TV On The Radio - Dear Science

so good!

"family tree" is pretty stunning, dunno about the rest

listening now

• maybe a lil more airy?

really? it's the weakest track for me (early stage though)
xpost
i thought i wouldnt like the more funk less rock thing but i was happily wrong.

i dont have a computer of my own so ive been listening randomly off hype machine and i can't really get past "family tree". i dont really even know what the lyrics mean but they kill me anyhow. easily the most beautiful song they've written, esp when the drums come in.

bear in mind side 2 is better

i thought i wouldnt like the more funk less rock thing but i was happily wrong.

I dunno I could use more MBV white noize like their other rekkids and less talking headsy wicky wicky funk guitar

but it sounds ok, I'll spin it a few more times. last one took a while to grow on me too.

yeah, as Cookie Mountain was, this one is also a grower.and i miss the heavy drums from Cookie.
it's,in a way, going back to the Young Liars and Desparte Youth, though better than Desparate.

DLZ is the absolute best track, with the closer coming in 2nd

I've only heard two songs, but I approve of non-dance bands turning into dance bands.

the production is awesome, almost glamorous and glistening like the hercules & love affair album

only for a few tracks though
xpost

btw,the beginning of family tree reminds me of Underworld's Born Slippy.

I hated Cookie Mtn, but this is a pleasant surprise. I've only heard it once, but I made it all the way through and want to hear it again. I did not expect it to appeal to me in the least.

"family tree" is pretty stunning

"Family Tree" sounds like "Viva La Vida."

ehhhhhhhhh idk if i buy that ("viva la vida" seemed pretty canned to me + it doesn't even begin to build the tension that "family tree" does) but in any event im cool with tv on the radio making weeping coldplay ballads good again

"Viva la Vida" is pretty stunning! Best Coldplay song since at least "Clocks"

they even attempt the now trendy paul simon/talking heads-afro-bits- thing on "red dress" to great results.

"DLZ is the absolute best track, with the closer opener coming in 2nd."

though, really, there are lots of highlights in here.

Yes, I'm mighty impressed so far.

Definitely their best record yet. Not nearly as patchy as either of the other ones.

beats the pants of the last one which was kind of a muddled, overlong, melody-free mess to me. not sure it's better than the first album but it's great.

Red Dress kind of sounds like how I wish that Byrne/Eno album sounded.

I'm enjoying this as a whole far more than Return to Cookie Mountain. While RtCM possibly has the band's two best songs (I Was A Lover, and Wolf Like Me), Dear Science seems to be all of a piece, and I don't feel the need to start listening to something else halfway through.

Halfway Home, Dancing Choose, Family Tree and DLZ are the standouts right now, but the whole thing is damn good. I heartily approve of the addition of dancebeats and funky bass riffs.

Family Tree = best Little Red Corvette crib evar

not getting the uncertainty re: cookie mountain people... "Province" is one of the greatest love songs of all time... and "Wolf Like Me" is one of the greatest sex songs of all time. So.

• bump 4 the awesomeness of "love dog"

also "crying"

"Province" is one of the greatest love songs of all time... and "Wolf Like Me" is one of the greatest sex songs of all time.

jesus cries 4 u

"lover's day" people. come on.

"Not nearly as patchy as either of the other ones."

you have a point here:

Am i the only one who thinks Young Liars and Desparte Youth were 20x better than this and cookie ???? miss the soul+noise stuff :(

Those lines from "Golden Age" – "Fuck your war, 'cause i'm fat and in love and the bombs are falling on me for sure / but i'm scared to death that i'm living a life not worth dying for" – pack real reasonance.

that's actually from "Red Dress," but yeah, that's a great intro.

i've only heard "golden age" and i'm not sure about it. miss the soul+noise stuff ... yeh, that sort of sums it up. then again: there's a lot of interesting shit going on in that song alone, and this band have surprised me in so many pleasant ways for several years now, so fuck it: i'll definitely get this.

i like the sound of "family tree", certainly.

actually, i'm listening to "golden age" again as i type and it's WAY better than i remembered.

Considering how ambivalent you guys were about RtCM I'm getting kind of psyched by this thread.

Is that Kyp on lead vocals on "Stork And Owl"? He sounds great.

It's hard to write anything too soon about them because it takes so many listens for the layers, details and surprises to reveal themselves. My third listen on headphones on a train ride is what put it over the top for me. After finishing it I was wobbly with vertigo. It felt like the songs corresponded with the neighborhoods that whizzed by, each packed with years of memories and emotions. It's like traveling in an unfamiliar country with a lover, having an intense conversation, getting drunk, arguing, and ending the night at 3 a.m. exhausted from intense make-up sex.

i'm not falling for this again (but i probably will)

^possible country song

Halfway Home is my fave so far

at first I thought Lover's Day was just a weaker rewrite of Wear You Out, but it's growin on me

golden age sounds like robbie williams (millenium??).

Can you say "Pazz and Jop"?

I heard the single a few weeks ago and it was pretty awful so I'm not really interested in this but I guess I'll check it out later... they haven't topped "Sattelite" off of YL and the 1st album (especially "Staring At The Sun" and "Ambulance")IMO...

I heard the single a few weeks ago and it was pretty awful

so rong

so, is it
"Dear Science is a jagged landscape of self-doubt, Bush-hate, and future-fear. And once in a while, you still get some of their optimism" (pitchfrork,9.2)

or
"That comma at the title's end seems naggingly open-ended at first, but it's actually a perfect fit for Dear Science,'s openness to possibilities and positivity. " (allmusic,4.5)
?

Haven't heared it yet (and i'm he last one, so far i can see). I hope they don't exactly do what they did on the previous ones.

A colleague very kindly YSIed the whole album to me but I haven't had time to listen to it yet. But on the basis of their previous work and the first single off this I'm still suspicious that they're this decade's Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, if you know what I mean.

i tried listening to this on youtube. i feel like if i like any current indie band i should like these guys (beats, funk guitar, horns), but it just doesn't work for me. the production has always sounded really murky to me.

YouTube is not the way to go.

is it going to sound totally different if i download it or buy the cd?

Yes. I'm not fond of judging albums by how they sound as leaked audiovisual files.

As someone who was a bit baffled by all the Cookie love, I'm surprised at how much I'm enoying this. It's somehow brighter and less murky.

ok this is awesome

anyone else catch them at Treasure Island this weekend?

Musically shit-hot but also brainy and ambivalent, the latest from TV on the Radio cements them as a true Event Band, and the sign o' the times they capture here isn't audacious hope, or fierce revolution: it's confusion. They're the house band for a country that has no idea what'll hit it next.

^^^they are Important

as if their coverage of all their past albums hadn't told you that already

they are Important Again

anyone else catch them at Treasure Island this weekend?

Yes. Festival setting/short set isn't ideal for them. Very much looking forward to the Warfield show in November.

Oh, and I don't mean they weren't grebt, right from "Young Liars" on through. Just that festival settings are almost never the best for anyone other than, apparently, Justice.

its like coldplay and beck mixed into one funky package!1

yeah, i loved their set, Goldfrapp too. Justice rawked, which I must say I wasn't necessarily expecting after being let down at their live performance last fall in LA at the Fonda, where it was Cross + the soulwax remix of Phantom Pt. II. Good 1-2-3 though between the three.

San Francisco are def some Justice-lovin' motherfuckers.

i find tvotr a bit too 'worthy' these days. they were genuinely exciting in the beginning but now they seem quite concious of being 'important'. they actually remind me of the roots in that theyre not really a populist band but theyre really trying hard to be one (and still trying to be arty at the same time so although the songs are more straightforward on this one, theyre chucking in weird shit like the horns/orchestras to show theyre not being totally conventional). they do pull it well here, but their 'sound' seemed more exciting before - that first ep/album still seems light years ahead/more innovative/progressive than this or the last album.

San Francisco are def some Justice-lovin' motherfuckers.

you know i was on the nu rave bandwagon last year around this time when i saw boys noize, Simian Mobile Disco, Justice, the institubes label and Daft Punk, but so much shit has been spawned by it. the moshing vibe and such that they put on was a spectacle and that's what i was most entertained by i guess. the fact that they have achieved a state of metal-hood or live nature that they had originally been striving for through a completely different musical vein. anyways, sorry wrong thread for this but i still havent found, nor do i think i will find a nurave thread on ILM.

that being said, i must say that TVOTR was exciting, but i must agree with xpost that the earlier stuff is much more exciting to me. i still hadn't listened too much to the newer stuff when i went saturday and it definitely didn't spur in me a greater interest to listen more closely.

