Dirty Projectors

at the risk of cross-platform manthreading I was debating on whether to include an e):

e) at this point it is going to take a lot of convincing (or a lot of unprecedented awfulness of concept, like, xojane's worst hits levels) to get me to join a pile-on of an OK personal essay by a woman on grounds of it not being music writing didion

like, there is not a single sentence in that entire piece that is not 1000 times better and betraying more self-reflection than "As we filed out, Haddaway's “What Is Love” played over the loudspeakers, prompting me to wonder once more, the only question that song prompts anyone to wonder: What is love?" (from the linked first-date-with-carly-rae-jepsen piece)

well, to be fair, no one said that was an example of great music writing on the Haddaway thread

fgti, do you think what Beyonce did to Jay Z on Lemonade was abusive?

lmaoooo

1st: whiney you're comparing end-of-year blurbs with a personal essay and saying she must be racist because of number of paragraphs-devoted-to and I'm sorry you are literally reaching so far here please somebody talk to the man right now so I don't feel crazy, also it is not at all my place or yours really to start a discussion about how white women are supposed to write about misogynist rap music, please somebody say something please

2nd: Frederik the implied violence-against-women that is present in this DP album is not present in the Beyonce record because of the opposite gender roles and also there is more conspicuousness on that record and its roll-out and subsequent nuptials suggesting that husband-and-wife felt it was an empowering and artistic statement for black women so no basically not at all; I did think that people going on "who is becky" scavenger hunts was closer to abusive behaviour

Wtf. What violence?

Have you even heard the record yet?

If you do not see the IMPLIED violence-against-a-woman in what is being sung on the DPs record then that's fine. Me, I think that telling the audience that you wrote a woman's breakthrough hit, singing "I wanted art / you wanted fame", singing "I'm shining like tears in the rain / you're shining like fifteen minutes of fame", plus all the excessive other b.s. slung on this album constitutes implied violence against a woman, yes.

Have you heard the album?

this thread is going placds

*places

Ffs Frederick I have literally heard the record a dozen times over the last six months please stop talking to me

It's the same two or three lines that are excerpted over and over, then coupled with 'plus everything else' and there really isn't that much else. It's a breakup album, there's rage, there's anger, there's sorrow. And yeah, Keep Your Name especially is contemptible and extreme, and it was probably really stupid to release that as the first single, but the storyline is also him beginning in that place and by the end of the album reaching some kind of peace and acceptance. And even in Keep Your Name he has the momentary self insight to sing 'I wasn't there for you / I didn't pay attention / I didn't take you seriously And I didn't listen' which he then loses again immediately. There are, like, different voices and shit on this album. I wonder what would have happened if he had released Cool Your Heart as the first single.

And no, it's different from Lemonade, mostly because Lemonade is an astonishing piece of art, and that tends to transcend problems, while nothing is transcend here. But some of the critique itt is way overblown. I don't hear implied violence in him saying he wrote a song he has a songwriting credit on, from a band where he was known as the main songwriter, that sounds an awful lot like a lot of other songs he has written.

indie rock musicians and indie rock critics really deserve each other

Dre beat up Barnes, abt 25% of Future's songs're abt treating women like meaningless shit, Longstreth is being a dick about his ex. Whiney you are not comparing like w like

What % of his songs is this album

No one piled on the bad writing btw it was in response to ppl calling it great writing

people just said they liked or appreciated the piece, they weren't nominating it for a pulitzer

(I also think there is often an unspoken undercurrent of media politics behind a lot of what gets called good vs. bad writing, both in the personal and institutional senses, but that is an elephant that can just stay there in the room)

I appreciated the piece as well, even though I thought it had a fundamental flaw. For me it showed how the album mostly works as a resonant piece about being a shithead during breakups. And I appreciate everything katherine has written as well, along with most of what fgti has. katherine's writing has really underscored how lucky I am that the resonance for me with this album mostly has to do with dark nights in my own head (and that's what the screwed voice in Keep Your Name sounds like for me, btw, like a voice inside his head) and one or two text messages I immediately regretted and had to apologize for, and not stuff done to me. + it made it really clear that that doesn't have to do with luck at all but privilege.

There was another great point in your singles jukebox writeup, katherine, which is that it's not just misogynistic and problematic, but also really fucking boring to hear him wallow in despair and self-pity and male agression. But that's also why I think it's wrong to claim Robin Thicke is the only comparison, or that he should learn something from Geordie Fruit. This shit is commonplace to all indie, and to hone in and pile up on Longstreth misses how much like fifty other acclaimed indie albums this thing is.

