The purpose built next generation interstellar Dawn Richard thread

as rtc says, the remarkable thing, the thing i am in awe of, is where she stands vis-a-vis the rest of r&b/pop/everything. in that wider context, she's killing everyone and it isn't even a question.

YES

ha, it was just an amusing briticism xps

I can't rate her records but Goldenheart has been on repeat every time I do some cooking

"86" only really opened up to me in album context - the opening chords seem like so much space opening up following "ode to you" mechanistic beat

also, it's the only moment where she makes her debt to imogen heap a bit too obvious

my fav way of listening to goldenheart is still in one go, all the way through - sometimes i skip "pretty wicked things" just cuz i've heard it so much though

yeah i was just about to say glomming onto '86' by itself is pretty much a cop out cos you're basically just stranded where you were a few months back like the album never happened and was never engaged with

That's one of her songs that would least make me think of Imogen Heap! It's like the one song of recent vintage I can think of that's totally nailed that late-80s Jam & Lewis ballad sound.

I wouldn't say the album does a good job of making me want to engage with it tho.

And I'd already glommed onto "86" anyway. I put it in my top 5 of last year before I'd ever heard the album.

the vocal treatment on the second "was too closed off" is literally straight out of that imogen heap song

"Ode To You" is amazing, if you don't get it you have spurned Dawn's love, that's why I don't fux with you.

I agree that A Tell-Tale Heart is up there with her best work.

I think my problem with this album ultimately is that so much of it feels heavyhanded.

my problem with it is that it is a million years long

^^^

That is the dumbest criticism one can level at an album
Jesus
Pause it and finish it tomorrow you cretins

^

editing is important!

so is having an attention span

I get it, some albums overstay their welcome, and I love nice concise statements, but the "some songs could be trimmed" complaint is such bullshit. Trim them yourself, enrich your life, and may god forgive you for ever criticizing an artist for their generosity

"too long" is totally a valid criticism for albums, lots of records would work better if edited down a bit. this is an album where i think the sprawl works for it, though, especially since it's only right for it to be 20 minutes longer than her exceptionally long 'EP.'

the "generosity" argument made a little sense in the '90s when we were paying top dollar for CDs and there was some genuine thrill in getting one that was 79 minutes and a twinge of annoyance when it was 29 minutes. but i feel like one of actual good things about the changes since then is that there's a greater sense that running time should contribute to the listening enjoyment.

you're otm about the sprawl fitting it but at the same time it makes it hard to approach and concentrate on, which makes me never want to revisit it. guess i should get an attention span lol

xp I disagree and think the reverse is true, since digital media made it easier to trim your albums the way you want it. If an artist is good, and in the full bloom of creativity, I want all the music I can get. If ever I feel like an album is "too long" it probably means I didn't like it to begin with.

were you alive in the 90s?

~Was anybody truly alive in the 90s~

Sure, I dunno, I felt disappointed on first listen that k.d. lang's "All you can eat" was only 31 minutes long. And I skipped the songs on "Mellon Collie" that I didn't like. But I never thought it was too long, I just wanted to always skip ahead to "Galapagos". And I never got to the end of "Wu Tang Forever" but it's my failing, not theirs.

Furthermore-- and I apologize if this is out of my grasp in the explaining-- the digital age has allowed listeners a certain level of interactivity with track listings, creating alternate sequences, or delete songs, or reduce an album to a single track they like, right. The level of engagement that one can have with Track Order is at an all time high. The criticism that a record is "too long" suggests, to me, that this level of interactivity is being taken for granted. "This album is too long" implies-- and forgive me if I'm reaching here-- that the listener knows what's best for an artist, editing-wise-- see Brad saying "editing is important"-- and also suggests that an artist is unaware of the context of the way the album is to be digested. It suggests that the artist presumes that an album must be listened to as a complete statement. But "I'm only going to listen to parts of this album" has always been every listener's right. Claiming an album is "too long" suggests that an artist is unaware or unsympathetic to this.