^ I was on that wagon too. Mostly because it's fun. I loved SMD live - I described it to my friends as "just like a rave, only not." Wow! Original! But yeah, lots of stuff kinda sucked after that. I'll treat it as I do any musical movement - I try to only listen to the heavy techno of 2004 that I like the most, only the alt-country I like the most, etc. It's sad that for such a fun little scene it got tons of hype/lifestyle attached to it then tossed aside and is on its way down (I think that nu-rave stuff is infinitely more enjoyable than electro-clash), but oh well. I think I'm mostly just bummmed I hopped on the bandwagon when people were already tiring of it, it was all about the clothes, and I didn't always quite know what a lot of the nu-rave was. I probably wasn't kool enough. Meh.

I saw them on the Cookie Mountain tour, and as much as I loved the first album more than the 2nd, hearing them live made me love Cookie Mountain so much more. They were really loud live, kinda wall-of-soundy, and the sound in the venue was great (The worst part, however, was then they finished with Wolf Like Me and a mosh pit started up in the middle - I was like, are you serious?) I'd be interested to hear how this new stuff sounds live.

^^^ I just suggested you get banned for that post. because I read it.

"fun little scene." "hype."

"mosh pit"

Fuck a hater. David Sitek is the white RZA.

Christgau raved about it on NPR: fun contending with darkness, etc.

the fact that they have achieved a state of metal-hood or live nature that they had originally been striving for through a completely different musical vein. anyways, sorry wrong thread for this but i still havent found, nor do i think i will find a nurave thread on ILM.

are you kiddin? there's like six dozen threads on Justice, Klaxons and SMD. mostly people shitting on em, but still.

i find tvotr a bit too 'worthy' these days. they were genuinely exciting in the beginning but now they seem quite concious of being 'important'.

kind of agree with this, although I do like the new record

i find tvotr a bit too 'worthy' these days. they were genuinely exciting in the beginning but now they seem quite concious of being 'important'.

That's so trite. Got any examples? Direct quotes? All the interviews I've read and seen they are sitting around in their dork glasses geeking out on their passion for music, full of self-deprecating jokes. I've seen no sign of Bono syndrome.

"I've seen no sign of Bono syndrome"

except maybe that scarlet johanson/bowie thing. maybe.

it's really the media and the fans making them "important".

anyway imo DS is their most constantly good album,no fillers indeed, but Cookie Mountain, minus 4 songs is still my favourite - the edges are sharper on Cookie, and i like it better that way with TV

I'm liking this halfway through, although they're never going to return to the immediacy of Young Liars it's not really fair to expect them to. Loving that it's a lot more syncopated and beat-driven than Cookie Mountain which was kind of hard 4/4 all the way through. The "importance" part is foisted-on bullshit but TVOTR will always sound, in a surfacey way, like Serious Men Thinking Seriously. There's nothing wrong with that, esp when as pointed out above they aren't those kind of guys when not playing music.

This is one of those albums that make me listen back to their old stuff with fresh ears and enjoy it more. There are only hints of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Marcello (I'm not a fan of them myself). I can hear everything from Talking Heads to Sly Stone and Dancing Choose is currently my favourite song. Terrific album, very varied but consistent in quality.

I hear Fishbone and Living Colour too (and, no, it's not cuz there's Black People in those bands).

dmr, i know of the group-specific threads and you're right those would have been more appropriate. i just meant that nurave is a bit of dirty word on ILM as you said, people shit on it all the time. anyways, no more on this thread, sorry.

That's so trite. Got any examples? Direct quotes? All the interviews I've read and seen they are sitting around in their dork glasses geeking out on their passion for music, full of self-deprecating jokes. I've seen no sign of Bono syndrome.

"The title comes from a letter I wrote to science that was pinned on the studio wall. I feel like: Come on guys just solve one problem just fix one disease. I swear to god I don't need a smaller phone or a smaller mp3 player and we don't need more defence system shit. Enough you frigging brainiacs. If you have brains, try to connect them to your heart, just for a second and see what happens. This record is the result of our desire to aspire to something higher than air conditioning or technology." - David Sitek

"All this shit that's around us now: Skyscrapers, Atom bombs, the Electric Chair, and the Hummer - they all came about because people put the energy into making them. With the song "Golden Age" we set out to posit a utopian ideal within a pop song." - Kyp Malone

(NB: I am liking this album a lot so far)

(and I don't have any fundamental problem with bands aiming for 'worthy')

ok, if this record suggests Fishbone I may give it a try. Each TV On the Radio record gets so much good talk that I end up picking it up, but nothing aside from "Wolf Like Me" has earned a second listen. But I fuck with Fishbone so I guess I'll give this one a try too.

best set of songs since "young liars." they put antibalas to good use too

I started out liking Cookie Mountain a good deal, then enjoyed it less with more listens. This one seems to be taking the opposite direction. I like it a lot.

The comparison to Hercules and Love Affair is, strangely, a good reference point in 2008, by the way.

Why have amg listed the album with a comma and made a big deal about it?
Mine don't have no such thing.
Promo title only maybe?

After getting through the whole thing I'm really missing the big group vocals and Kyp's ridiculous falsetto.

ah, the comma. read this wonderful rant and then tell everybody to fuck off.

"All this shit that's around us now: Skyscrapers, Atom bombs, the Electric Chair, and the Hummer - they all came about because people put the energy into making them. With the song "Golden Age" we set out to posit a utopian ideal within a pop song." - Kyp Malone

wtf this was MY idea for OUR new album! bastards

tvotr otm,

lol stoners writing press releases

do like this but theres a bit too much in the mix at times. and some of the vocals - like on lovers day - do that sub-bowie-via-suede croaky thing too much. hard to hate family tree though. i kinda get what they mean when they say they often start in the studio saying theyre going to make a track like such and such now - i imagine dancing choose started off as a saul williams/nin song, family tree as a coldplay song, heroic dose as air, and make love all night long as maybe revolution-era prince (or just brassy mid 80s pop in general).

That's so trite. Got any examples? Direct quotes? All the interviews I've read and seen they are sitting around in their dork glasses geeking out on their passion for music, full of self-deprecating jokes. I've seen no sign of Bono syndrome.

"The title comes from a letter I wrote to science that was pinned on the studio wall. I feel like: Come on guys just solve one problem just fix one disease. I swear to god I don't need a smaller phone or a smaller mp3 player and we don't need more defence system shit. Enough you frigging brainiacs. If you have brains, try to connect them to your heart, just for a second and see what happens. This record is the result of our desire to aspire to something higher than air conditioning or technology." - David Sitek

"All this shit that's around us now: Skyscrapers, Atom bombs, the Electric Chair, and the Hummer - they all came about because people put the energy into making them. With the song "Golden Age" we set out to posit a utopian ideal within a pop song." - Kyp Malone

(NB: I am liking this album a lot so far)

― Savannah Smiles, Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:14 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Good answer. Try 'Dry Drunk Emperor' as well. And c'mon - listen to any of their lyrics from their first EP on, they read like that quote. Totally self-important shit. Good albums, though, all of em.

Totally self-important shit. Good albums, though, all of em.

Pretty much sums it up for me. This new album is excellent though, going to make my top ten of the year, probably.

A little leftie political rage in their lyrics doesn't necessarily make them self-important. I recall them saying directly in an interview that they don't think people should look to them as spokespersons for anybody. They're just expressing their opinions. Their rants definitely often have more of a stoner flavor, heh.

Even though the album is #1 at Metacritic at the moment, I think most reviewers are being overly cautious in their praise, like they're afraid to say how great they really think it is for fear of being accused of overhyping, or being caught in a draft of backlash. Drowned In Sound wrote, "A bombshell: as good as it undoubtedly is, this record isn't going to change your life. Nor will it be considered an OK Computer or a Velvet Underground & Nico in ten years' time."

Why not? If it's not a classic, what album in recent years qualifies? Here are all the albums that The Onion rated higher than Dear Science so far this year:

Bound Stems - The Family Afloat
Cloud Cult - For Good Ghosts
Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark
Julie Doiron - Loneliest In The Morning
Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull
Fire On Fire
Jeff Hanson - Madam Owl
Harvey Milk - Life… The Best Game In Town
Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster
The M's - Real Close Ones
M83 - Saturdays=Youth
The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
Meshuggah - Obzen
Bob Mould - District Line
Protest The Hero - Fortress
Jay Reatard - Singles 06-07
Sigur Rós - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Spiritualized - Songs In A&E
Steinski - What Does It All Mean?
Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus
The Walkmen - You & Me

A lot of those albums are not so great. Some are good, a couple are great. It's to be expected their respective fans would sometimes rate an album higher than Dear Science. But when it comes to the end of the year poll, I doubt The Onion will rank it at #20. Chances are good it will top the poll, despite their originally cautious rating.

