Years & Years

Thank u deej for my favourite new band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_uoH6hJilc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nJCF01b510

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3T2RnTBp_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0atZQSUE80

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

I really don't care the great dark corporate forces beyond my ken are forcing me to love this band. "Mr Brightside (Thin White Duke Mix)" X "Night Air" X "Climax" X "So Good To Me" was an idea whose time had come.

is the album out yet? I'm still a bit perplexed by their popularity, I enjoy them but they still seem a little bit like a dime-a-dozen blog band to me

I guess there is a bit of a cult of personality around the lead singer who I remember played a stalker in the skins reunion special

You forgot their latest (and probably my favourite) Tim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXTAn4ELEwM

Yeah that one is great too!

monotony they are totally a dime-a-dozen blog band, so much of the flava here comes from the fact that I could also conceivably describe them as Sam Smith X Walk The Moon.

They strike me as so much more obvious than a dime-a-dozen blog band, but in the best possible way - they're going for the biggest hooks, the most obvious melodies, the stadium sing-along lyrics. I could never imagine the likes of Passion Pit or Hot Chip writing such immediate songs.

Yeah that too, they are totally unrestrained by notions of indieness.

I feel like coming up with the most gruesome metaphors possible, like, they are the Imagine Dragons to (insert here).

Thanks for making this thread, was toying around with making a thread for these guys but wasn't sure they were big enough to merit it…

I don't get how "King" is their big hit because their other songs are so much better.

Shine hasn't been released yet. Would be very surprised if that didn't also top the charts.

Surprised to learn that Take Shelter peaked at 140 though - I thought it was much bigger than that.

they even have a toyboy & robin remix

I'm a little confused. So we're comparing them to Sam Smith, Walk The Moon and Imagine Dragons as if that's a good thing? Or does Tim F take pride in liking bands that sound terrible on paper?

Not pride, but I'm increasingly of the view that anything worthwhile derives at least some of its worth from containing hints of things that sound terrible on paper.

And it's much more interesting to work out why those hints work in a particular case than to try to construct everything as belonging to a closed circle of good taste.

"king" is so good that i'm scared to listen to any of their other songs

i feel like they're all similarly good-but-ignorable/forgettable

I found "King" can be slightly improved by singing it as "OH! I was a fing...er in your butthole".

Big tune, though.

lol that is indeed better

"Desire" is Monsta Boy via actual monstrous boys.

ok i take back what i said before, i like "shine" quite a bit now

i re-listened to all the others tho and still am not feeling them

They're like populist junior boys

Really like "worship" and "memo" although king is still best

Where is Brad

I sent him a link to their SoundCloud a couple of weeks ago, he liked it

it's true, i like these guys. deej sent me "memo" earlier and it's very pretty

i think i would loathe the material of "eyes shut" if articulated by any other group

That song is almost bad enough to destroy any excitement I have for the album, it's really bad

i mean the appeal of this band for me was always the way they balanced between tasteful and tasteless. "eyes shut" sounds like a reorganized "see you again" but i still... don't really hate it exactly

meanwhile i've been listening a two song playlist that consists of "shine" and crj's "boy problems" on repeat

Whoa, turns out I've been listening to the album version of "Eyes Shut" this whole time, the EP version is a bit better

"Foundation" is a marvellously tense and brooding number, the darkside counterpart to "Memo".

"king" reminded me of savage garden

Yep! They would do a dece cover of "to the moon and back".

the darkside counterpart to "Memo".

want someone 2 bury me alive 2 "memo"

savage garden is an extremely positive comparison in my book

I don't know why i wasn't caring at all about years & years, but the savage garden reference makes me want to listen to them.

savage garden makes the most sense of any comparison lol

ok this album

"Gold" is on repeat over here.

"shine" is just the best song in the world basically

'King' sounds like Bros produced by Hot Chip

come on guys, this music is crap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFXlWfzW9Uo

come on guys, this music is crap.

i'm convinced

i own two savage garden albums and haven't the slightest idea which song(s) y'all are thinking of when comparing years & years to them

"shine" is just the best song in the world basically

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, July 10, 2015 8:14 AM (8 hours ago)

i am almost beginning to agree with this tho

This is another case of Tove Lo-ism for me. By definition, it should be my thing, but it's not and I actually kind of actively dislike it.

Can't get over how amazing "Memo" is, and how accurately Ollie captures that sense of desire rendering you vulnerable and ashamed that is... If not unique to the gay experience then certainly uniquely framed by it.

"Without" is just so fucking gorgeous.

come on guys, this music is crap.

