Bonnie “Prince” Billy
Greatest Palace Music
(Drag City: March 23, 2004)

It was almost inevitable that Greatest Palace Music would fall flat in the court of critical opinion. Few records could have delivered on the two-plus years of cultish anticipation instigated between its announcement and its release, compounded by the relative mediocrity of 2003’s Master and Everyone. There was naturally a hope that whatever Bonnie “Prince” Billy (aka Will Oldham) was doing would stack up to the bar he set for himself in the ‘90s, which may seem unfair, but he set himself up for it.

Having held an online election among his fans for the song selection, it clearly indicated that the remakes were intended for lovers of the originals, and therefore could not escape them in the critical context. It’s possible that so much pressure was put on the “remake” idea by even the idea-men themselves, that the whole thing got out of hand. And yet no one could have predicted the public contempt that resulted. When Greatest Palace Music finally landed in March 2004, it proved instantly and incredibly divisive.

Songs that originated as one man/one guitar were devalued into conventional modern country fandangos featuring anywhere from five to 12 contributing players. Even for new country, they were uniformly uninventive. Regardless, country music fans with little or no relationship to the stark Palace originals appreciated the album with at least the same enthusiasm they’d have for anything involving blind, hallowed Nashville pianist Hargus “Pig” Robbins. Meanwhile, devoted Oldhamites and their representative literati were stumped if not also thoroughly wounded, and met the album with varied jumbles of confusion and contempt. I felt personally assaulted by what I considered to be an irresponsible and offensive perversion of artworks so devastatingly gorgeous in their heartrending austerity, that to even consider re-approaching them was a dubious venture to begin with. Although in the two-year run-up, like others, I did hope for the best.

My only explanation was that it was some kind of diabolical, Andy Kaufman-esque farce. However, I wasn’t laughing. It was too low a blow; it trotted right through and kicked me square in the music. And even at its most even-handed reception, it struck no one as a lasting work. Within a few short months the album was buried and otherwise banished from public discourse.

Three years later, the wounds have healed. In September ‘06, Bonnie dropped The Letting Go, a masterpiece both stirring and mature enough to win him back the benefit of the doubt. So, like a battered lover, I come baby-stepping with trepidation back to my assailant with the hopes that his violence was a misinterpretation on my part.

Okay. Here goes… it’s quite possible that I overreacted just a tad in 2004. With some distance, and the benefit of hindsight, I’ve given Greatest Palace Music another listen, and you know what? I still don’t like it. But at least I understand it better.

Greatest Palace Music was never intended to be a final word or a finishing, as if the songs were somehow incomplete in their originally poignant simplicity. It was merely a failed experiment with punch-clock session musicians, overdubs, schedules, etc; it was a whole new way of recording for Oldham, who actually played none of the instruments himself, and exerted very little control over anything but the vocals he contributed. And even for those, he was coached.