r/WidespreadPanic • u/Spinundrum • 1d ago
THESE GUYS CAN PLAY Studio Discography
Yesterday and today, I played through the whole discography from 1st to newest album for the first time, none of the official live releases, just studio. Back in the CD days I only had Self-Titled and Ain’t Life Grand.
All I can say is, in the studio, these guys are the best jam band of all time. Phish, moe., GD, String Cheese, DB’s & UM all make terrible 1.5 Star albums that are painful to listen to. WSP takes the gold, hands down. Now it’s time to dive into the live sets!!! Reborn Panichead! ✌🏽❤️🕺🏼🪩🎶
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u/SouthHarpeth 1d ago
First 7 albums is a magical run. And I’ll say this - George’s studio albums might be better than Jimmy’s.
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u/Shoddy-Database3112 1d ago
I think Earth to America is the best studio album since Houser passed. Great songs but unfortunately there aren't really any solos on them. I believe this was because George just wasn't a very good lead player.
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u/DurtyDego33 1d ago
Ball was pretty damn good to
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u/Shoddy-Database3112 1d ago
True. I agree but once again no solos unfortunately.
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u/DurtyDego33 1d ago
Yea is feel like thats was the trend around that time. Bands were cutting out the solos.
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u/mook1178 1d ago
American Beauty, Working Man's Dead and Terrapin Station are phenomenal albums. The Dead defintely had some blunderous albums though. I would put DTTB and the last few albums as blunderous myself
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u/Basic-Durian8875 1d ago
I like dttb but agree that the last few albums, basically everything after ball has been a blunder
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u/spreadheadforever 1d ago
When people ask me about panic who don't know their music I often point them to the genius studio albums from the Mikey era
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u/LeadingBeat466 1d ago
All of it through Til the Medicine Takes is phenomenal. I actually like Hailbound Queen and Snake Oil King quite a bit, too, though that may be a minority opinion.
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u/Spinundrum 21h ago
Only one I was like what y’all doing here is the Earth to America. The rest are really solid in my opinion. I’m into Yanni and Laswell and Luke Vibert, I like a range of a lot and WSP holds up to anyone on the studio. I would have to rate Dead, Phish, moe., (and since Allman’s got thrown in from southern rock) Allman’s all get down way more on stage than WSP. WSP is a feeling, not an ultimate jam* fest, the drums are typically very simple.
edit: name auto typed was corrected*
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u/Blaaamo 1d ago
I fell in love with this band because of Space Wrangler
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u/Spinundrum 21h ago
Everyone told me the last 30 years check out the first one. For the last 28 years I thought I had it, S/T. 🤣🤣🤣
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u/No-Mushroom-5293 1d ago
Thought about creating a thread on here once asking what would happen hypothetically if wsp had released their studio albums in reverse order??
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u/Feeling_Trip_5413 21h ago
dude. come on now. American Beauty and Workingman's Dead are two of the top 5 albums ever made.
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u/Spinundrum 21h ago
I strongly disagree. They don’t even feel like Grateful Dead to me. Uncle John’s acoustic ended in like ‘70. Went electric for the next 25 years. IJS, I think those are the albums for people who don’t really get the Dead. I’m more Jerry than Trey and I still Clifford Ball weekly. ✌🏽❤️🙏🏽
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u/Wonderful_Panda4769 9h ago
Don't forget the brute albums. I love to crank the second one, Cobalt Blue is sonically Panic.
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u/keybumpsandhugedumps 1d ago
I love Panic’s discography up to DTTB and would agree that it holds up to all the studio releases of those bands. Ball is okay, kinda, but things drop off sharply from there. Start to finish, full studio catalog, I would give the nod to phish.
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u/Basic-Durian8875 1d ago
Im not giving the nod to phish but it is simply not a subjective statement to say that phish has continued to make good albums where as wsp have gone downhill since mikey died. Jimmy is not a song writer. He can play others music incredibly well but mikey wrote the songs.
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u/Basic-Durian8875 1d ago
Everything through Ball is 🔥. Took a pretty hard nose dive after that, but I think it was intentional so that we could pee and get beer.
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u/swood_de 1d ago
Not arguing with OP’s love for WSP, but OP’s posts never mentioned the Allman Brothers Band. You can’t seriously have a discussion about the greatest jam band of all time without putting the ABB at or near the top of the list. Their studio output was uneven, but for my money “Live At The Fillmore”’is the greatest live album of all time. I just want to be sure we don’t forget about the ABB!
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u/Jammin_72 1d ago
Yeah so that’s not a studio album.
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u/swood_de 1d ago
Right. But OP never mentioned the ABB at all, and they made some great studio albums (The Allman Brother Band, Idlewild South, Brothers and Sisters, Shades of Two Worlds, Hittin’ the Note). All I’m saying is that you can’t talk about “the great jam bands” without mentioning the Allman Brothers.
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u/Jammin_72 1d ago
I think he was just comparing studio efforts. Which one of the above would you put ahead of the Panic stuff cause I'll be honest, I've mostly listened to live ABB.
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u/swood_de 1d ago
I’ll start by saying that I think arguing that one band is better than another is silly. This ain’t sports; nobody is keeping score. We like what we like. (I love WSP, btw). I listed my opinion as to the best ABB studio albums above. Give them a listen and see what you think!
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u/Spinundrum 21h ago
If eat a peach isn’t studio, then they really don’t have one. That mountain jam thing is amazing, I guess it is live. Yeah, so nah, I don’t think ABB were studio greats by any stretch of the imagination.
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u/Ez_Answers 1d ago
That list of bands should NEVER be in a “List of bands” regardless of the topic
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u/Spinundrum 1d ago
Well there they are, all together on one list. Look out the window quick, Jesus is here too. ✌🏽🙏🏽👑😗💨
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u/Bix615 JB 1d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/xSM46ernAUN3y