Joanna Newsom - Divers (clusterfuck topic tbd)

Ys is my least favorite of the three, btw. Still good but easily the least accessible. Interested newbies should listen to HOOM first, I'd argue.

xxxp check out 'en gallop'. I think you'd like all of Milk Eyed Mender if you liked "Book of Right On".

Cool.

I disagree newbies should go to HOOM. Maybe if we're looking for individual album tracks. Ys has the majestic melodies circling around each other and the feel of coherence over the other albums.

admittedly i havent spent very much time listening to her but easily found tracks on HOOM to be the more accessible than anything on ys or milk-eyed

i didn't particularly enjoy this new track

right now i kind of just more admire her than enjoy her, that might change though

Ys is the one that got me hooked. I still think it's her most powerful.

huh i thought jc loves chachi was a legit newsom hater, yr troll game is solid.

no, I loved MEM - like, deeply - wasn't super-sold on Ys and thought HOOM was pretty lol

reeeeeeeeasonably certain giving shit to people who make records is a big part of this board crossing all gender et al lines. however, it's true that JN's an easy target and that issues of the constructed "feminine" etc come into play here. be that as it may, the countermove -- "there's no way your clowning is in earnest, it has to be about something deeper otherwise why didn't you clown [other artist who didn't inspire the same revulsion]" is really infantile discourse imo. it's also basically the entire internet right now so w/e

would be interested to know what was lol about HOOM to a MEM-lover

i dunno, you could ask yourself, are you adding anything of value to this thread, or are you detracting from its value

how the fuck can they afford that house

it was only $6.25 million, obviously a shit load of money but less than i would've thought for that house

samberg prob makes a ton of money?

newsom is also a fairly successful musician but i don't really know what someone at her level makes

Haven't we had this conversation already?

Oh yeah, on the HOOM thread

i dunno, you could ask yourself, are you adding anything of value to this thread, or are you detracting from its value

did this math. thread is more valuable for my unicorn jokes. every time I make one the thread's value goes up

would be interested to know what was lol about HOOM to a MEM-lover

MEM has Sadie, This Side of the Blue, and Bridges & Balloons: tremendous songs despite plenty of "oof" turns lyrically to my ear

HOOM hasn't got a single song within spitting distance of those three imo

I have an impossible discussion within me regarding Joanna Newsom and how it shakes me and my own practice, and a lot of the non-cwsm artists working in this kind of post-genre indie apocalypse where any and all compositional tools are available.

I don't know if it's possible to discuss my thoughts without making statements that are enormously problematic. But I believe two things. First, that Joanna's music gets worse as she gets more ambitious, more self-aware, and more deliberately challenging with the flexing of her muscles. Second, that my feeling of "what makes her music worse" is not a misogynistic response as a listener, but rather a dislike of when a female (or queer, in my own more pertinent case) musician asserts his/her feminine/queer identity by creating art that is ambitious, self-aware, putting one's talents on a showboat so that one's art DEMANDS admiration and respect.

Considering that music criticism has always wanted to pigeonhole any sort of female musician as having zero agency either as songwriter or producer, it's only natural that a female songwriter/producer will desire to assert their authorship, either verbally in the press, or compositionally. Push their talents to the limit to demand the listener show respect. There's a fundamental need to show the world that one has chops instead of simply allowing one's chops to exist.

But it doesn't make for good music. I feel like this is why so many loud men want to shoo away the My Brightest Diamonds of the world; the music can feel demonstrative instead of being real.

Joanna is real so often, though. My favourite Joanna moments (all of MEM, "Cosmia", the shorter vignettes on HOOM) are the instances where she simply stumbles around her emotional and intellectual landscape, aided by her immense talents. When she simply exists as a writing, singing, music-making person, rather than feeling the need to impress the listener at every moment.

This feeling permeates through my taste in just about all "indie" female and queer singer-songwriters, infinitely preferring when their music is effortless (Sufjan's most recent as opposed to everything that came before, St. Vincent's first two, tUnE-yArDs' first album, Antony at his most emotionally barren, Jana Hunter as opposed to Lower Dens, this Holly Herndon over that, this Grouper over that, this Bjork over that, and so on). But it's impossible for me to extract how much of this is tied to, like, the Kristevan idea of how-to-create-good-feminist-art-in-a-culture-of-misogyny (don't think, just do), and how much is tied to my own baggage.

Forgive me if I'm way off the mark or this post poses some mega-problems, or that my queer/feminist take is not particularly well-informed.

