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There\u2019s no shortage of bands commemorating their glory days as decade anniversaries of albums fly by. Yet few landmark releases feel not only fresh but forward-thinking 20 years after they were recorded. My Morning Jacket stumbled onto this kind of brilliance in October 2004 when it released its fourth studio album \u201cZ.\u201d Across 10 tracks of lush, euphoria-driven rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, the band captured a notable tone shift in its sound that melded Southern rock, haunting folk, psychedelic soul laced with jam band energy. It\u2019s a set of songs that still make up a huge chunk of the bands live show. In September the band performed the album in its entirety to a sold-out Hollywood Palladium for its 20th anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still play these songs all the time,\u201d said frontman and principal songwriter Jim James in a recent conversation. \u201cSo it\u2019s not like we broke up after we released \u2018Z\u2019 and then we got back together 20 years later to play these songs, and it\u2019s such a trip. We\u2019ve been playing them nonstop for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after the release of its 10th studio album \u201cis,\u201d the band put out a deluxe reissue of \u201cZ\u201d that includes four B-sides and a whole album\u2019s worth of demo versions of songs like \u201cWordless Chorus,\u201d \u201cOff the Record\u201d and Dodante. Recently James spoke to The Times about the enduring power of \u201cZ\u201d and the joy of going back to the beginning of the album\u2019s origins to give himself and his fans a new appreciation for the groundbreaking sound the band created.<\/p>\n
The rerelease of \u201cZ\u201d was prefaced earlier this year with a full-album show at the Palladium. What was it like revisiting the album on stage first before it <\/b>came<\/b> out (again) on vinyl and streaming? <\/b><\/p>\n
This is our fourth album now to hit the 20-year mark. So we\u2019ve got some experience now doing these album shows. And it\u2019s funny because some of the earlier albums we don\u2019t play all the songs from them so we had to go back and relearn a lot of songs. But the songs from \u201cZ\u201d we pretty much play all the songs all the time. So it\u2019s pretty hilarious how it involved no effort. It just involved playing them in that order of the sequence of the album. But we kind of laughed about that. We\u2019re like, man, we don\u2019t really even have to do any research or anything. We were all kind of reflecting just on how grateful we are that we like playing all the songs still. It\u2019s such a great feeling to play songs for 20 years and never really get tired of them. People still want to hear them and there\u2019s still excitement there, and they still feel fresh. It\u2019s really a beautiful thing.<\/p>\n