there is no meat to the criticism; dude didn't like it on first listen so he didn't spend all that much time thinking about it (which is totally fair and not an attack)
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:24 (twelve years ago) link
i'm not sure what your objection is, iatee, other than standard hipster sneering at anything that comes across as too serious/earnest. like, what do you think is concretely wrong with her approach?
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:24 (twelve years ago) link
did you learn something about violence and war
― iatee, Thursday, February 9, 2012
that's what ILE is for
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:25 (twelve years ago) link
it's one-dimensional, full of cliches and self-important. but like I said, some catchy songs.
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:26 (twelve years ago) link
DJP: that's cool, but snidely dissing it as a "powerful work of art lol" is dickish, worse than lex traipsing through indie threads to voice generic disdain.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:27 (twelve years ago) link
I mean if you guys are really moved by this album I have this thing called pink floyd's 'the wall', be ready
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:28 (twelve years ago) link
it's no more one-dimensional than kaputt. they're both albums with a unified voice, theme, set of concerns. nether colors outside those lines all that much, but they both leave a lot of room for exploration within them. and i'm not sure how LES is cliched in ways the destroyer album isn't. one's concerned with war and national identity, the other with romance, alienation and 80s culture. both lean on familiar sounds & conceptions, neither is saying anything terribly novel at heart.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:32 (twelve years ago) link
Don't think the Destroyer is cliched at all - don't think its good either though
― post, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:34 (twelve years ago) link
uh no thanks
i can't really help anyone who thinks lines like "beautiful England, and the grey, damp filthiness of ages, and battered books / fog rolling down behind the mountains / on the graveyards of dead sea captains" are clichés - that's about as ambitious an attempt to sketch a country in a few lines as you get, and it's evocative exactly like a literal sketch would be. she's a great songwriter, always has been - it's pretty interesting to draw comparisons between her previous mostly inward-facing songwriting and her first conscious attempt to put herself entirely outside the action of the songs.
i mean, you're obviously not really interested in it though, so i won't spend time arguing. your loss! i pity you.
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:35 (twelve years ago) link
i haven't seen any of kaputt's fans discussing his songwriting, just his "signifiers" and "sound", which makes me think there isn't much going on with the songwriting there. though there's not a great deal interesting going on with the sound either and they're not shutting up about that
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:36 (twelve years ago) link
― iatee, Thursday, February 9, 2012 10:28 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
see, that's that sneering, too-cool horseshit again. like anything that might presume to address history & war or directly express political outrage/anguish automatically = the wall? that's reductive and frankly stupid, unless you can show that harvey's analysis really is as narrow and self-centered as waters'.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:37 (twelve years ago) link
if you guys are really moved by this album
I think maybe I am? I'm just still getting into it. There's something to be said, I think, for the way it acknowledges brutality in an elegaic context.
― timellison, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:38 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think she is as bad a lyricist as waters, no, it's just a really 1-dimensional album. young people in england. war. death. oh man. heavy. heavyyyyy.
good pop album tho.
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
What do you mean by songwriting, Lex? Lyrics? Compositional structures?
― jaymc, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
i can't really help anyone who thinks lines like "beautiful England, and the grey, damp filthiness of ages, and battered books / fog rolling down behind the mountains / on the graveyards of dead sea captains" are clichés
in speaking of cliches, i think iatee is describing a snidely reductive view of the album's themes. cliches like "war is bad lol" and "suffering lol".
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
lol you think destroyer has dimensions
xp
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
well you can remove the lols if you want?
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:41 (twelve years ago) link
well it's pretty obvious iatee hasn't actually listened to it, and it's also obvious passim that he's a div, so why bother w/him
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:41 (twelve years ago) link
lol, so the fact that the album has a theme makes it 1-dimensional? way to engage yr brain there
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:41 (twelve years ago) link
dimensions of beauty and, frankly, ethereal transcendence.
― omar little, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:42 (twelve years ago) link
she's a great songwriter, always has been
She's really good. And a good singer. Those blue notes in "The Words That Maketh Murder" are beautiful.
― timellison, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:42 (twelve years ago) link
i don't get 'chill vibez' from kaputt at all, it's more like steely dan where beneath the slickness it's all very uncomfortable
― ciderpress, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:42 (twelve years ago) link
think we've probably found the one way in which is interesting to place these albums in opposition, and it's v. likely that ppl who enjoy the old-fashioned direct expression of les would be put off by the icey remove of kaputt and vice versa.
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:43 (twelve years ago) link
meh another big surprise: iatee's smugness serves as a tough protective covering for his rongness
― flog this poster for moderation (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:43 (twelve years ago) link
i was definitely moved by it. its beautiful. but not just beautiful. i think she's doing really amazing/interesting/important work. and i can't say that about a ton of people working now.
white chalk kinda took my breath away too when i first heard it. i didn't hear it when it came out. that's a really gutsy record!