― cod latin (dog latin), Friday, 10 July 2015 15:20 (Yesterday) Permalink

yes everyone is lining up correctly

Can't get over how amazing "Memo" is, and how accurately Ollie captures that sense of desire rendering you vulnerable and ashamed that is... If not unique to the gay experience then certainly uniquely framed by it.

― Tim F, Saturday, July 11, 2015 5:35 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean three out of the five singles to date have been about this to some extent so it's obviously an idee fixe but I think "Memo" captures it most nakedly and powerfully.

fav of the new records is "Ties"

Mine is probably "Worship" which I hadn't heard before.

Are these guys this year's The 1975?

their style is more in my zone personally but the parallels def seem obvious

coming in peace here to observe that the posters on the london underground for both bands have been strikingly similar in style & layout - the comparison occurred to me when i first saw the y&y poster - later, i saw this thread and the savage garden comparisons etc and listened to a song or two and all was confirmed

another similarity being ownership of extremely commonplace & generic one-word songtitles, an aesthetic decision i don't really condone but one i think i understand

and the cipher is complete

Are these guys this year's The 1975?

Ha! Now it all makes sense! They suck too!!

Deej is right, the battle lines forming here only make me more confident of my opinion.

ah you can't make disagreeing with dog latin into some kind of point of character

why not apart from laziness

i mean i guess you can, but not in such a specific context

to be clear i just meant that it really is just the fight over The 1975 all over again.

Come on dude even Imago is feeling sheepish about vocally hating on them.

I just spent about five minutes with what I vaguely assumed was a Savage Garden melody in my head and then actually paid attention and realised it was actually 74-75 by the Connells. Now I can't really remember what Savage Garden actually sounded like and having read this entire thread I'm none the wiser about Years and Years either.

Not trying to be combative, more saying that it seems like the strong objections are coming from similar people and expressed in similar terms, and one knows where one stands on one situation it's easy to apply the precedent to another.

It's almost comforting, really, to the extremely limited extent that knowing where one stands in an internet discussion about music taste can be described a "comforting".

Years & Years sound like about 20 other things, many of which have been mentioned in this thread & none of which are particularly evocative or convincing artists to suggest an ilxor check this group out, so you fall back on "...except better than that sounds" over & over

weird wording but i assume u guys are used to that from my unedited ilx posts by now

^^^^

and as I have said before I think this fact is precisely one of the band's appeals (as it was with the 1975) - the sense that they're almost "redeeming" a lot of qualities that typically are executed quite dubiously.

but then I don't expect everyone to share my sense of creeping exhaustion with needing to define things by reference to a virtuous closed circle of good taste, which tends to reduce talking about music to the question of who can concoct the most enticing PR copy.

Gonna try to start liking this band now, pull the rug from everyone

I listened to some of this and found it largely insipid but it really does serve to illustrate quite how long it takes for a sound to translation from blog buzz to genuine mainstream.

Like you could have concocted a Hot Chip / Cut Copy song with vaguely Booka Shade-esque production in 2006 and it would have made sounded not dissimilar to this while being totally on-point and making zero splash in the real world, but fast forward nine years and one Sam Smith and bob's yer uncle.

Yeah, it's always been that way. It's just easier to track point A to point Z now because it's in your face all the time and never goes away unless you shut off the internet.

Matt's historical analysis is broadly correct although I think whether it's a mark against the later music comes down to whether that process of mainstream integration is simply weakening the music's force or recasting it.

e.g. In 2000 I thought that Kylie's "Spinning Around" was the "last word" in filter-disco's infiltration of pop in a fairly insipid way, whereas a year and a half later "Love at First Sight" took the same idea and turned it into a new pinnacle.

most of this just kinda passes me by but "Memo" is indeed really nice

For a change u guys should just agree w us bc we are always right

pleased the "this year's the 1975" observation (and ensuing argument) have already happened

also strangely comforted that kitsune still exists and continues to release on-brand music

Gonna try to start liking this band now, pull the rug from everyone

― The Bends by Radiohead (imago), Sunday, July 12, 2015 12:08 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

your internal taste chess is 0.000000001% as interesting to other people as you seem to assume

