Grizzly Bear - Shields

Warp229 is the upcoming album by Grizzly Bear. Released September 18 2012.

Track listing

1. Sleeping Ute
2. Speak in Rounds
3. Adelma
4. Yet Again
5. The Hunt
6. A Simple Answer
7. What's Wrong
8. gun-shy
9. Half Gate
10. Sun in Your Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk3tURx8a2Q

never liked anything by these guys before, but "Sleeping Ute" is awesome

― mizzell, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 11:04 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah great song

theres something Dirty Projectos-y/Deerhoof-y about it.

awesome sound.

ya i'm a fan of their usual boring selves but this turbulent thing is a good vibe for them.

it's yes-y

it's weird I think earlier on in their career they kept getting compared to akron family and I couldn't see it cuz those dudes were like 1000x better musicians w/ 1000x better ideas or w/e but this song is p akron

also idk akfam don't really exist now or something

they're definitely embracing their interesting side here, i like it.

akron family kinda jammy tho aren't they, this is focused

great! indie record of the year?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bteY_fs3Y18

it's weird I think earlier on in their career they kept getting compared to akron family and I couldn't see it cuz those dudes were like 1000x better musicians w/ 1000x better ideas or w/e but this song is p akron

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 7 June 2012 23:17 (1 month ago) Permalink

If by "those dudes" you mean akron family I strongly disagree with this statement

Akron had two ideas. Which worked pretty well for an album and an EP

I did mean akfam by those dudes

I like both bands tho! I'm just saying that that earlier song was the first grizzly bear song that lived up to that comparison or w/e

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2012/07/Grizzly-Bear-Shields.jpg

new album now is called Shields and is set to be released on September 18, 2012.

i think Warp229 is actually the catalog number.

love the newer song as well, this is going to be a great album.

i kind of liked Warp229 as an album title.

Yet Again sounds like Cass McCombs

Is it weird that I think Yet Again sounds a little like Hot Chip?

I think it just sounds like Coldplay.

Coldplay? Nonsense. This is really good. Seems to be continuing in the tumbling momentum and melodicism of Southern Point, which was my favourite off Veckatimest.

Yeah, I really like this and I'm anticipating a slew of high praise, the highest praise

Somehow they pull off sounding both like a dusty artefact and something modern and new, too.

I love how those two tracks sound. Very band in a room.

Nick, you genuinely hear melodicism of note on Yet Again? I like GB, but that melody gets on my nerves.

no one's mentioned whiney chilling and eating BBQ with them in Park Slope.

That definitely must have occurred pre-Yet Again.

no one's mentioned whiney chilling and eating BBQ with them in Park Slope.
--a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Can't believe you didn't go with "grillin and chillin"

I dunno if I'd use "chillin" to describe their expressions in the photos.

2nd song sounds like The Dodos

2nd song ("Speak in rounds") is a skyscraping career high afaic. Excellent marriage of Ed + Dan songwriting styles, love hearing Ed sing like Dan, Dan sing like Ed, love love love. I'm a sucker for the motorik style and VI -> #vi tho

so i guess you like the record?

nah it's shit

'Gun-Shy' is the track I'm loving at the moment.

Nick, you genuinely hear melodicism of note on Yet Again? I like GB, but that melody gets on my nerves.

― some white dude (Turangalila), Saturday, 1 September 2012 23:07 (3 days ago)

I'm talking more of the album as a whole than Yet Again, but I certainly don't find it annoying.

I don't get the same kind of melodicism from Grizzly Bear as I do from The Beatles or Bacharach - to my (untrained) ears what GB do is far more oblique and strange.

Half Gate, guys!

Enjoying this record a lot. I couldn't even tell you what the stand out tracks are, it's taking a while to sink in. Which is great tbh.

Sun In Your Eyes is a big fat glorious psychedelic epic

Not being a huge fan of this band I must admit this album is doing something right. I Keep coming back to it and liking it more and more with each listen.

http://pitchfork.com/news/47798-stream-the-new-grizzly-bear-album-shields/

9.1 well deserved even though I would have rated it higher. By far their best album.

Not being a huge fan of this band I must admit this album is doing something right. I Keep coming back to it and liking it more and more with each listen.

― marginal victory, Friday, September 7, 2012

otm. i didn't "get" Veckawhateverist at all, but this just *sounds* great.

Local HMV hasn't even got any copies of this in yet; they're due 25 but they haven't arrived from the distributor yet. 12 years ago, my brother was the local rep for this distributor, and there's no fucking way they'd not have had copies of an album with this status in stores already; things really have changed.

