Dirty Projectors

Occurred to me today that the closest analogue to this record is Robin Thicke's Paula, the record he made after "Blurred Lines" and his wife left him for cheating and being drunk and zonked out on Vicodin.

Yeah, because that's the only breakup record ever made.

Dude, there's a difference btwn Blood on the Tracks, Sea Change, Vulnicura, and For Emma Forever Ago etc. and this DP record. They're not grounded in specific details or about public people. Good breakup albums take a common and uninteresting personal experience and make it universal/abstract. "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" vs. "You'd sell out the waterfront for condos" and "what I want from art is truth / what you want is fame" etc etc

Good breakup albums are spiritual salve. There's no room for anyone but Longstreth here.

Blood on the Tracks had Idiot Wind on it too

I'm really really into that Uproxx review

There's no room for anyone but Longstreth here.

― flappy bird, 24. februar 2017 23:30 (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's pretty much the point of the last song on the album, I See You, as well. That he got lost in 'the projection' and everyone else got crowded out, including Amber.

And there's also a pretty big difference between this breakup and Thicke 'cheating and being drunk and zonked out on Vicodin.' There's nothing on Dirty Projectors as accusatory as comparing Longstreth to what Thicke did. Cool, you don't like it, but if your point is that Longstreth is being a dick, try not to be as big a dick yourself.

I like the uproxx review as well, but think this part is confused:

Instead of finding resonance in these lines, I’m reminded of the times when I valued the power of my own pain over the way weaponizing it might create more pain in others.

That is finding resonance in the lines. They resonate against the shitty parts of her own life. So it's shitty resonance, but it's still resonance.

portajohn reverb

keep counting on portajohn reverb
OK, open your eyes

There are some major failings on this album, and I get if people just won't bother, but most of the songs are without hate (really, the shitty lines are on Keep Your Name, Up In Hudson (although it doesn't say that they cheat on their spouses, that's a misreading) and Winner Takes Nothing) and there's a bunch of good songs with interesting musical ideas. It's not as hateful as Robin Thicke, heck, it's not even as hateful as Like a Rolling Stone. And the problem isn't that it's 'grounded in specific details or about public people', if we didn't like that Lemonade wouldn't have been the best album of 2016. It's tainted with misogynism, and it fails as a narrative, but it's a fine record. Comparing it to Robin Thicke, or saying that it can't resonate, is absurdly overblown.

It is true that "some of these lyrics make me feel like shit just for hearing them" may be a better line of attack

I do think it makes the last two tracks feel even better by comparison to the whole, though.

Also seems like "DL is fucking up in a way that is similar to my fuckups" is a different type of resonance altogether that is at least more separate from the music

It is not like "DL wrote fountain of sorrow but with opposite polarity" resonance. It is different and distracting.

When the 2nd track StArted I thought he was singing over Timberlake's Mirrors

It's tainted with misogynism, and it fails as a narrative, but it's a fine record

sure but is it better or worse than iceage

for the record I am fine with records that are grounded in specific details or about public people, that's hard to avoid if you ever want to broach the subject as an artist; it's the contempt that I'm not fine with

Yes, and the reason the difference is important is that while the whole album is filled with specific details about public people, it's only a few lines that have contempt.

And while that could be enough to dismiss the album, it does not turn Longstreth into Robin Thicke.

Yeah no that Uproxx review is garbage. Isolate the parts where the music is discussed and realize... she has nothing to say that isn't about her.

"Musically, the record is inventive, fascinating, and experimental in the best sense of the word. His ability to fuse R&B, folk, pop and deeply intelligent songwriting with alien electronic sounds is on stunning display here." Like... where are the red pens? Show don't tell??