I only said that coz my taste was commented upon, jeez. idc really, the hunt for good music uber alles

chessthetics

idrc about your taste in music & its vacillations either obv although i will rep for your taste in tennis & its players (ever considered being an actual tennis journalist, u'd be great)

years & years have some cool synth parts, on reflection & dancepop probably needs more openly gay content (i'm not rly qualified to say for certain though)

not my thread so this will be my last post, think of it as an olive branch and an assurance that i won't go all dumb snob come the eoys (rly. it's just too exhausting) ok made it all about me again lol peace enjoy the sounds

for some reason "shine" reminds me of kate bush

anyway

I have been enjoying 'King', however the context for that is hearing it on family car journeys where it appears on Now 90 as a welcome respite between the twin horrors of Ed Sheeran and Maroon 5. That synth riff thing makes it the best song for Tarzan impersonations since Baltimora.

years & years have some cool synth parts, on reflection & dancepop probably needs more openly gay content

I thought "King" was somewhere between "likeable" and "nothing special," but I'm nonetheless interested in them for this very reason. But is the album significantly better than, say, Neon Trees?

Really loving writing about this album.

album is really good!

they just did a terrible version of "earned it" in the live lounge :(

This album is to One Direction what Carly Rae Jepsen is to Taylor Swift: the electropop realization of a promising earlier idea.

I'm increasingly of the view that anything worthwhile derives at least some of its worth from containing hints of things that sound terrible on paper.

The idea that animates most great art in any medium tbh (not saying Y&Y are, yet).

Really loving writing about this album.

:D

"Here, and on the album’s other highlights, the air of mercantile anonymity feels generous rather than cynical, the music as anxious to accommodate its imagined audience as Olly is his lovers, to be the song that made you dance all night even though you can’t remember a word of it now (i.e. to be the best song ever, as One Direction rightly observed). How else could you end up with a song like "Worship": a bright xylophone bounce for the verses, and a chorus that references gospel via diva-house via the Wanted’s "I Found You"? Appropriately, the band sounds too delirious to feel any shame."

<3

Tim, this was lovely.

link?

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20831-communion/

I'm in love with the good songs.

Liking this album. Oddly all the best songs are the end. That's weird.

i still maintain that all the songs are good

some less so than others...not sure i even see the objections to 'eyes shut' as an outlier, reminds me of when ppl were so bent out of shape that NERD rerecorded the album with "real instruments" even tho several of the songs sounded better/hit harder that way

nb i don't think its 'better' w/ this organic sound per se, just that it's still basically the same song

oh i'm totally into "eyes shut" now

The edit made it seem like I was rejecting the lesser songs more firmly than is the case. There are better and worse songs here but it's a relative thing.

besides which sometimes the worse songs become better over time

for instance i'm finally having a moment with "take shelter"

I really like "Without". Not so keen on "Ties" actually. But the only thing I have on Spotify on my new phone is this album and Sam Hunt's "House Party" and I really NEED to experience this album like that song, like have someone come over, dance around the couch to it and have ~~~FEELS~~~~ between the singy bits.

I'm still not feeling "King" or the back quarter.

link's not working to tim's review?

the album is just a bit too long imo, although i think as the songwriting becomes clearer that might solve it

weird to me that tim was selling this band upthread as being uncool or on-paper terrible bc almost every reference point i think of seems v credible to me (i mean they're basically a proper pop hot chip), except the gigantic fuck-off hooks...i almost wanted to say pet shop boys but there's none of the detachment, it's more idk, erasure or savage garden.

dude's voice is fine enough when it's being swept up and along these delirious synths but is horribly exposed on the sparer/slower songs and as for the bonus acoustic tracks, just noooooo

pfork links always break here, copy and paste the url

it's def Savage Garden.

dude's voice is fine enough when it's being swept up and along these delirious synths but is horribly exposed on the sparer/slower songs and as for the bonus acoustic tracks, just noooooo

this is my problem with the slower material.

idk I think in 2015 being a "proper pop hot chip" is not actually credible slash on paper seems like it would be played out to the point of toxicity?

I mean you could describe a lot of Walk The Moon in precisely the same terms.

i'm unfamiliar w walk the moon but i didn't hear any imagine dragons or sam smith in here, like this

"Mr Brightside (Thin White Duke Mix)" X "Night Air" X "Climax" X "So Good To Me" was an idea whose time had come

which is a LOT more tastemaker-friendly is also more otm. but i agree that there's something about them that doesn't lend itself to that and i think it's the massive open nature of the melodies

I've gotten so that I tear up whenever "Shine" comes around (I've gotta regulate my listening). By the time it gets to the last repetition of “Can you see me I’m shining/And it’s you that I’ve been waiting to find” I'm in bliss (and “I’m following lightning” a few seconds earlier is a beautiful image).

