i think dawn is probably just a control freak who likes to micromanage everything. tbf she is almost entirely the creative force of the group. the other two could have been meeting to bash out music ideas together for whatever reason (this seems to be story that is out there) and clearly dawn took things the wrong way.
the best policy i've learnt from experience w/ girl groups, especially reformed ones, is just to never get too invested. if good music comes out that's great, but things almost invariably end up going tits up. it's too miserable a situation to stan for dk or mks knowing their albums were both finished but will probably never be released.
― prolego, Saturday, 9 August 2014 16:57 (nine years ago) link
it's weird seeing anyone stan for DK, unlike MKS i never felt they had a really distinct or necessary sound or unfinished business (and unlike solo dawn). and i loved welcome to the dollhouse! the quality of "lemonade" was a real surprise.
anyway one thing i've learned this week: d. woods, the DK member who wasn't even invited to the reunion, is...the younger sister of SHANELL!!!!!
― lex pretend, Monday, 11 August 2014 11:17 (nine years ago) link
so this album is coming out on 28 oct anyway
unfortch the latest single isn't up to much at all
https://soundcloud.com/official-danity-kane/danity-kane-rhythm-of-love
― lex pretend, Thursday, 2 October 2014 10:42 (nine years ago) link
this single, however!
https://soundcloud.com/official-danity-kane/all-in-a-days-work
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 15:00 (nine years ago) link
The live version of Rhythm of Love had more oomph.
― Greer, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 15:04 (nine years ago) link
Some great stuff on this album, especially Roultte, Secret Lover, and Tell Me.
― Greer, Monday, 27 October 2014 04:18 (nine years ago) link
it's pretty great
heavy on the irony with all the boss bitch anthems given how it ended but weirdly that doesn't actually lessen their impact
― lex pretend, Monday, 27 October 2014 15:47 (nine years ago) link
"all in a day's work" is such a jam
it's also really nicely varied and - again the irony - sounds a lot more confident than it had any right to. half expected it all to be desperate trend-chasing but that's not the case
― lex pretend, Monday, 27 October 2014 15:49 (nine years ago) link
this album never did get its due
"lemonade" through to the heavily ironic "2 sides" is fire, in quite an odd way sometimes ("we rage at the party like maniacs" is an image that keeps being on my mind). it soooort of loses its way in the second half, which doesn't always sound finished ("roulette" is the biggest waste bc it sounds like there are the seeds of something potentially special, in a "style" kinda 80s teen romance way, and the jodeci reference is excellent, but overall the song feels a bit...bogged down), and then "bye baby" is a sort of unjustified victory lap that still works
but aside from that there are some pretty interesting choices overall - "tell me" segueing into "2 sides" really works
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 9 December 2014 14:02 (nine years ago) link
aubrey and shannon are a duo now and the single they released is improbably good: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6649118/dumblonde-dreamsicle-video-premiere-danity-kane
― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Friday, 31 July 2015 16:29 (eight years ago) link
song is incredible
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, 31 July 2015 21:01 (eight years ago) link
well i'm really enjoying the album rn
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Friday, 25 September 2015 05:07 (eight years ago) link
the textures in this song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqgE_nUjwI
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, 28 September 2015 18:31 (eight years ago) link
that IS improbably good.
― Meta Forksclove-Liebeskind (forksclovetofu), Monday, 28 September 2015 19:54 (eight years ago) link
holy smokes, just catching up on Dumblonde, both those songs are killerrr
― alpine static, Monday, 28 September 2015 23:03 (eight years ago) link
The textures in this album!
― boxedjoy, Tuesday, 6 October 2015 20:54 (eight years ago) link
brad otm this album is way better than it should be. how did an amazing garage-house track like "you got me" find its way on to here, it sounds like it fell off the dj q album
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 13 October 2015 10:08 (eight years ago) link
have totally fallen for the Dumblonde album, was feeling challopsy and thinking about coming here to post that i like it more than Blackheart. but then and i listened to Blackheart again and ... no.
― alpine static, Tuesday, 24 November 2015 01:52 (eight years ago) link
I like the dumblonde album more for sure. Might just be more up my alley but it's amazing
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, 3 December 2015 06:06 (eight years ago) link
I mean I really like it. A lot. Sooo much more than I would've expected.
