kind of lol to envision Erotica as "formal" dance pop, like u couldn't dance to any pop music before 1992
― welltris (crüt), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:00 (eight years ago) link
Since I first heard Visions, I always thought she was successfully blending Madonna's Like A Prayer and the Cocteaus' Treasure.
And this:what i mean is that it's been really great for a break up
OTM. Art Angels definitely has shades of breakup-ness to it.
― austinato (Austin), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:07 (eight years ago) link
the weak link here is really "venus fly" which is a shame
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:19 (eight years ago) link
meanwhile i would like restate how fucking unbelievably great "venus fly" is
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:20 (eight years ago) link
there's a single note -- like a synthesized accordion -- at the very end of "flesh without blood" (4:15ish) that i'm obsessed with
― Treeship, Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:31 (eight years ago) link
uh i meant "butterfly" lol
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:32 (eight years ago) link
(continued from my previous post) most of her songs contain surprising little moments like that. i think that's part of why listeners connect so personally with her music. there are so many little production decisions to notice, and so you are constantly being reminded of the human hand behind the music. everything she makes feels very intentional and crafted
― Treeship, Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:38 (eight years ago) link
― Treeship, Sunday, November 8, 2015 3:31 PM (
and there's a snippet of violin in another song that I wish she would've saved for a full tune.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:48 (eight years ago) link
i think that's part of why listeners connect so personally with her music. there are so many little production decisions to notice, and so you are constantly being reminded of the human hand behind the music. everything she makes feels very intentional and crafted
but you can say this about everybody and anybody, and how do we judge intentions?
Can we also throw Kate Bush somewhere in there in what we're hearing? Today hearing 'flesh without blood' it started sounding to me like how something off Hounds of Love would sound in 2015.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:53 (eight years ago) link
". . .and you never get sad and you never get sick. . ."
That one hits me.
― austinato (Austin), Sunday, 8 November 2015 20:54 (eight years ago) link
More stuff I am reminded of: Britney's "Brave New Girl", Christina Milian's "I Can Be That Woman".
This album totally rules.
― Tim F, Sunday, 8 November 2015 21:08 (eight years ago) link
yeah i was sort of only halfway into it until today and i'm really happy that i'm more taken with it now
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, 8 November 2015 21:13 (eight years ago) link
speaking of Kate Bush, The Dreaming is the album i keep thinking of. an incredible female artist wresting control away from fan and music industry expectations after breaking through, and coming out with something intricate and personal and reflective on the creative process itself.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Sunday, 8 November 2015 23:28 (eight years ago) link
Artangels, the track, reminded me of Annie
― Shin Oliva Suzuki, Monday, 9 November 2015 00:20 (eight years ago) link
Broke into a Lorde-esque dinosaur dance walking down the street yesterday following the drop in "World Princess, Pt II".
― art baengels (monotony), Monday, 9 November 2015 01:07 (eight years ago) link
On a few more listens I like it more but don't love it. I find all the chipmunked vocals to be an odd choice (although so heavily used that she obviously has something in mind with them), and I miss the breathier, almost slipping away from you sound of her earlier vocals (which were still present on the demo Realiti but not the album Realiti). I actually do like the album Realiti more than I did at first, but still prefer the demo -- the album version is squarer, like a club remix.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, 9 November 2015 03:35 (eight years ago) link
So, I'm thinking after a few listens, that this is less consistent than Visions, but the highlights are better than those on Visions.
― austinato (Austin), Monday, 9 November 2015 03:38 (eight years ago) link
I also think the vocals are what made it hardest for me to accept at first, because her singing -- the part of the music we probably most identify with most artists -- just sounds so DIFFERENT than it did on the last record.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, 9 November 2015 03:51 (eight years ago) link
this album has a really obnoxious title but it's pretty good yeah
― twunty fifteen (imago), Monday, 9 November 2015 11:58 (eight years ago) link
Had a series of dreams just now where she released the album a capella for fans to remix as a sort of contest — never found out what the prize was. In any case, I was able to hear 'Realiti' a capella in bits and pieces and it was just heaven.
― Austin, Monday, 9 November 2015 12:33 (eight years ago) link
Still haven't had a complete listen but I'm liking it more after hearing it a friend's car and in piecemeal at home. It definitely feels made to play at festivals, can't get that image out of my head during most of the tracks.
Venus Fly is a jam btw.
― expertly crafted referential display name (Jordan), Monday, 9 November 2015 15:33 (eight years ago) link
attempted to lisen to this on my commute but i downloaded a copy with awful dj drops and had to stop halfway :-[
but based on that limited shitty experience, worried this album won't be all that i was hoping it would be
― flopson, Monday, 9 November 2015 15:54 (eight years ago) link
this kinda sounds like good pc music in a hyperrealised pop by outsider way
― twunty fifteen (imago), Monday, 9 November 2015 16:32 (eight years ago) link
albeit more emotive + less depersonalised
― twunty fifteen (imago), Monday, 9 November 2015 16:33 (eight years ago) link
the chipmunk thing is less obnoxious here at least
― ufo, Monday, 9 November 2015 16:37 (eight years ago) link
I bet this whole album is good, but I just keep restarting the flesh without blood through artangels run of songs
― the grimes of claire boucher ('90s on) (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, 9 November 2015 21:48 (eight years ago) link
yeah i'm having a hard time getting through this for the same reason. i did jump ahead and listen to the new version of realiti.
