why?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Who are this guy's influences as a lyricist? Or where did he study literature in college?

He comes up with some of the most interesting metaphors, comparisons, etc. I've heard in music, even of them are so absurd that they're unintentionally hilarious.

― Lee is Free (Lee is Free), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:04 (7 years ago) Permalink

http://musikcafe.blogspot.com/

― musikcafe.blogspot.com (harare), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:07 (7 years ago) Permalink

I've heard of that dude.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:14 (7 years ago) Permalink

navy blue hoodies and khakis, that was the style that year

(navy blue hoodies and khakis, that was the style that year)

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:15 (7 years ago) Permalink

Fishnets hats and canvas shoes

Why's good stuff.

― WillS, Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:10 (7 years ago) Permalink

Sometimes I click on an ILM thread and feel like I've entered an weird alternative dimension, like one where people don't talk but wave stripey socks instead or something.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:15 (7 years ago) Permalink

Why's show at the Brudenell Social is number 5 in the top ten gigs my friend attended last year. According to his notes it was, ’Made better by Why?’s constant insistence that the songs they were playing were some “unreleased solo Steven Tyler shit.”’

― Mike W (caek), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:19 (7 years ago) Permalink

So there is an actual artist named Why? Why?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:20 (7 years ago) Permalink

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/index.shtml#why

― Mike W (caek), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:22 (7 years ago) Permalink

tuomas you are a ponce

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

Just saw him at the bagel shop this morning. So I'd say bagels.

― wmlynch (wlynch), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

Musikcafe, everytime you spam for your blog it makes me want to stab you in the eye, even if you are writing about music I think is interesting.

― js (honestengine), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:52 (7 years ago) Permalink

their live show is excellent - really great musicians. not so keen on the rapping

― 6335, Sunday, 29 January 2006 23:16 (7 years ago) Permalink

From what I gather, Why? wasn't a classically trained english-duder, just some guy who likes words, and would share a lot of random poetry books/records that Dose would get at the library. Plus hip-hop.

Everytime I see him play, it feels like an epiphany, since it's always at someplace like a 100-degree vegan cafe in Montreal or someone's wood-paneled living room in Brooklyn. Dude's got lyrics for days. I bet he would be much more famouser if the (unwarranted) anticon backlash wasn't so icky.

"I'm fucking cold like a DQ blizzard"

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:27 (7 years ago) Permalink

Who raps in a similar style? Specifically, with really good lyrics that are rapping but still intelligible?

― WillS, Monday, 30 January 2006 01:17 (7 years ago) Permalink

...and only one student scored 100% on the exam; and he earned it with a simple two-word answer: "Why not?"

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Monday, 30 January 2006 05:21 (7 years ago) Permalink

WillS, have you heard clouddead?

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 30 January 2006 05:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

Why?, Dose and jel on cLOUDDEAD is pure bliss, it's sad that there will prolly never be another LP from them again.
13 & God is good, which is cLOUDDEAD plus The Notwist
if you wanna hear Dose rhyme some more get his solo album he put out last year, Ha

― J. Lamphere (WatchMeJumpStart), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:07 (7 years ago) Permalink

hymie's basement 21st century pop song

http://s54.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=25VJ0RQPF4UH822RVJYOCF32PS

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:14 (7 years ago) Permalink

"navy blue hoodies and khakis, as was the style that year" is the correct lyric

― afasdg, Monday, 30 January 2006 06:35 (7 years ago) Permalink

21st pop song is probably my favorite of his. Really good shit.

― wmlynch (wlynch), Monday, 30 January 2006 07:44 (7 years ago) Permalink

(cLOUDDEAD is actually why?, Doseone and odd nosdam.)

― Orange (Orange), Monday, 30 January 2006 09:56 (7 years ago) Permalink

always be working on a suiciddddde note...

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:12 (7 years ago) Permalink

21st Century Pop Song is probably my favourite Why? related thing. That and the Jimmybreeze tracks from the first cLOUDDEAD album. Some buddies and I put them on in Manchester last year and it was a great night, they played all sorts of stuff Yoni has been involved with (including 21st Century Pop Song). They had a good energy about them and were really charming guys.