And I *want* to like it more. For a lot of reasons.
But the Dumblonde record is a really great pop record, whereas Dawn's from fucking space.
That's no knock on the former.
― alpine static, Saturday, 5 December 2015 07:24 (eight years ago) link
I really like the Dumblonde album and i love the production choices on it but as if there is anything on it that floors me like Swim Free or Choices does
― boxedjoy, Saturday, 5 December 2015 07:42 (eight years ago) link
the dumblonde album is really good and "you got me" is particularly excellent, in a more fallow year i'd have repped it harder. better than blackheart is o_0 tho
― lex pretend, Saturday, 5 December 2015 08:40 (eight years ago) link
Dumblonde record is a really great pop record, whereas Dawn's from fucking space.
― Eugene Goostman (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 5 December 2015 09:21 (eight years ago) link
Dawn's is definitely more ambitious I guess but it's so arch
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 11:17 (eight years ago) link
I admire blackheart but actually enjoy dumblonde idk
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 11:23 (eight years ago) link
Feels like a lame poptimist choice on my part i suppose
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 11:24 (eight years ago) link
new board discrip?
― The Reverend, Saturday, 5 December 2015 11:52 (eight years ago) link
dumblonde doesn't work better in strict pop terms; blackheart is catchier, hookier, better songcraft etc (not to mention force of character which dawn has in spades). vocal production and arrangements are pretty much the star of the dumblonde album, regardless of whether they're in a more familiar pop palette. these two albums are going for v different things but i guess comparing dumblonde to years & years or CRJ (prob the two best straight-pop albums of 2015 imo) reveals why it's not top-tier, whereas comparing dawn to the kelela or twigs eps reveals her superiority
― lex pretend, Saturday, 5 December 2015 12:22 (eight years ago) link
[sighs deeply, removes earrings, rolls up sleeves]
― r|t|c, Saturday, 5 December 2015 12:50 (eight years ago) link
side with deej before his spine went
blackheart doesnt interest me. sonically corny and conceptually ponderous in a way that no longer washes, because now self-conscious and playing to a slavish and trite gallery - album duly fufils its own prophecy as the saddest of epilogues to her previous art - mask on, presenting doll richard for your consideration, or was that consolidation
― r|t|c, Saturday, 5 December 2015 14:01 (eight years ago) link
"And even though I lost the best of me it was worth itI took it to the deepCause there's no depth in these streamsI took it to the deepCause my heart doesn't swim in shallow creeks"
that deep so filled with victimhood and self-abnegation, empty baleful cryogenic cousin to "fucking space". what's in those shallow creeks though?- tender green life. and in that black night, why only "freckles in the sky". this brilliant, jouissant reply is dumblonde's - pop in all its awkward teeming poetic meaninglessness, gloriously confounding plurality and messy multivalence. humanalien shards of jagged beauty embedded in clubfunk ditz - why settle for scandos and major lazer when here's the white girls wearing headdresses and fringe boots tropical 2?
"We lay forever, walking over waters deeper than the seaBut never get wet, wet, wet, wet"
three minutes in and over chorales there's lightning thunder and hail, kings and queens, rulers of the light, immortalit-ay (heh) , a dream of love infinite. which album were we talking about again? and so they continue. shooting stars ignite, fire in the sky, "follow the madness with abandon / living legends, you and me". and the finale!!... to me so much of dumblonde seems to be in explicit post-punch-up dialogue with dawn, sympathetic but almost at times wickedly pantomimic - a gauntleted hand ('yellow canary') on her shoulder ('dreamsicle'):
Late last night I had a dream / I fell asleep in the shadow of successI confess / And I forgot what freedom means [...] So tonight we dream / We won't wake up / The dream is never done, no"
― r|t|c, Saturday, 5 December 2015 14:02 (eight years ago) link
the comparative arguments against db above are truly the worst and most bovine trumped-up rockism possible imo - gloomily burdensome pseudopersonal narrative, signposted subversion (male gaze flipped on a tediously problematic standard, clutch thee fuckin pearls), abstraction and difficult sounds (or just idm toybox melodies whatever), "ambition" - all privileged over the kaleidoscope of the world with just a tart dismissal as pop, de facto unworthy. for shame you suckers - had the artist names of these records been swapped over you all know damn well none of this would ever have been said
alternate perspective: when I listened to dawn's album i was utterly floored and found myself coming back to it dozens of times. When I listened to the dumblonde album it was very good and deserved further exploration but i didn't capsize.
