The purpose built next generation interstellar Dawn Richard thread

Dawn Richard's vocal range is pretty good actually (cf "Frequency") but even besides that I don't know why we are trying to say either is better because that is a) pointless and b) apples to oranges. Goldenheart is drawing from completely different reference points -- like, just to pick the most obvious, very little that Kate Bush has ever done has much conversation with R&B, at all.

(if we're doing the comparison thing, then you really have three choices, two that work and one that doesn't: TSW for sonic similarity, which works but only because it's also half a Peter Gabriel album; The Red Shoes for pulling in other sounds, one of which was theoretically mainstream [even though the remake of "Rubberband Girl" makes it pretty clear what she was actually aiming for was blues/even country) -- which works, even though the sounds are different and Goldenheart is way more cohesive in every way, even if you cut out the obvious filler; then Hounds of Love / Aerial / etc for being concept albums, which doesn't work because you could say the same about literally any other concept album)

yes exactly. I was going to write "It's like comparing Tom Petty to Merle Haggard"

Just because KB hasn't been influenced much by r&b doesn't mean r&b can't be influenced by KB tho.

true, but when you're judging an R&B album on "does this equal this Kate Bush album the artist might not even be referencing" it's losing the plot a bit.

plus, and everyone knew this was coming, every single female artist who is doing something "arty" inevitably gets compared to Kate Bush on rather flimsy reasoning. not that this is how lex meant it, or that Dawn Richard *didn't* intend it (though I've yet to see her show up in Druski or Richard's lists of influences.) but, I mean, this is showing up in more and more Goldenheart reviews with either the text or subtext of "it's sorta R&B but really it's more like Kate Bush, you know, ~*innovative*~!" which, yeah. also has the "no more loverman cliches and bottle service grooves!" thing going on.

no one's mentioned Angela Winbush, also good at projecting longing over aqueous synthesized tracks and hard beats.

I tweeted Druski asking him about other stuff he's produced and he tweeted me back with some stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OO1ur8lPs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4lWMnynd9Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNyEBYKaUDQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Fql5_NYg0

@ Rev that is exciting and I am gonna listen to them right now

Comparisons to KB began because this album sounds exactly in tone and production like The Sensual World
Which is totally crazy! because Dawn Richards and KB sing differently, write differently, have different schemes of producer-writer-performer hierarchies, and yet the similarities are so striking that it's Very Interesting

Three people I've played this for has exactly said "wow this sounds like Peter Gabriel" and specifically cited The Sensual World and "Don't give up"

So yes I guess Katherine this is one of those points of comparison that work

Just because KB hasn't been influenced much by r&b doesn't mean r&b can't be influenced by KB tho.

You haven't heard Kate's cover of Sexual Healing, then

it's been years since i actually listened to the sensual world but someone who checked it out based on my KB comparison said that the intros to "gleaux" and "heads we're dancing" are, like, nearly identical

haven't pulled out the latter to compare for myself yet

it was Katherine who asserted that, not me xp

I know I was joking
Her version of Sexual Healing is not exactly a masterstroke of genre synthesis

pretty sure I've heard that cover, yes. and one stray cover falls under "very little" imo.

I can hear "Heads We're Dancing," sort of, but surely "Gleaux" owes as much if not more to the clapper trend?

while we're on comparisons, there is something very obvious that "Tug of War" is evoking and yet I can't think of the name at all, and it's been bugging me for the past three hours.

Bitches everybody knows the correct 80s art pop reference is Nona Hendryx's 'Skindiver'.

!

Also this was sounding really ace to me on the way into work this morning. Except "Pretty Wicked Things" still and also "Warfaire" which I think isn't bad just kinda nothingy but in a way that I supect tends to infect my recall of the other tracks to suggest they were more nothingy than they are.

BUT how awesome were "Northern Lights", "Frequency", "Ode To You" and "86" sounding. "Ode To You" may be obvi but i'm an obvi kind of guy and Dawn can ride gated snares to kingdom come and back IMO.

The second time the pre-chorus comes round on "Northern Lights"

Love is on our tongues, boy can’t you taste it?
Tonight up on the shines, don’t need to chase her
I want all your love, swear I’m all wasted
Smoke you right on up, let’s take a space trip

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

*"swear I won't waste it" rather

i was like "what does the opening percussion of "goliath" remind me of, nine inch nails?"

nope, "liquid diamonds"

haha yes!

