Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

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i wasn't huge on "we appreciate power" at the time and still think the lyrics are terrible but it's ended up being one of the strongest things from this album. i think "my name is dark" and "you'll miss me" would be much better if the guitars had that sort of crunch to them

ufo, Monday, 24 February 2020 02:05 (four years ago) link

I can't make sense of these opinions yet, which I appreciate.

TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 February 2020 02:17 (four years ago) link

I really want to like it but I just can’t get too far with it. I still can’t get behind the way it sounds. I’ll revisit it around june/july to see if I’m in a different mindset and with a better soundsystem.

✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, 24 February 2020 03:32 (four years ago) link

It “lacks hooks”?? Words have no meaning for you lol

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, 24 February 2020 07:08 (four years ago) link

Maybe it would come across as more confidently itself to skeptics if it were longer. I’d like it to be ... more. Literally the only thing I can find to complain abt

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, 24 February 2020 07:09 (four years ago) link

only relatively, i'm not saying it's tuneless or anything but it's not really as densely packed with hooks as art angels or even visions. even ignoring all the issues i have with the production i'm just not that into this batch of songs. here's how id classify my feelings about them:

decent but i don't really feel strongly about:
so heavy i fell through the earth
4aem
before the fever
you'll miss me when i'm not around

would be pretty good with better mixing/production:
delete forever
idoru

meh:
darkseid
new gods
my name is dark
violence

ufo, Monday, 24 February 2020 07:45 (four years ago) link

My name is dark is my fav song on the album 🥴

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, 24 February 2020 08:02 (four years ago) link

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ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, 24 February 2020 08:03 (four years ago) link

Darkseid is great and putting it so early in the tracklisting is evidence that the album is going out of its way to stick out at awkward angles.

Her voice remains paper thin but there's something really interesting about the vocal melodies on this album, then again I think Grimes is at her least interesting when she making more or less conventional pop hooks (cf Realiti do not @ me).

Matt DC, Monday, 24 February 2020 08:10 (four years ago) link

which version tho

or something, Monday, 24 February 2020 11:53 (four years ago) link

poll

an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Monday, 24 February 2020 12:06 (four years ago) link

I love the drums on "My Name is Dark."

TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 February 2020 12:14 (four years ago) link

I’m finding it fine overall but I have a thing for “reverb albums” which this sure as shit is. Sounds pretty familiar tho, and the “digital faerie” schtick feels about as fresh as steampunk.

an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Monday, 24 February 2020 12:35 (four years ago) link

If anything to me this album sounds too polished (caveat - on two listens, one in the kitchen, one while walking to work), in that any issues I have with the sound come from instruments being so compressed that they basically disappear into a wall of sound. I'm pretty certain that's a deliberate aesthetic decision, though. Grimes has never been interested in her music sounding 'real' anymore tha she has been in her image looking 'real'. She's all about unrealiti.

Early take is that I quite enjoyed this, and want to listen to it again. I like that it's not as stridently pop and hook-reliant as Art Angels, it feels like it might reward the kind of repeated, almost ambient listening that Visions really benefitted from.

Those tinny guitar chords are like the most Oasis chords I've heard in years, which is v funny. I am very happy with the idea that Elon might have played them.

Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 24 February 2020 12:51 (four years ago) link

“This album is too polished”
“This album is too shambolic”

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, 24 February 2020 19:08 (four years ago) link

this sounds like a Moby album

specifically, Everything Is Wrong

pet friendly (Euler), Monday, 24 February 2020 19:15 (four years ago) link

Love this album and don’t really have any issues with the production, but then I am pretty much the opposite of an audiophile.

Tim F, Monday, 24 February 2020 20:12 (four years ago) link

Haha it kinda does sound like it was produced by Moby in 1995 though.

Tim F, Monday, 24 February 2020 20:12 (four years ago) link

Euler otm (also: lol).

romanesque architect (pomenitul), Monday, 24 February 2020 20:15 (four years ago) link

Delete Forever sounds better w/repeated listens. I like that it's a slightly cut-up, uncanny valley, highly fraught take on this sort of song. It has seemingly generic parts but not a generic execution.

omar little, Monday, 24 February 2020 20:15 (four years ago) link

I would say from first listens that "My Name Is Dark" is easily the strongest song here (and one of her best)

winters (josh), Monday, 24 February 2020 21:00 (four years ago) link

but then I am pretty much the opposite of an audiophile.

― Tim F, Monday, February 24, 2020 2:12 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're too big a get physical fan for this to be totally true lol

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 00:09 (four years ago) link

I like this on first listen, it holds my attention more than some of her previous stuff. "Violence" kind of sounds like a deconstructed version of Euasure's "Chains of Love"... that's my big insight/contribution for the day.

Ticket Tout (morrisp), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 00:22 (four years ago) link

the Garbage lyric ref in "My Name Is Dark" ("stupid girl") seems like a nicely direct ref to the album's main era of inspiration.

Ticket Tout (morrisp), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 00:33 (four years ago) link

but then I am pretty much the opposite of an audiophile.

― Tim F, Monday, February 24, 2020 2:12 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're too big a get physical fan for this to be totally true lol

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 00:09 (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I suppose how it breaks down for me is that I am obsessed with arrangements but have never really cared about having high quality speakers, headphones etc, so I'm not typically offended by music which self-proclaimed audiophiles claim falls flat on those grounds.

I can definitely hear that this album's sound (esp. the percussion) feels both deliberately hollowed out and compressed, and I can see how this tends to reduce or interfere with the listener's ability to really appreciate the layering in real time, certainly on the first few listens (by way of example, some of the rhythm tracks are pretty complex, but they don't exactly call attention to themselves in that regard).

