The Father John Misty Thread

even as a huge FJM fan, has to be said he came across as a bit of a self important tosser here. somehow Radcliffe and Maconie's (very) mild joshing seemed to rattle him. although Maconie was perhaps unnecessarily uppity. at last night's gig he called it 'one of the worst moments of my life'. pretty easy life he's had then.

also he appeared according to follow up tweets to think it was *local* radio! as opposed to the leading national radio audience he could possibly have had at that moment in the UK.

http://www.stereogum.com/1877059/hear-father-john-mistys-awkward-interview-on-bbc-radio-6-music-today/news/

class comments to the youtube-version:

Josh has answered all of these questions hundreds of times before/they misinterpret the whole point of the Father John Misty persona/the guy has been touring for literal months and would be stressed as fuck at two middle-aged dudes who don't have the slightest idea at what his act is about and probably don't give a shit either, who are just trying to engage with him on a purely superficial level

Seemed less "car crash" than I'd expected from the internet.

Have never listened to "Radcliffe & Maconie" before (though used to listen to "Mark & Lard" and have read decent things by Maconie) and I could see why an interviewee might find them irritating.

wow an ironic prius ad now i really want to listen to this guy

New album PURE COMEDY out April 7th

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cejjqC1oyQM

lookin forward to it

I liked both of the albums a lot but the new song honestly belongs in rolling worst '17

nah sounds good to me. a bit reminiscent of the closing track on the last album

it's basically a retread of the sentiment from "Bored in the USA" only even more thuddingly obvious and attached to a neverending plod. he's much better when he's in self-effacing/mocking mode

have to avoid coffee shops for a couple of years now jeez

fucking hate him he is the worst

you guys are all wrong

Every once in a while I'll feel a little guilty about not keeping up with 'indie rock' the way I used to, and then I remember that people in 2017 actually take this fucking guy seriously, and I go happily back to my psych reissues and Fact mixes

"Father John Misty"

lol

your power rangers joke was hilarious and infinitely smarter and funnier than anything this guy has done

Joke's on you guys imo

Farter John Shitty

his cover of Lennon's "God" last year was p great

tracklist!

Pure Comedy
Total Entertainment Forever
Things It Would Be Helpful to Know Before the Revolution
Ballad of the Dying Man
Birdie
Leaving LA
A Bigger Paper Bag
When the God of Love Returns There'll Be Hell to Pay
Smoochie
Two Wildly Different Perspectives
The Memo
So I’m Growing Old on Magic Mountain
In Twenty Years or So

Vinyl pre-orders will receive a 7” single featuring the first physical release of fan favourite “Real Love Baby” on the A-side and the as yet unreleased track, "Rejected Generic Pop Song.

the idea of a 13 minute fjm song is terrifying

I think someone like Randy Newman makes ironic pop tunes work v well, but FJM seems so self-important and clever abt it makes you wanna punch his face

it's basically a retread of the sentiment from "Bored in the USA" only even more thuddingly obvious and attached to a neverending plod. he's much better when he's in self-effacing/mocking mode

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, January 24, 2017 8:39 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Exactly what I felt. Like, be more on the nose.

seems like he's made friends again with BBC6

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04rw622

the 13 minute song is present and correct.

word around the campfire is that the album's amazing.

the campfire that is not ilx

that's the one.

Wimmels sez:
Every once in a while I'll feel a little guilty about not keeping up with 'indie rock' the way I used to, and then I remember that people in 2017 actually take this fucking guy seriously, and I go happily back to my psych reissues and Fact mixes

I feel that guilt, too, but substitute krautrock for psych and post-punk for Fact.

I ran across a couple of tunes from this guy's new album and, musically, they're fine, mellow, uninteresting. Lyrically, though, I can't be too harsh. I mean, if you're a 30-something songwriter and watching our political landscape, wouldn't you want to rail against the dying of the light?

So if this is modern protest music, I'm fine with it but won't be singing along at the next march.

