got a classic debut under her belt and now a sophomore record that is a pleasant, if unremarkable, continuation of the spark.

Will the album's many charms continue to rise to the surface in a Pinkerton sort of way? Will The Only Place have a legacy of its own come this time next summer? Probably not. But dang, I can't call this collection of girly tuneage a wash, either. The Only Place is a mellow, minor listen that fans of Crazy For You will almost certainly find enjoyable - if only in time. A lazy summer record for the girls and boys of the jaded skin art gen. Stoner sleepers for the secretly straight-laced.

Read more of my music- and film-focused writing at [...]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Album-wide Anthem May 28, 2012

By Johnathan J. Hartel

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.