tUnE-yArDs

i'm still kind of baffled, honestly, by the turn this thread took

well, when you party with uh-us ...

I got combative when you redefined pretty to inherently mean shallow, which effectively was putting words in my mouth, and then used that as a springboard to argue against a strawman position ("I think there is a lot of shallow, vacuous singing on here that has all of the hallmarks of these pop singers I listed earlier") that was nothing like what I actually said ("I think people are overselling the strangeness of Merrill's voice, particularly in an era when a bunch of weird-sounding women are multi-platinum pop stars AND when she doesn't nearly as much on the other songs on the album as she does on the lead single")

the word "bellow" is missing from that post, feel free to insert it where you think it is appropriate

djp, i'm gonna be above quoting you telling me how you were hella wrong about tuneyards
but not above pointing it out
btw she is v v pretty in person.

for a second i thought merrill was on the cover of Vanity Fair in a low cut gown and i was gonna go get a subscription and then

I got combative when you redefined pretty to inherently mean shallow, which effectively was putting words in my mouth, and then used that as a springboard to argue against a strawman position ("I think there is a lot of shallow, vacuous singing on here that has all of the hallmarks of these pop singers I listed earlier") that was nothing like what I actually said

okay, i get where you're coming from. clarifications and apologies, then. i never meant to suggest that pretty must = shallow, only that (in my mind), it does connotatively tend in that direction, you know, sometimes. i certainly didn't mean to suggest that the prettier portions of this album are necessarily shallower and therefore more appropriately comparable to presumably shallow pretty-pop. apologize sincerely for any such (unintentional) insinuation and can see as how it might have irked.

personally, i don't see merrill's voice as "strange" per se. i see it as strong, arguably a lot stronger and more versatile than that of many multi-platinum pop stars, but that's beside the point. i see merrill's use of her voice as not strange, exactly, but deliberately eccentric and at times challenging in a way that has more in common with the aesthetics of jazz, freak-folk and art rock than with the more anthemic strains of contemporary chart & teen pop. that isn't to damn the latter in favor of the former...

the prettiness debate is odd. how do we determine whether or not a voice intends to seem pretty ("nice," etc.), and in what way? and how do we determine what the use of a voice says about the values and aesthetics of the person using it? i don't know how to answer these questions, exactly, and they're especially difficult to isolate in a pop environment that makes image and celebrity persona so immediately evident and thus inseparable from song and sound. i would still say that katy perry, for instance, strives to present her voice and self in the prettiest possible fashion, the basic strangeness of her instrument notwithstanding, and that merrill seems to take the opposite tack, making a deliberate virtue of exposing her rawer and harsher reaches. hope that's not too inflammatory...

I would say that is a reasonable statement with regards to the amount of discernible pitch correction used on their respective material, but I also think you have to consider that basic differences between the types of songs they are singing and how the same (or similarly classed) voice(s) can come across very differently depending on the material sung. One reason Merrill sounds more suited to freak folk is because she is singing music more similar to that than the current pop trends. Put her on a song like "Hot and Cold" or "Rolling in the Deep" and I guarantee you will not read her as intentionally being a weird singer.

(IOW part of why they cone across that way, IMO a big part, is difference in genre)

Interesting thread!
_Don't_ be put off by the alleged lo-finess of the first record.
There's an intimacy on that record that is gone (but not forgotten) on the new one.

Put her on a song like "Hot and Cold" or "Rolling in the Deep" and I guarantee you will not read her as intentionally being a weird singer.

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 3:23 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

perhaps that's true, but MG seems very much in control of her art, so i suspect that if she'd decided to cover songs like these on the album, she'd have adapted them to the deliberately eccentric pop style she's currently cultivating. which becomes a chicken v egg thing, i suppose...

Also, there's a modus operandi at work here in MG's music
You can hear it on the first record, how she limits herself to a digital recorder and home-recording
In her live show, how she uses non-computer based looping
Switching from drum to drum with a Vocal Mic, Held In Hand
You can see it in her physical self, her embracing of the manliness of her body and voice
I feel that the entire project embodies a sort of acceptance of "one's own body", one's situation
Allowing these so-called limitations to themselves create the limits of her artistic expression.
I can't express it any more specifically than to say that it feels like a well-wrought feminist statement

I am late and typing too fast

You can see it in her physical self, her embracing of the manliness of her body and voice
I feel that the entire project embodies a sort of acceptance of "one's own body", one's situation
Allowing these so-called limitations to themselves create the limits of her artistic expression.
I can't express it any more specifically than to say that it feels like a well-wrought feminist statement

OTM, that's part of what i was getting at. i think it extends to her use of her own voice.

or, i'd agree, rather...

I don't disagree necessarily, what I am saying is that Merrill as pop singer is going to be very different from Merrill as self-made indie artist.

_Don't_ be put off by the alleged lo-finess of the first record.
There's an intimacy on that record that is gone (but not forgotten) on the new one.

Totally - it's nothing anybody who listened to Shrimper cassettes, say, would ever think of as all that lo-fi in the first place. The vocals tend to be less histrionic - which is a totally valid criticism of the new one imo! - even though I don't think she'd quite figured out, lyrically, what she wanted her band to be about at that point. And since she's forced to work within the limitations of her recording technology a lot more, when things peak or clip too much, the results can be really striking. That bass drop at the end of "Little Tiger" is still probably my favorite moment in any of her songs.

http://www.marriagerecs.com/shop2/744/tune-yards

Vinyl nerds should check out the LP, which has some of my favorite DIY vinyl packaging ever, and which was very key to me in shaping the aesthetic.

