songs
― alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
Buchanan is a very stark, emotional lyricist, aye.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
So in a way Kaputt is like listening to someone listening to Hats.
do you mean
So in a way listening to Kaputt is like listening to someone listening to Hats.
because otherwise - maybe i am splitting hairs here - you are comparing a work, an artefact with an activity. there is a logical fallacy looming there.
― alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:09 (1 year ago) Permalink
Listening to Destroyer is like knitting a hat
― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
kaputt is a hat listening to a hathaving fun with destroyer...
― alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
yes. of course. And I don't mean it literally sounds like that, I was talking about what I perceive to be the album's general emotional content and narrative thrust.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:54 (1 year ago) Permalink
i mean, keep up
― judith, Thursday, 9 February 2012 00:44 (1 year ago) Permalink
fuck listening to a hat!
/obvious joke
― Laughing Gravy (dog latin), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
everyone on this thread is wrong
― junior dada (thomp), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
even if that means i'm saying mutually exclusive positions with no middle ground are both wrong. they are both wrong. go away. you're wrong.
― junior dada (thomp), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:04 (1 year ago) Permalink
there's an album called hats?!?!
fuck all of you who like it
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:13 (1 year ago) Permalink
wait what is your job again?
― judith, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
nothing to do with hats
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
it's an album by The Blue Nile, lex. superior chill '80s sounds.
― omar little, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
i know what my favoured chill sounds are and they're not what destroyer fans recommend smh
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
vibe with me, brother (may i call u brother?)
― omar little, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
(i've vaguely intended to get into the blue nile for about a decade now but this episode may have killed that faint intention completely)
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
would u ask mariah if u could call her brother?!?!
you are definitely not mariah.
― judith, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
can we all agree that 'let england shake' is considerably more of an indie rock album than 'kaputt'? it's strange that lex is spending so much energy defending indie rock.
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
oh lex you sure are incorrigible, arent you
― ⚓ (gr8080), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think Let England Shake is more in the tradition of major label outsiders than indie rock.
― timellison, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:35 (1 year ago) Permalink
pj harvey is obviously not indie rock enough for you p4k disciples
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:39 (1 year ago) Permalink
way more rock than kaputt and made a *concept album* about..."war, man"
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
in England anything that sells less than 1 mil or spends fewer than 20 weeks in the chart counts as indie iirc
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:42 (1 year ago) Permalink
way more rock than kaputt
what ISN'T more rock than that mimsy weakling nonsense
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:45 (1 year ago) Permalink
cool, lex is going to tell us what rocks
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
so you're saying that rockin is a good attribute
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm not even sure it's more rock. Because the electric guitar is more prominent? If Destroyer is not soft-ROCK, than what is it?
― timellison, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
lex i think once you let go of the notion of "rock" = the pinnacle of music you can experience kaputt in the proper context (a context that oft involves, ime, a girl by your side and a full pitcher of sangria though ymmv)
― omar little, Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:49 (1 year ago) Permalink
― ⚓ (gr8080), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
the m83 superpitcher remix is really awesome and id like to thank this thread for reminding me of it
― BJ O (Lamp), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:52 (1 year ago) Permalink
so: thanks
oh yeah that is totally a gr8 remix
― ⚓ (gr8080), Thursday, 9 February 2012 02:55 (1 year ago) Permalink
ive been listening to 'kaputt' a fair bit this week trying to hear in it the virtues that plax and gr80 hear and i guess i still prefer bejar when he was making altars out of halter tops than after his rebirth as a ladies man even while i vibe the red silk flourishes that adorn 'chinatown' or the meadows and memories through which 'the laziest river' meander i almost wish the songs were cleaner, softer, easier to please. idk ive never really listened to the stuff hes referencing here except in the vaguest way or like jennifer warnes 'famous blue raincoat' and i can here that albums sax and longing in this but its way more subtle, i guess?
― BJ O (Lamp), Thursday, 9 February 2012 03:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
I don't think you'd like The Blue Nile anyway lex.
They don't sound at all like indie or destroyer (that wasn't the purpose of my reference), but even so my sense is that you're not into any balearic vibes that actually come from an 80s pop-rock place (as opposed to being, like, disco with spanish guitars).