― Eugene Goostman (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 5 December 2015 16:53 (eight years ago) link
the dumblonde record is good and fun
― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Saturday, 5 December 2015 17:05 (eight years ago) link
I admire blackheart but actually enjoy dumblonde idk― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, December 5, 2015 3:23 AM (5 hours ago)
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, December 5, 2015 3:23 AM (5 hours ago)
this is a perfectly reasonable place to be ... not sure if i'm *quite* here but i'm not far off
think we can all agree on: "wow, aubrey/shannon. did not expect this."
― alpine static, Saturday, 5 December 2015 17:14 (eight years ago) link
― r|t|c, Saturday, December 5, 2015 8:01 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol dont worry i was just being lazy :D
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 19:14 (eight years ago) link
― Eugene Goostman (forksclovetofu), Saturday, December 5, 2015 10:53 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
if a critical judgement happens in a forest, does it make a sound?
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 19:15 (eight years ago) link
the video for 'tender green life' is SO bad but then i found out Aubrey O'Day actually directed it & now it's classichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqgE_nUjwI
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 19:21 (eight years ago) link
like the members of danity kane DIY'd their own branding and only the music is incredible but that enthusiasm completely justifies the odd first timer vibes of the presentation
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 19:23 (eight years ago) link
it reminds me of that time ms paint versions of classic rap albums were going arounds & it was always fascinating to see which details the artist decided to focus on & which were covered in a sloppy drag of an ms paint brush
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 19:25 (eight years ago) link
Apparently they did this whole thing pretty DIY style:
Conversely, Bex and O'Day poured themselves into Dumblonde, not only writing and recording, but, as Bex says, "staying up 'til three in the morning" Photoshopping artwork or perfecting a video edit. (Bex designed the group's logo.)
from http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/dumblonde-rises-from-the-ashes-of-danity-kane/Content?oid=17086829
― alpine static, Saturday, 5 December 2015 19:42 (eight years ago) link
xp lol yeah it's fun picking out what track might be the "leader" (there isnt one really) and beholding how it subtly alters the weird world of the rest - something about 'tender green life' (including the vid!) brings this kinda like, idk, late alt-90s attitude to consumption of modernity, like it was some offbeat chick group with a dusty cd filed next to beck and money mark somewhere in ur parents attic
― r|t|c, Saturday, 5 December 2015 19:47 (eight years ago) link
― Eugene Goostman (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 5 December 2015 16:53 Bookmark
maybe best stick to the spotify parasite life if this is "perspective" is all u got to love that which floors
joke is ima bet that i'll still remain the person who said the most ever about the dawn record even in rejecting it
should anyone advance past sounds weird/yaas (they havent yet, anywhere) i'm hungry to listen
― r|t|c, Saturday, 5 December 2015 20:05 (eight years ago) link
Xp lol ya like "waiting on you" is my subjective favorite but in isolation it just sounds like (an admittedly strong) Prince via Daft Punk pastiche any number of artists have aimed for previously, in album context it becomes a partic brilliant facet of the overall jewel
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 20:19 (eight years ago) link
good choice tho. very sick licks
that last minute of 'take away' too, i died and went to j-pop heaven
― r|t|c, Saturday, 5 December 2015 20:35 (eight years ago) link
Sweeping strings are whoa
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 5 December 2015 21:01 (eight years ago) link
― Eugene Goostman (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 6 December 2015 04:23 (eight years ago) link
but please, tell me more about what washes in the glorious kaleidoscope of the world of pop, which i never listen to, yuck pop, what's that ew yuck, however did i get in the danity kane thread in the first place i wonder.
― Eugene Goostman (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 6 December 2015 04:25 (eight years ago) link
rtc there is plenty of excellent justification of the dawn richard record in the dawn richard thread
― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Sunday, 6 December 2015 07:21 (eight years ago) link