Brad I had that same exact thought exactly exactly fuuuck

January 15, 2013
Genre Alternative R&B[1]
Length 63:42
Label Our Dawn
Producer Andrew "Druski" Scott, Deonte, The Fisticuffs

but surely "Gleaux" owes as much if not more to the clapper trend?

― katherine, Monday, January 21, 2013 4:01 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dawn was kinda at the forefront of the clapper trend w/ 'me myself and y'!

Yeah I was thinking that the other day when listening to #A Tell Tale Heart again.

Still such an underrated record. The rhythms on that tune and on "Broken Record" are so next level.

Still getting to grips w/this; as well as various bits'n'pieces already mentioned, I'm getting vague flashes of Valerie Dore's post-The Mists of Avalon Arthurian concept album The Legend:
http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/v/valerie_dore-the_legend.jpg

and maybe it's just the Tim Burton vibes or w/e, but Kelis' "Get Along With You". Need to dig out Skin Diver!

ha, that druski interview lex linked says he produced for lil b

"Ode To You" officially my jam now. It actually maddens me somewhat that Dawn evidently feels that tunes like that and "86" and "Frequency" aren't tarnished by sharing album space with lesser material like "Break of Dawn".

OTOH I will forgive everything if she repackages the album with bonus track "System of a Dawn".

haha "ode to you" and "break of dawn" are the only songs on this i don't consider essential

"Warfaire" and the title track also inessential. Given I still can't remember "Tug of War" in order to know how to characterise it I suppose that goes in there too. I'm not into PWT but I see how it is memorable etc.

i adore "warfaire", its sudden switch from mournful piano ballad into avenging fist of justice is one of the best moments on the album. WARFAIRE / ALL GOOD / RIGHT HERE / WHATCHU WANNA DO

its sequencing is perfect as well.

love "tug of war", sex-as-power jam set in space. "baby loooooooove is waaaaaaar" is such a sweeping melody, so much empty space in it too.

as rtc noted upthread the title track is about the only way the album could actually close.

Oh I get the idea behind all of dawn's military-relationship-complex epics, I just think they sometimes sound like they've only benefited from the precise amount of thought and effort required to allow them to be immortalised in lex all-cap lyrics posts.

i am not one to defend long albums in general, but honestly when you've only had a record for a week i don't think it's possible to say if all 16 songs earn their keep or are memorable or not. just takes a little longer for it all to sink in as good or bad, in my experience.

I'm with Al. I'm only lukewarm on Goldenheart—the songwriting sometimes seems thin, and at worst goofy, to me—but even the relatively short Armor On was loaded with growers, so I'm still hoping this will reveal itself to me. Well, maybe not hoping anymore, but at least not eliminating the possibility that it might.

Also, for whatever reason, I always prefer the back half of Dawn Richard albums to the front half. It's a bit confounding, but it gives them longevity, I guess

cosigning 'ode to you' adoration

casting a hex on 'pwt' criticism

"Pretty Wicked Things" is one where I'm hesitant to be sharper than to say "it doesn't work for me" because I don't even really know why it leaves me cold (and it's been around for long enough that this isn't some first week snap opinon thing).

YOU CAN BE MY BLACK KATE BUSH TONIGHT

'warfaire' isnt so terrible on its own but it badly derails momentum and the sense of meandering that subsequently arises is dawn's great enemy

yep

presumably the people who like the second half better credit "warfaire" for ushering it in?

warfaire' isnt so terrible on its own but it badly derails momentum and the sense of meandering that subsequently arises is dawn's great enemy

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:01 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this exactly.

I don't think anything on the album is actively bad.

i credit 'frequency' for that xp

It doesn't help that "Warfaire" might be the worst case of Linkin Park Lyrics Syndrome on the album

a syndrome that exists to no one except you

Yeah, that's fair. But any song written exclusively in accusations and declarations of defiance sets off that alarm for me. It's such a black/white worldview: I am strong but you failed me; you let me down and you weren't there for me, etc, etc, etc. Any song that positions the songwriter as the hero and an unspecified "you" as a scourge just isn't that interesting to me. Real relationships are more complicated than that.

hahaha i like "warfaire" y'all. one of the few hooks that immediately grabbed me.

album is finally opening up to me but it is a long sleepy thing

xp srs question what did you think of "soldier of love"?