I posted "two wildly different perspectives" in Rolling Worst, it's somehow even worse than the title track despite being half the length

Some musicians you want to romantically imagine you'd follow them off a cliff for. This guy I would be happy to hurl off a cliff.

reserving judgment til I can listen to the new one in its entirety but the first two are great, sorry you guys don't like irony or performance art anymore, haters gonna hate

Man, fuck irony or performance art as an excuse, dude's just boring.

I used to defend him on the grounds of his self-effacing humour helping to make the would-be profundity go down easier but his newfound humorlessness makes him impossible to listen to

I don't think it's an excuse it's just... what it is, and some people seem to miss that (cf this accusation of "newfound humorlessness" for ex.) Who he really reminds me of is Nilsson, sort of agent-provacateur pop

and Nilsson also threaded the line between being emotionally affecting and confrontational or silly, loads of sarcasm and humor alternately undercutting or bolstering the more seriously emotional stuff

maybe FJM will do an album of standards next lol

that's all fine, it's the "political" angle that does him in, he's like a Bono level terribly political lyricist and the "performative" layer just makes it worse somehow

stuff like "Holy Shit" managed to just barely make that balance work but these new songs just tip right over into nightmare fodder

well like I said I'll reserve judgment til I hear the whole thing, I haven't listened to this new stuff

I thought "Holy Shit" was v good

if he has in fact turned to earnest Bono-ing yeah I might be getting off the boat

album is really dull, coming from someone who really likes honeybear and fear fun. so many plodding piano ballads, that literally all seem to be about an end-of-the-world reckoning and making pithy statements about how silly the whole world is. every track seems like it should be the final track on the album. i was listening to it without looking at the tracklisting and i couldn't believe another song kept coming on

i've steadfastly detested this artist since the beginning and in a way that was likely untenably, unreasonably prejudiced but i'm glad to learn that even his fans are beginning to turn on him

also would rather eat a nine day-old Whopper sat on by Baron Harkonnen than be forced to read Sir Elton interviewing Misty Joe Fuckface

― Wimmels, Tuesday, March 21, 2017 1:36 PM (two days ago)

I was put off listening to him for a long time by the unending stream of rubbish he said in interviews. I eventually forced myself to have a browse around in case I was missing out. Real Love Baby is a great song, even if (because?) it's a complete early solo Lennon ripoff. Everything else though was dull, plodding shite, with the odd clunky 'provocative' line. I can't be arsed to listen to any more, life is short and there's way too much good music out there to be wasting my time on him.

I don't have a problem with this man

not that I've heard his music or anything

piano ballads, that literally all seem to be about an end-of-the-world reckoning and making pithy statements about how silly the whole world is. every track seems like it should be the final track on the album

he's good at these but yeah idk if I can take a whole album of this. I like a little variety. and he's good at the sprightlier tunes ("Well You Can Do It Without Me", "I'm Writing a Novel", "Chateau Lobby #4")

yknow I could really go for a whole album of "Well You Can Do It Without Me" type jaunty country-pop but I guess he's too "smart" for that or whatever

"Real Love Baby" is great because he didn't write it for the insufferable Father John Misty character he's lost himself in. Truth be told, his earnest folk albums as J. Tillman are pretty unlistenable, but at least he was easy to ignore back then. It's frustrating now because every stunt he pulls gets hot take'd into death—the novelty songs, the interviews, the controversial lyrics, the stage rants—clogging up news feeds for days. Worse, it all happens with the knowledge that he's really talented and can make infectious pop songs (i.e. "Real Love Baby") but decides to spiral further down into his meta rabbit hole of masturbatory in-jokes and freshman philosophy level musings. He's funny, too, but that gets obscured by the fact he doesn't think a musician can court fame without compromising some antiquated notion of authenticity.

Oh no a musician w personal ethics how terrible rmde

The problem is that he tries to impose those personal ethics on other artists. He said to Rolling Stone, "Artists need to consider whether they can live with themselves if they’re just singing about breakups and whatever," like his dorm room critical theory is any more socially Important.

in the current rush to destroy straight white guys i fail to understand how this one isn't first on the list