But this feels pretty consistent with the general approach on some of the back-half of Visions - something that may be obscured if one's recollection of that album reduces to like "Genesis" and "Oblivion".

Tim F, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 00:37 (four years ago) link

Yeah there are def. some similarities to the production values of the first Garbage album (not the second).

Tim F, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 00:38 (four years ago) link

I’ve seen a few reviews which have pretty amateurishly criticized this for not being a clear and focused assessment of the climate crisis when it seems obvious that the subject matter was more an inspiration and gave her a direction in ways that are not present in the lyrics vs her doing a Neil Young Monsanto Years thing.

One review I read criticized Darkseid for not having much in the way of lyrical content and quoted Grimes’ part as evidence......

Reading some of the takedowns and I think writers again should stop trying to treat lyrics as the whole truth of the matter and stop criticizing an album for what it’s not content wise vs what it is. Which still doesn’t make sense bc it feels like a progression from the more desolate sounding parts of Visions so you’d think people wouldn’t be shocked by how it sounds.

omar little, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 01:09 (four years ago) link

Yeah - the idea of dinging this album b/c the stated "concept" doesn't come thru is laughable (I mean, it doesn't, but who gaf... Grimes fans, I guess?)

Ticket Tout (morrisp), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 01:23 (four years ago) link

also basically every concept album ever loses the thread midway through at best, why should Grimes be any different?

bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 01:28 (four years ago) link

Yeah there are def. some similarities to the production values of the first Garbage album (not the second).

― Tim F, Monday, February 24, 2020 7:38 PM

I don't hear it at all. The first Garbage boasted a real clarity, and, just to be clear, I don't view "clarity" as a virtue. The back of this album reminds me of a denser, thicker Art Angels. Less replete with hooks, although you may count the distorted harmonies as hooks (I do). It is, however, foolish to discount listeners looking for a "Realiti" or "Flesh Without Blood." "You'll Miss Me When I'm Not Around" and "My Name Is Dark" come close, though.

TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 01:58 (four years ago) link

I mostly meant in the way that the guitars and the electronics tend to bleed into another a lot, though some of the album tracks may be a better example of that than, like, "Queer" or something.

In my head I could imagine the third Curve album being an even closer reference point but other than the use of "Chinese Burn" on Buffy I haven't revisited that album in over twenty years.

Tim F, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 03:48 (four years ago) link

have finally heard this album, which I generally like to really like but is definitely patchy in quality

like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 04:20 (four years ago) link

I don't hear curve at all except maybe "you'll miss me when I'm not around," which is mixed the exact opposite as a curve song would be

like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 04:34 (four years ago) link

I agree this sort of sounds like produced by Moby pre-play but I don’t agree it sounds like Garbage’s debut. That one actually sounds good.

✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 05:19 (four years ago) link

This doesn’t sound like Garbage but it does sound like garbage

: >

There I made a joke.

✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 05:23 (four years ago) link

I think it’s cool that contemporary artists are putting a new spin on that mid/late-‘90s sound; I personally feel like it never reached its full potential back in the actual era.

Ticket Tout (morrisp), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 05:41 (four years ago) link

Heavy compression as aesthetic (as opposed to hamfisted mastering) has been a thing for years now - Oneohtrix, Arca, the first Twigs album etc etc. Sounds pureed and fused together into a veneer - this is definitely deliberate and it works here.

Sounds like shit when there's just one sound in the mix admittedly but that hardly ever happens here.

Matt DC, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 09:10 (four years ago) link

The last Holly Herndon, Yves Tumor, Chino Amobi...

Matt DC, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 09:13 (four years ago) link

Just realized there's a Deluxe Edition of MIss Anthropocene that adds "We Appreciate Power" + four alt. mixes of other album tracks.

Murdered-Out Highlander XLE (morrisp), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:44 (four years ago) link

Actually no, “So Heavy I Fell Through The Earth - Art Mix” is the strongest song here

winters (josh), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:52 (four years ago) link

It’s totally fair tho to not appreciate how it’s deployed ... like it’s been around enough to “get it” and still have it be ineffective

Nb I still think this album rules, I am just imagining alternate versions w different mixes

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:53 (four years ago) link

Just realized there's a Deluxe Edition of MIss Anthropocene that adds "We Appreciate Power" + four alt. mixes of other album tracks.

― Murdered-Out Highlander XLE (morrisp), Tuesday, February 25, 2020 1:44 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Aha! What I was looking for

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:54 (four years ago) link

Call me a commercial sell out if you must but i prefer the algorithm mixes

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:58 (four years ago) link

It makes me laugh (in a good way) on "My Name Is Dark" when she sings, "...the girl who plays with fii-YAAAH"

Murdered-Out Highlander XLE (morrisp), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 20:03 (four years ago) link

eh i never want "my name is dark" to end so i can't agree xp

american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 20:04 (four years ago) link

I must say, to go from this album to the new Soccer Mommy is like stepping out of a fabulous, confusing party after a couple drinks into someone's parlor for bubbly water.

TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 20:04 (four years ago) link

Picked up the CD at lunch (to really appreciate the nuances of that heavy compression, lol); had to settle for the standard edition, cuz that’s all they’re selling :(

I don’t get that, why not max out the CD?

Murdered-Out Highlander XLE (morrisp), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 20:54 (four years ago) link

eh i never want "my name is dark" to end so i can't agree xp

― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, February 25, 2020 2:04 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Was this to me? I just mean for the ones that have algorithm versions

ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 21:44 (four years ago) link

yes, and "my name is dark" has an algorithm mix

american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 21:45 (four years ago) link


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