In my review, I talked a bit about how the era of consensus albums is long gone. People's tastes are just too diverse to agree on any one band or album. But I went ahead anyway and took a stand. After 25+ listens I'm more certain than ever that it's the best album in thirteen years. Do some math and guess which album I'm referring to.

Looking forward to hearing the new material live on October 22nd.

i am really, really looking forward to listening to this. i'm actually savouring the moment -- making sure i have time to sit down and enjoy my first listen (as opposed to my usual trick of listening to everythi

ng in dribs and d

rabs on the bus or when i get a chan

ce).

Great album. As a TVotR agnostic, it gives me great pleasure to call this my album of the year.

"as good as it undoubtedly is, this record isn't going to change your life. Nor will it be considered an OK Computer or a Velvet Underground & Nico in ten years' time.""

I agree with this to a point, but I think it's to this album's benefit. I DO think OK Computer is a classic, but like a lot of albums that I think are really amazing and classic and great, for some reason, listening to them involves engaging with them on another level, not sure what, but I don't actually LISTEN to them on a regular basis. I think I'll be playing Dear Science a lot for a long time.

It's interesting to look at who gave the lowest ratings too. Currently it's Almost Cool.

"It's not as if the tempo drags completely, as songs like "Red Dress" and "Golden Age" meld a bit of almost disco pop into their usual sound, but a good portion of the album simply drags during the mid-section. They try to salvage things a bit near the end as "DLZ" mixes some crisp live drumming and brittle synths in to cut through a bit of the haze..."

Apparently he's talking about "Family Tree," "Red Dress," "Love Dog" and "Shout Me Out." If only more albums had "draggy" mid-sections like that!

that Onion list is very weak IMO, i only love In Ghost Colours. best album in the last 13 years? that is very strong praise but i know F'n'B knows a thing or two. i'm not really a fan but will give this album more than a chance and really digest it.

i'm glad this is number one on Metacritic witch means that the Hold Steady album has been knocked off.

i only love In Ghost Colours..

i thought it read (or wanted it to read) Cut Copy.

Why do bands show up at the top of Metacritic two albums too late? The Hold Steady's best was Separation Sunday, and TV on the Radio still haven't topped Desperate Youth. Though I'll admit, they have come close this time.

I still can't get into this dude's voice. A pity since everything on a sonic level they're doing is great. Oh well, I guess once again I'm missing out on the "critics' darling" album of the year...

...but I really hope this isn't 2006 again and ppl vote this on "importance." Hell I hope Portishead destroys this in the polls

naw Tunde's voice is fine, Kyp kinda ruins things sometimes tho

"as good as it undoubtedly is, this record isn't going to change your life. Nor will it be considered an OK Computer or a Velvet Underground & Nico in ten years' time.""

agree with that.
the reason for it is that dear science, as good as it is, doesnt offer anything new, that one's havent heard before, as as oppose to the Velvet/Rdiohead/other classic albums

who cares whether it's "classic"? When did this thread get so dumb?

...but I really hope this isn't 2006 again and ppl vote this on "importance." Hell I hope Portishead destroys this in the polls

But see, Portishead has the same potential to win over the "importance" vote. That said... it's still my album of the year. TV on the Radio might make a top ten or fifteen list, once the whole thing is wrapped up.

Am i the only one who thinks Young Liars and Desparte Youth were 20x better than this and cookie ???? miss the soul+noise stuff :(

same here. three listens and I still don't see why people are dying and killing for this album

thirded. its quite a soft album. even some of the production touches are well-worn (the sampled trip-hoppy drums that come in on love dog, the D&B drums on shout me out).

TV on the Radio - Dear Science = top rated album of the year on rateyourmusic

Top 1000 albums of 2008
http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2008

I'm shocked at how well received this album is considering all I heard from everyone I talk to was groans and complaints in that two weeks between when the leak hit and when the reviews hit.

Who will be this year's Dylan to upset TVOTR in the Pazz and Jop critics' poll?

top of metacritic 2008 albums as well
http://www.metacritic.com/music/bests/2008.shtml

i listened to this on their myspazz a couple of times

it's ok but seriously is this all we ask for

album of the year. maybe the past 3 too..

This is a damn good album, but I can't help but feel slightly underwhelmed. Cookie Mountain was a bit of a chore to get into, but it unraveled slowly and grew into a personal favorite. This one is definitely more immediate, but doesn't strike me as something that'll hold up to repeat listens. I wish they'd kept some of the dusty cobwebs from Cookie Mountain. Nevertheless, this album is a fine addition to their catalog.

Satellite off Young Liars is better than anything on this. Nasty modern sound. Way overrated.

I heard a couple more tracks from this on the radio over the weekend. Quite good, like a more aggressive Stereolab, but I'm not really convinced.

Satellite off Young Liars is better than anything on this.

OTM x 1000, ditto "Staring At The Sun", "Blind", "Young Liars"

I finally got the promo copy and listened to this in the car on Friday. I didn't like it much, for a couple of reasons: I think they sound a lot more brittle and thin on this album; I want the bass back; the sub-Bowie vox remind me that, y'know, Bowie does have a pretty thin voice himself; the brief moments of falsetto seem a lot more strained, like his voice is aging out of being able to hit the notes he used to; I don't like the emphasis on texture over straight harmonies; the lyrics get pretty damn ridiculous at a couple of points, enough to distract me from the rest of the song.

I wasn't a huge fan of Cookie Mountain, still really love the first one, and this was kinda another disappointment. I'll give it another shot in a couple of days to see if different music environments help (and since I know they're doing a fair amount of subtle stuff in the background that might be well-served by a more in-depth listen).

So far though, it really seems to suffer from comparisons to Hercules and Love Affair—that album has everything this one should but doesn't.

Hercules And Love Affair??? Come on. At least you've got the CD. So rather than a shitty car stereo or computer speakers, try it on real speakers. There's plenty of low end.

I love the spare, soulful simplicity of "Blind," "Ambulance," etc., but I wouldn't want them to stay the same. RTCM was a great album, but "A Method," "Let The Devil In," "Dirtywhirl" and "Blues From Down Here" weren't completely successful. They were interesting but seemed incomplete. It is what it is, and I wouldn't change it, because it was an important step towards Dear Science, where they nail every single song. A lot of people associate RTCM's messy, dense layers of grit and darkness with quality. I appreciate it, but remember that the early spare songs everyone is nostalgic for were not heavy. It's been so long since I've been totally happy with an entire album. Everything that's great about them, creative arrangements, lyrics, passion, comes through undiluted.

I noticed yesterday that Tunde's vocal on "DLZ" is very nasally, almost in a Billy Corgan-esque way. I closed my eyes and could imagine Corgan singing it. Not a bad thing necessarily as I'm a big Pumpkins fan, but the similarity was striking.

The lack of bass and the thin sound is a BIG problem. It sounds like Keane or Embrace or something. It REALLY shouldn't.

What have you got against Embrace?

Their production.

I feel your pain regarding the compression and clipping problem with a lot of modern music. I'm all for better dynamic range, but it's a slippery slope to get too anal about it. I don't want to get so obsessed and distracted that I can't enjoy a lot of my favorite albums that don't sound perfect. If one can't enjoy music anymore, I suppose there's the option of becoming a mastering engineer and fighting the good fight. The pay is crap though, and you still have to do what the clients ask for. I used to be in that business.

Dear Science is not badly compressed. There is a tiny bit of clipping, but not compared to the real offenders, where the graphic representations of the files look like a giant log-turd. No, there is no heavy dub bass, but that's obviously not what they were going for, and I can't say it's really reasonable grounds for criticism.

Ick.

http://www.salon.com/ent/music/review/2008/09/30/tvotr/

Wow up there on the shortlist for wrongest review ever.

This record does what Barack Obama ought to do; mixing Euro-American and African culture naturally and seamlessly, it gets indignant about politics without simplifying its positions, brings its multicultural constituency together, stirs you to action and makes you want to party at the same time.

oh goodness

Fastnbulbous: I agree, it's not the worst-sounding or most-compressed record I've heard, in fact far from it. BUT, I had an indulgent headphone session with Long Fin Killie and Kitchens Of Distinction the other week, which has fired up my bile once again. No, Dear Science doesn't sound terrible compared to Keane, but it does sound terrible compared to Hex, or Snivilisation, or Louis Sclavis, or A Series Of Sneaks, or The Power Out, or In Mass Mind, or Aerial, and unless the songs or aesthetic JUMP out at me as being AMAZING, I'm just not prepared to bother with stuff that falls into that hole anymore.

its just a very commercial production. if it was given a bit more heft, like say, the last arcade fire album, it could have been as epic as everyone seems to be projecting on to it.

