thread of miguel

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

The first verse on Coffee is horrible. I don't think I can deal with this dude right bow.

uh

hm peach color moon glistens the plot thickens

I'm always rapping "I don't give a cottonpickin' fuck about a brother tryin' to size a nigga up/I hold my oowwwwn" after that line.

i talked about this before upthread i think but it's such a romantic line to me that he's asking his lover to pick a star in the sky to say goodbye to bc they both got up to watch the sunrise and the stars are slowly giving way to the peach color sky

they also need coffee because, uh, they both stayed up all night fucking each other

no they didn't! gunplay turns into pillow talk pillow talk turns into sweet dreams

tru :)

and he's having coffee on his own right? she's still asleep and he doesn't want to wake her up. it's a moment of contemplation and clarity about the night before

I got the impression that he's alone or in the other room or wahtever. The song works because it summons the anticipation of a possible fuck and evokes the bliss state of the next morning. Not many songs do both.

Remember the explicit version, you guys

yeah the best thing about that song and miguel in general - and what the remix got so disastrously wrong - is that he gets why fucking is amazing, and also why the non-fucking bits of the night or the relationship are amazing as well

Since when is "We talk street art and sarcasm/ crass humor and high fashion/ bubble bath, truth or dare/ and would you rather / a cold flame, the thrill of no shame/ drugs, sex, and polaroids" a good lyric? These people are scum.

...

bubble baths reduce or prevent scum iirc

that's a great lyric u philistine

Since when is "We talk street art and sarcasm/ crass humor and high fashion/ bubble bath, truth or dare/ and would you rather / a cold flame, the thrill of no shame/ drugs, sex, and polaroids" a good lyric? These people are scum.

this is how conversations that may lead to sex usually go?

only skimmed through this new album so could be totally wrong of course but as with the last album, miguel is one of my favourite singers of anyone right now, but lyric-wise, he is often just ridiculous/moronic/vacuous/just plain nonsensical and confused. that pitchfork interview also left me no wiser. i cant tell if he occasionally likes to make himself sound more bro-like than he actually is, or maybe he really just is, which is maybe worse (its also just an awkward fit with his free spirit sort of image). but what a singer. might be alone in this but the way he projects his voice makes me think of jeff buckley a lot (use me from the last album was also very jeff buckley to me).