I feel that the entire project embodies a sort of acceptance of "one's own body", one's situation
Allowing these so-called limitations to themselves create the limits of her artistic expression.
I can't express it any more specifically than to say that it feels like a well-wrought feminist statement

cosign on that, i think. still trying to get at the root of what i find compelling about this.

we have this idea that music which is to do with er female anger is bound up with inchoate expression, with yelling and banging on things; i find this record compelling because of how merrill's vocal chops let her switch from sweetness to bellowing on a dime maybe undercut this

i mean, a part of the project of the record is dealing with violence and gender in ways which quietly muck around with our usual terms of reference: so in the bit i quoted above it sort of signifies that the musical analogue to the FREEDOM IN VIOLENCE she just DOESN'T UNDERSTAAAAND is actually a very tight piece of playing; or that she uses the sweetest of all possible coos for the 'policeman shot my baby' bit; or "your powa inside, wrecks me like a lullaby"

OK, I confess I've been avoiding this because of the name, but, uh. This is great. This is great! How could I have been so petty for so long?

Exactly. THis is the album of the year. Don't let the odd capitalization put you off.

For what it's worth, here's what I thought:

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/tune-yards-whokill-round-7toms-choice/

This song is incredible. And I can most immediately hear in it the African - High Life - Fela Kuti - Zaire - 70s Afro Pop big band style. I believe that we all influence one another, its just a matter of who gets access to the widest disemmination regime. Paul Simon had his Graceland, hipsters dance on Soul Nights with few black people around. I cant wait for the Zimbabwean band that is inspired by Morrissey that sells out Chinese stadiums and is managed by R. Kelly, we will all sing praises.
twentyeighter 2 days ago 2

I can't wait for that either

Been hearing a lot of hype about this band, but I just. can't. get into it. Her voice gives me the same physical sensation as someone running their fingernails down a chalk board.

Clearly others don't feel this way, so maybe it hits some weird spot in my brain.

I think it's the vocals that make it for me. I like how raw and loose and emotionally expressive they sound against the music. The live vocal and string playing angainst the electronic music reminds me of the first two Le Tigre albums, in spirit. There are places where I was reminded by the Minutemen, as well. I'm not crazy in love, but I do like it.

I also don't quite like her vocals and the lyrics -- there's something about it that reminds me of the staff of the womens college newspaper at my university.

She's a lot more fun though. Ordinarily I'd agree with you about This Kind of Voice.

the staff of the womens college newspaper at my university.

I stayed away from this for awhile because she seemed like an Ani DiFranco-style identity politics type of act. But holy mackerel was i ever wrong. It's the album of the year. And she's not dabbling in African music. She sounds like she knows it backwards and forwards.

The music itself I like, but her voice reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs

I always read this band's name as fUcK-tArDs

lol feminist undergrad rock music is basically something i can never ever hate on

there's something about it that reminds me of the staff of the womens college newspaper at my university

haha this is like ... this is an opinion, not just that you have, but you are willing to share, & go on record as having? ok then

dick

lol

This album did not test well with the eight-month pregnant women in my household demographic, its been banned from being played around her lest it enduces early labor.

same effect as women's college newspapers iirc

lol

It's hard for me to put my finger on why I like Dirty Projectors more than this. One reason might be that I heard Dirty Projectors first so this sounded a little derivative whether it really is or not. But the other is that it doesn't seem to have the same humor and strangeness that Longstreth has, like here underneath all the ostensible weirdness here is something that just feels too self-serious and statement-making. The womens-college-newspaper thing is an undercurrent. I mean if the staff of the womens' college newspaper had actually been listening to this and not the Indigo Girls on repeat it would have been an improvement, believe me. I still think the music is good, like if I wound up seeing her live I'd probably pay attention and enjoy it.

Perhaps the highlight of Pitchfork Festival, tbh.

DPs are in a totally different league imo. but then with them (unlike tune-yards) i get the impression that the music is the whole thing, with the lyrics being kind of an afterthought or placeholders.

On Fallon tonight fyi

she was knockout good live last night

whokill definitely among the most played albums of the year for me along with quik and deathgrips

this is pure shit

pUrE-sHiT

lol, u mad

its the kind of thing people will wince at later. like going through an old box and finding a 10,000 maniacs peace train cassingle.

Nah, I winced first, but now I <3 the new album.

When people talk shit about how hipsters are just groupthink followers who will accept anything no matter how obviously fucking terrible it is as long as it's approved by some consensus reality/tastemakers they are talking specifically about tune-yards. People should be ashamed to listen to this.

MFB SB

all your post is missing is a "sheeple" somewhere

Like I get the hate for this stuff, I used to have a kneejerk hatred for it too, but I always hate when people's reaction comes down to "YOU ONLY LIKE THIS TERRIBLE THING BECAUSE HIPSTERS DO". Uh, no. Try again, I'm sure you can come up with valid reasons to explain why you dislike her.

tbh on current evidence i doubt that