thread of miguel

(i've never heard a smashing pumpkins song so don't @ me)

Get ready for people who Don't Listen to R&B But Like Miguel to be louder this time

Okay, that's pretty much me right there, tbh. But this is much less appealing than Kaleidoscope Dream (a rare 2012 release I actually spent proper money on) after several listens. Plenty of these reflexive "Wait, couldn't this be more conspicuously R&B-ish please?" reactions.

"Coffee" is the rare moment on an album suffused with dread. Even "chase the sun" makes love sound terrifying (which it is).

chase = face obv

yes. There are a lot of references to death, dying, the end, etc

apparently the epigraph for the first video tie-in is 'find what you love and let it kill you,' which is the opening line of his chemical brothers collab

also vh1 soul is showing a miguel soul story that includes 'lotus flower bomb' and 'primetime' but leaves out '#beautiful'

Only now noticing that the hashtag is actually part of the song name. #observant

lex otm. also the "1979" connection enhances "leaves" imo lol

quickie is bad too, even sure thing isn't great

― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Thursday, July 2, 2015 1:22 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

man "quickie" is so fucking good. he closed the npr show out with it and it sounded so nice.

as an ex maniac fan of smashing pumpkins, weirdly i appreciate this connection.

same obv

Yes to "Quickie" and "Sure thing"; and "1979" is one of the few Smashing Pumpkins songs I like

"Sure Thing" was so simple and brief that it blew me in 2011. I put it in my top ten. I can hear -- but not accept -- how it might sound underfed now.

blew me = I wish. Blew me away.

listening to this album imaging miguel under the influence of 90's alt rock is wigging me out

is it migging you out

god "...goingtohell" is the best

The songwriting on All I Want Is You is pretty underrated compared to KD but I feel like he just took this big jump forward as a singer (both his voice and his phrasing) between the first and second albums. I listened to Sure Thing again today and it's amazing, but when he sings "just put your pretty little hand in mine" he still has that pinched, slightly nasal thing you hear with lesser R&B singers. Fast forward to Adorn and he really SINGS those high notes, like his throat is wide open, his technique is way better.

Listened to the new one again and I think my main problem is just that A Beautiful Exit is a really disappointing opener compared to his first two albums. It's actually a good song but the production and arrangement choices kill it for me, virtually anything would accompany it better than that lumpen guitar hook. Also, I was all ready to laugh at the NIN comparison but actually the way he sings "I want to fuck like we're filming in the valley" is pure Reznor (a way sweeter Reznor, but there's something there definitely).

Kaleidoscope Dream really felt like Miggy exploring the space between Marvin and Stevie and late 60s/early 70s psych and modernising it in the process. The rock influences here are different, both feel like California albums, but it's like he's exploring the West Coast music of a decade or two later. Prince is ever-present in the background, but it's a different Prince (and Miguel very rarely actually sounds like Prince).

This album is closer to Neil Young and Mamas and Papas imo

Listened to the new one again and I think my main problem is just that A Beautiful Exit is a really disappointing opener compared to his first two albums. It's actually a good song but the production and arrangement choices kill it for me, virtually anything would accompany it better than that lumpen guitar hook.

yea this is very much how i feel about the opener

Yeah I'm not saying it's saturated in 90s rock references by any means (and they could be entirely unintentional) but it feels like a more expansive record than KD - a lot of these songs feel like *driving music* in a way that the last album didn't really.

I think we'd be disappointed in any opener not "Adorn."

he did "girls like you" at the npr show in the style of an anthemic rock song and i thought it sounded better than the album version

"what's normal anyway" reminds me of this neglected little thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxhC094nFew

maybe I'm going overboard with 90s-hunting but the second half of "Face the Sun" gives me strong "Where Is My Mind" vibes

quickie is bad too, even sure thing isn't great

― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Thursday, July 2, 2015 1:22 AM (20 hours ago)

um, what

It gives me strong Purple Rain vibes tbh but I don't think you need to strain too hard for 90s rock echoes on a song with LENNY KRAVITZ on it.

