New Joanna Newsom Album "Ys" Due Nov 14

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (699 of them)

As an after thought, there seems to be a very clear divide on this thread between those who want instant results - pure, unfussy, straightforward songwriting and those who are prepared to invest a little more time into something that may or may not be utterly unique and intriguing. I'm verging towards the latter, and you can keep your "fairies and skipping stones" bullshit, because all R'n'B lyrics go "Woooahahaaha I looouuurve yoooouuu". ;-)

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Sunday, 19 November 2006 04:33 (nineteen years ago)

oh shit--I guess my criticism of this album means I haven't been listening to enough smiths albums lately. Thanks Wogan for reminding me what my problem is!!! MORE SMITHS!

(?!?!)

― pernicus (pernicus), Sunday, 19 November 2006 07:31 (nineteen years ago)

haha, i was pissed when i wrote all that.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Sunday, 19 November 2006 12:59 (nineteen years ago)

pernicus seems pissed, too. about what, I'm not sure.

― Edward III (edward iii), Sunday, 19 November 2006 13:47 (nineteen years ago)

just find the extreme fan boy activity both irritating and weirdly misguided

the album is OK, but it's the reaction to it that drives me bats

― zippezappy (doomed), Sunday, 19 November 2006 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

Myths about this album that are hardening, only a week after its official release:

(1) You'll either love it or hate it.
(2) It's impossible to "get" unless you spend a lot of time with it.
(3) There's something to "get" at all.
(4) People who don't like it aren't listening close enough.
(5) Newsom is a flake.
(6) Newsome is a fake.
(7) Newsom is a genius.
(8) Because a lot of people who like the album have funny haircuts and tight t-shirts, Newsom must be catering to them.

― Mark (MarkR), Sunday, 19 November 2006 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

its quite simple really...the tackle box comparison is perfect...Look at the 17 minute "Only Skin" (which is I think is the climax of the album): I cannot think of one other artist who has treaded the ambitious grounds of this song, the twisting and turning of the lyrical cycle, the slow evolutions from crescendo to naked statement, and made it fit so perfectly in one piece without disintegrating...as far as extreme rock music goes, this goes far behind something like Gogol Bordello, Black Dice or even the No New York scene, becuase its able to hold to together enough to make it timeless (those bands are admired because of their similar ambition, but its ambition that self-destructs on purpose)..YS such an honest projection of her longing and worries that is scares people, like Joni Mitchell's Blue probably scared people at first with its nakedness....the closest I can think from the female perspective is Kate Bush (going back to Joni Mitchell) but this is much less flawed...I think if you sit with it long enough even the certain lines that might of made you cringe are now endearing...it wasn't like this on the first album, some stories just didn't work, some melodies were annoying over time...but the machine is running flawless this time

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 15:26 (nineteen years ago)

(9) Newsom has an e

― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 19 November 2006 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

i don't mind you comparing her to elfs like björk (newsom's girlish voice is really very similar & that strikes me as a shtick of hers if her real voice is much different), kate bush, tori amos etc.

but please don't mention joni mitchell or mary margaret o'hara (that was on a blog somewhere). those two make/made vital, emotive, inspiring music whereas newsom sounds dry, precocious, suffocating, tiring, lifeless etc. there are no surprises. the more i listen to it, the clearer it becomes. there are bits of tunes there, that's right but the whole thing just doesn't hold together. flawless might be actually quite to the the point but it is the kind of perfection with no breath in it.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 19 November 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

see i feel that she's tearing her soul open: I think that's obvious with the lyrics: "life is thundering blissful towards death in a stampeed of its its fumbling green gentleness" no breath in that? later in the same song: "But I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed!
Then i'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head
Come across the desert with no shoes on! I love you truly, or I love no-one"...this is flawless not only technically but with her rendering of emotions into moving couplets...there is no schtick here - she provides the transcdence here, not her influences