Shameless self-linking http://www.uncut.co.uk/grizzly-bear-shields-review

That's dull Sick Mouthy. I picked it up on vinyl in Fopp. They must've had a good half dozen plus loads of CD's.

I feel like I'm the only one that's been holding off hearing this until I can get a physical copy. Then again that's how I feel with most new releases these days.

A 9+ review on Pitchfork must boost sales big time. Will be interested to see how much bigger they get.

Got a copy!

does jay-z like this record?

Jay Z loves it. Can't get enough of it. I think i saw him buy like 50 copies at Other Music today during the listening party. He's really REALLY INTO it. Jay LOVES IT

i haven't bought a CD is awhile now, going to buy this one.

A 9+ review on Pitchfork must boost sales big time. Will be interested to see how much bigger they get.

― InternetAlan, Monday, September 17, 2012 6:45 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean, if they were Yamatanka Sonic Titan, sure. This band is already headlining the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City Music Hall. Thinking a score from a music webpage is gonna boost their profile at this point is like wondering what kanye thought of his 10.0

I assume, being in Britain, that Alan's talking about their UK profile, which hasn't been massive previously, and P4K's a bigger deal over thsi side of the pond than it was for Veckatimest.

"i mean, if they were Yamatanka Sonic Titan"

great band btw!

Yeah, I'm talking about their UK profile. Don't get me wrong, they already fill reasonable sized venues here as it is but there's a big leap between where they are presently and the level of success achieved by someone like Bon Iver on the back of his recent well reviewed LP.

There is generally a bit of a gulf in the popularity of a lot of Pitchfork friendly bands here than in the US from what I can tell. Someone like Spoon for example have zero profile here whereas I’m lead to believe they’re quite well known in the states.

not to make this a pfork thread, but just got an email from a local venue that included pf review scores for upcoming bands. :(

although i think i know who sends these out and he's a dick whose true love is xtian emo bands.

wondering what kanye thought of his 10.0

tbf, i'm surpised kanye didn't get a '10.0' tattoo somewhere

He did, we just can't see it.

I think and hope that a band who puts out a record of this high quality would be oblivious to Pitchfork numbers and/or message board response.

Yeah, this is pretty awesome. Their best yet. Their songwriting gets more focused, their instrumentation more forceful, but there's still amazing subtlety here, absolutely fucking formidable chops and interplay. Only Southern Point, Two Weeks, and While You Wait For The Others would fit on here in terms of focus and energy, I think.

One thing slightly confuzzles me, though, about them; they have such an ornate, intriguing, elaborate, mysterious, dreamy sound and aesthetic, and yet so often such prosaic song titles. Feels really at odds sometimes.

i wish the whole record was as muscular and tortoise-y as 'sleeping ute'

The end of Yet Again is muscular as hell. And Speak In Rounds. There are flurries elsewhere, but nothing as consistently as Sleeping Ute, granted.

Veckatimest never fully hybridized Ed and Dan's songwriting voices the way Yellow House and Shields do. I mean, I liked every Veckatimest song on its own, but the contrast in sentiment between "I live with you" / "...Others" and "Two weeks" / "Cheerleader" / "Foreground" was not all that complimentary. Dan's seriousness made Ed's breeziness feel lightweight. And vice versa; Ed's stuff made Dan's songs sound wilfully difficult and mean. Tiny complaints! Veckatimest is rad. But I think Shields is an amazing thing to hear as a followup.

So I am the only one here who doesn't get this forced, hipster-prog wankfest, what 'Shields' is.
OK, not that bad, but both 'Yellow House' and 'Veckatimest' were much more likeable records, and this is a way overrated.

Think I prefer Veckatimest as a whole but this has some very good moments.

i don't really like dan that much but i love ed a lot so while i understand where a post like owen's is coming from, that there's a richness in the synthesis of their songwriting styles, to me it kind of sounds like, i don't know, if ringo were singing lead on 3/4 of beatles songs. "yet again" is great.

So I am the only one here who doesn't get this forced, hipster-prog wankfest, what 'Shields' is.

i don't get it either! i've been trying to because people whose taste i trust are into them/this album, then i saw GB live yesterday and only lasted for four songs bc i was bored :/ i can hear some of what Owen P's hearing in Speak in Rounds though.

the griz are not for everyone, i wouldn't sweat it

"forced, hipster-prog wankfest" made me immediately want to listen to it

lol

I hope it's their most forced, wanky album to date.

haha everything i can't stand about indie rock

i'm certainly not sweating it

I really liked Yellow House, thought Veckatimest was fine, but I just do not get the accolades for this one. I'm not feeling any heart in these songs. Everything feels so futzed over and measured that they become virtually lifeless. Fwiw, the best thing they've probably done was the Friends EP.

i just find it funny that people i know are like "ooh all those weird sounds and harmonies, amazing!" and i listen to GB and feel nothing, like a sweatless robot

First couple of tracks are not wowing me -- there haven't been any of those hang-glider suddenly over the grand canyon moments yet.