<3 and obviously, it's the culture that is to blame here, not the creator <3

HOOM hasn't got a single song within spitting distance of those three imo

in california, does not suffice >>>>>>

but they're such different records compositionally that i get why you think that

xxxp i never had any interest in her before HOOM got good reviews and i just felt like plonking down some money for something as dumbly ambitious as a triple album

i liked most, i think, what you were getting at with the 'music-making person' aspects of the record, and i did like the harp music and found some of it interesting/affecting (a bit draggier in some places), and really liked the band she put together

but what floored me at the time, not too far through my first listen maybe, was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude, that someone could put such an overabundance of music on record, and obviously have put so much into it. it's never seemed particularly overindulgent to me because i haven't felt like it's anything i had to listen to: it just stays there, and i can always find out more about it if i want. but musicians in general had been seeming a lot less generous, a lot less giving of themselves (cast that in musical rather than personal terms, i don't feel any particularly biographical/'identifying' connection with newsom), at the time i first heard the record. so it seemed to come out of nowhere, completely gratuitous.

i don't read that in terms of impressing or demanding respect, personally. i don't follow the lyrics too closely but i suppose the whole idea might have been at play in the record anyway, given the title.

xp i like fgti's take except imo ys is her at her most ambitious and that's why i like it the least (except for "cosmia" which is all time). have one on me wasn't a scaling back in length but imo its rhetorical and musical flourishes were more careful and subtle, which i guess is generated from being "more self-aware"

The thing about this song, I think, is that it doesn't really do all that much. There are verses and there's a chorus and then there's the long sprechstimme bit at the end with a coda. Is that really pushing things too much? There are nuances within the structure, too - the way the arrangement for the verse structure changes, the fact that the sprechstimme part blooms out into this developmental passage where she's actually singing in harmony in the end. This is all a virtuosity that I want to afford her music.

really liked the band she put together

otm

I guess what made me reel from the first listen-through of this new track was the immediate deployment of words like "Ozymandian" and the fussy piano parts. Made me think about what I love about Nina Nastasia, PJ Harvey, even Rufus, who succeeds to my ears best when he's ticking the boxes of what-makes-a-good-pop-track ("Poses") or just letting his fingers and voice fall where they will ("The Art Teacher").

@ BradNelson it's true that Ys is amazing at its best ("Emily", "Cosmia") but fussy and insufferable at its worst ("Monkey And Bear").

And the reason that I feel so uncomfortable about typing about all of this is that there's a shade of "what I want my women and queers to sound like" which is also part of the problem of misogynist listening, let everyone just follow their bliss, ideally

i guess i don't like ys the least bc it's ambitious, there's just no breathing room at all, every idea at once

Second, that my feeling of "what makes her music worse" is not a misogynistic response as a listener, but rather a dislike of when a female (or queer, in my own more pertinent case) musician asserts his/her feminine/queer identity by creating art that is ambitious, self-aware, putting one's talents on a showboat so that one's art DEMANDS admiration and respect.

TBH I am having difficulty parsing how this isn't a misogynistic response. It seems like you are saying that for women, exerting effort/control = inferior art without interrogating what "exerting effort" means, or why this is something intrinsically detrimental to female/queer artists, where the implication is that it is not intrinsically detrimental to non-female/non-queer artists. There's an undercurrent of essentialism here that I am reacting very negatively towards that runs parallel to statements like "black people are the best dancers because of their natural, effortless rhythm".

Am I misinterpreting you? xp and I see you are addressing some of this, so maybe the issue here is the definition of "exerting effort" and why that would be a negative.

There is nothing wrong with "exerting effort", obviously. But in specifically a "post-genre" genre, for lack of a better term-- I guess you could call Joni the first and best example of this style of album-making-- there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative, trying to prove ones own agency to the audience, instead of simply allowing one's agency to serve an artistic thesis.

And also, does that agency need to be proven before both artist and listener can really relax? When Carrie And Lowell came out, I was left wondering, for example, if the record would've been as well received had Suf not already been established in most people's eyes as a heavy. Had that been his debut, how would people have taken it?

The reason why I'm speaking specifically of this nebulous "post-genre" is that if one is exerting effort toward creating great dance, pop, rap, classical or whatever, there's already a standard, a series of boxes to be ticked, one's agency is directed toward making it bang as opposed to "some other reason"

but what floored me at the time, not too far through my first listen maybe, was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude, that someone could put such an overabundance of music on record, and obviously have put so much into it. it's never seemed particularly overindulgent to me because i haven't felt like it's anything i had to listen to: it just stays there, and i can always find out more about it if i want. but musicians in general had been seeming a lot less generous, a lot less giving of themselves (cast that in musical rather than personal terms, i don't feel any particularly biographical/'identifying' connection with newsom), at the time i first heard the record. so it seemed to come out of nowhere, completely gratuitous.

wow this is right on ime.

I really don't get the implicit demand for respect that JM is supposedly making, at least not any moreso than the implicit demand for respect made by anyone who's putting their art into the public sphere.

i don't know if i agree with it but i think fgti's reason for it above could plausibly work - is it that, basically, you don't do something out-of-the-boxes unless your effort entails some kind of extra self-assertion, as well, basically?

yeah j. otm re: hoom

I'm having trouble guessing if Medulla is good or bad bjork for fgti

there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative

I think phrasing it that way is problematic because there's on open question about the extent to which this is a projection. Maybe that's not even the point; maybe the point is strictly about songwriting economy vs. virtuosity?

