SOLANGE KNOWLES, omg the return of

btw i love that youtube feature. i can decide whether i want to play something without having to click through to find out what it is

^^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34STLHtu97A

lex, do you still hate this song?
(original still high in my top ten)

Dirty Projectors

i honestly have no interest in hearing it at all, and am totally giving the side-eye to people who never cared about hearing solange's album but are now all like "omgzzz she covered an indie band" - fuck off!

My tastes generally lean indie, but I like Solange's album more than any Dirty Projectors album. That said, this is a really good cover.

lex, a problem with that logic (not that this is remotely the only one) is that a whole bunch of people who already like solange think this is great, including myself

probably better than the DPs covering Solange

so?

Dear Solange,
autotune is yr friend.
kthxbai

i'm trying to pinpoint why this doesn't work

i guess it just feels sorta lifeless and super self-conscious to me? i think she sucked all the energy and passion out of the original when she decided to turn a sorta-soulful indie song into A. CLASSIC. SOUL. COVER.

idk, it's by no means bad, but it's too calculated for me to actually enjoy :/

yeah lex listen to this, it's great

kinda wish you could hear it w/out knowing it was a cover

Dear Solange,
autotune is yr friend.
kthxbai

― Turangalila, Friday, November 13, 2009 11:39 AM (3 minutes ago)

what?

i wonder how a cover can be non-calculated

haha yeah it's like she's humming to herself and all the sudden she's hitting the exact same notes in the same order as a dirty projectors song and just happens to be in a studio with the sound on

i think there's some pretty interesting vocal stuff going on, esp. rhythmically. def. her own interpretation of the dp's voices-as-instruments thing.

you should look up the definition of 'inspired' xpost

also 'calculated'

3 a : planned or contrived to accomplish a purpose b

pretty sure this = by nature every cover

i don't know how solange doesn't make this a CLASSIC. SOUL. COVER. - that's like... the music that she sings? unless of course she tried to make it a cover that sounds like boards of canada?

how could the futureheads turn this kate bush song into a rousing post-punk cover

lol at lex being a corny indie fuck but about r'n'b instead of indie

k3vin k., I luv her but she's just not a very good singer.

Oh come on, people. Solange is pretty much the most indie-friendly RnB singer I can think of. Still, I'm not really feeling this cover - don't think the song is strong enough in the first place.

nick otm

yes color me shocked by lex's response - lol @ humans breathing, lol @ the sky being blue, lol @ the sun rising

guitar lick is badu's 'bag lady', no?

yes

which is apparently sampled from something else

honestly, when i first heard the DP original, my thought was 'oh hey this is like R'n'B, maybe i should listen to more of that'

i honestly have no interest in hearing it at all, and am totally giving the side-eye to people who never cared about hearing solange's album but are now all like "omgzzz she covered an indie band" - fuck off!

― lex pretend, Friday, November 13, 2009 3:36 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

right but i didn't even know solange existed ~as a person~ until i randomly clicked on the DP thread. now i do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8PN4v-Lud0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4vKWFCWw04

I am now imagining lex throwing shade to literal strawmen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRZ2s_VMffQ

okay now if anyone could tell me where that lick that's sampled/replayed all the way through 'booty' comes from i would be a very happy bunny (is heard at 3 minutes in to the above video)

best parts of this cover are in the latter half, where she moves beyond the original's pacing and starts fucking with the phrasing and the tempo...right around the bridge, I guess? 'isn't life just a mirage of the world' 'where does time begin where does space end where do you and i...etc.etc.

but as i reflect, i suppose that its impact would be lessened if the entire cover was a straight up reinterpretation that didn't hew fairly closely to the DP version at the outset.

Permalink

3 a : planned or contrived to accomplish a purpose b

pretty sure this = by nature every cover

― house of flying jaggers (J0rdan S.), Friday, 13 November 2009 16:46 (3 hours ago) Permalink

ok, but i don't like being reminded that the person is singing something to "accomplish a purpose." it's forced, just like these 'zings'

i don't know how solange doesn't make this a CLASSIC. SOUL. COVER. - that's like... the music that she sings? unless of course she tried to make it a cover that sounds like boards of canada?