I don't really find this wanky, but I do agree that it's kind of lifeless.

I mean, right now this is number 2 on the 2012 charts for highest rated albums by RateYourMusic listeners (lol @ using that as a measure, but still) right behind the Swans record. It just blows my mind that people would be rating this nearly as highly as that.

i thought you would like the first one, hurting (it's definitely the proggiest to my ears).

this record is neat! the songs all sound really twisty and deliberately plotted which sets up these great sun-through-the-clouds moments where they briefly unwind into a familiar sequence of chords or melodic phrase before spiraling back off again

i think 'gun-shy' is my favorite track thus far

I didn't dislike the first track, xp, I just found it a bit unmemorable. The rest of the album moreso, especially compared with past records.

i wish they made a pure rock album. it might sound great.

I wish they went back to vocal harmonies and unusual song structures.

yeah that would be nice too. yellow house style

Good work cameoing at GB's Massey Hall show earlier tonight, Ówen--"Half Gate" was esp. amazing.

Craig you should've texted me!

Grizzly Bear Are Indie-Rock Royalty, But What Does That Buy Them in 2012? - Nitsuh Abebe

Great piece. The financial struggle of musicians these days really concerns me.

Yeah, interesting topic, but perhaps not the best band choice to demonstrate it. I mean, it's kind of hard to feel sorry for Droste and his financial woes when his family owns their own island.

Owns their own island? Is it a big island? Does it make them any money? Can / do they live there?

uh that's wrong, no one owns an island

Yeah, I'm wondering if there's confusion there between album titles / recording locations. Droste's grandma owns a yellow house.

yes she owns a house on cape cod in massachusetts, vecky was named after a small island off the coast of cape cod.

Maybe Chris Bear's uncle owns a shield.

just going to quote the money shot here for ref since there is already confusion

Grizzly Bear tours for the bulk of its income, like most bands; licensing a song might provide each member with “a nice little ‘Yay, I don’t have to pay rent for two months.’ ” They don’t all have health insurance. Droste’s covered via his husband, Chad, an interior designer; they live in the same 450-square-foot Williamsburg apartment he occupied before Yellow House. When the band tours, it can afford a bus, an extra keyboard player, and sound and lighting engineers. ... After covering expenses like recording, publicity, and all the other machinery of a successful act (“Agents, lawyers, tour managers, the merch girl, the venues take a merch cut; Ticketmaster takes their cut; the manager gets a percentage; publishers get a percentage”), Grizzly Bear’s members bring home … well, they’d rather not get into it. “I just think it’s inappropriate,” says Droste. “Obviously we’re surviving. Some of us have health insurance, some of us don’t, we basically all live in the same places, no one’s renting private jets. Come to your own conclusions.”

reading this makes me really sad

Yeah, and you also have to factor in that these guys are probably at the peak of a career that won't stay at this level for more than a few more years. Then what -- 40 years old with no groundwork for a career unless it's in something indie-music-related.

Kind of makes me glad I didn't try to stick it out longer with music though.

I kind of feel it doubly with GB because they're all my age or thereabouts. Think one is slightly older and the rest slightly younger. I don't earn a lot of money, but we're about to buy our second house, these guys do a great job, do it responsibly and creatively, and they can't all afford health insurance (obv as a Britisher I find the Yank system pretty awful anyway). When footballers earn more in a week than I do in a year, that seems fucked-up.

Re: that quote. Obv. the amount of money that a band at GB's level comes home with after a tour is gonna be "a pretty sweet figure" and there's no wonder dude didn't want to disclose. It doesn't take into account the cost of gear or the cost of living during writing/recording periods. Nor does it take into account that if you add up a "best case" income for an indie musician per year from age 20 to 65, divide it by 45 years, you'll get an income that's slightly less than an elementary school teacher. (This is a serious "best case" estimation, too.)

truth bomb/heartbreaker

Part of why the indie-rock world bristles at calculation is that calculating your music’s effect can seem suspiciously like pandering your way toward success. And, perhaps, money. And in these parts, at least, audiences can react badly to musicians who acknowledge a relationship with money—whether wanting more of it, complaining about not having enough of it, or really doing anything other than being immensely grateful that people appreciate the work. Even if said people are stealing it. You will rarely hear an indie act complain about piracy; if they’re successful enough to care, they achieved that success in an ecosystem built on piracy from the get-go. But Droste will say that paying $9 for a digital download of an act’s new album—the price of “a fucking appetizer, a large popcorn at the movie theater, and you’ll have it forever, and they took two years to make it”—matters more than people seem to think, and not just in terms of income. “Maybe they’ll get on the radio. Every record sold shows the industry your value.” Meanwhile, streaming the album from a service like Spotify nets the musicians almost irrelevantly small amounts.