― scott seward, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:44 (twelve years ago) link
she has such incredible command over her voice - the changes from album to album are pretty astonishing
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:45 (twelve years ago) link
w/r/t bejar's songwriting on kaputt, one thing i think he does extremely well is the ability to make mostly meandering and mostly formless tunes very catchy. in lieu of the traditional and predictable verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure, many of the songs have 2 or 3 catchy hooks which end up being bejar simply repeating a phrase or singing a line in an unexpected and pleasant way. for an album mostly considered an 'indie "rock"' record, this is one way it stands apart and makes it special
― radiant silverfish (diamonddave85), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:47 (twelve years ago) link
also the way that bejar will sing a hook only one time on an album makes re-listens more rewarding imo: instead of waiting 30 seconds to hear the hook again, you're anticipating it the next time you hear the record
― radiant silverfish (diamonddave85), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:49 (twelve years ago) link
the old-fashioned direct expression of les
i'm not sure i'd describe LES like this - direct yeah, but perhaps observation is more accurate than expression - harvey takes on a journalistic role and the narrator's voice is outside the action at all times - it's not about her self-expression at all
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:49 (twelve years ago) link
... you can't really call it a "hook" at that point, can you?
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago) link
iatee are you just trolling lex or do i have to destroy you >:[
― horseshoe, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago) link
i mean i think you can.. it's just a bit more temporally shifted
― radiant silverfish (diamonddave85), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago) link
better to leave single hooks dangling everywhere than a group of identical hooks in one place, it is much better to snare the discriminating listener.
― omar little, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:51 (twelve years ago) link
^__^
destroy him anyway xp
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:51 (twelve years ago) link
my working definition of a 'hook' is that catchy part of a song that i just cant help but sing out loud
― radiant silverfish (diamonddave85), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
― scott seward, Thursday, February 9, 2012 1:44 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
white chalk is fucking terrifying and, i think, a little better than LES. but LES is no slouch.
― horseshoe, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think you can only enjoy one of these records, lex and iatee are not actually symbolic of some deep truth.
― Tim F, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:53 (twelve years ago) link
i haven't seen any of kaputt's fans discussing his songwriting, just his "signifiers" and "sound", which makes me think there isn't much going on with the songwriting there.
i don't really care about the 80s signifiers/sound/whatever of kaputt, it's totally about the songwriting for me (though the sound and signifiers are totally part of the songwriting). diamonddave is correct, the songs are very loose in structure and feel but there are little bits that grab you and those become the hooks/choruses. plus i love his lyrics, and i don't really get people who complain about his singing - do you guys not listen to any music with "difficult" (ie nontraditional) vocals?
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:53 (twelve years ago) link
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Thursday, February 9, 2012 12:50 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
sure you can! why not?
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:54 (twelve years ago) link
white chalk kind of reminds me of stina nordenstam - the way she sounds so comfortable, so at home, in this terrifying and mad place
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:54 (twelve years ago) link
1-dimensional album. young people in england. war. death. oh man. heavy. heavyyyyy.
it also addresses age, memory, music, history, language and a bunch of other things. all you're doing is childishly snarking at seriousness of artistic purpose. asinine, imo.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:54 (twelve years ago) link
i don't really get people who complain about his singing - do you guys not listen to any music with "difficult" (ie nontraditional) vocals?
pj harvey!
his voice is antithetical to good vibes for me
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:55 (twelve years ago) link
the songs are very loose in structure and feel but there are little bits that grab you and those become the hooks/choruses
this reminds me of what tori amos did on boys for pele
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:56 (twelve years ago) link
mostly trolling lex, I don't hate pj harvey but I think it's funny that lex can be so vocal about something that's ultimately a concept rock album
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
I am thinking of how "hook" and "chorus" are used interchangeably in pop/rock/hip-hop/r&b
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah as I said upthread Kaputt is like tori x aaliyah
― Tim F, Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:58 (twelve years ago) link
Ha lex was so fun to work up abt this, but now iatee has me switching sides, pj has always been amazing
Truth is, these are both really good albums and I bet a lot of the same audience like them both, only on bizarre old ilm where we constantly have to triangulate where stuff falls on the rockist/popist spectrum and remain vigilant against indie cooties would these two albums even be presented as adversaries
― dave coolier (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:58 (twelve years ago) link
kmt tim you are too obvious in your trolling
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:59 (twelve years ago) link
And here i thought I was being subtle.
― Tim F, Thursday, 9 February 2012 19:02 (twelve years ago) link