SKY FERREIRA

(tbh i don't think this album is really a mega-selling hit-spawning thing and i'm fine with that - it's the kind of album that has garnered her a relatively small fanbase but one that's heavily invested in her which is a great thing itself)

unless the plan is a soft release to appease the people who have waited.

then once the live band groove settles, she hits the festival season to build up the uk fanbase ?

we can but hope.

what happened at her first UK show?

this album is sending shivers all up my spine more and more with each spin.. YNTO, omanko, boys, nobody asked me etc.

was that at the ace hotel? a friend went and said the queuing was a bit of a joke, then there were some sound issues and she acted pretty bratty about it.

This album is so good and her shows so difficult to watch that it makes me think this brilliant record is a fluke.

i don't think her lack of live prowess necessarily has much to do with what she's able to create in the studio. the emphasis on performing live is a fact of the industry but it's become way disproportionate in assessing an artist.

The half a billion or so demos she's got floating around out there are good enough that I don't believe it's a fluke that this record is so good.

yup

first UK show? I saw her in London early last year. (It wasn't very notable.)

She could be a Millennial Milli Vanilli. A Milli Vanillennial, if you like. Millennial Vanillial? No, too much.

The low charting isn't surprising in the sense that, as others have mentioned, a lot of people would have downloaded the album or bought it on import last year. But then again it was only released in Australia in January and it at least scraped the top 40 there. Strange also that Sky charted at #73 when a band like the War On Drugs, for instance, who I would assume don't have a huge a UK profile, made it to #18.

Can't get over how brilliant this album is. "I Blame Myself" is so amazingly moving, and most of the second half sounds like the brilliant album Kim Wilde never made. Could see her flopping with tne next record however, as I'm not sure how far this aesthetic can go before it becomes tired.

War on Drugs have surely got the Mojo/Uncut backing and readers of those mags are more likely to pay for CDs/legal downloads, no?

Good on you for the Kim Wilde reference! I thought the same thing upon hearing "I Will".

Can't get over how brilliant this album is. "I Blame Myself" is so amazingly moving, and most of the second half sounds like the brilliant album Kim Wilde never made.
― JohnSock

Agree that this album is brillinat but have to add that Kim Wilde's first two albums are amazing. Her debut is one of my favourite albums of all time.

http://www.ssense.com/video/sky-ferreira-i-blame-myself-video-ssense/

That's...peculiar.

horrible video

this is unfortunate

I think it's great!

Yay for privilege.

i had a bad feeling that this video would be thinkpiece-bait

she's just jumping on the pop singer using questionable black stereotypes = profit gravy train. I guess it's been a successful tactic lately...

what a disappointment… great song ruined by total idiots

it isn't really that much more thinkpiecey than, say, "lovegame"

Let the floodgates open: http://flavorwire.com/452072/sky-ferreiras-i-blame-myself-video-subverts-the-gender-dynamics-of-gang-culture

BREAKING: Sky Ferreira's video subverts the gender dynamics of gang culture, still pretty racist

Film at 11

God, this video is fucking horrible! I cannot believe no one at any point was just like "omg sky STOP TOUCHING YOUR HAIR"

like she has this really affected performative thing going on but it is like so sexy-looking and serious and not at all playful or charismatic, it's like this charade of model-posing but not really actual model-posing

yes, the hair touching is definitely what somebody needed to call a time-out on

interesting fact: things can have several different negative qualities of different magnitudes and it is sometimes okay to mention more than one of them

like c'mon dude do you really think I am sitting here all "this video is totally not racist at all and it's sole fault is that she is not a v good performer"

Let the floodgates open: http://flavorwire.com/452072/sky-ferreiras-i-blame-myself-video-subverts-the-gender-dynamics-of-gang-culture

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, April 16, 2014 5:10 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the confirms my suspicion that most websites have a vending machine where they keep think pieces for all occasions--and just put in a dollar the minute something comes around.

she looks horrible in this video btw. i guess i like the parts of the choreography that are obvious call-outs to michael jackson.

and i guess i like the tuesday weld glasses she's flaunting in a few shots.

What's wrong with bein' racy?

Rac-IST! IST!

It does seem like a cynical post-miley attempt to be the center of an internet thinkpiece "shitstorm." i still like her though, in general

i blame, i blame, i blame miley

I don't want to watch this because I don't want to ruin my sense of this song as being very clever and thoughtful.

"Either way it's all the same / it's like talking to a friend who's trying to be your lover" was one of my absolute favourite lyrics of last year.

That Flavorwire piece is somehow even worse than I expected from the URL.

https://www.facebook.com/skyferreira/posts/10152761383779115

sigh (ferreira)

Oh, she's good at this! I can't wait for the ever escalating Facebook defenses and Internet backlash

oh dear, this video, no sky no

it's so half-hearted as well

I was all "where is the thinkpiece I can read so I don't have to actually watch the shitty video" and thread delivers.

Which is, like, 2014 pop consumption in a nutshell.

Don't demean the actors & dancers in the video. They are more well spoken & aware than you and I will ever be.

yeesh

it's well to keep in mind that she's... what... 20 years old? that doesn't excuse her any more than it excuses the frat bro down the street, but... she has a long time to learn some things. unfortunately for her that's likely to happen in public.

(i'd also note that this is instance no. 45,863 of someone essentially saying "a racist is the most hateful thing one can be, therefore i am not a racist." as many have pointed out, people seem to think that being called a racist for anything short of burning a cross in a black family's front lawn is a grave injustice. it's like popular discourse has effectively abolished the existence of more than a few token racists by positioning the concept of "racism" outside of the continuum of daily life.)

(also if she's so proud of her complex multiracial family, why does the video explicitly offset one white girl--the star--with a bunch of black dudes? unless i am forgetting parts of the video already, which is possible. the actual substance of the video gives the lie to her elaborate/confused rationalization of it.)

(finally, I'd like to hear alternative interpretations of the video esp. in context of the song's lyrics but i suspect a convincing one is unlikely to be forthcoming.)

it's like popular discourse has effectively abolished the existence of more than a few token racists by positioning the concept of "racism" outside of the continuum of daily life

otm

re: ferreira's age, it's important to note that the commentary on this is less personal condemnation of Sky Ferreira, The (Possible) Racist; more cultural criticism of the video as an artefact she's put out into popular culture.