Yeah, it's weird that I may actually earn a better living, overall, than Grizzly Bear dudes, when they're famous and loved by at least hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, and probably contribute way more of value to the world than I do.

uh that's wrong, no one owns an island

― call all destroyer, Monday, October 1, 2012 8:47 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, one of my entertaining coworkers owns an island. It's somewhere bahamas-ish, tiny, and his family camped on it a few times. I think it cost $10-20K, worth quite a bit more now, but no one wants to buy it.

One point I would add to the discussion is that these guys live in New York (presumably Brooklyn), and it's really fucking expensive to live here. Maybe bands just shouldn't live here once they're touring all the time anyway. Not that that would solve everything.

it really is more indie to be a cool Vermont- or western Mass-based band

xp yeah i think i meant no one in grizz bear owns an island, i suppose there are some ppl who own islands somewhere

once you 'make it' of course
xp

it's more indie to be a cool own-island-based band

DIY template for success: buy cheap caribbean island, incorporate as a nation, make said nation a tax haven for own band

as if bands make enough to pay taxes, definitely the 47% and then after they make it, all profits go to the cayman islands like bono does

reading this has made me sad. going to buy this CD, the first CD purchase of this year, not that my $10 will really help that much.

How is that your first CD purchase of the year?

who buys cds?

What I read about them and what they actually sound like are two very different things.

One is very good and one isn't.

i know it's sad, just a couple of years back i bought my whole Top 30 plus. it was a combination of things like money, burn out factor and Amoeba being about an hour away now.

xxpost

http://stereogum.com/1166392/debating-the-grizzly-bear-ny-mag-story-and-making-a-living-making-music/top-stories/lead-story/

I see a former ilxor still retains his commenting style

I think one of the commenters pointed out that the debate is basically about being 25 vs. being 34, and that's pretty much OTM. Of course the 25-year-old dude is like "I don't care if I make any money, because I can't imagine doing anything else!" And it's like yeah, because you're not of age where most of your friends have kids and own houses, you've never been really sick, you don't have a sense that you're aging, the shine on life hasn't dulled at all yet, etc.

tbf, the 34 year old side of things has always sounded like that, though

34 in 7 months.

Of course the 25-year-old dude is like "I don't care if I make any money, because I can't imagine doing anything else!"

actually that sounds more like the 34 yr old's side? more accurately, "i need to make money doing music because i can't imagine doing anything else". the 25 yr old sounded much more reasonable and pragmatic to me (work a real day job, do as much music as i can on the side, why because i like it).

I see a former ilxor still retains his commenting style

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Wednesday, October 3, 2012 2:21 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

????

maybe. but always needing a day job can mean never taking your craft beyond a certain level. xp

haha, wait I just realized I was misattributing a key quote to the 25-yr-old guy that was actually the 34-yr-old guy. NM

isn't wooden wand a dude who commented on ilx? I may be thinking of someone else

no, you're right, same dude.

roger adultery

tbf it's a little more shocking that Grizzly Bear doesn't make a lot of money than that Wooden Wand doesn't make a lot of money. That's kind of a problem with these arguments -- a lot of the people making the arguments wouldn't have been making money in the old system either. It's more surprising that even getting to the relative 'top' doesn't earn you a great living.

have grizzly bear considered kickstarter

"Sing close harmony on our tour! You must send a video or audio recording of you sweetly singing 'ahhhhhhhhhh' -- we don't want just any old amateur!"

they have some old-timey incandescent globes that float around behind them, maybe they crowdsource people to move them up and down

Nitsuh is a champ for both "representing an attractive and saleable version of the band Grizzly Bear" and also "fashioning their non-committal comments re: their own income into a case to justify the scare quote-y cover".

what is so special about music that musicians should be glad to take a wage cut? like ok it is sometimes v enjoyable but so are a lot of other jobs people get payed good money for and they don't say dumb shit like "i feel lucky to be a member of a generation of scientists who work five days a week at a gas station to get by" are so ppl so afraid of seeming entitled that just asking to be remunerated for your labour is too much to ask?