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

and her real voice is exactly as her singing voice

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

evidence: http://youtube.com/watch?v=VcsBGR9uHmc

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

i haven't really listened to the lyrics yet, it is almost impossible for me to properly listen to lyrics of music i don't connect to. i meant the meandering music plus the word bombardement which makes me feel strangled. the passages you quote can't convince me at all. where is the humour, where is the life in those eccentric, ambitious words she chooses? what does she have to say besides carefully chosen metaphors?

btw her speaking voice in the video is different. at least an octave lower then when she sings. and she doesn't come over precious and pretentious at all in the interview bits. she has got something about her. maybe she makes that kind of over the top music because of her own insecurity? in any case it is just not my thing as i already said upthread.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:36 (nineteen years ago)

What does her speaking voice have to do with anything?

― Mark (MarkR), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:47 (nineteen years ago)

it is just that i prefer it to her shrill singing voice, that's all.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

(10) Songs are meandering

― Edward III (edward iii), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

If you don't see "the life" in this than I give up:

Stay with me for awhile
That's an awfully real gun
I know life will lay you down
As the lightning has lately done

Failing this, failing this,
Follow me, my sweetest friend
To see what you anointed in pointing your gun there

Lay it down! Nice and slow!
There is nowhere to go, save up
Up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream
At the sight of my baby, out back:
Back on the patio watching the bats bring night in
- while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white
Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

as mentioned before, each song does follow a storyline (which, I admit, is tough to discern without a lyric sheet), but these lines, I believe is the culmination of a tale of two lovers (her and Callahan?) struggling back and forth with protecting each other's excessive tendencies

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:58 (nineteen years ago)

my point being:
these arent simply misplaced metaphors

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 18:58 (nineteen years ago)

where is the humour, where is the life in those eccentric, ambitious words she chooses? what does she have to say besides carefully chosen metaphors?

Speaking of freshman poetry class...

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Sunday, 19 November 2006 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

If you don't dig the literary aspects of what she's doing, you might snap off the stereo in disgust

I wrote this about 400 posts ago, and I think it's been borne out. Some are going to be instantly turned off when they hear something like, "estuaries of wax-white wend".

― Edward III (edward iii), Sunday, 19 November 2006 19:19 (nineteen years ago)

On the other hand, there are plenty of moments where she cuts through the jive and speaks plainly + directly. The plaintive cries of "desire, oh oh desire" at the end of "Sawdust & Diamonds" are the emotional center of the album for me.

― Edward III (edward iii), Sunday, 19 November 2006 19:24 (nineteen years ago)

thats also why "that's an awfully real gun" works so well

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Sunday, 19 November 2006 21:03 (nineteen years ago)

is that the same gun as in happiness is a warm gun? i am shocked! ;-)

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 19 November 2006 21:33 (nineteen years ago)

(11) She is blurry.

ihttp://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b280/dotcomstock/2DSC01477.jpg

― M. V. (M.V.), Monday, 20 November 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b280/dotcomstock/2DSC01477.jpg

― M. V. (M.V.), Monday, 20 November 2006 01:27 (nineteen years ago)

(12) She eats mic stands.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Monday, 20 November 2006 01:43 (nineteen years ago)

(13) she has to wear that shit at night just to keep her teeth straight.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Monday, 20 November 2006 09:59 (nineteen years ago)

(14) Poppycock.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Monday, 20 November 2006 09:59 (nineteen years ago)

(11) She is blurry.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/JoannaNewsomHands.jpg
(12) She eats mic stands.

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 20 November 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

(12) She eats mic stands.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/JoannaNewsom05.jpg

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 20 November 2006 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

there's your baby girl Edward!

