At first I was really shocked at how different this album is compared with For Emma, even Blood Bank, but the songs I liked at first listen I'm really loving and the songs I didn't like at first are growing on me. Beth/Rest even in it's 80's bedroom glow is my favorite. My girlfriend and I have listened to it repeatedly.
― JacobSanders, Thursday, 19 May 2011 03:22 (thirteen years ago) link
and made sweet sweet receda california love in shower costumes.
― Crooked Lust (thebingo), Thursday, 19 May 2011 13:07 (thirteen years ago) link
i've listened to this like 5 times in the past day so that must mean I love it.
― akm, Thursday, 19 May 2011 13:23 (thirteen years ago) link
lyrics posted for those who are into lyrics.
http://jagjaguwar.com/blog/2011/05/bon-iver-bon-iver-the-lyrics/
― Crooked Lust (thebingo), Thursday, 19 May 2011 14:37 (thirteen years ago) link
i've listened to to the new bon iver several times this morning, motivated by the same sort of experimental curiosity that brought me to the fleet foxes last week. prior to this moment, i've deliberately ignored both artists, kept away by the sense that their music belongs, somehow, to another tribe (where indie's concerned, i typically affiliate myself with grubbier punk/psych/noise). did like gayngs, tho.
anyway, this is beautiful, a vague shimmer of sound that reminds me more than anything else of grizzly bear's veckatimest - another lovely psychedelic pop album that can seem overly abstract at first. i say that because, for the all the time i've spent with bon iver, i can't remember a single song, can't even quote a lyric. i'd usually find fault in that, but the album clearly intends to get by more on mood than on hooks, and in this case, i'm willing to accept the tradeoff. there's absolutely no fire here, nothing raw, challenging or insistent, nothing to break the golden, narcotic haze of voice and instruments, and i imagine that people who depend on more violent musical enticements will reject it as boring, safe or unimaginative. it is safe, prizing a pillowy sort of sensual comfort over all else, but it goes awfully well with warm sun and slow hours.
can't imagine it'll go down as a favorite, but it strikes me as quite successful on its own terms.
― contenderizer, Thursday, 19 May 2011 17:47 (thirteen years ago) link
I just discovered I have been mispronouncing this band's name
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Thursday, 19 May 2011 17:49 (thirteen years ago) link
"Bon Scott"
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 May 2011 17:49 (thirteen years ago) link
i imagine that people who depend on more violent musical enticements will reject it as boring, safe or unimaginative. it is safe, prizing a pillowy sort of sensual comfort over all else, but it goes awfully well with warm sun and slow hours
Uh, what if you like both extremes?
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 May 2011 17:50 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, there aren't really any hooks here. Lotta nice sounds though.
― Number None, Thursday, 19 May 2011 17:56 (thirteen years ago) link
i could do without Hinnom, TX. though.
― Crooked Lust (thebingo), Thursday, 19 May 2011 17:56 (thirteen years ago) link
best thing about this record: when it ends, the next thing that comes up in itunes = flying squad edit of boney m's "night flight to venus"
― contenderizer, Thursday, 19 May 2011 18:00 (thirteen years ago) link
^ hooks! beats! words!
― contenderizer, Thursday, 19 May 2011 18:01 (thirteen years ago) link
eh, that sounded snarky/critical. didn't mean it that way. i just love boney m!
― contenderizer, Thursday, 19 May 2011 18:34 (thirteen years ago) link
boney ver
― Number None, Thursday, 19 May 2011 18:41 (thirteen years ago) link
A+
― adult music person (Jordan), Thursday, 19 May 2011 18:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Lyrics read like Finnegan's Wake refrigerator magnet poetry
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 19 May 2011 23:26 (thirteen years ago) link
wife's thoughts on this dude -
"i thought "bon iver" was his name and he was some french/italian foreign guy and he was all *in* with the hip-hop crowd and doing experimental music, but he's just some lame folky indie guy with three groups [bon iver, volcano choir, gayngs]... sounds like elevator music, boring.... reminds me of the colors gray, white and tan... and other neutrals."