musicians' labour has declined in value independent of any decline in actual demand for music, the cost of stealing music has just decreased and it turns out that was all that was keeping people from not stealing it all along; we feel entitled to all music. but we aren't (anyone making a claim to the opposite kind of necessarily also has to make some deep assumptions about intellectual/private property). yes it's true that musicians have to make a strategic decision given realistic payoffs of playing music/working part time, that doesn't mean it's a good thing that they are now guaranteed to make less irrespective of which they choose. also doesn't mean that people who bemoan the state of affairs are grumpy. saying "hey, mozart was buried in a common grave" doesn't take into account that austria was then a serfdom, not to mention the way music was distributed then is incomparable to now

it's a good thing to think about, sure! but i would wager grizzly bear make a fairly good living at what they do. maybe they should think about not living in new york city! i hear it's expensive there.

i absolutely think they should get paid, don't get me wrong.

you can't make a living these days writing fiction, either! you don't see fiction writers bitching about it. or music writers using that angle. (or do you?)

does anyone remember this article?

http://philip.greenspun.com/samantha/FAQ/wilcox.text

i remember reading it and thinking "JUST MOVE TO THE COUNTRY DUMBASS!"

or music writers writing about other writers using that angle. (or do you?)

i guess a lot of problems i have with 25 yo dude's arguments boil down to the hubris of youth (tho i am 4 years younger than him) but i also think aristotle could bust his balls p hard on deeper logical or moral flaws; seems to me his points ultimately come down to: musicians who happily work part-time are cool or real / musicians who hope to be financially supported by music are whimps

also i agree with owen that this debate couldn't possibly have been inspired by a better article

good post flops

I can't really comment on this so much b/c imo it all comes back to "universal public health care is the cornerstone of a diverse creative class" which is always catcalled as 'such a Canadian stance' although it admittedly could just as easy be described as Scandinavian/British/continental European/Cuban etc.

tbf it's a little more shocking that Grizzly Bear doesn't make a lot of money than that Wooden Wand doesn't make a lot of money. That's kind of a problem with these arguments -- a lot of the people making the arguments wouldn't have been making money in the old system either. It's more surprising that even getting to the relative 'top' doesn't earn you a great living.

I'd be curious to hear from an indie band who was at the "relative top" in the 90s - like, say, Pavement or whoever. Is there an indie band that sold 250k back then? What sort of living did they make? My impression is that all indie bands, at all times, have attained modest financial success/stability compared to their friends who got real jobs. These days it's different in that the bar for making it into the Billboard charts is a lot lower, and the internet has changed the way people consume music... but I think the ratio of indie bands who "make it" and those who eventually bounce out a la Travis Morrison is not hugely different.

I seem to recall a big story back in the late 90s all about how Doug Martsch had to battle with his label just to get health insurance (and Built to Spill was on a major!), which sort of underlines this point.

grizzly bear went to mexico for a month to "get the juices flowing", i think they're doing just fine

who knows, mexico is pretty cheap if you have a place to stay

idk, they could have spent less on food and been able to work faster due to fewer distractions, I'd bet that travel expenses would be less than a month of health insurance premiums

I'd be curious to hear from an indie band who was at the "relative top" in the 90s - like, say, Pavement or whoever. Is there an indie band that sold 250k back then? What sort of living did they make? My impression is that all indie bands, at all times, have attained modest financial success/stability compared to their friends who got real jobs. These days it's different in that the bar for making it into the Billboard charts is a lot lower, and the internet has changed the way people consume music... but I think the ratio of indie bands who "make it" and those who eventually bounce out a la Travis Morrison is not hugely different.

― scott pgwp (pgwp), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 18:54 (1 hour ago) Permalink

Well part of the argument is whether Grizzly Bear is the equivalent of a 250K seller back then or a million seller back then, because bands sell a lot fewer records than they used to, which is (arguably) part of why they make less money (if that's really true)

roger adultery

o rly? That's cool, I had no idea!

When illegal downloading first started the narrative was very much "it's labels that will suffer, bands never see much from record sales anyway." So I'd also be curious to know how a popular-ish 90s indie band did in terms of money accrued from sales.

Don't worry about Droste, he's rich as all fuck.

is someone's inherited economic class an indicator of whether they deserve to make money?

No, not at all. But I do think it's a missed opportunity that Nitsuh didn't explore the backgrounds of Droste and co. Would have made a much more interesting piece. Although I suspect he would have become persona non grata with them afterwards.

I just saw somewhere that Sonic Youth never had a record that approached 500,000 sales, yet I think of them as a band that probably lives reasonably well. Maybe it's just because they've been able to stay consistently relevant for so long?

also they've toured forever

hope they saved enough money...

Yeah I guess they've kind of built themselves into a franchise.