where is the chorus melody of "worship" lifted from? driving me nuts

"take shelter" has emerged as my favourite i think

Yeah I can't really be dealing with the dude's voice, nor the blustery Coldplay type choruses.

would love it a lot more if his voice was less weedy but for the most part it's covered up well. choruses are way camper than coldplay, much more ~pure pop

Yeah but there's something very 10s stadium pop about the choruses that puts me off, I'm trying to put my finger on what it is melodically but it's definitely proliferated since Viva La Vida.

is it m83

m83 have hooks at all?

i'm sticking w savage garden/erasure. the image and sound is very '10s but the melodies are what stick out as different

less the hooks more the "10s stadium pop" vibe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8fAsYRWiAs

Emre's the cute one imo

"Worship" chorus makes me think of a lot of gay club pop - Deuce's "On The Bible", The Wanted's "I Found You"...

The 10s stadium pop vibe = World Cup soccer anthems via Britney's "Til The World Ends" et. al. also

i like the album a lot but am i the only person who thinks the sequencing is totally out of whack?

yeah it feels kinda random but i think it's just generally too long

"ties" is so good, i do love how flicking around randomly makes certain songs pop out unexpectedly

I caught myself singing the ti-ie-ie part this orning.

*morning

yeah there's definitely a couple tracks that could be cut, but it's still very good overall

OKAY i made an edited tracklist and i think it plays much better than the original. try listening to it and tell me what you think!

foundation
take shelter
king
desire
worship
memo
shine
ties
without
border
real

EDITED OUT: "gold" and "eyes shut"

you may notice this is very similar to their live set which was intentional on my part

this album really clicked for me recently

still have to sort out why beyond the obvious but i really really like "eyes shut"

this is a good performance of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRLZFmTcOkY

does anyone like the troye sivan album

i like these

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxg222-hWWc

I suggested retitling the first song "Tepid" in today's Jukebox.

i think "wild" is great... it sounds like the blue nile or something

also i like the part where it sounds like he's singing "too long till i cum in your hands"

btw I love the good songs on the Y&Y album so much. I get "Real" and "Take Shelter" stuck in my head every couple days.

Still trying to understand why everyone hated "eyes shut"

so excited about seeing them tonight

Live show was really good when I saw them last week! They are so shameless in the best way. Ollie Alexander seems so thrilled by their audiences, it's really endearing.

hope Ollie is as drunk as he was reported to be a couple weeks ago.

im really mad i missed them in nyc

FWIW this is what I had to say about it last week.

Olly was either wasted or really naturally hyper

Fuck was he wearing though, socks n shorts beyond hideousness

I love this band so much, actually can't imagine how much they'd have meant to me if they'd been around when I was 22

They covered Toxic! We'd been told a Britney cover would happen, I guessed Born To Make You Happy bc codependency, Grace guessed Hold It Against Me. She should cover Ties though

His voice sounds better live, possibly helps that the audience are fully into singing every line

Their music probs doesn't warrant as much slutdropping as Olly thinks it does

it occurred to me today that sonically this album is kind of like "what if the bieber album were good"

and "if Bieber projected any sexuality"

"Shine" will be my #1 single on my P&J ballot

i love "shine" so much

makes me tear up

that and "memo" kill me 100 percent

i wanna choreograph a very sad dance to "memo"

"Memo" probably my favourite song of the year, and certainly the one that has upset me the most.

Also really into the slighter but very pretty bonus track "1977", which they should have called "1975".

and for Brad's sake maybe called it "The 1975."

Yah that's what I mean

i don't think a british pop song has emotionally crippled me as much as "memo" has since daniel bedingfield's "if you're not the one" (lol). which like ofc.

https://soundcloud.com/lexlomain/desire-years-years-ft-tove-lo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNb4FBawH_U

pass

except his haircut, jesus

Olly's post on the band's facebook re: this video was incredible

I bought some South American edition of the album that has something like 43 songs.

and, no, not for one moment has Olly been cute. Emre Turkmen is my boy.

I bought some South American edition of the album that has something like 43 songs.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, March 4, 2016 3:44 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

???

I cannot dig into this thread rn, but what's the consensus...ILM loves this band, yah? Or...?

We like the album.

Well, 'the band' is pretty much the same as 'the album' (so far). Right?

i'm still listening to this album for days on end, def one of my top records of the decade

recently fell in love with "1977."

https://twitter.com/yearsandyears/status/719469546449551360

:D

I love this album.

