Mitski

if you're going to copy paste from wikipedia at least remove the footnote tags

imago, are you really going to argue these points

this exquisite aspie vibe (yes i just diagnosed mitski, w/e

Wow, with defenders like this...

anyway I'd make the opposite argument -- I do like this album, but if you are looking for maximalism then it isn't for you, and your reaction will probably be that nothing is as good as "Geyser," that "Nobody" is tepid as disco goes, and that everything else is solidly fine

And that's the trick, I think. "Nobody" isn't disco -- it's disco-influenced, uses disco as one might a citation in a paper.

obviously

well with the additional bit of context that 90% of songs these days seem to be disco-influenced so the trick doesn't seem as novel

it isn't close to being my favourite track on the album but it doesn't sound like an iteration we've heard much of before

I preferred it as a single but it's fine.

see I agree with Matt on this one, if you're going to do disco you have to do the disco. doing half-hearted disco as a songwriting trick might have worked in 1998 but not in 2018 when every person in the universe is making half-hearted disco as a matter of course. nothing to do with the content either -- "Dancing on My Own" wouldn't work either if the instrumental wasn't huge

Great, I'm now hearing the words "a cliff comprises thousands of fossilised strata" to the tune of the Science Facts from Nobody

i don't find it half-hearted. it's obviously executed well if unsubtly (which is UNLIKE the rest of the album) - it's definitely a bold centrepiece amidst the greater sophistication and complexity of the surrounding tracks. the way it ends is the biggest clue to its function - the high-octane attempt to burst free that fails. obviously failure, in some sense, is in most if not all of these songs and that isn't a way of excusing flaws - the album is extremely good at failing, falling apart, managing its own pathos

also lol will

yes, the ending is key, but the ending would have even more impact if the disco had more oomph

well as i say it isn't my favourite track. i wish we'd talk about the other songs more

(and there's of course the perennial issue that even if perfectly executed, in every possible way, does exactly the songwriting job it is intended to do in the best way possible, it's still a half-hearted disco track when there are other disco tracks that are not half-hearted that can be listened to instead. this is incredibly frustrating because I do like this album, I just don't personally love it, and I think for me the maximalism issue is why)

The creepy comfort offered by "Me and My Husband" gets me every time.

I really like "Nobody", it's a very moving track for me, even if it is not authentic disco. The vocal melodies and chord changes are really masterful the way they wind in some unexpected directions. Probably my favorite, along with "Old Friend".

my favorite track at this point is probably "Come Into the Water," which is perfectly hushed and grapples with a thing not always grappled with in this way

FWIW I do like the vocal melodies on this but the production/arrangements really do kill my enjoyment of it as a whole.

"Nobody" has a really nice build, but it builds to a fairly predictable place, musically--it's enough for me because that chorus melody is incredible, it seems to mimic a sweeping melody that in a classic disco would have been delivered by the string section

yeah, that feels about right

I don't find 'Nobody' to be particularly half-hearted (if anything its enthusiasm is part of the problem, it's just a bit clunky). But then this is the same sort of circular argument you get when indie acts try their hand at other genres - ("yeah but why is the execution so clunky" vs "no the clunkiness is part of the point"). And I suppose it's that latter viewpoint which is what irritates me about modern indie culture.

but when it morphs at the end into something else, that's where it becomes elegant. elegance and clunkiness in eternal dialectic

lj and matt dc both making a pretty great case against this album

the three lead songs

These are still the standouts for me, after several listens. "Nobody" is incredible imo (and I don't want it to be 'real' disco) but so far the album as a whole hasn't grabbed me as immediately as the last one.

album is fire

There is something about her vocals—a pervading sadness that even disco can’t lighten

well, performers often used disco to convey sadness, hysteria, or both.

true. i still perceive a tension between the vocals and the backing track in this song.

like that little bossa nova "nobody nobody" when she is saying nobody wants her

nobody reminds me of lovefool for some reason, which distracted me at first but i have made peace with it now

geyser is so colossal, and has been my favourite song of the year since the day it came out, that it's gonna take a lot of momentum for anything on this album to topple it. But, A Pearl sure is making a case. What a song

Yes, it definitely sounds like a more muscular "Lovefool"

lovefool is a good song

True

lovefool is a great song! just noticing the similarity was distracting me until i listened a few uh dozen or so more times

I may be misremembering due to age/cultural osmosis but was "lovefool" released during a massive boom of fake disco

also the cardigans' whole thing was ironic/winking takes on genres, at least at that point -- see their past metal covers

tbh i only know two cardigans songs, that and my favourite game, but based on those two i could definitely see that being their thing!

I remember "Lovefool" as an omnipresent American radio hit in spring '97 at the same time that Jamiroquai, Daft Punk, and Puff were doing their thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9PT4CM8LQc

(it stopped being their thing fairly soon after "Lovefool," at least not as obviously)

interesting. don't know much about the cardigans.

i'm not sure what mitski is doing is, like, ironic pastiche of disco--not sure if you were implying that katherine, or just saying the cardigans did that. she seems pretty willing to draw on whatever sounds feel right for the song.

i mean, there is some humor in the frisson that comes from singing "i'm a coward" as the beat picks up steam. but idk.

yeah, the big and small verse is heartbreaking, kinda feels like at least a little tongue-in-cheek to juxtapose against that fun lil' guitar darting in

yeah, there is irony but it is very bitter

lonesome love is dope

I wrote this elsewhere but the real comparison point for me isn't "Lovefool" but "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)"

oh yeah, that's a good point

coincidentally one of the best songs ever

idk maybe i'm just caught up but i legitimately cannot think of an artist whose music i've enjoyed more this decade, am i what the internet calls a "stan" now?