You could make a lot of comparisons to other forms of small businesses -- most fail early, few succeed long term. Although music is now in a weird state where it's pretty hard to get the kind of start-up capital you need to actually have a shot at building a franchise.

it should also be noted that not only do bands sell less in numbers now but albums also cost much less. 200 is the new 500 (or w/e) but $9.99 is also the new $16.99

i think droste makes a reference to veckatimest's sales being inflated a bit because of an amazon first week promotion... i believe those albums sold for .99

Good points.

Also labels getting hurt by flagging sales = smaller advances, which makes it harder to get off the ground. I think the famous Albini piece inadvertently led to the misconception that advances themselves are some kind of evil financial trickery perpetrated by big labels, when they're actually potentially great for bands. The fact that labels "recoup" in itself isn't wrong, it's what they recoup for and how they do it that matters.

Any love for Daniel Rossen's Silent Hour / Golden Mile EP/ mini-album thing, or Chris Taylor's solo album as CANT? Just got them both yesterday.

I saw Taylor perform that record live last year. Wasn't that impressed by it at all. But I felt like I might have experienced the 'Amsterdam' live show.

I really dig the Daniel Rossen EP. The last track is outstanding. I was suprised it seemed to pass by so quietly without much interest, mind you every review I saw was positive. Big George Harrison vibe on it for me.

saw them the other night in Oakland, god awful sound, just terrible. they played as well as they could but for some reason the only thing you could hear was bass.

Bizarre.

it was like, completely overpowering. drums were barely audible, guitars may as well have not been there. people were still into it though. but it was annoying. the sound at this place (the fox theater in oakland) is never good but it's usually on the thin side. maybe they overcompensated.

I just saw somewhere that Sonic Youth never had a record that approached 500,000 sales, yet I think of them as a band that probably lives reasonably well. Maybe it's just because they've been able to stay consistently relevant for so long?

I mentioned on another thread, but the new David Byrne book gets into band economics a bit, in detail, which is rare. He basically calculates out that writing/recording/touring that last Byrne/Eno disc, which was largely independent/DIY, netted him something like $160K a year. I don't know if at this point David Byrne is/was on a tier with Sonic Youth as a recording/touring act. In fact, at this point I have no idea how many new copies of the Talking Heads catalog sell each year, let alone what they bring in to Byrne, but wiki says that "Fear of Music" got certified gold in 1985.

Talking Heads were/are considerably more commercially successful than Sonic Youth ever was. They have several songs that get airplay on classic rock radio, and a top ten single.

This says that Speaking in Tongues,and Stop Making Sense soundtrack were all double platinum, Little Children was platinum, and Buildings and Food was also gold:

http://tsort.info/music/jprrkc.htm

and Remain in Light and Naked, also gold

Yeah, no doubt. Just bringing it up compared to Sonic Youth. If the Heads usually stop around gold, even after decades as catalog staples, then of course Sonic Youth doesn't make there. Just wondering if Byrne solo pulls in more than Sonic Youth did.

this album is nice but i don't feel compelled to come back to it ever. 'a simple answer' makes me think of grandaddy.

(this is a good thing)

I'm listening to this loads, way more than any previous GB records. This may be because most of my CD collection is packed away, but I've still got about 60 albums out to choose from.

admittedly towards the end of the lp i became more interested in hearing again. side b > side a.

I remember reading one review which lauded the first side and said the second sucked!

Ha, in fact it was Stevie T's Uncut review, linked above (and again - http://www.uncut.co.uk/grizzly-bear-shields-review).

This album is my introduction to Grizzly Bear and frankly I can't get enough of it at the moment. As someone said upthread, it does sound like The Dodos in places, and there's moments that sound like other things, but the other things are things I love, so I'm very happy with it. It's probably just me and my current circumstances, but "Sun in your eyes" is a great closer, it is a bit of an emotional listen, the hairs stand up, the eyes well up a little - probably just what's happening externally and internally. I feel the same about "The hunt" too. Since I bought it the other day I've had no desire to hear anything else, and I've got tons of new stuff to listen to, but this one is special. Nick S has suggested off board I work backwards, and I shall, but there's time for that. I just want to go back and know this record deeper. Sorry to ramble, I've not been this devoted to a record in a long long time. Carry on etc.

Really heartened by the reaction you're having to Shields, and, as I said on twitter, suspect you'd adore Veckatimest as well - the use of choirs in Cheerleader and Foreground is really astonishingly beautiful, and Southern Point and the two big singles we both awesome.

i always skip the first 2 tracks

On Veckatimest? Wow, Southern Point is like my favourite thing they've done (thou maybe not for that long).

on shields

i read your post i just didn't clue in that those were the first 2 tracks on veckatimest

Southern Point is also my favorite GB thing

I love how the last two minutes of "What's wrong" sounds like it could have come from the Mark Hollis solo album. Has anyone else noticed that?