― Ogmor Roundtrouser (Ogmor Roundtrouser), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:02 (7 years ago) Permalink

why? it's an emo-rap thread!

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:07 (7 years ago) Permalink

please. why? is neither emo nor rap.

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:09 (7 years ago) Permalink

i saw those dudes open for fog...it was pretty good! i remember that blue hoodies and khakis line...that stood out even though i'd not heard any of their albums (and still haven't)

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:11 (7 years ago) Permalink

emo-rap? god, sometimes it's great to be old and ignorant. what's next, shoegazer-rap? (and I also plead ignorance to Why? I am from the generation that brought you the Who.{who apparently included the definite article so that we could tell it was a band and not a question})

― J Arthur Rank (Quin Tillian), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:13 (7 years ago) Permalink

I wouldn't call what Why? does Rap at all, I'd say the music was influenced by hip-hop, but i think to call his lyrics Rap wouldn't really do them justice..

Anyway, the elephant Eyelash album one of my favourites of last year, a lot more POP than a lot of anticon stuff, and better for it ..,

― jk_ (jk@gabba), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:34 (7 years ago) Permalink

"but i think to call his lyrics Rap wouldn't really do them justice.."

hmm.....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:34 (7 years ago) Permalink

Stop questioning people, Matt.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:35 (7 years ago) Permalink

Why? / Yonni's lyrics remind me of the Mountain Goats more than anything else.

― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:36 (7 years ago) Permalink

I like that they ate hop-hopcentric. Like the stuff eels should be doing if e didn't peak creatively in 1998.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:46 (7 years ago) Permalink

just sayin it's an emo-rap thread. I have no idea who why is. But this is defiantly an emo-rap thread.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:52 (7 years ago) Permalink

i really wanted this thread to be about the carly simon song

― joseph (joseph), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:15 (7 years ago) Permalink

So not rap these days: the guy's last album is basically indie-rock with slightly chantier vocal delivery, and I've spent a whole lot of time wondering how well parts of it would have gone over if potential listeners weren't presuming it sounded like something else. Some of his lines really do work beautifully, and while there are bits of Elephant Eyelash that have turned out to be pretty boring for me, there are at least two serious winners. "Crushed Bones," the one getting quoted up there ("as was the style that year"), is terrific (musically, yes, plus I get a kick out of the whole "riders on the tube tie razors to their elbows" swell-up); and "Gemini (Birthday Song)" is totally indie/pop sap-friendly and could practically be a Decemberists song (this is obviously not a way of selling it, just a point-of-fact observation) -- best bits being (a) the image of "the woman passed out in the driver's seat at the order board at White Castle / we woke her up and she went round to the pick-up window as if she knew exactly where she was" plus (b) the fact that the piano thing through the second half is basically lifted from the intro to Journey's, umm, "Open Arms?" (Most emo bit being the part where he paints her fingernails and then writes his song while she sleeps: umm, okay!)

Point being: Elephant Eyelash is largely just a particularly interesting indie-rock album. Yes, weak and/or boring in plenty of spots. And yes, the "particularly interesting" part comes largely from proximity to already practically indie backpacker hip-hop stuff.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:31 (7 years ago) Permalink

7 months pass...

Doing most of Yo La Tengo's tour:

http://yolatengo.com/schedule.html

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 22 September 2006 16:07 (6 years ago) Permalink

Elephant Eyelash has gradually revealed itself to be my actual favorite record of '05. It somehow gets better with each spin long past the point where that is at all reasonable, like when you're a kid and you buy one of those sponge capsule dinosaurs and you decide to give it a whole aquarium full of water to grow in, only instead of growing to be six inches tall it keeps going and going and going and instead of shattering your illusions it shatters your aquarium and you come home from school and find it waiting for you in the front yard, like the dog you never had. I need some friends.

I would actually go to a Yo La-fucking-Tengo concert just to see Why?, and that's sayin' something.

― bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Friday, 22 September 2006 16:35 (6 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

one of the best live shows i've ever seen

why isn't this guy huge?

― cutty, Friday, 19 September 2008 13:38 (4 years ago) Permalink

His Alopecia album is one the best this year so far.

― Marty Innerlogic, Friday, 19 September 2008 14:54 (4 years ago) Permalink

Elephant Eyelash has gradually revealed itself to be my actual favorite record of '05. It somehow gets better with each spin long past the point where that is at all reasonable, like when you're a kid and you buy one of those sponge capsule dinosaurs and you decide to give it a whole aquarium full of water to grow in, only instead of growing to be six inches tall it keeps going and going and going and instead of shattering your illusions it shatters your aquarium and you come home from school and find it waiting for you in the front yard, like the dog you never had. I need some friends.
I would actually go to a Yo La-fucking-Tengo concert just to see Why?, and that's sayin' something.
― bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Friday, September 22, 2006 4:35 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

damn, 2006 was kind of a depressing time for me.

the day I bought Alopecia, I was driving back from the record store with my girlfriend, who had never listened to any Anticon stuff before, and we ended up just driving around for 40 minutes (the actual drive would've taken about 5) because she liked it so much. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this story, except that it says a lot about the dude(s) that (t)he(y) can make this really strongly emotional music that I totally fall in love with during a really bleak crappy lonely period of my life, and then follow it up even more really strongly emotional music that I totally fall in love with during a very happy and fulfilled period of my life. erm. whatever.

― it be me, me, me and timothy (bernard snowy), Friday, 19 September 2008 16:01 (4 years ago) Permalink

alopecia IS my best of 2008. i would venture to say he/they are one of the most important acts of our generation. brilliant. i swear.

― cutty, Friday, 19 September 2008 17:54 (4 years ago) Permalink

next album is going to be the one. he finally brought the band into the studio and recorded what they do live. I like the previous studio records, but next one's going to be the one.

― Milton Parker, Friday, 19 September 2008 18:13 (4 years ago) Permalink

i haven't heard the records, but i'm checking out some stuff on youtube and it's cool how they handle the percussion etc. arrangements

― how to TASTE beer. how to TALK about beer. (Jordan), Friday, 19 September 2008 18:56 (4 years ago) Permalink

i agree milton. i was actually thinking that during the show--where can he go from here.

― cutty, Friday, 19 September 2008 19:34 (4 years ago) Permalink

10 months pass...

http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Why%253F%2520-%2520This%2520Blackest%2520Purse.mp3

― cutty, Monday, 20 July 2009 22:33 (3 years ago) Permalink

these new songs are brilliant

― cutty, Saturday, 25 July 2009 20:31 (3 years ago) Permalink

ESKIMO SNOW

― cutty, Monday, 27 July 2009 22:52 (3 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

you people

― cutty, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 17:05 (3 years ago) Permalink

Huge fan of Why?, didn't think I liked this record at first—too folky, not enough of his held-over hiphop inflections, production kind of samey/live sounding throughout—but it totally grew on me after a week or two. Seriously just one of the best, most inventive lyricists out there right now. Also, I'm a sucker for the hand-wringing existential shit. Good times.

― fucking in the streets, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 17:11 (3 years ago) Permalink

the album is a huge grower. but i felt alopecia was as well. his albums are definitely hard to digest at first.

― cutty, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 17:15 (3 years ago) Permalink

VERY excited to see him at the end of the month in NYC.

― cutty, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 17:16 (3 years ago) Permalink

if you want to be entertained, the comments here are just too much:

http://www.songmeanings.net/artist/view/songs/14193

― cutty, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 17:17 (3 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

great interview with john norris:

http://www.noisevox.org/

― cutty, Saturday, 10 October 2009 13:18 (3 years ago) Permalink

interesting comment on 'these few presidents' from that site:

" moirae
05-20-2008

Rated -1
i am a convicted killer, and i can say with absolute certianty that he killed her, or that he has been fantisizing about doing so for a long time. "

― thomp, Sunday, 18 October 2009 15:07 (3 years ago) Permalink

" narcissus_t
01-05-2009

Rated 0
Am I the only one who thinks that "these few presidents frowning in my pocket" might be referring to bills? Like, money? How that applies to the meaning of the song, I've yet to determine, but I think it's a definite possibility. "

― thomp, Sunday, 18 October 2009 15:08 (3 years ago) Permalink

haha

― cutty, Sunday, 18 October 2009 16:33 (3 years ago) Permalink

someone else reads this thread? wonderful

― cutty, Sunday, 18 October 2009 16:33 (3 years ago) Permalink

eskimo snow was such a grower. what an amazing record.