Just like Obama.

I thought this album sounded terrific on headphones last night.

like say, the last arcade fire album

lol

This record does what Barack Obama ought to do; mixing Euro-American and African culture naturally and seamlessly, it gets indignant about politics without simplifying its positions, brings its multicultural constituency together, stirs you to action and makes you want to party at the same time.

Fucking win!

"African culture"

http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0735/hannaham.jpg

YOU GONNA PULL AN ETHAN ON JAMES HANNAHAM, AL? YOU GONNA?

http://www.essaysolutions.com/images/j_hannaham.gif

haha woops, this is Hannaham.

he had a shaved head when his pic was in Spin when he did a "I was a contestant on Singled Out" piece back in the day, so that threw me off.

Those two guys look NOTHING alike haha.

TVOTR is also some mean ice hockiers!

where's SFJ?

That review is rubbish but I am indebted to it for reminding me that TVOTR are in fact the Living Colour de nos jours and like Living Colour they fundamentally just don't cut it.

they did used to cut it.

i liked golden age on jools last night. sounded a bit shambolic and messy, like they had barely rehearsed but better (ie noisier) than the neatness of the album version.

No they didn't. Listen to their records again. Boring, studium-filled rock.

Also TVOTR judging by Jools last night require haircuts, shaves, suits and ties.

i gotta hear this thing. hated their last album first couple of times i heard it ("what is this wishy-washy, pseudo-pretentious, 'look-at-me-ma-i'm-so-profound' horseshit!?"), and then i didn't ("oh, yeah, that is kinda interesting, duh..."). later yet, i learned to love the ficking record! my only question: why do they have to make it so hard for a guy to just enjoy their music? damn hipsters!

"stadium-filled"

I'm seeing them Friday night in Shoreditch in some parking lot... very excited. This album gets better and better... and I definitely started out skeptical (I haven't liked the entirety of ANY of their albums. Songs here and there, but no complete albums - until this one).

this. is. fucking. brilliant.

http://www.studium.com/

http://www.punctum.com/

One always has to make allowances for the mentally deficient. It's a disgrace.

haircuts, shaves, suits and ties.
haircuts, shaves, suits and ties.
haircuts, shaves, suits and ties.
haircuts, shaves, suits and ties.

It's only right.

Hannaham's article gave me flashbacks to articles by Greg Tate in the 80s and 90s. He even references his "Flyboy In The Buttermilk" title. It's obvious why that sort of earnestness and focus on the band member's ethnicities are taboo in this circle, but "po-faced" or not, there's a demographic that will eat that stuff up. Expect to see more of it in NPR, Utne Reader, perhaps the Voice. I don't know if their songs can be shoehorned into sloganeering for Obama, but really, I don't care if it provides the soundtrack to Dick Cheney and his creepy cronies drinking the blood of liberal journalists from golden goblets in a ghoulish ceremony before the election. It's always interesting to see music snake outside the small indie circles and how it's interpreted.

It's #12 in the Billboard 200 chart this week, with 32,000 copies sold. A marked improvement over RTCM's #41 debut at 20,806, though still a world away from Metallica (489,883) and Coldplay (721,207).

Marcello OTM TVOTR would be better with less stadiums and must sign to Razor & Tie

satellite, staring at the sun, modern romance, the wrong way, dumb animal, wasted weekend, all "Boring, studium-filled rock", definitely.

It's okay Marcello just hasn't had his bowl of dicks this morning.

I'm not really feeling this album as a whole, I miss the edge that their 1st album and EP had, I didn't really like Cookie Mountain either.. but "Family Tree" is my shit.

The EP (particularly "Sattelite" which is like my fave song of theirs) and the 1st album had this song of free-jazz, post-soul think going on that I thouught was really cool, loved the shoddy drum machines, layers of noise with bee-bop harmonies and stuff.. and Cookie Mountain and Dear Science, both feel a lot safer to me.

dear science esp is way more varied (obv) which is mostly because they added members after the EP (the last two added play tons of shit on dear science) but i think it's made them better. drum machines are cool i guess but i think having a live drummer really works for them?

brainwasher are you really not down with "crying" or "red dress" (outro of this one especially)? also "lover's day" is kinda like "family tree"

there shouldn't be a question mark there

Reactions to this band continue to baffle me completely. But I spent the day with Dear Science and it's really, really good.

xp: There are definitely other songs I like on the album - "Halfway Home" and "Crying" are really good - but I'm not hearing the OMG INSTANT CLASSIC everyone seems to be talking about and it's not really touching Desperate Youth... for me.

I've only heard two songs, but I approve of non-dance bands turning into dance bands.

― The Referee (The Reverend), Wednesday, September 10, 2008 10:19 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is not a dance band album

its not. it actually gets into tvotr's version of snow patrol/keane/coldplay/etc towards the end.

about half of it is. the better half

xpost

... which is the acceptable face of snow patrol/keane/coldplay-ness. (and i actually quite like some of keane's stuff OH NO, WHAT AM I SAYING?)

no dude. drum machines and horn sections do not equal "dance music"

it actually gets into tvotr's version of snow patrol/keane/coldplay/etc towards the end.

Shit! If Snow Patrol/Keane/Coldplay have songs that are as devastatingly amazing as "DLZ," I need to listen to a hell of a lot more Snow Patrol/Keane/Coldplay!

love this record, and get what you're saying about their sound changing but this is not dance music.

I didn't mean dance as in dahnce, if that's what you are trying to get at

you meant drum machines and horn parts right? i mean they've always had drum machines but yeah i get you.

I mean as in you can dance to some of it, simple enough.

you can dance to radiohead.

in 2001 i went to this weekly "britpop new wave" night and they'd play idiotechqe every week.

modern romance

See that would have been a much better idea - TVOTR doing covers of "Everybody Salsa," "Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey" and "Twelve Others That Sound The Same."

maybe not a better idea but a v v good idea^^^

Whoda thunk that a song with a title as awful as "Love Dog" could be this good?

This album has knocked me sideways a bit, but then again, I've not paid much attention to them before. Is it similar/ddiffferent/better/worse than their previous output? They're suddenly my favourite band in the world today.

I'm given to understand that it's a stunning return to form.

That said, Charlie - some of them dress like hobos, with unruly hair and whiskers. Tread lightly.

I like hair and whiskers!

Now I think about it, I saw TVOTR in Nottingham in about 2005 but I have absolutely no idea what they sounded like.

You remember that Cagedbaby album cover? TVOTR make Cagedbaby look like Modern Romance.

Congratulations on the mess you made of things;
On trying to reconstruct the air and all that brings.
And oxidation is the compromise you own
But this is beginning to feel like the dog wants her bones
saved

You force your fire then you falsify your deeds
Your methods dot the disconnect from all your creeds
And fortune strives to fill the vacuum that it feeds
But this is beginning to feel like the dog's lost her lead

This is beginning to feel like the long
winded blues of the never
This is beginning to feel like it's curling up slowly
and finding a throat to choke

This is beginning to feel like the long
winded blues of the never
Barely controlled locomotive consuming the picture
and blowing the crows, the smoke

This is beginning to feel like the long
winded blues of the never
Static eplosion devoted to crushing the broken
and shoving their souls to ghost

Eternalised. Objectified.
You set your sights so high.
But this is beginning to feel like
the bolt busted loose from the lever

Never you mind
Death professor
Your structure's fine
My dust is better
Your victim flies so high
All to catch a bird's eye view of who's next

Never you mind
Death professor.
Love is life,
My love is better.
Eyes could be the diamonds
Confused with who's next

Never you mind
Death professor.
Your shocks are fine,
My struts are better.
Your fiction flies so high,
Y'all could use a doctor
Who's sick, who's next?

Never you mind
Death professor.
Electrified, my love is better
It's crystallized, so'm I.
All could be the diamond
Fused with who's next

This is beginning to feel
like the dawn of the luz of forever.

Wow those are horrible lyrics. They are TVOTR lyrics, right? You didn't write that? My girlf'd rather see these guys live than Kraftwerk :(

i love that song

great song, lyrics are too straightforward to be good, but yr girl is right,xpost

songs 7-11 on DS are (even) better than 1-6.
i also tend to skip "stork and owl" and "family tree".