Yeah, they do, totally. The choirs I just mentioned are channelling I Believe In You, too.

great to see this crossing over both commercially but also critically to people who might have ignored/written off the first few records as too pitchforky indie for them.

Listening to this straight through from Veckatimest. Again. Awesome.

I guess I will have to try again, as I don't hear such awesomeness. There's this laidback granola aspect that I need to work through to appreciate this, I think.

I think, a bit like late-period Talk Talk, people sometimes forget or don't notice the bits when Grizzly Bear fucking pummell, and come away with the impression that it's just wistful harmonies and acoustic guitar arpeggios when actually there's a huge amount of dynamism and thumping and drama here too.

I'm sticking picking up new things from "Shields" with each listen. Current favourite moment, 1:40 to 1:50 of "A simple answer" just coming out of the first chorus, a chord change and hinted melody that most people would jump on and ride into the distance, but they just do it once and leave it. I could happily loop that ten seconds for a while.

there are things about this record that i love: how eerie and jazzy is "what's wrong"! how tight are they as a unit on "sleeping ute"! "yet again" sort of reminds me of aimee mann's "the moth" which is a hell of a melody to recall!

but otherwise my attention drifts

finally getting kind of sick of this album after non-stop play for two weeks

Rob M I commend thee to go and get Veckatimest this instant.

Or command, or whatever.

http://sickmouthy.com/2012/10/21/on-grizzly-bear-on-a-sunday-morning/

Newport record shops haven't got Veckawhatever, will take trip to Cardiff to get it this week.

"Gun-Shy" crazily tuneful

Great piece, Nick. Am now thinking I should probably revisit Veckatimest, as I'd never fully warmed to it.

mr mouthy you should hear horn of plenty, it's a great collection of songs. far far removed from what GB have become but I loved it when it came out, and gave it a listen recently and it still stands up.

I disagree, I love Horn of Plenty to bits but don't think it'd be Nick's bag
Although I would recommend to you the A+ Simon Bookish remix of "Eavesdropping"

wasn't aware of this till recently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8rUQLRH844
where these guys are coming from hits home a little more now

Despite the fact that 'Shields' sounds like an open and dynamic production I'm reading lots of talk about the CD version being brickwalled. I picked it up on vinyl so I can't really comment, I have heard 'Veckatimest' on CD and vinyl and I thought they both sounded great.

If it is true it's a real shame that an album as sonically nuanced as ‘Shields’ is as likely as any other to be molested at the mastering stage.

That's crazy talk. It doesn't sound like Diana Krall, certainly, but it sounds great.

I'd like to think so but this doesn't look too good.

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=27146

That means nothing; trust your ears!

Saying that, here's a couple of waveforms.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/th_ScreenShot2012-10-22at102907.png

Top= Speak In Rounds, bottom = While You Wait For The Others.

Yes, it's loud(er than Rid of Me!), but it's not noticably clipped at all, there's plenty of movement, headroom, and, most importantly, it sounds wonderful; the timbres, separation, etc etc etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/ScreenShot2012-10-22at102907.png

Fuck you, photobucket.

I know that waveforms do not tell the whole story but that's good to see. Sure it looks busy but it also looks like there's some headroom.

Like I said, I've not heard the CD at all so I was just throwing it out there to see if anyone who has had any opinions.

It's very easy to get obsessed with numbers and perfection and so on, but it's not really very useful. I'm a lot more pragmatic now than I used to be. Speak in Rounds is the 'rockiest' track on Shields, and if it gets up to peak without shaving edges off during the rockiest bit, then so be it.

God knows what Dr Loudness War's stats actually mean, but putting them together like that is like comparing a Ferrari to a Golf to a Transit van based purely on size of engine and BHP, without looking at them or test driving them or considering what they're actually for.

Hidden by TNP gets a shite rating on there - http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=14461

Appears that it was sympathetically mastered. Found this illuminating and in depth article with the mastering engineer.

http://www.sonicscoop.com/2012/09/13/behind-the-release-grizzly-bear-shields/

While I’m glad that people are paying more attention to things like dynamic range nowadays I am increasingly getting frustrated at people yelling “brickwalled” at anything with a busy waveform rather than, as Nick points out, trusting your ears in the first instance. The stuff I heard about the ‘Shields’ CD originated on an audiophile forum and often they are the worst for judging sonics primarily on, often arbitrary, numbers.