Yeah, this is a great album. I'd love something new from them soon. Isn't it time for the deluxe edition with a bunch of new songs or something?

such a good record

I forget about every couple months, then something like "Real" comes on and I'm like daaaamn

wonder if olly might do some solo guest vocal stuff in between albums

I'm not sure it would interest me. Away from the group ethos I think his vocals would frighten me.

yeah depends on if he wrote the lyrics also

my nightmare is if he shows up in an Elton John video or something

sounds like his nightmare too

he could probably rock a Katy B duet idk

he's guested on some stuff already - there's his turn on 'Sunlight' and there's a Clean Bandit song I hear in work sometimes that's got him on it too, both of them are not awful

Yeah, this is a great album. I'd love something new from them soon. Isn't it time for the deluxe edition with a bunch of new songs or something?

― Kitchen Person,

There was a "Super Deluxe Boxset" released last year but only had two bonus tracks on it.

Think they've said they're booked into the studio later this year to start work on a follow up.

uh which of you assholes didn't tell me about this band

"real" is m'/ l the best song ever

also i'm high

whaaaaaaat "shine"

wow i'm 3 songs into this band's catalog and they're the best band ever

just by the way....i happened to find this thread because for some reason i was listening to old school britney spears and i was searching ilx for "born to make you happy" and i found this thread somehow why because it was meant to be and may i just say listening to this band in that context is possibly the best way to discover this band

they have a new song out btw on the bridget jones soundtrack

k3vin if you don't know to check a thread regularly bumped by <all the people who bump the 1975 thread, except even lex is a fan> then I don't know what to say.

wait lex likes this, no

lol

that is too perfect

where rtc at

this album still knocks me out

yah I listen to it every couple weeks

man this album is really good

lol at this thread btw. "sam smith meets walk the moon...but good", "what if bieber...was good", all otm. have to say i don't really get the 1975 references tho, other than they're both british dudes

"meteorite" is pretty weak tho tbh

Aren't't The 1975 Australian?

lol no what

Years & Years and The 1975 don't sound alike, but there is a strong structural resemblance between the pro- and anti- factions in respect of both bands.

The fact that Lex likes the first and hates the second actually quite neatly encapsulates all the differences between the two: Y&Y less indebted to rock or indie except in the broadest sense, and concomitantly more thoroughgoing in their grounding in dance music; Ollie's voice has limitations but does not carry a strong white Brit regional inflection; the lyrics romanticise the abjection of gay adolescence rather than the abjection of straight adolescence, etc.

But if Lex is the tipping point state in this equation, more broadly the typical reactions to each group tend to turn on a lot of the same dynamics - the way in which they occupy a space between good taste and bad taste, between "real" and "fake", such that even some people who are comfortable embracing (say) chart-pop will blanch at what they consider to be an objectionable blurring of these boundaries (though they wouldn't necessarily phrase it in those terms).

I'm reminded of an excellent Tom Ewing article from the dawn of time:

Proponents of Proper Music criticism tend to talk about rock and pop records being ‘real’ or ‘fake’, and the assumption seems to be that its ‘realness’ lends a patina of quality to a Shelby Lynne album which is absent from a Shania Twain one. I don’t hear it myself but if that’s your thing, fair do’s. On the other hand as I say I’ll take the transparent bogosity of a Shania over the veiled bogosity of so many indie rockers any day.

Anyhow, the real/fake distinction might have told apart the Monks and the Monkees back in ’66, but in today’s ultra-referential industry it needs refinement up a level. So we can now talk about records which are Real-Real, in other words which mean it for purposes other than making money off people who want their records to mean it. Depending on how cynical you are, this category might stretch as far as Nirvana on one hand and the Dead C on the other, or may not actually exist at all. It’s the easiest type of music to think about, is Real-Real, and the toughest to actually identify.

We can also, though, talk about records which are Fake-Real, whether by design – Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” – or by misjudgement – The Manics’ “Masses Against The Classes” – or by simply being trapped in rock history like a mammoth in a tar pit, like Primal Scream’s recent work. Even when Fake-Real records start life with the noblest of intentions, there’s a crucial gap between their desire to say or be something uncompromised, and the abilities of the people involved to pull it off. Bad Fake-Real songs never lose the unmistakeable whiff of the second-hand record shop: when I listen to Primal Scream’s “MBV Arkestra”, all I want to hear is MBV or the Arkestra, not the lumbering mess of noise which actually squats on my turntable. But there are good Fake-Real records – comedy ‘punk’ like Jilted John which twenty years on sounds easily as nervy and felt as the Buzzcocks, or the Magnetic Fields’ many superb forays into rhinestone synthpop. These have an exciting awkwardness to them – their cynical imitation of genre formulae feels arrogant and tentative at the same time.