Lyrics usually look bad written out, anyway. I think I want to hear this. She ISN'T right, man. Do they really strike you as a band that'd be good live? Have you seen them? If they really are, I guess I'll go with her

The growing hysteria in Adebimpe's voice in "DLZ" is what sells those lyrics!

that,the hooks, and the fact that it has not one but two catchy choruses that you can also dance to.

The show tonight has been moved from the car park to Cargo, I hear, due to council/permit issues.

Lyrics usually look bad written out, anyway. I think I want to hear this. She ISN'T right, man. Do they really strike you as a band that'd be good live? Have you seen them? If they really are, I guess I'll go with her

They're a damn sight better than good live. Your girlfriend OTM.

So did anyone here get in to Cargo? How was it? The queue was a joke.

so youre saying theres no point for me trying to get in to the ny show..

umm, not sure? are they playing as part of a festival in New York where the organisers are so hopeless they have booked them without having organised permits for a decent size venue for them to play in?

I saw the Cargo show last night (waited about an hour and finally got in around 11. They started at 1am). They were really great; the place was PACKED and hot as hell. You really couldn't move at all on your own, you just sort of shifted in waves with the crowd. The place went nuts for "Wolf Like Me" and "Staring at the Sun" (the latter of which they finished with, a version that was super fast and had a huge, stomping beat that was almost house-like).

The only minor let-down for me was the set-list; I think they only played 3 or 4 songs from "Dear Science" in a 1hr 15min set! (they did "Golden Age," "Dancing Choose," and "Shout Me Out," and possibly one more). None of the slower songs in there. I was really looking forward to "DLZ," "Crying," "Halfway Home," "Red Dress," "Family Tree" - the rest of it, really). But they sounded excellent, and Tunde is an excellent frontman (Kyp only sang lead on 1 or 2 songs it seemed to me).

Although the room with the stage was jammed when they played, the rest of the place was not crowded at all, which made that several-block-long-line even more insulting.

i wish theyd do more with electronics live. then again, theyre more of a band-band now so they dont really need to. sounds amazing though. i wanna see them at shepherds bush but its sold out.

I think a) "Halfway Home" is easily the best thing here and b) the album dips significantly thereafter until "Love Dog" and by then it's too late

RONG

after another few listens, NOT RONG.

"family tree" is unforgivable corny shite, "crying" nicks its unremarkable chorus hook from Mercury Rev's "Nite And Fog", the tracks in between those two are completely mundane, and even when it improves slightly near the end, this is only to raise it to "decent", absolutely nothing on even their own previous best material. just really boring music, clinical, brassy, rouseless.

"halfway home" is rly rly good, manages the tension and release beautifully. i cannot believe they threw that at us then bailed on the album

i only say this because Dear Science is gonna clean up at the polls, and much like Sound Of Silver last year, it will be an outrage, perpetuated by listeners who confuse "edgily populist" with "genuinely groundbreaking"

you may accuse me of point-missing, to say, that "populist" is precisely what gets the votes in, but the impression i'm getting a lot from this thread (and many reviews) is that TVOTR have somehow advanced popular music, that this is an "important event". anything fucking but imo.

Have you heard any "genuinely groundbreaking" music this year? I have not even heard Dear Science yet, but maybe "edgily populist" is enough for some(sometimes it's enough for me)---on the other hand, maybe some reviewers and fans need to move beyond simply trying to guess which Pitchfork fave may make it big, and giving them undue weight just because they've won "the next big thing" lottery (or maybe some folks just like it--and cynics are reading too much hyperbole into the acclaim).

There hasn't been a great deal of genuinely groundbreaking stuff from THIS year that I've actually heard (hopefully to be rectified very soon with additional purchases), 2008 seems to have been quite consolidatory after an absolutely flat-out stunning 2007. Volcano! continue to push things onwards and upwards, Late Of The Pier have done some very interesting things within a UK pop context, and Youthmovies are showing plenty of promise. There's been a lot of good genre-based stuff like HMHB's album, The Secret Machines and The Hold Steady, and The Chap continue to be alluringly odd. But...little has really really challenged me or blown my mind. Not even Portishead! And that's probably one of the more interesting albums of the year. There's a band called Virgin Passages (arf) who released an utterly intriguing mini-album this April (called "Distance") that hasn't been mentioned once on ILM, and which I discovered via a lucky punt at a used CD shelf. Maybe that's how I'm gonna wind up finding out about the more searching material, because here people seem to be content with what they're force-fed.

Which reminds me; I've gotta check out the metal thread.

Naw you're still wrong. And being "genuinely groundbreaking" is fucking nothing at all. It is debatable that the 2000s have even had a groundbreaking album.

Oh my days.

Lemme guess - when "OK Computer" came out, there was no more ground to be broken, right

That's the best you can do?

Merely trying to second-guess you. Which albums since 1992 would you consider "groundbreaking"?

Let's take it here: TS Progress vs Novelty

this album is pretty dreary after a while.

I think that's a strategic mistake louis. That thread wasn't terribly successful the first time.

This was a better thread on this topic: The Cult of the New?

Dear Science, is a very good album. I like it more than the first two I think. Partly because of better, catchier, cornier songwriting.

The problem with looking for stuff that is "genuinely groundbreaking" is that pretty much the only way it can really happen in (let's call it) "alternative rock" these days is through being "edgily populist". No one will pretend that anything done by TV on the Radio or LCD Soundsystem or any of the bands you mention is actually expanding our notions of what music can do; at best a band or an artist can be smartly recombinant, establishing links between disparate ideas and drawing them into an unexpected, pleasing constellation. Or by siphoning off ideas from other genres and presenting them in a "rock" context. In that sense making something "edgily populist" has the same formal capacity for greatness as any other strategy a band might employ - as [nabisco] and Josh conclude in that thread I link to, the choice between progress and novelty is collapsed in rock into a choice about style.

[nabisco] says: "I'd largely agree, Josh, with the idea that's it's "just" style now, at least within the space of a broad genre such as "indie rock" or "chart pop" or "nu metal" --- the formal elements are largely the same (hence the genre classification), but the presentation varies. It's a bit like eating chicken for dinner every night, except that one night you get Caribbean jerk chicken, and the next you get Florentine, and the next it's battered and fried."

Shouting "The Emperor has no clothes!" might be fun but I think we're all open to that charge if we try to defend the contemporary music we like with the phrase "genuinely groundbreaking". Which is not to say you're not allowed to dislike Dear Science,, but it's more convincing to explain your disappointment in terms of the music being an articulation of ideas that you find weak or unpleasant (and why), rather than casting everything in the terms of a mythic battle between progress and populism.

oddly, i didn't want or expect this album to change my life. nor did it.

still fuckin' great, though, innit?

i was playing this on a big soundsystem at work the other day and this rocker dude in his late 40s/early 50s came in the room smiling and nodding his head and was like "peter gabriel-- sweet!"

I mean seriously the criteria for "groundbreaking albums" should be such that we're talking about 5 albums a decade tops. Maybe more in the 60s when everyone put out an album a year or more.

^And when there was still a huge whack of stuff that hadn't been done in rock/pop music yet. By the mid-70s (being very generous) there remained little terra incognita and everything that came after was essentially some kind of reiteration.

Tim F, the final paragraph of your last post is so OTM my pockets are rattling.

i was playing this on a big soundsystem at work the other day and this rocker dude in his late 40s/early 50s came in the room smiling and nodding his head and was like "peter gabriel-- sweet!"

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Sunday, October 26, 2008 6:38 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the post that convinced me to get off my ass and get this album

i might be in the minority but i really did think the young liars ep sounded very innovative. or if not 'innovative' per se, totally unlike anyone else.

I take your points, Tim, and I accept that while this album isn't for me especially, the stylistic choices at least apply TVOTR's distinctive ethic onto poppier songwriting, which is doubtless to the joy of many ILM listeners. Yes, while not world-ending, it does what it sets out to do. My issues with it are not only brought about through my own subjective non-enjoyment of the majority of the record (fwiw Shout Me Down is another pretty darn good track, just so I can say I'm not blanket-dismissing it), however, but as a political response to what many claim is the record's "importance" within a chronological or progressive musical narrative. I also happen to believe that previous TVOTR records were not only more enjoyable, but did more that was new and exciting.

Now, as for your points as regards how innovation might be wrought.

at best a band or an artist can be smartly recombinant, establishing links between disparate ideas and drawing them into an unexpected, pleasing constellation. Or by siphoning off ideas from other genres and presenting them in a "rock" context. In that sense making something "edgily populist" has the same formal capacity for greatness as any other strategy a band might employ

and staggerlee's narrative demarcation

By the mid-70s (being very generous) there remained little terra incognita and everything that came after was essentially some kind of reiteration.