*makes THUMBS DOWN symbol in the air w/ hand*
"oh also, gayngs sounds like a group based around wham! "careless whisper".... so lame."
― i genuinely thought when i first joined that he was the admin (ilxor), Thursday, 26 May 2011 04:07 (thirteen years ago) link
I've listened to this twice since last week. Lady Gaga has been occupying all my time.
― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 26 May 2011 04:10 (thirteen years ago) link
A group based around wham! "careless whisper" !!!!
― JacobSanders, Thursday, 26 May 2011 07:13 (thirteen years ago) link
beth/rest is great. I'm getting some kind of 90's emo vibes from some tracks (especially the first) in an owls/ghosts and vodka way.
― owenf, Thursday, 2 June 2011 19:49 (thirteen years ago) link
I have trained myself to not change "Calgary" on the iPod.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 June 2011 20:11 (thirteen years ago) link
damn, "calgary" is the shit
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 16 June 2011 03:12 (twelve years ago) link
i keep seeing snippets of lyrics and it makes me never want to listen to this, because this man seems like he is the single worst lyricist ever
― thomp, Thursday, 16 June 2011 09:18 (twelve years ago) link
9.5 on P4K
― groovypanda, Monday, 20 June 2011 08:54 (twelve years ago) link
let's be honest...it could've been an album of morse code, and as long as it had the Bon Iver name on it that score was inevitable.
I still like this album btw. Don't listen to it often, but it's certainly good when I do.
― Alpaca Lips (Johnny Fever), Monday, 20 June 2011 09:03 (twelve years ago) link
Johnny OTM, he's one of PF's prime darlings.
Still, I fucking love this album, and think it totally warrants all the praise it gets.
― ...wow! (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 20 June 2011 09:28 (twelve years ago) link
vocals too. if it were someone else singing different words i'd be keen to buy into it, but ugh! that voice. ew! those lyrics.
― i love the smell of facepalm in the morning (ledge), Monday, 20 June 2011 09:44 (twelve years ago) link
Is there really a song on this that sounds like Africa? I might be tempted to actually listen then.
― Matt DC, Monday, 20 June 2011 09:45 (twelve years ago) link
Nah, Toto yes, but not Africa. It's the last song, 'Beth/Rest'.
― ...wow! (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 20 June 2011 10:00 (twelve years ago) link
im w/ ledge, the vocals really put me off
― just sayin, Monday, 20 June 2011 10:01 (twelve years ago) link
trim your facial hair son, makes you look like a rapist
― Not quite as sociopathic as Dom Passantino (King Boy Pato), Monday, 20 June 2011 10:06 (twelve years ago) link
Vocals seem a bit more natural than say, Woods, but what I really fall for is his compositions. Never much of a listener to lyrics either.
― Wacky Way Lounge (Evan), Monday, 20 June 2011 13:12 (twelve years ago) link
9.5????
― markers, Monday, 20 June 2011 14:18 (twelve years ago) link
haven't heard the record but that's super high
this album is great! no clue what "9.5" means in the world of pitchfork people but i would recommend this album
― ☂ (max), Monday, 20 June 2011 14:20 (twelve years ago) link
in the world of pitchfork people 9.5 is terrible
― just sayin, Monday, 20 June 2011 14:23 (twelve years ago) link
I've said it before, I'll say it again, but the politics of small differences that surrounds the decimal points system used by PF is the single thing I hate most about internet music stuff. As if grades and grading weren't reductive and desultory enough without giving reams of asshole hipster pricks yet more fuel for their nasty little anal bullshit. I hate it. I fucking hate it. Even more than the everything-gets-three-stars-when-you-mark-out-of-five system. wtf does 9.5 MEAN? It means NOTHING. It's an expression of an opinion, but the decimal point makes it maths which makes it TRUE which makes it IMPORTANT. Fuck you, decimal point lovers, fuck you to death.
Argh.
Vent over.
