The purpose built next generation interstellar Dawn Richard thread

all of dawn's work has been like this for me though, even LTTP took weeks to fully work its way into my heart. it does feel unfair to criticize as 'samey' what is clearly the work of an artist with a very specific and rather unique voice ("voice" in the narrative sense). the autotune does seem to keep me at army's length though, and does sort of flatten its emotional range a bit. but again, only one listen in. and i suspect the car is not the ideal place to listen to this, particularly initially

I'm in the same boat. I don't see myself ever listening to this album again :/

Dawn's voice is great and the production is pristine, but it exhausts its tricks so early and keeps repeating them. And like Matt said, that wouldn't matter so much if the songs carried any weight, but a lot of them sort of suck

what tricks are even repeated?! sonically there's something distinct about every song here. i'm sorry it doesn't have the wide-ranging variety of eg the weeknd though

I like that the vocal treatment stays the same, it sounds like she's personally taking your hand and leading the listener through a changing environment, to my ears anyway

I mean, the stylistic shifts from song to song are so huge that by the time Clair de Lune starts up I feel like she's "covered all possible bases".

Also, the Clair de Lune outro jeeeez I can't even deal with it, it's so I-don't-give-a-fuck to just sing along to the most famous piano solo ever that I actually get the sensation that this woman has successfully connected her human experience to the length of my musical consciousness and gave that overplayed piece new life in my headspace

My reaction to that was to be reminded of Janelle Monae and think "does Diddy make all of his protégées sing over Claire de Lune or does he gravitate towards protégées who would think ending their album by singing over Claire de Lune is awesome?"

A big part of Armor On's appeal was the surprise; it introduced such a well-defined aesthetic and kept doling out twists on it, some little some big, throughout its entire playtime. I don't get that sense at all from this one, though. So much of it felt familiar from the start; it doesn't have the same sense of invention that Armor On did.

Oh, I didn't get very far with Janelle Monae. Did she do something similar?

nm I looked it up

It's a different thing to my ears, singing a naked, solo single voice over a complete performance of the most famous piano piece? It's akin to those moments when a song can't contain the limits of the singer's conviction and they slip into "Amazing Grace"

lol I was just about to post it

I have to give that Janelle Monae album another shot. I only listened once and thought it sounded like she'd grafted her vocals onto a pre-existing album, like, there was very little interaction between track and voice. (And this is the case, apparently?) Seeing her live was so amazing tho, such a great band, I can't wait for new stuff from her

if it doesn't sound like t-pain i basically have no idea what people are talking about when autotune gets invoked

I see myself listening to this album again, but the first listen didn't quite knock me out like I'd hoped it would on the basis of "'86" and her 2012 singles. The uniformity is definitely going to be the obstacle; the only songs I have any clear memory of right now despite having first listened to the record last night are "'86" and the one that covers/samples/whatever Peter Gabriel. I dunno, I need spend more time marinating in it.

It's finally starting to open up to me after about five or six listens, but it's taken that long for the individual songs to separate themselves.

For me the album actually got less interesting the more I listened to it. It was around listen five that I realized lots of the potential I heard in my early listens wasn't going to be realized; probably around listen six that I realized, ok, I'm done

There are obviously a few standout tracks that I'll return to, and a few more that I hope grow on me or reveal themselves to me over time. But this is a seriously padded album

Aside from "Ode to you" I love every track on this album and I think the only thing I don't have in common with a lot of naysayers here is that I didn't love "Armor On", I mean, it's great! but I only listened a couple times and don't think it's a major work. Considering how highly "Armor On" placed on that poll last week maybe some other listeners are a little oversaturated with Dawn? I'm hoping so and that public opinion rallies somewhat

well, it's very different from armor on, which was very concise and relatively immediate - this one def took 5-6 listens before i could even start finding a way into it and is the opposite of concise. really, it was only when other people started raving about "break of dawn" and "ode to you" that i fully came round to the second half.

I have noticed that my favorite song on this is whatever the last song I happened to listen to was; I am not yet sure if that means that I love every song on here or if I don't actually care about any of the songs.

I think the "it's too samey" complaint is both correct and unfair. The sameyness actually works really well IMO except that the album is so long that the appearance of lesser tracks gives the whole album the vibe of being a slog (although again this almost feels intentional - swap "slog" for "marathon").

I like that the vocal treatment stays the same, it sounds like she's personally taking your hand and leading the listener through a changing environment, to my ears anyway

― dry rub come save beef (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, February 7, 2013 10:28 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a very good way of putting it imo

Yeah, with Armor On, I was immediately like OH HOLY FUCK THIS IS AMAZEBALLS right off the bat.

Yeah this album would get more love if people couldn't remember what it was like to listen to Armor On the first time.

i liked Armor On right away but it still took its time really getting under my skin. i'm glad i had like 9-10 months til the end of the year to sort out my feelings for it, and i'm glad i have 11 months for this one, i'm in no rush.

Listening to and thinking about the Mano Le Tough album unexpectedly shed light on some of how I feel about Goldenheart. I had already noticed that there was a big difference in how I felt about the songs when I actively engaged with them vs when I just let them wash over me. In both cases, if I try to listen while doing anything else, the music quickly recedes to the background of my consciousness.

What both share is this sense of very intricate, internally restless but consistent-in-tone arrangements whose sense of balance and proportion can actually work against them catching your attention if you're not already giving it - i.e. it's very easy to just take for granted how successfully each sound leads into the next and let it become a pleasant blur.

One thing that was very different about Armor On was the way that each song created its own soundworld and felt very unified within that but also distinct from its neighbours you definitely notice the transitions from track to track.

otm. The transitions on that album were incredible; it was a thrill when one track gave way to another. This one feels like one continuous 76-minute track by comparison

you have the Mano album Tim? Jealous

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BClfw9nCEAAN5VE.jpg

the where

oh that place

eek

ok i was 100% right about this being better on headphones; there's a pulse to this thing, a thread running through it i couldn't discern in my car's speakers

"frequency" !!!

Yeah tune is the bomb.

dunno what to tell you if you do most of your listening in a car

i drive a lot :(

there's like whole segments of rap and r&b that are primarily meant to be heard while driving! (obv goldenheart is not in this category)

cars are like THE ideal place to experience a ton of music, way more defensible to do most of your listening in a car than on earbuds or whatever

srsly. fuck earbuds forever.

obv the car is the best place to listen to the radio but it's loud and your speakers are shitty please uninstall that cd changer now

please c/p the post where I repped for earbuds? I agree that people should take their apple earbuds and deposit them straight into the trashcan

otoh if you've never listened to your favorite song on a nice IEM then idk if you're really into music http://i.imgur.com/ap8ek8v.jpg

like, do you listen to music or do you just skim through it

The car is the only place where I listen to radio for more than three minutes but, yeah, I loathe my portable CD player and its tape adapter.

"frequency" might be dawn's best song

thank u ilx for turning me on to this album btw
it is awesome.

i pretty much got into rap music through driving. 100% the best environment to listen to it.

dunno how soundproof cars generally are but any situation where there's background noise competing with the music (and drowning out bits of it) is suboptimal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlDBi0cyIA

xp

i pretty much got into rap music through driving. 100% the best environment to listen to it.

especially on tape. I still own a Wu solo comp a friend made in the late nineties.

I'm much more likely to click with an album if I listen to it while driving. I usually make a point of listening to any album I review in the car at some point (esp. if it's rap) since it gives me better perspective.

That's part of the reason streaming promo copies are such a bummer; I can't subject the album to the car test.