Why must the "ideas" be disparate, why cannot the work be ONE idea executed through a myriad of techniques and instruments? Sure, innovation has often been wrought by bringing electronic techniques to rock or jazz techniques to metal to name but two, but when I hear a genuinely groundbreaking record, its individual songs at least (and no less) have generally been constructed upon a single cogent thematic principle, no matter where the actual wave-forms lurch. I don't believe in a "rock" context either, and I only use such terms for identification. Using available wave-forms and sound production techniques to create new, arresting, cogent and affectingly artful music is the only way of achieving sustained artistic greatness, in my opinion. Pop music can of course fulfil these criteria. It has done so in the past and will again. However, TVOTR aren't searching for pop heaven, they're working within the discourse of popular rock, or "populist" music for those who crave their bands to have a narrative. "Edgily populist" music, verse-chorus formulaic rock with your aforementioned recombinant styles, can achieve greatness within this populist narrative, and of course it can resonate to the level of greatness with those that hear it and are deeply moved by it, but much as I personally love a great deal of music like this, I am always looking for bands like TVOTR who have demonstrated a willingness to experiment to open their minds further and make adventurous stylistic choices rather than safe ones (see: "Family Tree") or bafflingly limited ones ("Stork And Owl") to develop themselves away from horn sections, swooping strings or snippets of noise my brain has previously registered. The catch is that 'adventurous' is easy to tune out to if it doesn't quite catch the ear right, hence loss of popularity and the inevitable death of status as pop. TVOTR are too compositionally one-dimensional to work outside of a context in which rhythm, tension and sound are fucked about with, and there is too little of that going on here to really interest me, two or three good songs aside.

As for the point about how everything now (and since the 70's) is a reiteration, I am dumbfounded and appalled that somebody could think in such a closed-minded, self-denying manner. We've almost exhausted 4/4 pop, I'll give you that. But with software techniques and compositional avenues expanding almsot by the day, I think we're only a short mental leap away from a world where compositional rules become even more pliable in the (even popular) music discourse. There is so much more that can be done, so many more uncharted artistic effects that can be wrung out of combined waveforms. Yes, they are combined, and yes some of them might have been used before, but the art and the purpose will be entirely new.

Again, this is not a problem I have with the band, and I will probably place "Halfway Home" in my year-end vote (provided someone nominates it!).

"genuinely groundbreaking"

oh for fuck's sake.

does anyone look for this as a virtue in albums? I want "great performances" and "good songwriting." As it happens, the corniness of the tunes and delivery on this one (as Tim intimated) make this one leagues beyond its predecessors. This band needs corn like Bryan Ferry needs melodrama.

"Why must the "ideas" be disparate, why cannot the work be ONE idea executed through a myriad of techniques and instruments? Sure, innovation has often been wrought by bringing electronic techniques to rock or jazz techniques to metal to name but two, but when I hear a genuinely groundbreaking record, its individual songs at least (and no less) have generally been constructed upon a single cogent thematic principle, no matter where the actual wave-forms lurch."

I disagree with this as an interpretative approach, although I should stress that it's not from my perspective obviously wrong. My distance from the position you're taking has developed gradually over a long period of time. There's certainly a proud tradition of thinking about music in terms of the one (idea) and the many (sounds) but I think this leviathan model ultimately simplifies, reduces and hypostasizes something much more complex going on within music. A given piece of music is never about one idea, although it may be that for a particular listener it appears to express one thing more forcefully than anything else. The disagreement between listeners w/r/t what a given piece of music does is not an epistemological discord over an ontological singularity, it's an indication of the inherent multiplicity and inexhaustibility of music, which I would argue is itself a result of any given piece of music's covalency. That is, the "meaning" (which I mean more broadly than just, say, lyrical or thematic meaning) arises not directly from the positive (sonic) properties of the music, but from the relationship between them. This is one reason that almost all complimentary terms we use to describe how a given piece of music works ("groove", "soul", "pathos" etc.) are ultimately undefinable: they cannot be boiled down to a property but rather denote relational effects.

Which is why I prefer terms like "articulation" and "constellation" - terms that suggest ideas being expressed together, or being bought into contact with one another, in a way that does achieve a unity without dissolving that which comprises the unity. It also gets more closely to what I think ultimately is impressive in music, which is not the presence or absence of a particular idea or sound, but the skill and flair with which ideas and sounds are presented.

It also gets closer..., urgh.

OK. What I was perhaps guilty of was failing to separate the conception and execution of a piece of music. The conception, whether it's "blues jam" or "five-piece prog suite about War And Peace", or "work which uses this electronic effect and this riff and this lyric" is the single idea I refer to. The actual execution, I suppose, is the "constellation", the flair of combination which may (as I said on the other thread; the two arguments could do with being united) result from trial and error or "experimentation", the mythical "groove". The "inherent multiplicity and inexhaustibility of music" is what must inform the conception, along with an idea of how the piece will engage with the listener as art or entertainment, but the enmeshed sounds are produced by performance, by a strange alchemy of different strands rhythmic textural and tonal; this I will freely concede.

"What I was perhaps guilty of was failing to separate the conception and execution of a piece of music."

What if you were? How can conception and execution be separated in reality? Or is this just a sleight of hand trick we use to allow ourselves to separate things out more easily? In my view it is precisely the reification of conception and execution into separate things that is the problem here. Better to think of them as to very different ways of looking at the same thing. One views music as idea and one views music as process.

I'm reminded here of a girl I know who's just done a thesis on how Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics (Wikipedia sez: "In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that the position and momentum of a particle cannot both be known simultaneously. The more precisely known the value of one, the less precise is the other.") provides a model for thinking about any concept.

Analogously, an underlying issue with the way we think about music anything is the fact that we have to hypostasize and reify ideas (or "conceptions") so that they cannot be processes, they have to be complete and atemporal; conversely, a process or praxis has to be emptied out of ideational content, so that to the extent that it executes an idea this idea is an external (complete, atemporal) third time.

Another thing i like about "articulation" is that it implies both idea and process: perhaps a working through of a string of interconnecting ideas in order to create a complex claim. Which might be "there is value in creating a five-piece prog suite (not a ska-punk three-minute single) about War And Peace (not Anna Karenina). The idea that a "five-piece prog suite about War And Peace" being a singular conception undercuts the series of choices that have to be made at every stage in order to come out with this result. It also implies that the outcome was predetermined and that the execution merely colours between the lines; when in fact the idea only exists in and through execution.

From my perspective "five-piece prog suite about War And Peace" cannot be a "single idea" in a definitive sense because the sentence alone already gives away that the idea is an articulation of smaller ideas. Why a five-piece prog suite about War And Peac rather than Anna Karenina? But the "why" isn't intended to cancel out the importance of the totality of the articulation. The fact that there must be a further reason (not stated)

Do you mind if, rather than respond to that, I think about it? It's a very interesting tangent to the initial debate of populism and innovation (which was continued on the other thread), and you've raised issues about the creative process that raise truths that I already suspected of but was willing to argue against. The idea of claiming musical ground through a symbiotic system of inspiration and projection through semi-intuitive semi-improvised choice-making is one I've never quite been able to articulate. Separating conception and execution (and thus permitting oneself the "ONE idea" theorem) has been my easy way out thus far.

*that in turn intimate truths

is a better way of putting it

"a symbiotic system of inspiration and projection"

"projection through semi-intuitive..."

to be clear.

Now I think about it, I've repeated myself. Because the inspirations, when projected, result in more inspirations, and so the projection becomes a process with maddeningly infinite and expansive ends. In order to create a work, this must be tempered by an idea of craft. Hence the semi-improvised, semi-intuitive choices are all part of the articulation. I'm beginning to see precisely where you're coming from now. How ideas are pronounced gives tongue to the idea itself.

louis, out of curiosity, have you ever written a song?

Maybe rather than one idea, it is one articulation of the need to give outlet to one's myriad musical expressions that negates "experimentalism", because given command of instrumentation and and ability to self-edit, this articulation is true to one's vision, inspirations, projections and all.

Max, I have, funnily enough, written songs. I even practiced one with some dude before he quit on the grounds that it had too many time-signatures (three, which I don't consider excessive).

But it was less than 3 minutes long!

how did you experience the writing of that song? in particular w/r/t to what youre saying on this thread?

...

Louis now you're expressing my point better than I am...