― lol sickmouthy (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 20 June 2011 14:27 (twelve years ago) link
Marry me, Nick <3
― ...wow! (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 20 June 2011 14:29 (twelve years ago) link
I listened to half of this last night and it sounded pretty amazing
― J0rdan S., Monday, 20 June 2011 14:38 (twelve years ago) link
I know next to nothing about Bon Iver, but this Onion headline made me lol:
Man Just Going To Grab Guitar And Old Four-Track, Go Out To Cabin In Woods, Make Shittiest Album Anyone's Ever Heard
― Duke Manfist: Action Hero (Dan Peterson), Monday, 20 June 2011 14:44 (twelve years ago) link
This is like a soggy-potato-chip-mouthed chillwave Grizzly Bear....DO NOT LIKE.
― Davek (davek_00), Monday, 20 June 2011 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
Seriously, completely agree with you about the decimal point shenanigans, which is just challops.
It is a great, great album though.
― ...wow! (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 20 June 2011 14:54 (twelve years ago) link
Kind of an odd album for Pitchfork to feel they need to make a "statement" about
― Number None, Monday, 20 June 2011 14:59 (twelve years ago) link
can't concur
Well, I met you at the blood bankWe were looking at the bagsWondering if any of the colorsMatched any of the names we knew on the tagsYou said, "See, look here, that's yours!Stacked on top with your brother'sSee how they resemble one anotherEven in their plastic little covers"
from a strictly formal standpoint these are A+
― censored my own brad whitford joke (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, 20 June 2011 15:50 (twelve years ago) link
wonder why pitchfork docked it half a point
― da croupier, Monday, 20 June 2011 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
lack of creativity on the album title
― censored my own brad whitford joke (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, 20 June 2011 16:09 (twelve years ago) link
No Kanye guest spot
― Number None, Monday, 20 June 2011 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
only thing worse than p4k decimal system is letting the p4k decimal system get to you
― jag goo (k3vin k.), Monday, 20 June 2011 16:15 (twelve years ago) link
the decimal points DO matter though bc p4k knows they matter. ever since funeral, the score has held such an immense weight and they're so aware of it. they use grand scores as musical-political statements that don't really reflect the album at all (MBDTF MBDTF MBDTF MBDTF MBDTF MBDTF)
any album that score above like, a 9.2 is going to be met with groaning and eyerolls because pitchfork has set their system up so that NO new album could possibly be that good
but that album will proceed to become very, very popular
― cause i'm close to the edge of glory i'm trying not to lose my hair (zachlyon), Monday, 20 June 2011 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
also high unemployment & anti-vaccine people
to sum up, list of things that are worse than p4k decimal system, ranked:1. letting p4k decimal system get to you2. high unemployment3. anti-vaccine people
2 & 3 could be flipped idk
― censored my own brad whitford joke (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, 20 June 2011 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
the album is out early and i'm really liking it on first listen - probably my favourite of his? a successful improvement on the samples-and-synths-everywhere sound of the last one which had some cool ideas but it felt too fragmented for it to really work that well overall. goes much further into sublime sophisti- (and i want to say kinda balearic in places) territory than his previous work too - "salem" and "sh'diah" are especially good.
― ufo, Thursday, 8 August 2019 15:03 (four years ago) link
Feel like some of the early over-praise for this is music over-correcting for the fact that they didn't call 22, A Million as being his best album by a distance.
― in twelve parts (lamonti), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 23:23 (four years ago) link
*music critics
Yeah, perhaps. I repped for 22, A Million (even in this thread) but eventually for me, the live reworkings superceded the album versions. The December 2016 show at Pioneer Works seems the definitive listen these days. I'm still underwhelmed by the new record.
― doug watson, Thursday, 15 August 2019 01:25 (four years ago) link
idk the critical praise for this seems pretty in line with the last two overall, maybe a little weaker if anything.
22, a million has some of his best work (particularly the middle section of "33 god"/"29 strafford apts"/"666") but as an album it doesn't work that well for me. it's very dense with ideas but doesn't really let them breathe, especially on the first two tracks. "45" and "00000 million" are pretty slight as songs too
― ufo, Thursday, 15 August 2019 07:25 (four years ago) link
Wore out For Emma, Forever Ago in response to a rough breakup back in 2008. I doubt I'll ever revisit it but it did what it had to most effectively. None of his subsequent records have held my attention.
