thread of miguel

I was at the State Theater show in Minneapolis last night. People were not kidding how incredible his band is. One of the highlights was the guitarist spinning around really fast whilst playing The Thrill. One of the best live shows I've been to.

I'm having this weird relationship with the album right now where on one listen I'll really like it, and then on the next I'll find its spotty and trying.

"Coffee" still among the best tracks of the year, if not THE best.

― The New Gay Sadness (cryptosicko), Thursday, August 13, 2015 9:32 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yea me too, i listened this morning and i was like "okay this is awesome there are only like 2 tracks i don't like"

"the valley" is really bad imo, i'm just not feeling that tune at all

"flesh" on the other hand is great

"leaves" i've always liked but this morning it's been especially powerful, that tune is amaaaaaaaaaaaazing

i don't think i know who geoffreyess is???

i was at the minneapolis show. i had a great time, but in recollection my feelings are kind of negative, i'll have to think about it

it was kind of a marathon; he gave songs i liked less real workouts, stuff i liked he just kind of breezed through.

and maybe i totally lost the plot but i don't think he played arch & point?

i was into how douchey is band was though

man that opener though, wtf was that even

these guys? they sound pretty um.
https://soundcloud.com/dorothytheband

i really like them

(i wrote about them for RS six months ago! thanks whiney)

first two songs not doing anything for me but i respect yer opinion so will try again

i mean if you're not into the whole deap vally/dead sara/loud ladies over crushing blues riffs thing then it might not be your cup o tea

yyyyyyyyeah, this may be a case of diverging tastes. they sound to me like a faster pussycat cover band with a female lead.

you say that like it's a bad thing

if you had asked me twenty years ago!

Dorothy was not my cup o tea at all but I admired the commitment and sorta understood why they might have been invited to open. In a month that has already brought much worse opening acts, I had some mild affection for them.

I didn't hear "Arch and Point" played, though the boundaries between songs were somewhat indistinct at times, the music restructured to address and engage the audience.

Anyway I had a great, smiley time at the show. Thrusting, come-ons, long-winded monologue about celebrating your individuality, the "How Many Drinks" processional to the balcony, then brief disappearance (where's Miguel??) and triumphant return to the stage. It was all good.

discovered the flow of this record would be improved slightly if "coffee" and "what's normal anyway" were moved after "hollywood dreams"

i guess if you want the back half of the album to completely destroy the first half instead of merely outshining it

eh i love the first half of this record

The Valley isn't Miguel's greatest moment, but it def suffers a bit because I get an itchy trigger finger to get to Coffee.

long-winded monologue about celebrating your individuality

i found this really moving

i was, like, so close to him when he came up the aisle. tastefully kept my phone pocketed.

i found this really moving

Me too!

he was quite smothered by phones

a modern malaise if any

DEAL is such a jam

Although kinda subtle and not awfully dramatic, "what's normal anyway" has increasingly revealed itself to be the beating heart of this record. Sleeper deep cut. Is that manipulated vocal hook that occurs throughout sampling anything? Sounds awfully familiar...

I accept "What's Normal Anyway" as the heart of this record but I really don't fuck with it at all. I mean, I used to do the "I'm mixed, woe is me, nobody understands me" thing but then I recognized it for the internalized manifestation of white supremacy it is and can't stand when other people get in their #MixedFeelings. Like it's really fucking shitty to monoracial black people.

it's a very pretty song, it does so much with very little, but the lyrics are definitely the worst mutation of his individuality fixation

i respect those takes takes but the song doesn't feel self-pitying or yearning to fit in to me, just the phrase "what's normal anyway" seems to me like a poetically casual way to shrug it all off. race is obviously a big component of the song that i can speak to but i think it's also pretty broadly about a lot of 'caught between two different worlds' feelings that a lot of people have in different situations.

i mean compared to the smug clumsy way a Kid Cudi or a Childish Gambino addresses that subject matter it's pretty deft imo.

The tossed-off way he sings the hook mitigates the self-pity imo. Brevity helps too.

if individuality fixation means pharrell influence, which i guess it does

hm true some dude, just sort of dislike the effect of ~i don't work in a binary~ *reinforces other binaries*

it's such a prettyyyy song though

too crazy for boystown, too much of a boy for crazytown

lmao

In a crowd and I need a bone.

I accept "What's Normal Anyway" as the heart of this record but I really don't fuck with it at all. I mean, I used to do the "I'm mixed, woe is me, nobody understands me" thing but then I recognized it for the internalized manifestation of white supremacy it is and can't stand when other people get in their #MixedFeelings. Like it's really fucking shitty to monoracial black people.

― drown zoowap (The Reverend), Thursday, August 20, 2015 11:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if mixed ppl don't talk about the specific issues of being mixed no one else will though. i've definitely seen some instances where the internalised white supremacy is obvious but i disagree that #mixedproblems are inherently shitty to black people.

"what's normal anyway" feels v borne of miguel's own life experiences

imo it is one of the weaker songs on here, i think it's a little corny and obvious tbh. i admire the spirit of the song. i'm hispanic/latino but grew up in a completely homogenous white suburb so have always felt like an outsider among both white and latino circles, it took a long time for me to be able to process the yes *intersectional* aspects of my identity, being a poc but also feeling more familiar (though not comfortable) with white middle class environments, tbh the 15-year-old me would have fucking loved the song to death but it's a little too much for me now? idk.

and tbf to miguel he's talking about being mixed mexican/black and that's a somewhat different dynamic than the #mixedfeelings rev is referencing?

that said i do think both lex & rev are otm here.

He talks a little about What's Normal Anyway specifcally here: http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/whats-normal-anyway/Content?oid=16294961

Even after his quick rise and the success of Kaleidoscope Dream, Miguel says he still has "a bit of an underdog mentality" that he'll likely carry for the rest of his life. But he's carrying a lot less than he used to. He calls "What's Normal Anyway" an "emancipation" from the feelings it expresses; just by writing them and singing them out loud, he has not only offloaded their power over him, but has turned them into forces for good.

"Letting go of all of these parameters that I felt kept me from connecting, I've almost repurposed them and made them the reason why I do connect," Miguel says. "Because in that vulnerability, there's commonality, and people can relate with feeling out of place."

parameters, repurposed, commonality

he's got the jargon down

every song was mistagged when i dl'd this so only now am i realizing the standout for me is 'leaves', i love it as mch as u guys did adorn

its really confusing bcuz im too lazy to rename it & its tagged FLESH & prev i thought it mightev been hollywood dreams lol

i love "leaves" more than "adorn"

ooohh let my leaves adorn you

i love both leaves and adorn very very much

been listening to kaleidoscope dream a lot lately, it so so so good

it actually makes me appreciate wildheart a lot more, idk why, i know i talked some shit about the rock touches on wildheart but i have been digging them more

whoever said upthread that their opinion changes all the time about wildheart was otm, right now though i am loving it and loving miguel so much

curious what people think of the production. it seems really "vibe-y" and almost lo fi in a lot of places. more like classic rock in some ways.