The end of my last post was missing. I was trying to say that my opposition to the "one idea thesis" doesn't mean I don't see the value in grasping a musical product as a totality or whole. i.e. the breaking down of music into component parts does not mean those parts are interchangeable.

"Constellation" (which I take from Walter Benjamin and then Theodor Adorno) is useful here: a constellation of stars is both a collection of separate stars and an animal, an insignia, whatever the constellation happens to be. The constellation-as-sign only makes sense as a singular whole; conversely each individual star that belongs to that constellation does not have its meaning exhausted by that belonging.

Constellation is a fine way to express it; my one potential issue with it is that the component parts only interact through reader's agency; from a different planet, those stars might form a different shape entirely. I think music is on the whole more self-determined than that. Maybe more a flock of geese in V-formation flight; they're in their positions because their co-ordination is what carries them with such effectiveness, but individually they are independent units, the artifice of whose joining together is betrayed by each one's discordant honking, the very personal stamp of instrumental agency which gives each bird a meaning within the continually-rotating system.

(Max: I worked out the general tune and shifts between rhythms in my head thru a process of conscious storytelling; it sprung I suppose from a bassline I'd discovered but quickly became (through a series of inspirations) a fleshed-out rock song which I was able to modulate and play around with, exploring possibilities and potential paths. This was (aside from working out the bassline on my guitar) all done in my head, and I was able to retain the song there comfortably (I have at least an album and a half's worth of ideas knocking around in there atm). Then, I found a guitarist, settled on one simple reading of the song, and set about playing it from there, seeing if it could work. It largely did, on our limited terms, but we were too impatient, too instrumentally inexperienced and too unaccompanied to make it the success I'd imagined. One day...)

I like the flock of geese metaphor a lot. I'm gonna steal that in the future I reckon.

To be fair "reader agency" is important too though. Music played to people on a different planet might not make much sense to them!

As per the section I quoted (from myself on another thread) upthread, perhaps the reason music appears to be objective or "self-determined" is that musicians are listeners too. They inhabit our world-of-reception so it's not so surprising that there is often overlap or even identity between what a musician believes they are doing and what the listener hears them as doing (hermeneutics calls this the horizon of meaning of any given work: a book, say, appears self-determined because the interpretative communities that the creator belonged to and the listener belongs to overlap sufficiently so as to create a space of common understanding, like overlapping circles on a venn diagram; my caveat would be that this is space is very hazy - we can mostly agree that a given song is "sad" but even within that consensus everyone might have slightly different explanations w/r/t how and why).

It's like someone sitting next to you, pointing up at the night sky and saying, "There! Right there! Those seven stars. Doesn't that look like a bull to you?" And if you'd looked up before independently such an idea would never have occurred to you, but now that you're prompted you can suddenly see the head, the horns...

Now imagine that you were in some sort of astrology class, and every night certain types of clusters of stars were pointed out to you all as resembling certain types of animals. After a while, wouldn't you probably start to the see the same animals in new clusters of stars?

Would that establish that the star clusters really were those animals, in some obscure astrological sense? Or would it simply mean that the class had slowly absorbed the interpretative "rules" of the community and now were in a position to play along too?

I should stress that the most boring thing to say at this point is: "But... it's just a cluster of stars!"

tl;dr♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫
tl;dr♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫
tl;dr♪♫♪♫♪♫
tl;dr♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫
tl;dr♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫
tl;dr♪♫

Ah, but at what level does a musician create in order to sustain an emotional/intellectual moment of their own, and at what level does a musician create in order to demonstrate their skill for composition? And does that "skill for composition" manifest itself in a self-identified genre of other similar skills, all pointing out similar bull-stars, or does it act as a vehicle for a genuine emotional/intellectual sensation that is no less valid or sincere for resembling a certain constellation? And what is the worth of hearing the same constellations in different parts of the sky, at certain times of year, in certain lights from certain hemispheres? You fellas down in Oz have the Southern Cross, we got Orion. Individual star-types in each are the same, and both are totemic, both even are constellations, indeed constellations could equivocate blues songs, but the narrative of each one is thoroughy distinct, like two distinct blues songs played on similar instruments, one of which tells a story of woe about a church and one about a huntsman with similar sentiments and intentions in either. Each one by virtue of its different aspect has a different alchemy, a different articulation. Meanwhile, identikit Cassiopeias flood the charts and the artifice begins to slip. Hence why the self-determination of the constellation-former or the flock of geese must manifest itself in a form which is both sincere and yet going in a direction which is singular. The reader's expectations may be met to some degree but there is a remove, brought about by the fact that the direction is not of their devising. If the reader anticipates the novel's every word, it has surely failed to live up to its very description.

It must (and due to vicissitude will most likely BE) the ONLY flock of geese which flew thataway at that altitude at that time of day making those exact honking sounds. But do not attempt to recreate that flock having seen it, for that is insincere.

If a flock accidentally flies thataway at a very similar altitude at a very similar time of day making similar (yet individual) honking noises, but does so due to expedience (say, a GOOD chart-pop song-route, from the lake to the marsh via verse-chorus and altitude determined by an acceptable 3-minute flying time), this is sincere, and leads often to good pop music. The Cassiopeias are not geese; they are not determinant, and they are plucked out of the sky by opportunists and artistic cowards who see the W of wealth in the heavenly host of musical possibility.

louis sorry if im misunderstanding you here but it seems like youre claiming that you didnt like the tv on the radio album because you anticipated every minute of it?

is tvotr sincere?

Haha, that was a digression and doesn't apply here! Some of it was fairly predictable once the basic song-pattern was established, but I did not feel at any point that I knew how the album would go (good thing too, coz I wouldn't have gotten to "Shout Me Out" which is awes). TVOTR is very sincere, I believe, but some of their sincerity might be misguided this time around. "I would sincerely like this album to have swelling horn sections because that will convey the emotional import more effectively and lucidly", for one. Swelling horn sections are generally a sincere cliche, unless it's Ronson, in which case they're heinous antimusical cuntery. :D

Well, it does apply here slightly, within songs, but I wouldn't call the album one that you can anticipate. It isn't cynical.

And much of it might fit the "similar geese" clause of good pop music, which aside from not being quite so much "my thing", I believe only fails because the band's compositional strengths aren't suited by the route.

Where are these cliched horns that are being used to convey emotional import? Really don't know how you're getting that from the horn parts on this record.

Just an instinct that the horns are being used in a manner that dials in from previous discourses I've heard, and without the same force. Ditto the strings.

Not always mind. There's the occasional effective deployment IMO. What do I know tho; maybe I'm overlooking great pop because it isn't to my taste! Your truth is as valid as mine.

Like er Red Dress comes over as an unmemorable Brazilian funk exercise to these ears, without much of a melody, or criminally much funk or drama to sustain interest. Fortunately, it's the record's low-point, and things pick up from there. Altho DLZ, catchy as it is, places a LOT of currency on its Bonham-on-hi-hat shiz, which wears down fairly quickly. The song itself through its heightened repetition comes across a little falsely to me, although hey it does groove (see above, or that other thread, or something).

Young Liars (song) might be one of the simplest things they've done; it's also pretty much my favourite song of theirs, because it comes across as a piece of music that discovers itself as it goes, gains strength from its momentum, and launches naturally into a higher plane of expression (with the vibrato organ/guitar hum lending a new and vital force to the vocals). Halfway Home does something similar, and Love Dog/Shout Me Out also find pulsing essences within their very articulation, which they engineer just right.

Much like Portishead "Third" which I slagged off almost on some misguided principle, I'm probably going to end up quite not so much liking but appreciating and respecting far more of this album than I'd be willing to admit on ILM, given my current stance. :D

Also as a final fwiw, Cookie Mountain's songs largely set themselves up on simple, effective drone-pop bases that really suited TVOTR, before exploring and manipulating the forces present in such creations, and so formed an album that wasn't so much a 'sophisticated' pop imposition as a study of what made TVOTR elemental, and thus did it succeed (for me) on a far greater scale than this album. The songs worked and engaged far more readily.

Building on "A Method", "Tonight", "Wash The Day Away", "Playhouses", even "Province" (tho I guess that's where "Family Tree" finds its genealogy) wdve been lovely ;_;

Yeah I don't know, Red Dress to me sounds like the Afrika 70 on steroids doing a pop song. The drums on that track are ridiculous. I thought Cookie Mountain was a really, really great record but they were definitely bordering on diminishing returns when it came to thudding 4/4 beats by the end of that one. Seems like your objection to DS is predicated on not liking its three songs that nod at funk and two of its ballads. We're definitely coming at this one from opposite ends since DLZ and Shout Me Out don't really do it for me as much.