What is that fucking album where they said "this album should be listened to completely from beginning to end"? Bowie "Outside"? Billy Idol "Cyberpunk"? OH NO it was Moby "Animal Rights" ha.

That said I don't think it's an invalid criticism, but I hear it said about every bloody album longer than 45 minutes. It's like "this food is too tasty" or something.

I wouldn't say "Goldenheart" is too long but I don't love "Ode to you" and only listen to it in its regular sequence because there are so many stans for it here

more like "this food is twenty feet long which is inconvenient and tiring to consume"

"Happily, it is conveniently divided into foot-long packets that can be stored for consumption at your leisure"

I think we're conflating the physical act of listening with the more intangible issue of absorbing an artist's work. "Too long" is a valid criticism if one of the impacts is that the individual songs feel less precious and distinct, which is clearly how quite a few listeners feel about Goldenheart vis a vis Armor On.

OTOH Dawn is also combating a listening mindset primed on r&b albums as effectively pre-edited (by virtue of clear distinctions between styles, producers etc.). Goldenheart feels long to me the way that Love King did, but I think it's as much that immersion in a single sonic vision like this for such a long time is kinda rare for r&b.

"Too long" is a valid criticism if one of the impacts is that the individual songs feel less precious and distinct

Fair point.

Definitely I can see getting worn out on a single voice/producer over 70+ minutes (and I always do) but I think it's dependent on the listening environment and level of engagement. I can do Love King in the kitchen but not in the car, i.e.

The whole self-editing thing doesn't work if it takes too much effort to suss out which songs are worth keeping

Or if they mostly seem around the same level

the same level of ~pretty damn amazing~

"Too long" is a valid criticism if one of the impacts is that the individual songs feel less precious and distinct

Given the very deliberate transitions between tracks it's pretty obvious that Goldenheart is meant to be listened to and absorbed a whole (in a way that, say, the last Nicki Minaj album maybe isn't) and it makes it totally valid to either praise or criticise it on that basis. "Just edit stuff out yourself" is a cop-out.

Well, that's not what I said. I said the dismissal of long-ish albums as being "too long" was becoming inescapable and tiresome, and it implies that albums, like films, are indivisible, when the opposite is true. But I get hives when people say an album is "boring" I'm like fuuuuck all my favourite music goes on forever and doesn't do anything (much like my posting style)

"Just edit stuff out yourself" is a cop-out.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 9 March 2013 17:54 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

always is

I said 'length = generosity' but I also agree with Tim's point that 'length = dilution of intent', sad as it is true

Nobody is saying "just edit stuff out yourself", but there is an acknowledgement that it is what people naturally do. I took out Exile on Main Street and listened to "Sweet Black Angel" yesterday and then put it away, it was not because that record is "too long"

obviously there are some extremely long albums that are excellent enough and/or varied enough not to get the "too long" charge very often, so i feel like "too long" is a fair thing to say even if it's symptomatic of other problems for you to notice or mind the length.

we've talked about this re:e-40 but damn if i get the whole "too long too much" criticism
I like the version of these albums that i made and i'm glad to hear everything going on in their heads, even if it means i gotta stumble through awkward peter gabriel covers. being an active listener does not mean you are an editor, it makes you a participant

E-40 is a perfect example of someone who's putting out to much content right now for me to even digest.

And I regard him as one of my favorite musicians ever.

he's worth making the time for

saying that an album is too long shifts the conversation... if you think an album is too long really what you think is that there are too many mediocre (or worse) songs. that's why i thin it's legitimate to criticize an artist for not being good enough at self-editing. but it's possible for an album -- like, i don't know, 'underground kingz' -- to have very few mediocre songs and still be "too long" in a purely functional sense. but then "too long" in the way we're talking about it is not really a worthwhile criticism.

that's pretty much my argument though i dunno what makes an album too long "in a purely functional sense"... just listen to it in chunks.

I wonder, though, if there is something palpable about this album's composition/sequence that would cause non-haters to criticize its length? It does have me thinking. There's not a tonne of recapitulation on it, no hammering down of hooks-- it just kind of goes and goes and I can understand a listener's attention wandering without some regular sign-posts