TheDecemberists

TheDecemberists are an American indie rock band consisting of Colin Meloy, Rachel Blumberg, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, and Nate Query.
==Members==
The Decemberists are fronted by singer-songwriter Colin Meloy. Rachel Blumberg plays the drums, Chris Funk is the guitarist, Jenny Conlee plays accordion and keyboards, and Nate Query is the bassist.
Colin describes his approach to song writing as “treat[ing] it more like a short story or a chapter in novel,” creating “solid characters” and “complex narratives”. In a 2007 interview, he described a love of language and folk stories. His wife, Carson Ellis, does illustration for the band.
==History==
The Decemberists formed in 2001. It takes its name from the in 1820s Russia, and "is an allusion to the month of December and imagining the drama and melancholy of winter." The band used to play the Soviet national anthem before their shows.
In December 2005, The Decembrists signed to , leaving the independent label .
In April 2011, Jenny Conlee was diagnosed with breast cancer. In October 2011, Colin announced that she was in remission.
In 2014, The Decemberists appeared on .
After the release of The King is Dead in 2011, The Decemberists announced a hiatus.
In summer 2022, The Decemberists hosted a series of “streaming concerts,” to celebrate their twentieth or twenty first anniversary. There was disagreement over whether the band started in 2000 or 2001.
===Feud with Stephen Colbert===
In November 2006, The Decembrists held a "Re-Animate the Decemberists" contest, asking fans to take green screen footage of then performing and add animation, to create one of their videos. pointed out that the challenge was similar to his own "Green Screen Challenge", featuring green screen footage of him with a lightsabre. In response, Stephen issued a "Second Green Screen Challenge," to edit him into the Decemberists' green screen challenge.
The Decemberists responded by issuing two counter-challenges. The first asked fans to edit a video of The Decembrists defeating Stephen Colbert. The second, a 'Decemberists vs Stephen Colbert Guitar Solo Challenge,' challenged Stephen to a guitar solo.
==Albums==
===Castaways and Cutouts===
Released on May 21, 2002, Castaways and Cutouts is The Decemberists debut LP. It was reissued in 2003.
In March 2014, they played it in its entirety, at a concert to raise money for a school for autistic children.
===Her Majesty the Decemberists===
Her Majesty the Decemberists was released on September 9, 2003.
===Picaresque===
Picaresque was released on March 22, 2005. On August 8, 2005, it became the first of their albums to have a full British release.
It was recorded in a church.
===The Crane Wife===
Released in 2006, The Crane Wife is based on a Japanese folk tale, in which a man falls in love with a woman who appears at his doorstep after he helps an injured crane, but loses everything when he breaks a spell through greed.
It is “more of a story than a concept record.” Colin stated that, to a certain degree, signing to Capitol Records helped the Decemberists to be more “lyrically direct and sonically ambitious” than previous albums. He also said that it is “more earnest.”
On December 9, 2016, a tenth anniversary edition was released.
===Hazards of Love===
Hazards of Love was announced in 2008. Colin described it as “an amalgam of motifs from folk songs, an experiment of weaving them together into a narrative.”
Hazards of Love was originally intended to be a musical. It tells the story of Margaret, who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William, who is desperate for them to be reunited, a forest queen, and a villainous rake. The storyline includes abduction, rape, and murder. It takes its title from , an EP by .
===The King is Dead===
The King is Dead was released in January 2011. The title is a reference to , an album by . Unlike the two previous albums, The King is Dead has no central narrative. It was recorded in a barn in Portland.
===We All Raise Our Voices to the Air===
We All Raise Our Voices to the Air is a double live album, released in 2012. The album is two hours long, and includes twenty songs.
It includes all three parts of The Crane Wife.
===What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World===
What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World was released on January 20, 2015. January 20 was therefore named Decemberists Day in Portland, Oregon.
The album was recorded over a year and a half, the longest a Decemberists record has ever taken. Colin told an interviewer that there are “aspects of [him] in all the songs.”
On October 9, 2015, The Decemberists released the EP Florasongs. It consists of five songs recorded for, but cut from, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World.
===I’ll Be Your Girl===
I’ll Be Your Girl was released on March 16, 2018. The Decembrists also created a deluxe edition of the album, titled I’ll Be Your Girl: The Exploded Edition.
The band “made an effort… to really inspect the choices that [they] were making each time and make sure it felt exciting to [them] or fresh, and [to avoid] repeat decisions.”
In December 2018 The Decemberists released the Traveling On EP. It consists of five songs recorded for, but cut from, I’ll Be Your Girl.
==References==
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