Mitski

I don't find 'Nobody' to be particularly half-hearted (if anything its enthusiasm is part of the problem, it's just a bit clunky). But then this is the same sort of circular argument you get when indie acts try their hand at other genres - ("yeah but why is the execution so clunky" vs "no the clunkiness is part of the point"). And I suppose it's that latter viewpoint which is what irritates me about modern indie culture.

but when it morphs at the end into something else, that's where it becomes elegant. elegance and clunkiness in eternal dialectic

lj and matt dc both making a pretty great case against this album

the three lead songs

These are still the standouts for me, after several listens. "Nobody" is incredible imo (and I don't want it to be 'real' disco) but so far the album as a whole hasn't grabbed me as immediately as the last one.

album is fire

There is something about her vocals—a pervading sadness that even disco can’t lighten

well, performers often used disco to convey sadness, hysteria, or both.

true. i still perceive a tension between the vocals and the backing track in this song.

like that little bossa nova "nobody nobody" when she is saying nobody wants her

nobody reminds me of lovefool for some reason, which distracted me at first but i have made peace with it now

geyser is so colossal, and has been my favourite song of the year since the day it came out, that it's gonna take a lot of momentum for anything on this album to topple it. But, A Pearl sure is making a case. What a song

Yes, it definitely sounds like a more muscular "Lovefool"

lovefool is a good song

True

lovefool is a great song! just noticing the similarity was distracting me until i listened a few uh dozen or so more times

I may be misremembering due to age/cultural osmosis but was "lovefool" released during a massive boom of fake disco

also the cardigans' whole thing was ironic/winking takes on genres, at least at that point -- see their past metal covers

tbh i only know two cardigans songs, that and my favourite game, but based on those two i could definitely see that being their thing!

I remember "Lovefool" as an omnipresent American radio hit in spring '97 at the same time that Jamiroquai, Daft Punk, and Puff were doing their thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9PT4CM8LQc

(it stopped being their thing fairly soon after "Lovefool," at least not as obviously)

interesting. don't know much about the cardigans.

i'm not sure what mitski is doing is, like, ironic pastiche of disco--not sure if you were implying that katherine, or just saying the cardigans did that. she seems pretty willing to draw on whatever sounds feel right for the song.

i mean, there is some humor in the frisson that comes from singing "i'm a coward" as the beat picks up steam. but idk.

yeah, the big and small verse is heartbreaking, kinda feels like at least a little tongue-in-cheek to juxtapose against that fun lil' guitar darting in

yeah, there is irony but it is very bitter

lonesome love is dope

I wrote this elsewhere but the real comparison point for me isn't "Lovefool" but "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)"

oh yeah, that's a good point

coincidentally one of the best songs ever

idk maybe i'm just caught up but i legitimately cannot think of an artist whose music i've enjoyed more this decade, am i what the internet calls a "stan" now?

only if you start personally attacking people who think otherwise

but the only person who i hear talk shit about mitski is... mitski

oh no

cardigans talk is on point in that i think a lot of mitski's musical refs are out of the mid to late 90s.

I really enjoy the yellow bedroom in the Nobody video.

I'd really like DJ Koze to remix Nobody along the lines of his remix of Lapsley's Operator.

ya need some edits of that track def

Wow. My favorite album of hers so far by a long shot. Elliott Smith comparison is otm, not only the arrangements but the vocal melodies. But not something I would've heard if you hadn't mentioned it or something I ever heard on her first two records.

the more time i spend with this album the more blown away i am

only a shitty curmudgeon or an idiot would hate this music

sorry i don't know why i put it like that. but yeah it's sensational

i agree. or someone is afraid of examining what loneliness has done to them over the years, because this is something mitski gets right into

while also doing (CRASS ANALOGY ALERT) for indie what wire did for punk

i do know why i put it like that btw - loads of the RYM reviews have been low-to-tepid, and the only track they want to talk about is Nobody, because people are shit listeners

i think over time it will become some kind of classic. it hits a certain mood that i haven't quite heard in anything else, but that feels very of our moment.

the one that is killing me today is "lonesome love."

maybe universal not of our moment. but it hits something nothing else does and there will be listeners in the future that will go back to it over and over

the mood is pure undistilled ¬_¬

yeah but all the while under the surface you're a geyer, hear it call, hear it call, hear it call to me

yeah that is part of ¬_¬ though - the desire to burst out, to be something, to be romantic

bang it up inside ¬_¬

I am still blown away by the brilliance of “Me and My Husband”

her deployment of Britpop horns (and that jaunty organ!) on that song and elsewhere on the album is amazing

Any article I read about Mitski totally turns me off from her music. Especially the exclaim one. She’s probably good tho - just a reminder that interviews with artists can be bad

I don't... really get why?