Real-Fake records, meanwhile, include commodity pop and little else. But unlike coca-cola, the secret formula for pop changes weekly, and throwaway commodities soon enough become ‘design classics’. Chart pop is often described as lightweight – a more accurate description would be low-density, because it stays mercifully free of interrogation and interpretation, of the creative traces and authorial intentions that listeners love to cram rock songs with. With rock – the Real-Real – the life being lived through the songs is, vicariously, the artist’s, and not the audience’s. How could it be otherwise, given the Real-Real’s professed indifference to whether anyone’s listening or not? Pop is blanker, but more open too.

The Real-Fake is public domain and ephemeral, which is only to say that the media forgets about it quickly. But the D.J.s remember, and so do the fans. Stick with a Real-Fake song long enough and you might end up its only friend, all its tawdry public meaning now yours and yours alone. That’s why the fan clubs for one-hit-wonders are often more passionate and fulfilling than any Beatles or Stones fandom could be, because they’ve turned the tables, shifted the balance of power from star to consumer.

And finally the Fake-Fake – the Elephant 6 bands, the power-pop perfectionists and bands like Saint Etienne, who get called ironists when they’re really only know-it-alls. Fake-Fake is what happens when pop steps out of its context and into history. It tends to be remarkably enjoyable: its only flaw is its sense of propriety, of – as Josh would have it – “pop as a style” bounded by certain rules. This is a necessary fiction – the only rule in Real-Fake pop is an accountant’s slide rule, but Fake-Fake bands tend not to sell many records – but it’s a fiction nonetheless, and it accounts for so many groups’ entire careers having a slightly fusty, pointless air, like people whose hobby is putting ships into bottles.

Do I really believe that this taxonomy works? Not a jot – although it’s as good as any other system of pop I’ve seen. The only way to define pop is by listening to it, even if for a lot of people, pop is simply whatever they don’t want to listen to. Mutable, capricious, and cash-driven, pop – contemporary pop – is the most compromised, controlled kind of music there is, but it’s also the freest from long-term stylisation of the Wilco/Wynton variety, and its appetite for novelty drives innovation in the musical marketplace (all the fastest-moving scenes from the 50s on have been singles-driven, and so in some way working on the pop model). In the end, we need it as much as, and because, it needs us.

Tom's taxonomy was very influential on my somewhat bluntly popist thinking circa 2000, incidentally. But (and this is not a criticism) it doesn't cleanly apply to groups like The 1975 or Y&Y (or many other groups and artists obv, but stay with me here), who don't really fit into any of its categories - "meaning it" too much to be clearly real-fake or fake-fake but carrying too strong, too obvious and self-acknowledged a whiff of inauthenticity to be real-real or fake-real (which can be inauthentic but is premised on trying to obscure that fact). They've got an extra fake or real chromosome which muddles up the classification process.

So the praise and criticism of each group (at least here) tend to mirror each other in their opposition: haters say, "I see what this music is trying to do but it fails in its attempts, it is a hollow shell of better music", while fans say "this is like a lot of awful music but somehow redeems all those terrible impulses."

yeah I don't know why I though they were Australian -- sorry.

I don't at all hear the similarities between these acts! Attitudinally, Y&Y sound like Pet Shop Boys without the jokes.

great post tim

"border" is my sleeper fav, i love how the chorus morphs into this totally unexpected thing. the entire mood of the song shifts so suddenly

okay, "memo"

completely obsessed with this album now

i wanna choreograph a very sad dance to "memo"

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Wednesday, December 16, 2015 2:23 PM (nine months ago)

OH LOOK SPEAKING OF:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skOAT87JVbU

not good :\

i don't hate it but it's pretty generic by their standards

Feels to me like Ollie trying to entrench his status as a gay club pop icon. It lacks that air of desperation which makes "Worship" (its closest antecedent, I think) so effective.

yeah this song is weirdly balanced. i appreciate that the video is as gay as possible though

Sounds kind of like a Kylie minogue album track

I hope it's a bit of a red herring

yeah i'm assuming it's a one-off for the soundtrack and not suggestive of the kind of stuff they're going to do. the hook is pretty generic but the writing especially is nowhere near the level of some of their best work, which can be so evocative and almost surreal -- to compare choruses describing extreme weather events, for example: "it's shaking the sky, and i'm following lightning / i'll recover if you keep me alive" vs "you hit me like a meteorite"

yeah it strikes me that many of their best lyrics sound like English by non-native speakers.