― pernicus (pernicus), Monday, 20 November 2006 16:17 (nineteen years ago)

(15) That Van Dyke Parks actually likes the final outcome

― pernicus (pernicus), Monday, 20 November 2006 16:18 (nineteen years ago)

What, where?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/baby_attacks.jpg

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 20 November 2006 16:26 (nineteen years ago)

In the Pitchfork interview posted today, she says, "Basically I wanted to undertake the task of writing songs about a particular year of my life. . . . There were four very big things that happened in my life in this particular year, and so four of the songs are about these things. The fifth song, 'Only Skin,' was an effort to talk about the connections between the events."

Any ideas as to what these four "big things" were? Who's Cosmia (whom she dedicates the album to)?

― Nigel (Nigel), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:37 (nineteen years ago)

12) she eats mic stands

THE PHALLUS?!

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Monday, 20 November 2006 21:33 (nineteen years ago)

I'd like to note that on those tour dates above, the Eugene show is actually at the WOW Hall, not the Indigo District. This record is great and I look forward to seeing her live.

― sleeve version 2.0 (sleeve testing), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 03:19 (nineteen years ago)

somebody mistook her for Bjork when I played Ys on my radio show today, fwiw. As in, "wow that new Bjork is really good".

― sleeve version 2.0 (sleeve testing), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 03:24 (nineteen years ago)

Very interesting thread! The Pitchfork Review caused me to explore Ys (bash me now!), and, ILX didn't let me down! I never heard her first CD, and I haven't heard anything from Ys yet either, unlike the hundreds of you who heard it so far before the actual release date that by the time it was in the stores, the ILX backlash had already began. :) I guess I'm an old fashioned CD buyer kind of guy. What can I say?

Anyway, I do appreciate the discourse. Maybe I'll love it, maybe I'll hate it. I loved Blueberry Boat at first, but then it became annoying later on. I really don't think I "got" the brilliance of The Drift, but I'll keep working on it.

Toodles.

― Darren Skuja (Darren Skuja), Thursday, 23 November 2006 07:40 (nineteen years ago)

Oh I forgot....the MAIN REASON that I ordered this CD was the Rolling Stone review. If RS says it sucks, it must be good. RS gave me Metal Machine Music. Thank you, RS.

― Darren Skuja (Darren Skuja), Thursday, 23 November 2006 07:44 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

RS IN CONTINUING EMPRESS HAS NO CLOTHES SHOCKAH

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2006/12/18/pitchork-fall-on-newsom-sword/

RS upbraiding Pitchfork by saying "This list could've been edgy and subversive if it weren't for Newsom...."

The mind boggles.

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 20:39 (nineteen years ago)

"lacks melody, tonality" - wtf

― Tim Ellison = NUMBER ONE ADVOCATE OF YOU-KNOW-WHAT ON NU-ILX!!! (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 20:44 (nineteen years ago)

The reader comments on the RS blog are unusually funny and right-on for teh interweb, tho.

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 20:55 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.mezzomedia.no/images/schonberg.jpg

― Tim Ellison = NUMBER ONE ADVOCATE OF YOU-KNOW-WHAT ON NU-ILX!!! (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

Am I the only one who thinks the vocal on "Emily" sometimes sounds like Springsteen singing "Spirits In The Night"?

― The Redd And The Blecch (Ken L), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:02 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.nndb.com/people/905/000087644/toneloc02.jpg
(xpost)

― The Redd And The Blecch (Ken L), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:04 (nineteen years ago)

I've been having the same reaction for a couple weeks now: of all the things to potentially dislike about the Newsom record, lack of melody? (I'm also a little lost as to how giving a high ranking to an allegedly atonal record would make a list less subversive, but that leads into a whole weird web of logic that's far less satisfying than "not melodic??? WTF???")

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

The orignal link on the RS homepage read "Why Joanna Sux" before they changed it to "Judging Joanna". Apparently RS can't commit to a flamewar.

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:14 (nineteen years ago)

I totally don't get it. I wonder if her fans are just trying to make up for all the geeky-loser beatdowns they administered when they were in middle school.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:20 (nineteen years ago)

Joanna Newsom: Fomenting Irrational Hatred Since 2004

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:21 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 599 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.