― house of flying jaggers (J0rdan S.), Friday, 13 November 2009 16:47 (3 hours ago) Permalink

um, are you not picking up on my obvious message? solange is not v good at all at CLASSIC. SOUL. COVERS. they're not CLASSIC. SOUL. COVERS. they're trying desperately hard to be. but they're not because, like this cover, she's so frustratingly self-conscious. i mean, i guess it could be worse, but she's about as successfully retro as the pipettes. yawn. also maybe because she's a dull vocalist and her songs aren't that great?

sandcastle disco aside

don't see how this is trying to be retro at all

i don't particularly like her image either but it's not nearly as frustratingly retro as her recorded material (in fact, since it uses a sample that's most famous for being in a dr. dre song, maybe not all that retro at all). it sounds soulful to me and i think it's a very confident performance, way less frivolous (and sure, way less pipettes-y) than her normal stuff. i still don't pick up on it being contrived tho, not at least more or less than other covers. she picked a song in a different genre and adapted it to her style of music. idk.

TBH it did piss me off when my IRL friends whose only contact with rap/r&b comes remixed by Diplo were raving about this today. i'm always recommending them good shit to listen to but this is what it takes clearly.

I promise you this is not just a strawman ting

yeah it's only in the last year that i've had indie-oriented friends who would never listen to r&b unless it had some kind of angle like this.

I am offended that someone insinuated that the dirty projectors have soul on this thread

TBH it did piss me off when my IRL friends whose only contact with rap/r&b comes remixed by Diplo were raving about this today. i'm always recommending them good shit to listen to but this is what it takes clearly.

― david cam'ron (tpp), Friday, November 13, 2009 4:24 PM (18 minutes ago)

yeah i sympathize w/ this, though it shouldnt prevent someone who likes solange from giving it a chance *COUGH*

xp only if you think "soul" isn't completely meaningless

This strikes me as a pleasingly random songchoice - c.f. Sugbabaes covering the Arctic Monkeys. I guess an equivalent of that would have been covering, I dunno, "My Girls"? Which almost certainly would have failed.

On Twitter I asked Lex what the clear distinction was between people getting into Solange because she covers Dirty Projectors and people getting into The XX because they cover "Do You Mind" and "Teardrops", and he said "those are good songs."

Which makes sense (from his perspective - I like "Stillness Is The Move" though obv not as much as "Do You Mind" or "Teardrops") but doesn't add up to some kind of ethical distinction by itself.

I think the motivation in both is "hey look we/I have broader taste than you might think and look how cleverly we can turn this into our chosen genre type" i.e. it's broadsheet/press release fodder on some levels, but on others serves to underscore both the performer's aesthetic solidity and their sensititivty.

Much worse is that kind of Sugababes/Arctic Monkeys (or conversely any indie or rock band covering Britney or etc.) thing where it's like the songchoice is designed to the beat you over the head with the genre contrast.

I wonder if any country fans got suspicious of pop fans who became excited when Taylor Swift covered "Umbrella" etc.

or when she covered eminem

what i didn't have room to say on twitter is that i don't know ANYONE who got into the xx directly because they covered womack & womack and paleface & kyla - i have never seen anyone say "oh THIS indie band must be good b/c they do r&b covers", let alone show little interest in the xx's own material. if anything if i'd known about the covers first it would probably have made me more suspicious of the xx.

also i'm not suspicious of solange's motives, she can cover what she likes, i was more hating on the general "omgzzz" reaction i saw from people who'd never shown the slightest interest in solange before, even when i was solidly pimping her last year. (tpp very much otm.)

i mean, i know people who got into the xx through the hot like fire cover. not that they would be naturally disinclined to like them anyhow, but the hook was not new british band so much as "new british band influenced by and who cover r&b.

tbh, that's probably what hooked me initially, because while i do generally like indie, i'm deeply skeptical of most uk hyped acts...an endless stream of disappointment that i generally avoid listening to. never bothered checking out the klaxons, glasvegas etc. etc. any of nme's frequent saviors of rock. the only reason the xx got a second glance was that their stated influences included r&b, dubstep etc. - sufficiently different and "broader taste than you might think" (viz. tim's comments) that indicated a desire to be something other than standard british indie mush.