The jam stuff doesn't appeal to me in general. My newfound love for the Dead came from Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia's songwriting, not the elaborate guitar solos. I'm a song person. Once it starts to break out of that structure and become loopy, it's uninteresting to me.
Colin MeloyI have a conflicted relationship with musicals, because I think the music itself can be so horrendous. It's an industry that relies on appealing to a mainstream culture in order to survive.
Colin MeloyI think the music should definitely underscore the sentiment of the song, and it can work for or against it. It has just as much power in creating a kind of perpendicular sentiment in the music, creating a nice friction that also plays up some of the tension in the song.
Colin Meloy