twin shadow: the official ilm thread started by max

upthread there's an argument about if/how he sounds like peter gabriel. whether he does or not seems a little beside the point.

i forget who argued this (reynolds probably), but there was an argument out there, in the flush of the "80s boom" ten years ago now, that all of the chilly, harsh, dominatrixy, ice queen type vocals that were all over electroclash and neo-nuwave at the time were a serious misremembering of 80s. that the 80s were a time of very lush and florid and soulful vocals; even about vocal pyrotechnics being attempted by people who really couldn't do them (phil oakey, hi) -- iirc the end of this piece wondered when the bigger, cheesier, sweatier 80s would come back into fashion

i have this in mind because it sounds to me like TS is trying to fully inhabit the lame side of the 80s, the grand reach of "boys of summer" or phil collins or even clapton's "behind the mask". certainly on ilm (and in my house) this is a very natural and welcome kind of move. seems obvious to describe it here, even.

to try to put my finger on it, Confess is giving me a play-acting feeling. like running into someone who always cops an accent. like he's treating 80s arena-pop the same way rockabilly or bluegrass bands treat their referent sources. is he a roots act?

"run my heart" rules pretty hard though.

the first is way better

― flopson, Tuesday, February 19, 2013 3:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

first one is better

all right, shit

i have this in mind because it sounds to me like TS is trying to fully inhabit the lame side of the 80s, the grand reach of "boys of summer" or phil collins or even clapton's "behind the mask".

totally, see also rhye and the one vocal track on cfcf's new ep

or chad valley for that matter

i'm a full calendar year behind on all music fyi

thx tho!

haha i am paying extra close attention b/c i have been waiting for this particular flavor of 80s revivalism to break wide since tv on the radio

oh man i never liked them

totally, see also rhye and the one vocal track on cfcf's new ep

― max, Tuesday, February 19, 2013 10:02

What new CFCF EP? Or do you mean Exercises?

yeah I mean the David sylvian half cover on exercises

Ah. I got all excited for a moment as Exercises was one of my favourite releases of last year.

which rhye tracks/lp do you have in mind, because i'm not hearing it?

MUSO POST

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

i figured out what he's doing on guitar here. it's an alternate tuning! and a pretty odd one; it's tuned to an Eb maj 7 chord

Eb Bb Eb G Bb D

i wonder how he came up with that, and if he writes in that tuning a lot. somebody should ask him!

Someone recently told me that George Lewis Jr. was in a Boston punk band, Mad Man Films. I found their MySpace today:

https://myspace.com/madmanfilms/music/songs

The songs sound very early-aughts, but nonetheless, are pretty fun.

From a harmonic and lyrical perspective, “Betsy” sounds like a punk precursor to stuff on Forget. Anyway, enjoy.

i figured out what he's doing on guitar here. it's an alternate tuning! and a pretty odd one; it's tuned to an Eb maj 7 chord

So weird. I love him.

Did we ever talk about "To the Top" here?

It's not exactly Jim Steinman "huge," but it's the most luxuriously grandiose track TS has ever put out. lurve it.

"the official ilm thread started by max"

A+

I really didn't like To the Top at all. It's not really the direction I wanted him to go in at all.

To the Tops's cool, I like it.

So, I had no idea this guy has a new album coming out next week. Surprised there's been no talk about it.

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/08/390941870/first-listen-twin-shadow-eclipse

major label no less

great record.

weird that only 4 tracks are on spotify, npr has the whole thing tho

The 4 tracks on Spotify have been staggered out as "single" releases.

Not really into this sadly. Forget is one of my favourite albums of the decade so far but this isn't really what I wanted from him.

I still have a favorable opinion of "To the Top," but the rest of this is a big NOPE.

to the top is great

sometimes this hits me just right and sometimes it sounds like onerepublic

its very grandiose but i like it

couldn't handle this one

"Eclipse" was pretty bad huh

So bad. Just one big empty and overproduced misfire.

Didn't even bother.

Yeah I don't think I even managed to listen to this in its entirety. Forget is one of my favourites from this decade as well. :(

forget has got to be his best. the other two don't have the same strangeness. when i first head forget it seemed like an album i dreamed up after falling asleep watching weird science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNpq942YT50

His best album by a mile. I go back to it a lot.

His new single features Haim and is thankfully so much better than anything on that last album.

https://youtu.be/NXpYoiCOuLE

much much better than anything from that last album!

Listening to Forget again. It really is one of the most perfect records of the decade for me.

"I Can't Wait" one of the least popular songs on Forget according to Spotify stats. I don't understand people at all.

Yeah that's odd considering its strengths and that the closing title track has a lot more. Although I often skip 'Tyrant Destroyed' this is still one of my favourite albums since 2010.

In the past there was an additional version of 'Forget' on Spotify with iirc a slightly different running order and the apostrophe in 'I Can't Wait' was also different - don't suppose that could've affected its tally at all?