SOLANGE KNOWLES, omg the return of

I'll see you at drum & bass night.

is it just me or does the beat on this sound like a pitch-shifted version of the one on matthew dear's "her fantasy"

Matthew Dear is exactly what I thought.

I really like Losing You. 80s or not, that loose groove/vibe is great.

This is an brilliant return, so excited for the album now. The video is kind of perfect too, I could watch her dancing like that all day.

i mean it's not THAT 80s. the vocals are produced that way & i guess if you wanted to get real generous you could say that the beat has some 80ish "world music" qualities to it but it's not overwhelming or anything.

btw solange looks so ridiculous in that video... everything looks perfect except when it comes time for her to be a presence.

there was a lot of music produced in the 80s

i guess dev did most if not all of this album? interesting

after this and "Everything Is Embarrassing" I kind of want Dev Hynes to write all of the pop songs. which is so weird.

― I don't even know wtf this band sounds like I'm just trollin (fffv), Tuesday, October 2, 2012 4:54 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^I came here to post EXACTLY this.

I have been listening to this all day and it just gets better SOLNAGE WE LOVE U

wow what a monster jam

Love the song. It doesn't scream too 80s to me because the groove sounds too loose. Most 80s music I listen to usually have a staccato, tight rhythm. (Examples of loose funky grooves of the 80s would be appreciated)

The video is pleasant and Solange's goofiness is cute.

that is p much otm, I don't hear this as 80's at all

well this was disappointing

it's not bad but dev hynes is such a rudimentary songwriter - this applies to the sky ferreira song too (which i like quite a bit) but he just...doesn't use very many notes? so many lines are just...the singer starts on a note and then just...hangs there on the same note droning on? with an awkward tempo that makes it all sound a bit eye test?

That's a bit of a Geir objection dude. (NB, not actually heard this).

(I fully believe he's a rudimentary songwriter though)

no it's not, i'm saying there's something very unsatisfying about the melodies he writes - like they're on the verge of being really hooky and then they just stop because he is a terrible songwriter

I cannot stop playing this song. Single of the year for me.

I've been caning this since yesterday but I agree with lex that it feels a bit underwritten - I'll be surprised if I'm still caning it in a week. Anyway, I think the bit I really love is around 2:53 in the vid when the vaguely Air France-y backing comes whooshing back in. <3 Solange's dancing too obviously.

not sure what I think of this (yet) but it doesn't scan as particularly 80s in the 00s-revivalist sense. The closest major 80s point of comparison I could come up with was Toto's "Africa"? But more uptempo?

At first blush the vocals and the music sound like they were written separately (and I get lex's point about the slightly leaden melodies) but this could still grow on me substantially.

The backing track on this is fantastic and if it were to appear on the Balearic revival thread it would not be out of place at all.

no it's not, i'm saying there's something very unsatisfying about the melodies he writes - like they're on the verge of being really hooky and then they just stop because he is a terrible songwriter

Having now listened to it I get where you're coming from on this. It's not that he doesn't use enough notes (which really would be a Geirish objection) it's that he doesn't have any understanding of how rhythm works within a melody, it's all fourth-notes, it doesn't fit what should be the meter of what she's singing. It's very Primary School Recorder Lesson Three, like something a child would write.

Unsurprising because he's from a generation of Brit indie songwriters who don't really 'get' how rhythm and melody work together.

the song is pretty simple... it's essentially one chorus and one verse repeated, and the bridge is just the chorus but elongated a bit. when i first heard it i thought it was weird because she sings the chorus first but it doesn't even sound like a chorus at first blush, it kinda threw me for a loop. but i think there's some strong, memorable melodies there and i like the idea of pretty basic songwriting being laid over this beat that has a lot of things going on. i think it really works, and solange has some great vocal runs in the final chorus.

Think how great some actually competent songwriting would sound over the top of that beat then!