I mean you could just say you don't like TVOTR's attempts at funk and this would be a simpler discourse.

feh i've given this thing a fair shot and it's just bad.

some good ideas done ok and a lot of bad ideas carried off badly. and it sounds like shit! a dozen instruments going at once and they're all crammed into the high-midrange area.

i have not heard cookie mountain but "thudding 4/4 beats" and "diminishing returns" does not compute

I was going to suggest ban, but props to Young Liars and Love Dog held me back. That said... "even" Province???? are you fucking high? best thing on a very good record.

"TVOTR are too compositionally one-dimensional to work outside of a context in which rhythm, tension and sound are fucked about with"

otm.

i dont like the horns on this either. too maximal and not really necessary to the songs theyre used on. and the strings are just corny.

I think this is a rubbish album because it sounds bad and doesn't interest me. But then again I think, increasingly, that Satellite is the only song of their that I like at all.

i have not heard cookie mountain but "thudding 4/4 beats" and "diminishing returns" does not compute

Maybe hear it and get back to us? This too:

TVOTR are too compositionally one-dimensional to work outside of a context in which rhythm, tension and sound are fucked about with

I don't even really know what this means, but TVOTR have never "fucked with rhythm." They've actually tended to mostly ignore it in favor of doing a lot of overdubs and having really good vocals. Where on Cookie Mountain are they fucking with rhythm? 95% of that album has a 4/4 rock beat.

Seems like your objection to DS is predicated on not liking its three songs that nod at funk and two of its ballads.

Erm, not quite. Crying, Dancing Choose, Stork & Owl, Golden Age, Family Tree, Red Dress and Lover's Day sorta leave me cold, and DLZ I only like with major reservations. That's a fair chunk of the album.

As for fucking with rhythm, there's an awful lot more that they do with 4/4 on Cookie Mountain (see: stuttering beats on I Was A Lover, Playhouses) and beforehand (Satellite). Mostly they fucked with texture, dynamics and song-structure, which crucially was kept spare, suiting the band. If anything, they're trying to be far too ornate on Dear Science.

"Province" was very good, aye, by saying "even" I acknowledge that maybe it was the closest forebear to some of the songs on Dear Science, although these ones have been fleshed out with strings n horns n glitz n glamour and lost much of the magic that informed "Province".

this is a way dope album

i like bands like this, where anytime anyone wants to say something about the new album they first have to declare their position on the band itself, like, "i hated their older stuff but this is great"

a la deerhunter, whose new album has been my album of the year for months now, and i'm glad it's getting some positive press. OT, i know.

"Province" was very good, aye, by saying "even" I acknowledge that maybe it was the closest forebear to some of the songs on Dear Science, although these ones have been fleshed out with strings n horns n glitz n glamour and lost much of the magic that informed "Province".

gotcha.

this feels really front-loaded to me. too many Coldplay moments in the second half.

last two tracks are the two best on the album imo!

well two of the best

If there are any "DLZ"s in Coldplay's catalogue, let me know.

not into this record for some reason. i really dug cookie mountain, but this album feels thrown together. im willing to give it another try, but it just feels overproduced and the vocals which never bothered me before really grate on me with this one.

I like this better than Cookie Mountain, but the first EP/album in succession was likely the best thing they'll ever do.

very overrated album. would make a good EP though.

it actually gets into tvotr's version of snow patrol/keane/coldplay/etc towards the end.
― titchyschneiderMk2, Thursday, October 2, 2008 8:55 AM (2 months ago)

If Snow Patrol/Keane/Coldplay have songs that are as devastatingly amazing as "DLZ," I need to listen to a hell of a lot more Snow Patrol/Keane/Coldplay!
― Savannah Smiles, Thursday, October 2, 2008 10:15 AM (2 months ago)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

this feels really front-loaded to me. too many Coldplay moments in the second half.
― Timezilla vs Mechadistance (blueski), Friday, December 19, 2008 3:48 PM

If there are any "DLZ"s in Coldplay's catalogue, let me know.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, December 19, 2008 3:51 PM

heh

very overrated album. would make a good EP though.

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2),
That's the story of this band. Their "best of" is gonna be a monster truck.

I like some of the detail, lots of nice sounds, but I'm not really into the overall sound when it's all pulled together. The songs seem a bit weak as songs and the other stuff doesn't make up for it. Also, I'm not into the vocals even though they are probably better than typical indie vocals. I don't think it's going to grow on me, since I don't think I'm going to listen to it any more.

Am I the only one who likes "Golden Age" the least of any song on the album?

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golden age sounds like robbie williams (millenium??).

― titchyschneiderMk2, Saturday, September 20, 2008 2:07 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark

I was thinking along these lines, too - George Michael, "Freedom"

this wd have made a better album cover:
http://www.okayplayer.com/images/stories/promos/tvotr-384-feature.jpg

To be fair, anything would have made a better album cover.

http://sparky.thehold.net/pix/dobber.jpg
TV ON THE RADIO
DERE SCIENCE,

... no, I disagree.

considering tunde used do to do visual arts, they do generally have quite bad cover art (first ep, album and providence aside). i vote for this as a back cover:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/dec/12/tv-on-the-radio-critics-album

or this, rather:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Music/Pix/pictures/2008/12/12/tvotrparis460x276.jpg

Has this not been polled yet?

id probably vote 'reckoner'

solid but totally overrated album.

I absolutely love Halfway Home and the run from Red Dress until the end. There's a dip in quality in between, Golden Age and Family Tree being my least favourites - for all the praise it's garnered, FT sounds a bit like Coldplay to me.

I would actually have a hard job choosing between Halfway Home and Shout Me Down. The rest can hang be appreciated by others :)

I'm not gonna lie...I really do like TVOTR but I didn't really see the big whoop about this album. Tunde always sounds so bored...and the music is generally the same throughout the album. It's still listenable though...I just don't fully understand all the hype.

Right there with you - I'm puzzled when I see this on the various top of 2008 lists - it's kinda blah and I think that they're capable of a much more consistent, interesting rekkid.

Like their first EP and full length!

I've said it before, but the Afrobeaten up numbers on this album are the only TOVTR (other than "Wolf Like Me", which I'll admit rocks out fairly well) that I can find it in myself to give a shit about. If you'd rather listen to something as awkward as "I Was a Lover" than something as fiercely grooving as "Red Dress", I don't understand you at all.

whats awkward about i was a lover

fiercely grooving as "Red Dress"

i tried to edit this the other night to spin out the jam sess at the end

If you'd rather listen to something as awkward as "I Was a Lover" than something as fiercely grooving as "Red Dress", I don't understand you at all.

OTMFM!

http://www.trmichels.com/MoonPhaseDeerSightings.jpg

"awkward"="can't dance to"

saw rachel getting married and was shocked that a) "Family Tree" wasn't the film's love theme and b) that Tunde can actually sing engagingly when he's not yelling or doing duelling shitty falsettos with Kyp.

'Dear Science', 'the best album of 2008', will not stand the test of time.

will that title be given to merriweather post pavilion as well?

fiercely grooving? red dress sounds pretty messy to me. the whole album is a bit lightweight really.

to be fair, "best album of 2008" will not stand the test of time

did my annual "listen once to the critics fave for old times sake" thing w/this album. meh. tho i dig the irony of black guys updating early 80s skinny-british-guy funk.

u guys are all wrong this is a sick album.

This is beginning to feel like the dog's lost a bone.

What does that even mean?

Don't own the album?

Yeah, is that lyric I'm forgetting about right now?

I wish I was more offended by their shitmouth clutter, didn't find it on average engaging and pretty, cuz "So?" would be a pretty great one-word review.

ok i gotta stop using the word engaging

ha!

It's not Long Fin Killie, is it?

I love this album and it's because:

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If you'd rather listen to something as awkward as "I Was a Lover" than something as fiercely grooving as "Red Dress", I don't understand you at all.
OTMFM!

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Wednesday, April 29, 2009 6:57 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://pitchfork.com/news/35979-premiere-rain-machine-tv-on-the-radios-kyp-malone-give-blood/

sounds better than most of the 'trying too hard to be great' of dear science but that voice is a bit much.

Sorry but can anyone explain this to me...they can't write a tune...that dear science really pisses me off...

I was watching this Gucci runway today and I realized the song that comes up at 2:20 is some sort of interpolation of TVotR's Crying. Really wicked song, this one. Anyone has any ideas who it might be?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7dFYm1KxkE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xhaJuKpxxk