― cutty, Sunday, 18 October 2009 16:34 (3 years ago) Permalink

all his work is like this it seems

― cutty, Sunday, 18 October 2009 16:35 (3 years ago) Permalink

i still can't decide about this guy. like i have a certain problem with the "just a lonely 20-something thinking about death" vibe that runs a lot through the two records i've heard.

some of what he does just amazes me, though; the verses on 'this blackest purse' and the one with the "we found a dead fox and a dozen matchbox cars" coda - the sort of laterally connected ideas he's good at working into things

― thomp, Friday, 23 October 2009 10:45 (3 years ago) Permalink

eskimo snow is great, but it doesn't sound like an album in the way alopecia did, and a number of the songs sound almost like improvised skits.

i also really love the line "i want to speak at an intimate decibel / with the precision of an infinite decimal".

― I never saw the advantage of peeing while standing. (Upt0eleven), Friday, 23 October 2009 11:05 (3 years ago) Permalink

Who raps in a similar style? Specifically, with really good lyrics that are rapping but still intelligible?
― WillS, Monday, January 30, 2006 2:17 AM (3 years ago)

Sage Francis. A Healthy Distrust is his masterpiece.

― ArchCarrier, Friday, 23 October 2009 11:28 (3 years ago) Permalink

gross

― cutty, Friday, 23 October 2009 11:41 (3 years ago) Permalink

sock

― thomp, Friday, 23 October 2009 12:34 (3 years ago) Permalink

so was this actually recorded at the same time as alopecia or is that a typo in the liner notes huh

― thomp, Friday, 23 October 2009 12:36 (3 years ago) Permalink

recorded at the same time, yes. watch that john norris interview, very good.

― cutty, Friday, 23 October 2009 12:52 (3 years ago) Permalink

john norris obviously a huge fan

― cutty, Friday, 23 October 2009 12:53 (3 years ago) Permalink

i hate watching video on the internet. yes i'm a luddite. why hasn't my copy of elephant eyelash arrived yet

― thomp, Sunday, 25 October 2009 12:16 (3 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

ahem

― thomp, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 23:24 (9 months ago) Permalink

let's review some recent facts:

i make decent cash, i'm a minor star, and we can't last if she don't drive a hybrid car. i scribble vapid raps on your flyer backs; word is, i just purchased a refurbished mac g4. pull up to critical mass in a gaz-guzzling ford, just to ask you when next your rock outfit performs; before you tell me the facts, i'm down the road yelling back: please post it on the wholefoods bulletin board. i'd earn a lick of respect and slum hard for sure, but I threw out my lumbar picking up cheques. i'm so numb, lord yes, despite how I'm blessed, destined to end up a slum lord, depressed; come by, poorly dressed, your address on the first; hum something under my breath that half resembles some words; and, like a bird in a suit cut for a brutish bear, back out of there bowing like a jew in prayer.

― thomp, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 23:32 (9 months ago) Permalink

he's rappin' again

― Fareed Zaireeka (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 23:59 (9 months ago) Permalink

yes and i am excited by that development!!

― thomp, Thursday, 16 August 2012 15:11 (9 months ago) Permalink

How'd I not notice a why? thread before? Must've been the ease of searchability.

Haven't heard any new stuff yet, but I'm surprised to hear that he's back to rapping. The later records seemed to be moving in the exact opposite direction.

― to welcome jer.fairall, pie is served. (jer.fairall), Thursday, 16 August 2012 23:44 (9 months ago) Permalink

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.