― dynamicinterface, Monday, 9 November 2015 23:26 (eight years ago) link
for me the biggest highs are on Pin and Butterfly. Pin is one of the shorter songs on the album, but it is just so intricately layered, emotive, and most of all cathartic. I agree that there is definitely a big PC music influence on this, kind of combined with Ray of Light era Madonna, and everything in between.
― pplasma, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 05:34 (eight years ago) link
where the fuck did this "PC music influence" come from and can we please excise that from any future discussion regarding this album tyvm
― j. winters (josh), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 05:44 (eight years ago) link
^^^
― james brooks, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 05:48 (eight years ago) link
yeah, i don't hear PC music in this
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Tuesday, 10 November 2015 07:00 (eight years ago) link
So... Is this the first time pitchfork has ever apologized to an artist for being an asshole?
― mingalaba, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 07:10 (eight years ago) link
it comes off more as a hasty aside than an explicit statement so i demand more
― j. winters (josh), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 07:51 (eight years ago) link
I think I can hear some PC music in this, the way she sounds like some sort of demented cheerleader sometimes and the saturated arrangements here and there but this album isn't really parodying bubblegum pop it seems like there's some genuine admiration for it, hence it's quite the opposite of PC music.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 07:53 (eight years ago) link
Pitchfork's like "sorry we mocked you, but this album isn't better than your debut"
― pplasma, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 07:54 (eight years ago) link
"demented cheerleader" is some kind of backhanded compliment isn't it
― j. winters (josh), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 07:56 (eight years ago) link
― j. winters (josh)
No, didn't meant it as an insult!
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 08:04 (eight years ago) link
Regarding the Pitchfork review: odd they didn't mention the lyrics of California at all since it's a hate track dedicated to them.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 08:06 (eight years ago) link
Grimes has talked at length about absorbing aa load ofJ-pop (and K-pop) in the run up to this and I think this is one of those moments when we can probably take the artist at their word rather than reaching for the first reference point at hand. Most of the things this album sounds like existed before PC Music and any similarities between the two are likely to be because PC Music is almost entirely built out of self-conscious reference points.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 08:23 (eight years ago) link
Classic young person's "let us compare the thing that came before to the thing that came after" move.
Kill V Maim sounds like Daphne and Celeste if they were actually allowed to commit extreme anime violence on people instead of just playground taunts.
But now I want to live in an alternate universe where Grimes produces Daphne & Celeste's comeback album, instead of Max Tundra.
― La Düsseldork (Branwell with an N), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 08:27 (eight years ago) link
It's pretty hard to get pfork editors to agree to an 8.5 so I don't think that should be taken as a relative diss or anything.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 09:03 (eight years ago) link
"Easily" getting all the feels here right now. Weightless reverie, that gleaming Kraftwerk vibe I loved in Visions.
― MatthewK, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 09:40 (eight years ago) link
The song is Boucher eating the lunch that Miley packed, may it be #blessed with infinite stadium-EDM remixes.
What the fuck does this sentence even mean
― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 14:53 (eight years ago) link
It's a little hard to get excited about a celebrity's media resentment as a theme.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 15:15 (eight years ago) link
Funnily enough, I really relate (and I suspect a whole bunch of women will relate, too) to lyrics themes of: "Hey, you've been expressing your ~opinions~ on me for a couple of years now. Well, now. Here's my opinion: I don't particularly like you much, either."
I don't think it matters if she's talking about Pitchfork in particular or the Male Gaze in general. It's just a super-relatable sentiment and I love the way she's expressed it.
― La Düsseldork (Branwell with an N), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 15:34 (eight years ago) link
fair point and seems OTM. A line that bothers me a little though is "it's nice that you like me/but only conditionally" -- fan/media love is by nature conditional. That's the beast.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 15:36 (eight years ago) link
Did pfork actually call her a "human tumblr"? I can't find that in any article/review.
― how's life, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 15:38 (eight years ago) link
Although tbf the sentiment fits into a line of capital A Artists in pop/rock/folk that probably goes back at least to the 70s, where part of the fan experience is rejecting that (consumerist?) conditional love paradigm, because the artist represents something about selfhood and individuality and we reaffirm that by accepting even changes in the artist that may not initially suit our taste at the moment.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 10 November 2015 15:39 (eight years ago) link
― Tim F, Tuesday, November 10, 2015 4:03 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
nah an 8.5 def codes as a dissapointment given the hype for this album. two weeks ago i was sure it wouldve been AOTY
― flopson, Tuesday, 10 November 2015 15:42 (eight years ago) link