And that include earlier Dirty Projectors albums, btw. It was kinda always weird that their relationship was chronicled by Dave on their albums, and that she never got to speak on her own. The problem was there from Bitte Orca onward.

Bump.

So I have been listening to this a lot, which has surprised me, because I've found Longstreth pretty much intolerable since the press release for Rise Above, which was just horrific.

Everyone got that Keep Your Name is roleplaying right? He's the one who kept the name and who searched for fame. Also, noting that he wrote a hit for her is like a bare minimum of contempt a breakup album is supposed to include.

Not everyone got that, and while I have thought about if that's the point, if so, it's kinda badly delivered.

It was my assumption from the off that the bits with the pitch-shifted voice in KYN are being delivered to Longstreth, not by him.

pitch-shifting is used so often now that I don't see it as representative of anything but a lack of imagination

That's... not normally how things work... There's also guitars on one track. Real lack of imagination.

Normally if one use of an effect becomes codified, it becomes easier to see it as meaning that. And honestly the pitch-shifting in Keep Your Name sounds like the pitch-shifting in Blame Game and countless drug songs: A loss of personality, the subconscious speaking. Listening to the 'What you want is FAAAAME' it doesn't work as something being said to him. Not to my ears. It escalates in the way a discussion doesn't, it sounds much more like someone sitting alone and getting angry.

the difference is that guitars are a basic instrument that has been used for centuries and in rock for decades, and that this particular form of pitch shifting is a fleeting trend that has become ubiquitous in the past years

cf. the fleeting technological trends of the synthesizer, the sampler and the drum machine

pitch shifting = using the computer as a basic instrument

no shit, but this is a specific *kind* of pitch-shifting that is an overdone, often thoughtless effect. it's like paint vs. avocado-colored paint

idk, I really like the pitch-shifting on KYN (especially the pitched-down parts), it doesn't feel thoughtless to me. Bon Iver-esque auto-tune/vocoder harmonies feel more played out.

I will say the album is produced really well - love when the vox go double-tracked on Keep Your Name. The blown out horns on Up in Hudson are sweet, too.

Boy the entire aesthetic of Future, who has two number one albums this year, sure is an "overdone, often thoughtless effect"

key word is "often"

this is sweet, song exploder on my favorite song from the record, real geek shit http://pitchfork.com/news/72377-dirty-projectors-dissects-up-in-hudson-on-song-exploder-kanye-bowie-and-more-listen/?mbid=homepage-more-latest-and-video

yeah it was super interesting to see how he put it together and how much input tyondai braxton had.

guess i'm glad he thinks the guitar coda goes on way too long, too

that's the best part though

I checked for Mauro Refosco after listening to this and I see that he's now making $$$$ slumming it as the Red Hot Chili Peppers' touring percussionist. Cool to know that's him on the Atoms for Peace record though, I had assumed that was all Joey Waronker.

Performing 'Cool Your Heart' on Fallon last night with D∆WN, Tyondai Braxton and The Roots.

Looks like the drummer who took over from Brian McOmber after Swing Lo Magellan (I think it's Michael Johnson) is playing with him also.

https://youtu.be/MZ8U7uDXSOg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYq5Ch-FFcs

is it just me or does the guitar line very strongly evoke "Blue Pedro"

Lol, it's already getting slammed in Pitchfork. I absolutely love it on first listen, but it does sound a bit like a song I'll tire of quite quickly.

Is this still a solo project? I was pretty done after he fired the rest of the band.

Hasn't it been a solo project always, like before he even had that band?

Maybe so, I liked the band more than I like him

yeah it started as a solo project, so imo fair for him to use the name now even when it's just himself. but this one has a band

I saw them play last summer and the band was Nat Baldwin on bass, Mike Johnson drumming (who took over when Brian McOmber left after recording Swing Lo Magellan), Olga Bell doing loads of stuff and singing, Mauro Refosco on percussion, Ty Braxton on modular synth and laptop and a brass section.

Judging by the new press photos, Nat Baldwin and Mike Johnson are still playing in the group, and not sure who the other members are.

https://media.pitchfork.com/photos/5ae9c394eaa03d5ad95c5c23/2:1/w_790/Dirty-Projectors.jpg

Absolutely knew Pitchfork would skewered it because they missed their opportunity to do it on the last album, which was retrospectively deemed problematic, plus Longstreth had that godawful Instagram post about 2009 and this album has a Robin Pecknold duet on it.