Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau

Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau is the collaboration between bluegrass mandolin player Chris Thile and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. This album certainly works as it seems like the artists have worked together for ages and the resulting sound is organic and natural. Too bad it's a bit boring at times. For example the cover of the majestic Elliott Smith song "Independence Day" is forgettable. Then again "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a cover that is one of the best I heard. So I get a bag of mixed feelings when listening to this album.

Interesting and passingly fun, but even Thile and Mehldau fans (and proponents of genre-hopping and diverse pairing) are likely to find this wanting. Thile's a very limited vocalist and much of the playing equates to not much more than noodling. The choice of covers also seems uneven, maybe uninspired. One expected to like and just didn't really.

I enjoyed the music for the most part, but the lyrics/vocals were underwhelming and disappointing. This was a tough one to rate, I'd say maybe a 2.5

Perfectly serviceable plinky plonk music

This album was an interesting mix of jazzy guitar work and subtle vocals. This felt like the kind of music some artsy person would claim is spectacular while the guests who are forced to listen slowly daze off. The bob dylan cover was not great and an odd rendition. Overall it just felt like it was trying to be more than they were capable of. 4.9/10

The way this LP started off had me gripped, exceptional guitar-piano duets with some confrontational and abstracted chord progressions that invoked Thom Yorke at points. It was disappointing to hear the album quickly slough off into typical singer-songwriter banalities, and approach near-hodunk levels at its end with twangy guitar and bargain-bin love song lyricism. Big letdown all in all.

Masterful album, though the first part got a little tacky 4 5

Wow what an interesting, lovely listen! Had no idea what to expect but this mandolin/piano combo made one fantastic album. There are a lot of influences I detected here... everything from jazz to bluegrass to full on country seems to have been thrown into the blender and whipped to create something that I completely enjoyed listening to. How great would this be to see live? Great albums keep coming even after the original 1001 list is far back in my rear-view mirror... I did not expect this to continue as it has and had no idea how much else there was out there to discover.

That was majestic! Immaculately performed and recorded, virtuosic but spacious at the same time, and tonally such a delight to listen to. Fuck yeah!

Very solid hour of piano noodling and folk tunes. Pretty much ideal weekend cooking music

Favourite songs: Scarlet Town, Don't Think Twice It's Alright, Tabhair Dom Do Lamh, Tallahassee Junction, Independence Day, The Watcher, Fast As You Can Least favourite songs: The Old Shade Tree, I Cover the Waterfront 4/5

The length could have kept this from being rated a 4, but the quality of this kept it a 4. Another example of artists not knowing when to trim the fat. These songs didn’t need to be 6 min long. But this was quite good regardless

Cool blend of bluegrass and jazz. Very nice and smooth, perfect for a chill, slightly overcast Sunday morninh. 3.5/5

Thanks for putting this on. Really enjoyed their take on music and the combined product.

This was my first user generated album and I put off listened to it for a while. I'm not sure why, it just didn't call to me much. I finally got around to it and it was great. Really impressive jazz piano interpretations of a wide variety of genres. I liked this one and would listen to it again.

Some of the vocal choices are grating, and I'm a firm believer that country is the worst of the worst when it comes to musical genres, so it needs a ding. The bluegrassy, bluesy and jazzy bits are really quite nice to listen to though, so I'm going to give some back. The piano is accomplished (to say the least!) and on first listen, it's almost too easy to lose the mandolin underneath it. I'll say that some of the song selections are also a little saccharine, and the whole thing could have done with being three tracks shorter, but they perform exceptionally well together.

This sounds like music they'd play in some strange joint you randomly stumble into while on vacation that has like 2 reviews on Google Maps but makes the most heavenly coffee you've ever had. I fuck with it. Weird album cover by the way, thought this would be hip hop or something.

I really liked this jazzy take on folk music

Bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, folk, country, classical, jazz. Ni fu ni fa.

I found this pleasant, if perhaps a little samey. But there's no doubt these two can play; I was impressed at the virtuosity. Note: listened to this on a plane, which is always suboptimal. Maybe this is a four in another setting.

Real nice

They're obviously good at what they're doing. It's just not something I enjoy very much and there's a lot of it. It's not them, it's me.

It's great that collaborations like this exist but after a bit it's like they were jamming in the studio with no direction.

Very good playing of good tunes. Not sure if this is an essential but I do like both artists

It was some nice jazz but at times a little too much. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Kind of jazzy kind of Americana-y I kind of like-y it

Bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, folk, country, classical, jazz. Ni fu ni fa.

I like Chris Thile, even saw Nickel Creek live not long before they announced their 2007 hiatus. Not sure where this fits. It was all good but nothing really grabbed me aside from a couple of the covers.

This was pretty cool. Not quite in my Q-zone, but I could appreciate it. 3 stars.

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: Scarlet town, Daughter of Eve

Weird choice of covers tbh

Before they started singing it sounded like the soundtrack to Charlie Brown’s midlife crisis, and I was here for that. A missed opportunity.

Chris Thile

i never thought I'd be listening to a mandolin and piano album. especially on a top 1500 list...i yawned alot. me.

Endlessly boring, occasionally sonorous

Has some pleasant moments, but I can't imagine finding this to be anything more than semi-okay, semi-annoying background music.

I listened to it all and I still don't know what it is. Finger picking guitar, lots of old timey piano, sometimes some crooning and jazz?

An affront to memory, humanity, and art. Music enjoyed by people who have no clue what music is.