The backing track on this is fantastic and if it were to appear on the Balearic revival thread it would not be out of place at all.

yeh i like this as much for the promise of a really dope extended edit as for the song itself

the beat sounds like terje's on the beach beat mixed with something by the revenge w/added idm pads

lex/madd dc otm. the child like simplicity of the melody isn't really working for me, also those dave dirty projector dude backing vocals are horrible

was thinking earlier this would make a good Talabot remix

also those dave dirty projector dude backing vocals are horrible

― Crackle Box, Wednesday, October 3, 2012 8:40 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

huh

Think how great some actually competent songwriting would sound over the top of that beat then!

― Matt DC, Wednesday, October 3, 2012 8:28 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

idk i think this is a great song. not as good as "everything is embarrassing" but pretty damn good

the backing isn't interesting enough to make up for the shitty melody. idk it's all alrightish, might grow on me, but just go back to solange's last album - every song in the first half is so much better than this

really "everything is embarrassing" suffers from a lot of the same problems, but there's something about how sparse the arrangement and especially sky f's delivery that makes it more beguiling

anyway people on twitter say that they were just swept away by the video (which i haven't seen) and it sounds way underwritten on its own

listen from 3 mins, the backing vox go all "indie" on the ol melisma

the video is pretty beautiful altho i maintain that solange looks utterly ridiculous and like she has no idea what to do on camera for most of the time

"everything is embarrassing" holds together better as a song and has two pretty distinct (and better) melodic parts

Hmmmm I don't mind Dev's writing style in theory, I'd agree that his melodies tend toward the straight 4s with limited range. Like he wrote them on a tiny keyboard or something. Closest reference for this Solange song, to my ears, is that Blood Orange "Champagne Coast" song ("Come into my bedroom, come into my bedroom...") (and is ultimately a better song) but I still I like this song a lot

the video is pretty beautiful altho i maintain that solange looks utterly ridiculous and like she has no idea what to do on camera for most of the time

― lil dirk (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 10:03 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's like they synced clips of her dancing to entirely different parts of the song
(apart from when she does the step-step-shuffle bit, which is nice)

Surely that is fully intentional though?

i think she looks decent, dances cool, the video is great, the song is maybe a little thin but it has grown on me a lot

pop as will-this-do tickbox exercise there

oh maybs yeah (xp). it isn't really a criticism!, it is charming.

I don't get what the issue is with Dev Hynes' songwriting. I also don't really see that many 80s elements other than the synth pad perhaps. The Sky Ferreira single is totally 80s though, in the best possible way.

pop as will-this-do tickbox exercise there

― lex pretend, Wednesday, October 3, 2012 10:59 AM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh please, this applies no more or less to solange's entire career

it was more about max's description! which did not sound like it stacked up to a song that's particularly noteworthy.

I don't get what the issue is with Dev Hynes' songwriting

oh it's not as if matt and others actually pinpointed it musically, not sure what else you would like

No, I guess I mean 'I don't get it' in the sense that I'm not identifying the alleged shortcomings in the songs myself. Sure, the melodies are simple, but so are most melodies in pop music, so that's not really a valid criticism, imo. Although, apart from this and "Everything Is Embarrassing" I've only heard a couple of tracks by Hynes.

Is less the melody and more the vocal rhythms or lack of them, they sound incredibly ponderous.

yeah it's kinda meant to be suggestive of this bleary, droning, numbed torpid mumblecore inarticulacy indicating longing and heartache beyond words or whatever. simple is real cos of ~how hard it is to feel things~, to be decisive and put a fine point on it is too painful if not even by implication dishonest. the whole thing's of a piece, you got the washed out instagrammed visuals, the 80s comfort blanket for the emotional foetal position... blah blah the familiar prepack set of lies agreed upon

it's all v boring

i get the objection, it's prob valid depending on your priorities, this is very evidently a song to ~vibe out~ to not a song with a vocal melody that's designed to grab you and not let go. if all the songs are like this than yeah it would be a problem.

the backing track is an absolute monster tho--crank that shit on speakers, it's got so much thump.

I'd just like to point out that the melody has been stuck in my head for the last hour or so and I'm in no rush to extinguish it.

this song is okay? I don't feel very strongly one way or the other about it?

the video is ridiculous though, whoever edited it basically makes Solange look like she has no conception of rhythm half the time