The album in general feels more 80s than 90s to me, there's some big anthemic pop-rock sound that the faster, more top-down songs remind me of a bit, it's not Don Henley but it's something not far off.

NWA makes a really good companion to #HoodLove by Jazmine Sullivan btw. The whole stretch from Coffee through to Face The Sun is virtually flawless. The weather is helping.

yeah it's an amazing sticky summer evening album

is "the valley" beat really not a sample? it sounds so familiar but maybe it's just Generic Dubstep Growl

Album reminds me of Iggy Pop's "Candy".

It gives me strong Purple Rain vibes tbh but I don't think you need to strain too hard for 90s rock echoes on a song with LENNY KRAVITZ on it.

well especially when he starts literally singing "purple rain", perfect interpolation at perfect moment

enjoying this record a lot

this feels like more of an 'album' than the other two i love it so much fuiud

not here to hate on the debut but it was v much "solid collection of songs overshadowed by the 10/10 classic single" where the next two have been incredible and fully realised pieces of work

thinking about the contrast between this and KD, KD's overall vibe was sort of floating, drifting, on cloud nine emotionally and in this bubble of romance; wildheart is all dirt and grit and roughness and stuff that pushes you rather than makes you swoon

"coffee" in fact feels like the outlier in this respect (an amazing outlier tho)

yep

If Kaleidoscope Dream was Oracle then Wildheart is Odessey.

Percussion on damned is wow

maybe I'm going overboard with 90s-hunting but the second half of "Face the Sun" gives me strong "Where Is My Mind" vibes

The whole album is Sebadoh (with sex)!

Miguel made the same song w leaves and face the sun and put them one right after the other and it's still great and amazing

Re: the 90s, the guitars on "A Beautiful Exit" kind of sound like "Souvlaki Space Station" rewritten to soundtrack the opening of Altman's "Short Cuts" or better yet Bigelow's "Strange Days."

And "the valley" reminds of "Closer" mainly in the way that I can imagine having seen the real cool video with the "fuck" bleeped out and then getting the album home and hearing it uncensored for the first time. Like, I can imagine it so vividly, it's a mere technicality it didn't actually happen that way.

Haha

"Waves" sounds like "Electric Feel".

The songwriting on All I Want Is You is pretty underrated compared to KD but I feel like he just took this big jump forward as a singer (both his voice and his phrasing) between the first and second albums. I listened to Sure Thing again today and it's amazing, but when he sings "just put your pretty little hand in mine" he still has that pinched, slightly nasal thing you hear with lesser R&B singers. Fast forward to Adorn and he really SINGS those high notes, like his throat is wide open, his technique is way better.

It's worth remembering that "Sure Thing" was recorded in like 2007 or so. (It's was the song on his demo that got him signed, then his label sat on him for a couple years.) Something like "Teach Me" is a lot closer to his current phrasing.

i learned that he was originally signed as a songwriter more or less and "sure thing" was specifically earmarked for usher

pretty obsessed with "Leaves"-> "Face the Sun"

I am a dummy on "production" but these two songs do this thing where they build up layer by layer steadily over the song, until the climax is a wall of sound. though if you're listening carefully the sound is good enough to hear the different layers individually. like you're listening to a pyramid, a three dimensional object, being built. this is particularly true of "Face the Sun". I don't know enough to say what lineage that sound has: it's very complex, layers of counterpoint building, more and more tracks coming in. I dunno, maybe I think of like Be Here Now? Miguel gets pretty shouty on these songs, well and elsewhere on the album. maybe it's a kinda cokey sound? this is no shade: I am just listening to those two on repeat, with "Waves" once in a while, which is a more linear groove. I dunno, I'm hearing something that's probably really easy for the rest of you to classify etc but for me it's pretty striking.

"Waves" sounds like "Electric Feel".

I've been thinking this too.

'electric feel' reminds me of los angeles hotel lobbies, so the connection makes sense

i could wipe you down right now baby
let me ride that wave right now baby