like a lot of recent soundtrack work i think they served an audience of theoretical new listeners something generally pleasing that hews close to their sound but contains less nuance than the songs on their own album

btw this is suuuuch a good road trip album

love this record

11-year-old secular sikh student of mine kept singing 'king' when i taught him this winter, was kind of lovely

where rtc at

― k3vin k., Tuesday, 27 September 2016 08:24 Bookmark

it good i liked it. never got the easy breezy slick dance pop vibe from it tho. album aptly titled, very intense, wracked, beseeching, supplicant/domineering/calculating evangelical egotism (some mileage in comparison w/matt 1975 but not a lot)

also curiously totally medieval. good soundtrack for wooden planet spec script alien3 probably

it is really medieval

they're recording album 2 now

Fascinating adjective.

if you guys were wondering who that was bopping out of CVS with a 4pack of toilet paper in his hand, that was me listening to "real"

I had been wondering about that

#PSEN 0005 - We have received word that the audio sounds of // SANCTIFY --- will be aired on pirate radio station @bbcr1 at 7:30PM GMT by non-sanctioned human @anniemac //.. this is NOT an authorised station in Palo Santo -- report to authorities if you hear this using #SANCTIFY pic.twitter.com/sy5LIYhxOe

— Years & Years (@yearsandyears) March 7, 2018

new song today it seems

not sure how i feel about it http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p060dx8y

Olly's hair has not improved.

sounded dece but not like a Hit Single

it's an all right song!

sounded dece but not like a Hit Single

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Wednesday, March 7, 2018 4:02 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark

yeah i agree. it's an interesting little twist on their sound but i'm surprised it's the first single.

it can be like one of those singles they made videos for on their first album before "king" that were arresting in some way but obviously not going to be hits

I fuck with it, sounds like a very 2000s pop take on a communion album track

on replay, not super into this

i still kinda like it but it feels to me like a song that could have been on album 1 just w/ slightly different production that doesn't quite do it much favors

it's a little underwhelming, definitely not the same level than some of their best work...though it's better than "meteorite"

I know it's the way it is, but this strategy of testing and teasing the market with dribs and drabs has the effect of dampening my enthusiasm but idk that's mem.

*me

july 6th

put it in my veins

also curiously totally medieval. good soundtrack for wooden planet spec script alien3 probably

― r|t|c, Wednesday, January 4, 2017 2:08 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god bless rtc

already freebasing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psn18d-4hBI

not feeling this new single, feels way too twee and like it was written as a commercial jingle?

co-written/produced by Steve Mac so that explains that

yeeeeeeah... i think the songwriting is great but it almost sounds like a sigala song

*cough*

oh boy

I was underwhelmed by the singles but this actually turned out alright I think. “Karma” and “Hallelujah” both slap and “All For You” especially. It’s a bit les Kitsuné than the first one production-wise.

It's gotten surprisingly positive reviews (my take goes up on Monday). "Surprisingly" because while Alexander is more confident he's also turned the act into Maroon 5 with himself as Adam Levine. The other two are barely involved. Far less angst.

The leaked tracks are awful, but look at the credits (Julia Michaels, Thomas Hull).

what are leaked tracks? the album is out

ok listening now

what u think deej

The album is a lot stronger than I was expecting based on the two singles. Not sure what they were thinking with those choices when they had Hallelujah, Karma, Rendezvous and Up In Flames right there.

what are leaked tracks? the album is out

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), S

"Sanctify" and "Hallelujah."

They were mad to leave "UP in Flames" off the album: an excellent freestyle-soaked banger w/the record's most confident Olly performance.

It's on the deluxe edition, that is (you can stream it on Spotify).

Yeah, Up In Flames is so great. It screams lead single, not bonus track.

listened to this a couple of nights ago but was doing other things at the time...there wasn't much that grabbed me but I need to give it a closer listen

this feels like their Urban Legend

this doesn't have the frisson of the debut but that's not surprising at all.. what could really? accepting that fact i feel pretty good about how this turned out actually. the singles sound better in context.

I've made my peace with Sanctify as it works as a decent introduction, I still can't stand If You're Over Me. I really like the rest of it. Karma is the one. I keep getting it stuck in my head.

i like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuIrr-qJ_UQ

^^

Been listening to the bonus tracks on Palo Santo a lot. Damn -- "Howl."