Also starting off a review with a five-year-old self-retweet of praise is... not the best look

If coming off like as much of a narcissistic egotist as Longstreth is some sort of reviewer performance art, I guess I apologize, but that didn't make it easier to read.

anyway, sorry for getting heated, i just bristle at the abuse of length-trumps-insight "longform" in both personal essays and music crit

"what I want from art is truth / what you want is fame"
hahaha these are actual lyrics w t f

the thing i mainly remember about that uproxx review is the word "regretted"

also "an sh*thead"

iirc most of the lyrics on bitte were just imgaistic non sequitir. do irc? if so, idk why he switched tack
― flopson, Thursday, February 23, 2017 2:23 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Might be true on the whole, but the only lyrics I remember from Bitte Orca sound like they were lifted from chill gchat convos and are aggressively non-expressionistic / symbolic:

Definitely you can come and live with us
I know there's a space for you in the basement, yeah
All you gotta do is help out with the chores and dishes
And I know you will

/

Maybe I will get a job
Get a job as a waitress
Maybe waiting tables in a diner
In some remote city down the highway

maura otm

xp hm true I was thinking of stuff like this

The renegade feeling satisfied
You blinked and closed your eyes
You like the feeling of Saturday
You love the danger in the night
The restless corpse is collapsed wind
The breath is daffodil
What not become what is lapsing
Into the universal fill
Or maybe just

BO is a great album

that song rules so hard

the elephant in the room here is that the music of the Dirty Projectors is 1000% garbage

on stunning display

Re the Uproxx review, I thought it was a coup to respond to "an album of undisguised criticism of a public figure" with a critique that was essentially a self-indictment

Like, responding to a grossly non-empathetic album with empathy? Thank you Caitlin. Who cares what the album sounds like we all know at this point what to expect tbqph

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AGQLRKywRqg/hqdefault.jpg

mistaking self-aggrandizement for some sort of brilliant coup against the system is what basically got trump elected, but ok

glad we're past describing what albums sound like, it's long gotten in the way of me shoehorning in mini-histories of my life as a music writer in brooklyn

brad you live in queens

shhh they'll hear you

lots of dirty projecting in this thread

This bad album is relatable to me bc I too am bad at my job

lmao

Hasaa

No for real I thought there were only two possible responses to this record, "I don't hear lyrics" vs. "This is some abusive bs", but Caitlin taking a more empathetic response mirrored my own listening to this record, and the concerns of "when honesty in artistry goes too far" or whatever

Also don't pin your fascist prez on me lol

I'm fine with the uproxx piece because

a) it is neither claiming nor trying to be a review, so critiquing it by that standard is off

b) it really doesn't discuss How The Music Sounds that much less than "actual reviews" do. take the review on pitchfork -- if you went through that with a highlighter and highlighted everything that discussed the music in concrete terms, the proportions would not be dissimilar. not to pick on that review -- it's just obviously one of the more higher-profile outlets, and...

c) discussing How The Music Sounds can lead one astray when How Said Music Sounds is portrayed as more innovative than it actually is. (I haven't heard the full album -- why do that to myself if I'm not getting paid, and I have the wrong opinion on this album to ever be paid for it -- but I would be very surprised, given even the positive reviews, if it were better than the tracks I have heard. Or if the parts that were better were dave's and not, say, dawn's.) I would rather read almost any personal essay than 500 words rhapsodizing about dave's groundbreakingly experimental use of 808s & Heartbreak vocoding.

d) discussing How The Music Sounds is fucking pointless when there's this undertone (or, sometimes, overtone) of condescension and contempt to everything. being able to ignore said undertone is only really possible if you don't experience it on a regular basis.

the only thing that bugs me really about the piece is the retroactive apology for calling the "first date with carly rae jepsen" piece shit. there's no need to apologize for that, the piece was in fact shit, and just because your ex wrote it doesn't change that fact. after all, one of the sole bright points of having an ex is a heightened ability to recognize when that person is being shit.

sure but the sentence i highlighted would be terrible if it had been talking about personal experience in a similar way (which the rest of the essay does; i see zero self reflection, just a lot of "greatest hits of me" linking and the word "regret" over and over). it's all broad strokes and imprecise words. the music doesn't necessarily have to be discussed more, but as a professional it should be done better