― pomenitul, Thursday, 15 August 2019 08:14 (four years ago) link
Don’t care for this one at all; I did like the last one though. This just seems like a less interesting retread.
― akm, Friday, 16 August 2019 20:51 (four years ago) link
Good tip-off re that Pioneer Works show, Doug.
― djh, Friday, 30 August 2019 22:47 (four years ago) link
Curious to know how other Bon Iver fans received the Taylor Swift duet "Exile"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osdoLjUNFnA
― Indexed, Thursday, 30 July 2020 15:54 (three years ago) link
still sticking on 22, A Million on the reg
― in twelve parts (lamonti), Friday, 26 March 2021 23:36 (three years ago) link
Not massively feeling the new S Carey, so far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvRRwJOfY4
― djh, Wednesday, 9 February 2022 19:16 (two years ago) link
Flagging this for my fellow Vernon fans: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/deyarmond-edison-epoch/
Epoch begins with a dilemma. To explain why the avant-Americana quartet DeYarmond Edison is worth remembering, the box set would have to start with the recordings they made closer to the end of their mayfly lifespan. But to tell the whole story, it would have to start with Mount Vernon, their precociously professional teen band, whose songs, as the accompanying book gently concedes, may grate on the adult sensibilities at which this handsome shelf-buster is aimed. That they appear at the beginning anyway shows just how hard Epoch comes down on the side of storytelling. It’s a work of music journalism as much as a portfolio of songs, excavating how Justin Vernon, Joe Westerlund, and brothers Brad and Phil Cook grew up together in Wisconsin, rampantly evolved in North Carolina, and split off asymmetrically, with three of them earning modest acclaim as Megafaun and one earning Grammy awards and Taylor Swift guest spots as Bon Iver.The box is divided into six chronological parts, beginning with All of Us Free, an LP that captures DeYarmond Edison taking shape in the late 1990s and early ’00s. The second LP, Silent Signs, reproduces their second album, which they recorded just before leaving Eau Claire. That Was Then consists of four CDs documenting the performances in which they dynamited their newly refined sound, and these discs form the messy, brilliant heart of the box and the band. The LP Epoch, Etc. is the sound of them breaking apart under the stress, and hazeltons is Vernon breaking out on his own. The set concludes with the LP Where We Belong, with an A-side of recrimination and a B-side of reconciliation.Epoch was executive produced by Grayson Haver Currin, a Pitchfork contributor who also wrote the 114-page accompaniment, Time to Know. When DeYarmond Edison moved from the Chippewa Valley to the Southern capital of Raleigh in 2005, Haver Currin became a friend and fan, and the project is such a close study of their bond that it becomes a monument for friendship writ large—how it fits people together, changes them until they fit no more, and then, with patience, rejoins them at new seams.
The box is divided into six chronological parts, beginning with All of Us Free, an LP that captures DeYarmond Edison taking shape in the late 1990s and early ’00s. The second LP, Silent Signs, reproduces their second album, which they recorded just before leaving Eau Claire. That Was Then consists of four CDs documenting the performances in which they dynamited their newly refined sound, and these discs form the messy, brilliant heart of the box and the band. The LP Epoch, Etc. is the sound of them breaking apart under the stress, and hazeltons is Vernon breaking out on his own. The set concludes with the LP Where We Belong, with an A-side of recrimination and a B-side of reconciliation.
Epoch was executive produced by Grayson Haver Currin, a Pitchfork contributor who also wrote the 114-page accompaniment, Time to Know. When DeYarmond Edison moved from the Chippewa Valley to the Southern capital of Raleigh in 2005, Haver Currin became a friend and fan, and the project is such a close study of their bond that it becomes a monument for friendship writ large—how it fits people together, changes them until they fit no more, and then, with patience, rejoins them at new seams.
― Indexed, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 19:28 (nine months ago) link