The purpose built next generation interstellar Dawn Richard thread

"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

Just FOR EXAMPLE if you compare A-side and B-side of "Hounds of Love" which side feels longer? bc Goldenheart def has more in common with B-side

yeah so i think that it's useful that we distinguish between "too long" and "has some low points that could have been excised"; the former i don't think anyone is levying at this album, it's what rev is talking about wrt e-40 - too much of a good thing can be overwhelming, not necessarily artistically but for a listener. the latter is what people mean when they say the dawn album (and 95% of other albums similarly indicted) is "too long". so while it's true that we as consumers can break it into its stronger pieces, as critics if we care at all about 'the album' as 'artistic statement' (and we say we don't care but then we go and rank them at the end of the year anyway), it's a completely valid criticism if it makes the whole weaker.

i guess that's valid but i really don't care about "the album" as artistic statement, i care about the work.... generally when i'm talking about my fave albums i'm talking about the albums that had six songs on them that i loved. for instance (and i know i break from the crowd here) as much as i like kaleidoscope dream's high points, there's only five GREAT tracks on there so it didn't quite make my cut and THAT is an album that feels overlong to me

ha i'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that KD was a little overrated around here but it's a pretty quick album

xxp Yeah, and that's not even my personal problem with this album (I'm just not connecting with the material), but I don't think it's an illegitimate criticism in this or other cases.

forks u crazy

I've tried KD a dozen times and it always comes down to Adorn/Don't Look Back/Use Me/KD/Arch and Point

Much the same way that the first album was Sure Thing/All I Want/Pay Me/Girls Like You/My Piece

which is fine! They're all lasting and amazing tracks! but the albums didn't rock my world

Whereas Goldenheart is more like 2/3 great imo

"pay me" and "my piece" !???!??!!??

(if i'm on the record, add Do You and Quickie to that greatest hits list)

i will stan all day for pay me and my piece as excellent prince/bilalesque tracks
cornball r&b 4eva

e-40 is a special case but yeah i guess i'm not one for the "too much of a good thing" argument.

yeah i don't know if that really exists, and you can always take your time and break it up

i will stan all day for pay me and my piece as excellent prince/bilalesque tracks
cornball r&b 4eva

― the 'dirty sprite' is implied (forksclovetofu), Saturday, March 9, 2013 5:54 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha i think they're fine songs, and i'm on record as saying that album is a total classic, but i've never heard anyone single either out as a highlight before

the breakdown at the end of pay me was what swung me over to taking dude seriously

it's all about "teach me"

sorry to turn this into another miguel thread but this line from the all i want is you wiki entry is trippy

Music critic Robert Christgau finds the "supplicant's" song "Teach Me" to be "unprecedented" in "a genre that makes its nut promising untold pleasures", and credits it for "laying out the truth that, as Norman Mailer put it in one of the few useful sex tips in his orgasm-mad canon, 'the man as lover is dependent upon the bounty of the woman.' Who knows what pleases her? She does, she alone, and Miguel craves to be let in on that shifting and enthralling secret."

actually relistening to that track now, damn i may have underestimated this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6_ZNW1DACE

imo the vinyl era concept of an 'album' works best if for no other reason than 40 or so minutes is just enough to feel like a meal without leaving much room to drag. 'double albums' that are longer than that but in some sense have discrete halves can feel overlong, but at least there's a clear point at which you can split it into 2 sittings, and maybe regard each one as its own entity. CD-era 60-80 minute albums that don't aim for any kind of double-album-ness tend to have the biggest problems with just sagging in the middle or wearing you down by the end. those kinds of things made/make sense for big artists who might only make an album every 2-4 years and each one is a huge production with dozens of tracks recorded and discarded, but i feel like for everyone else, it's better to do lots of releases and keep them short.

an album that has good songs all the way through but is organized so that i'm less able to appreciate how good the stuff at the end if i listen to it all in one run has a fatal flaw imo

not that that's an issue with Goldenheart per se -- if anything the second half is where it all comes together for me

the album is too long but in a good way - imo its sequencing is one of its biggest strengths, i find it very difficult to pick out bite-size chunks to consume - it really does demand your attention as a fully-formed body of work. and sometimes you just want bite-size chunks but it's not having any of that. it's def not a convenient album.

honestly can't think of a single thing i'd alter about the sequencing or track listing; it was actually made longer than intended, "riot" was originally a bonus track, but even that change benefits it imo

it's as much that immersion in a single sonic vision like this for such a long time is kinda rare for r&b.

― Tim F, Friday, March 8, 2013 11:21 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm

http://dawnrichard.tumblr.com/post/45241592418/new-music-just-for-my-hearts-bumbum

SWIZZY

love this

dope

worst threat to the album's rep is if she just keeps dropping stray tracks throughout the year that work better as standalone tracks than most of Goldenheart

agree but for the moment she's keeping it to stuff that's obviously just lying around and that only works as a giveaway - like "bum bum" is v fun but it's just a swizzified "lost ones" that would be disappointing if part of a proper release

pretty funny how "love on the rocks" nails the current mike will made it aesthetic so casually though

it's like dawn is just going "u know i could do this if i wanted"

wow I love the way the vocals fragments crystallize into a wall of solid info at the end

worst threat to the album's rep is if she just keeps dropping stray tracks throughout the year that work better as standalone tracks than most of Goldenheart

― some dude, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 9:17 AM Bookmark

word