Ha, Plumb by Field Music, which has a note in the sleeve about lack of DRC in mastering, gets a rubbish rating: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=18328

Rock albums are by their nature not that dynamic - rock's meant to be loud and exciting, it's not classical music or jazz.

lol @ The Drift only scoring in 'transition'. http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=21912

I do disagree that the dynamic range database is a total waste of time mind you. While it's not the be all and end of an albums fidelity it is one amongst many ways (specral analysis, waveforms etc) of trying to quantify the quality of an audio recording. One of the major reasons I buy new vinyl is because often a seperate (hopefully high resolution) master is used. Loads of modern CD's seem sadly to be made for the car/to be ripped to mp3 and as such get over compressed and limited.

Also, I agree on the point about rock being meant to be loud. With that in mind those TNP and Field Music LP's look ok.

This is as bad as to be expected however.

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=7123

That mixing interview is great.

Desire from Spirit of Eden only gets a red 8, but it's also the track with the fucking huge awesome overwhelming thunderstorm of drums.

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=7452

To be honest the SACD and recent vinyl remaster, as well as the original 1988 CD issue all sound better to my ears than that remaster of Spirit of Eden. That database seems to highlight that as well.

I've only ever heard the 97 CD. I'm happy with it!

THis is interesting - http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=10694 - because I know from someone in the band that this vinyl release was a needle-drop from the CD master and they were fucking furious.

The 97 CD was my first copy and the one I grew to love but you should really check out the high Rez or original CD as well.

Needledrop or CD masters being used for records should be a crime.

Cosmogramma... http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=5448

Ouch.

Going back to something I mentioned yesterday, Newport HMV must have heard my silent cry and I now have "Veckatimest" - plus "Soon over Babaluma" in the '2 for £10' offer. Hurrah.

Regarding SoE, I have the 97 CD and was happy with it until I picked up a recent TT best of for £3, mainly for "John Cope", and the remastering on "Wealth" and the single edit of "I believe in you" sounded so good and so much better. If I see the new remaster of SoE at a decent price I'll pick it up.

"Shields" doesn't sound brickwalled to me, and it's your ears that decide whether it sounds good at the end of the day.

Love John Cope.

wtf album sounds fine and is perfectly dynamic, what is this, the steve hoffman board?

Nah, it wasn't on the Hoffman board. Those guy's are crazy.

It was on a private torrent tracker.

I was a big fan of these guys but here my problem is that what you guys are saying is absolutely true, but I don't hear much else going on. It's all lovely to the ear and dynamic in its way but for me it seems to just float around on that plateau of loveliness-in-variation without much else to distinguish it song by song. Listening to it, quite intently, for I think the third time, at one point I accidentally skipped to another track and couldn't for the life of me work out which one I'd just been listening to. I'm sure there are good counterarguments and I'm sure it's my fault but I'M COMPLAINING ANYWAY.

Took me several listens to star pulling the songs apart, definitely. Half a dozen at least.

My only negative point of the album would be The Hunt, or maybe the fact that is placed in the middle of the album.

merdeyeux I felt that way after the first few listens. I still kind of feel that way about the last album, actually. but this one really came together to me.

posted an as-far-as-i-know mostly-unreleased old Grizzly Bear song on stg this week:
http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/unpredicting.php

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/grizzly-bear-shields-round-42-nicks-choice/

i have been totally emerging myself into this album. listening to it on head phones and loving all those little parts. it no way can compare to Veckatimest as that album has better songs. this album, however, is a pleasure and i'm glad i bought it.

http://www.stereogum.com/1166392/debating-the-grizzly-bear-ny-mag-story-and-making-a-living-making-music/top-stories/lead-story

Doug is the frontman of Brooklyn-based experimental metal band Pyrrhon, about whom Decibel Magazine said, “Outré as they get, everything Pyrrhon do emanates from an obsidian death metal core — just that this music is that much more expressive, its impact that much more disquieting than almost anything else in the genre.”

Doug Moore: The New York Mag piece on Grizzly Bear makes me feel lucky to be a member of a generation of musicians who never expected to be able to quit their day jobs.

ah fuck meant to post that in other thread

http://www.youtube.com/liveatthehouse

Edward Droste @edwarddroste
#tbt to when we were on the cover of NY mag and they made it look like we were broke and complaining. Good times.

Edward Droste @edwarddroste
That article really pulled the rug out from under us! We were led to believe it was essentially a history of us....lol! Nope!

Judging by his instragram, Ed's doing alright.

good 2 know

How does Ed know Megan Amram? Seems like they're always hanging out and tweeting at each other.