― Tim F, Thursday, 9 February 2012 03:02 (1 year ago) Permalink
Is he a Ladies Man on this record? He's closer to embodying Death of a Ladies Man.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 9 February 2012 03:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
My intuition is that there's far less self-conscious "signifying" happening on this record that some folks are reading into it. It makes sense that Bejar was deep into Avalon when we was writing these songs, but his voice feels assuredly and self-consciously his own. Just because he doesn't sound like Ferry or feel like he's coming from the same place in his delivery doesn't mean he's wrily resigning himself to non-Ferry-ness. That's why this, Tim, despite it being a lovely and provocative mise en scene, doesn't ring true for me:
<i>It's not so much that Bejar could never write "More Than This", it's more that he could never write a song from the perspective of the singer of "More Than This", only from the perspective of someone sitting in the audience watching Ferry sing it and wishing for a moment that that could be him, and at the same time knowing it's an impossibility.</i>
The first part is true--he could never write a song from that singer's persepective (his voice is just not that kind of voice, and he's just not that sort of lyricist)--but why does the second part follow? I think there's a certain distanced quality to Bejar's vocals across all of his stuff--certainly his New Pornographers songs--which makes me feel like that's just the way he sings rather than some sort of purposeful distancing from what he's drawing inspiration from.
― Clarke B., Thursday, 9 February 2012 05:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
that's a weird claim too given how completely constructed a persona Ferry's is. anybody could write "More Than This," in a sense; it's not an act of self-expression except at great remove
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 9 February 2012 05:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'd argue that the part of Ferry that's being expressed in what we often perceive as a "constructed" or "removed" way is just as real and crucial to his persona as, like, whatever he's like at home.
― Clarke B., Thursday, 9 February 2012 05:38 (1 year ago) Permalink
mmm - there's an argument to be made there but it's pretty theoretical. the point is whether one buys Bejar doing it or not isn't really down to "who" either of them are but how one aligns with musical/social cues - more on the listener than on the artist
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 9 February 2012 05:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
Sure, yes. And I'd argue (and Tim said something like this upthread: "I think that typically we can overstate the importance of retro sonic signifiers in respect of stuff that sounds a bit like 1982-1987, certainly as compared to stuff that sounds like 1977-1981, or 1966-1968, or etc.") we as listeners have a more difficult time wrapping our heads around an artist borrowing from this once (and, for many, still) beyond-the-pale era with a straight face than we do with an artist borrowing from postpunk, etc. We're seemingly still at a stage as critical listeners where we insist that a saxophone signifies with more intentionality than, say, a guitar.
― Clarke B., Thursday, 9 February 2012 05:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
Speaking of which, that Boys of Summer guitar on The Laziest River is way more blatant a pastiche than any of the saxophone playing--which is really not very straightforward or slick or formulaic at all.
― Clarke B., Thursday, 9 February 2012 05:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
I don't think it's so much that the saxophone signifies more than something else. It's just that its presence is notable in part because they're fairly big, fairly expensive instruments, take a lot of chops to play well, and not many people play them. So it's inclusion on the record or on the M83 record is a fairly notable example of someone going the extra mile.
― timellison, Thursday, 9 February 2012 06:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
I mean, it's obviously not that unusual for someone playing some different kind of instrument to appear on a record. But I think it's notable when something like this happens - a saxophone player appearing for (to whatever degree it's so) postmodern purpose.
― timellison, Thursday, 9 February 2012 06:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
Is there also a chance that we're perhaps overemphasizing Bejar's auteuristic imprint on the record? I mean, did he write out all of the saxophone and piano parts explicitly, or was there a lot of improvisation / collective writing involved with the other instrumentalists? I think the more we can potentially view Kaputt as a more thoroughly creatively collaborative effort, the less we can straight-facedly view it as some sort of pastiche/commentary/"record about records"...
― Clarke B., Thursday, 9 February 2012 06:35 (1 year ago) Permalink
He doesn't play or compose like Nick Cave. He gets his band in (often separately) to jam around his songs, I gather.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 9 February 2012 07:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
i feel very sorry for people who describe destroyer as the pinnacle of bliss or good vibes or whatever. you have never known true bliss ;_;
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 08:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
if i had a boy by my side and a pitcher of sangria i wouldn't want to spoil that context with sodding destroyer, i'd be listening to some actual balearic dance music. always go for the best!
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, 9 February 2012 08:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
If I have a boy by my side and some alcohol (sangria or otherwise) I tend to go for something far sleazier than any stripe of balearic.
Let's have our priorities straight.
― Tim F, Thursday, 9 February 2012 08:55 (1 year ago) Permalink