New track out now (video premieres on Monday)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGfaYTIYh40

this is not surprising whatsoever but how did i not know that Y&Y is an Olly Alexander solo project now (announced last month that the other two members left although one of them will continue as part of the live band)

"now"

I mean the last album had a couple token band songwriting credits. He's it.

i can't tell if i like this song or not. i think i do the more i listen to it... it really wallops you in the face from the jump in a way that feels a bit off but halfway thru it clicks into place a bit.

I went to see Years & Years live around the time of the first album and really enjoyed it - the music was good, he was a great performer despite his obvious limitations as a singer, and it really did feel like a celebration of queer identity.

What we saw of the BBC New Years & Years special was rubbish and I was surprised at how much I didn't enjoy it. The actual sound was terrible which didn't help, but it feels like all the things that made them so exciting and interesting to begin with have been lost at the expense of trying to make Olly Alexander into a superstar.

i suspect that it becoming a defacto olly solo project with the second album (and officially with the third) didn't really do anyone any favours at all

i hardly watch any TV but every time i do he seems to be on. it really seems he is well on his way to being a household name in the uk.

I'm not sure it's working with the music though. Apparently his new single has been one of the most played songs on radio over the last few weeks yet it's still not been able to get any higher than 94. It will be interesting to see if it jumps up the charts now the Christmas songs are all disappearing, somehow I doubt it. The lead single, Starstruck got a massive push too and didn't reach the top 30. I'm not sure why these songs aren't connecting with the public. They're not great, but seem like the kind of songs that would do well right now.

Totally agree with Boxedjoy about the BBC special. Very disappointing. They really won me round on the Christmas TOTP performances back in 2015, but this didn't have any of that charm or warmth.

yup, i don't think he is becoming a household name for his music. i'm guessing the majority of people who know of him now have never even heard of years & years.

I think if he is becoming a household name it's more to do with It's A Sin than anything Y&Y have released in the past few years.

i guess they figured the years & years name had some brand equity but it's pretty bizarre the way he uses that name for music, even tho he's well known by his real name for acting, just seems confusing. like when he did the royal albert hall xmas special they did this whole intro about how "he" was in "it's a sin" and then introduced "him" as "years & years." i feel like they should've either kept the group together as an olly solo project in everything but name (which is basically what paramore is for hayley williams) or just let him go by his name for his music

as for the music itself, i think it's prob furthering his goals of becoming a very famous person who does different kinds of art including pop that hits the charts but might not be huge smashes. there was something about the sound & writing of the first album that felt like a band working towards a specific kind of artist goal but that all mostly seems to have been abandoned after that. who knows how that one was made, honestly -- who drove it creatively etc, what the motivations were w/ the music after that, what new voices got in the mix or were given more weight. i liked "starstruck" but it just didn't stick for me & the stuff after felt very generic & less personal. the lyrics feel deemphasized w/ the kind of pop he's making now. oh well, happy for him anyway. the first album still means a lot to me

he truly was inescapable on british TV around xmas, i think i saw his face like 9 days in a row. feel like he'll be around as a british celeb for a very long time popping up on TV as a game show panelist or competition judge, shit like that, if he doesn't actually become a real deal TV & film actor who doesn't need to do that kinda stuff (tho honestly it seems like he enjoys shit like that i.e. being on celeb gogglebox so i bet he'll fill that role regardless)

I'm disappointed he's turned into the Ed Sheeran of/for the twink set

i feel like they should've either kept the group together as an olly solo project in everything but name (which is basically what paramore is for hayley williams)

eh paramore isn't really a good comparison because there's always been other major creative forces besides hayley (for the last decade taylor has been just as key to the band as her) & then even the hayley solo albums still strangely had taylor heavily involved everywhere.

the first years & years album had everything credited to the three of them + a few other producers they worked with, but the second album, while they were still a 'band' only had the other two co-write/produce two tracks (one of which was a bonus track), with the other tracks all just being credited to olly + a wider range of pop producers. those two 'band' tracks were among the most reminiscent of the debut's house-pop sound too, he tried to branch out away from that sound on a lot of tracks but the further away he got the worse the results were. & now of course it's officially a solo project. it's definitely an awkward transition where the second album was a creative shift to being nearly an olly solo album but they didn't commit to that then & now he's sticking with the name even though he's already very famous under his real name. one of the original years & years guys is still in the touring band apparently though, just no creative involvement anymore?

like i would say a better comparison for keeping the band but becoming a solo project in all-but-name is maroon 5?

Otm

jordan are you british now?

first record is still so wonderful

Yeah.

The second is half wonderful, and I love its bonus tracks.

Thoughts on the new album? I'm underwhelmed. He's becoming more conventional or is more distracted.