There is nothing wrong with "exerting effort", obviously. But in specifically a "post-genre" genre, for lack of a better term-- I guess you could call Joni the first and best example of this style of album-making-- there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative, trying to prove ones own agency to the audience, instead of simply allowing one's agency to serve an artistic thesis.

I don't know that I agree that there is a distinction between "trying to prove ones own agency to the audience" and "simply allowing one's agency to serve an artistic thesis" beyond case A being either A) a failure to present the artistic thesis; or B) a successful presentation of an insufficiently engaging artistic thesis. Both ways of looking at it are clearly subjective but one focuses on the motivations of the artist and the other focuses on the impact of the work the artist has produced; for myself as a consumer of music, I don't always feel comfortable dabbling in artistic intent unless it's blatantly stated by the artist. Take as a related example the fracas about Cocorosie; every song they've produced that deals with ethnicity in any meaningful way has also struck me as blatantly racist. This, beyond anything else, makes me reject them; various interviews about their music where they seemed completely unable to grasp why anyone would view their music this way cemented my opinion about their artistic intent and their manifest inability to convey the meaning they intended. Joanna Newsom does a bunch of stuff that is decidedly Not My Thing but I don't see how any of the music I've heard hasn't been crystal clear about what it was and what it was trying to do; I can't and would never fault her for that.

And also, does that agency need to be proven before both artist and listener can really relax?

This is an interesting question because the answer seems to change depending on the artist. (See, for example, Bjork vs Janelle Monae)

(This is extra-interesting when you start expanding into things where people now look at genres like hip-hop, which used to be about lyrical acuity, rhyming ability and "flow", and say that you don't need to exhibit any of these qualities to be considered a good rapper.)

I checked out of here earlier but now that I've caught up, it sounds like the criticism is essentially "trying too hard"?? I'd posit that ppl in positions of power often (ime) criticize those who are not in trad positions of power for trying too hard but that's because they have had the luxury of being recognized for their work without having to exert as much effort. Meanwhile Joanna is cramming 15 ideas into every 30 sec of song :(

I don't know if she'll ever top "Sawdust & Diamonds" for me, but I'm excited nonetheless.

xpost "JN is trying too hard" or possibly "JM expresses herself differently than I want JN to express herself". Both of which are more about the listener than they are about JN.

Not sure I would view Joanna newsome "trying too hard" as all that different in intent to something like Roy harper and his side long song suites just coz she's a woman

Obviously I'm not a woman though so

I'd forgotten how great "Colleen" is. That's one of her best, I think.

@ DJP, yes that's a very good point, that a thesis must at least be visible, and that's def the case with Joni at her most ambitious. And as I said upthread, this is not a criticism of Newsom but a dissection of how people (i.e. myself) listen to her and other female musicians working in an open-format genre.

@ Grafton, I love Medulla compositionally, but don't like the timbre of the vocals on her middle few records, too sibilant. Bjork's latter-day not-even-trying-to-be-hooky records are to my ears the best and brightest example of a female musician raising a middle finger to the greedy-consumers of the world who just want hits, and creating something new and challenging and memorable, those records are amazing; and yet I still prefer her early pop stuff.

there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative

I think phrasing it that way is problematic because there's on open question about the extent to which this is a projection. Maybe that's not even the point; maybe the point is strictly about songwriting economy vs. virtuosity?

@ Tim, absolutely it's a projection, but I'm typing about how we as listeners respond to arty female-or-queer musicians making music, trying to figure out why the Whineys of the world just have no time for any ambitious females

the who now

Andrew Bird gets similar "trying too hard" criticisms for his lyrics. I'm realizing I have no idea if he is straight or not though...

Not sure I would view Joanna newsome "trying too hard" as all that different in intent to something like Roy harper and his side long song suites just coz she's a woman

― feargal czukay (NickB), Tuesday, August 11, 2015 1:55 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark

i could be wrong (because i don't know much about Roy Harper or whether or not he has vociferous haters) but i haven't ever heard anyone complaining about Roy Harper by cracking jokes about bodily effluvium. Maybe they do and I just haven't ever seen it. But I doubt it, and that's why it's different when it's a woman being grandiose imo.

that joke was not at JN's expense

was that clear to everyone but me?
is it absurd to hope that i'm not alone in thinking that jizz jokes aren't funny/are gross regardless of your intent?

It probably was not clear, but I was being sincere when I apologized for it being gross (which I can see that it was). But the whole thing was a bad pun on "a thimble's worth of milky moon", syllogism, and songmeanings.com song interpretations.

i did appreciate that you apologized
honestly!

Let's not pretend that Stormcock is great beyond "Hors D'Oeuvres", nor that Roy Harper, despite his classic status, is not also totally insufferable. As for Andrew Bird, I think many/most academy-trained musicians delving into pop naturally have to battle (or embrace) the desire to demonstrate an appropriate amount of agency, it's virtually coded into the DNA of classical training