So, Fleet Foxes...

Yr elitism is making me drowsy. (no need to make the FF comeback... I already see it coming.)

the lyrics are so f'ing bad

I note the following from Mike T-Diva's review:

Equally unexpected was the band’s dry, sardonic, and somewhat rambling comic banter – although, as was cheerfully admitted, this could just have been due to some particularly heavy doses of cold medication. How else to explain their eulogies to John “The Mav” McCain?

“We want four more years of the same”, they drawled, to hoots of amused disbelief.

“Hey, if it ain’t broke...!”

KEEL THEM

Americans: not funny

Well, well! Turns out that they're much stronger live than on record, dispelling all of that cloying feyness with an unexpected muscularity, range and depth.

Hmmm... a bit like My Morning Jacket, non?

They don't sound excessively fey or cloying to me, but then I like Incredible String Band, so maybe my tolerance for that sort of thing is high.

“We want four more years of the same”, they drawled, to hoots of amused disbelief.

“Hey, if it ain’t broke...!”

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v111/robbeck/sarcasm_meter.jpg

I've finally realized what band they're actually channeling, it isn't the beach boys nor my morning jacket, it's 'Pearls before Swine':

Further Proof:

http://cdn.last.fm/coverart/300x300/2168138.jpghttp://www.panicmanual.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/fleet_foxes.jpg

I rest my case.

ban Seattle

I'm not sure Pecknold knew about PBS before recording the album, honestly. (disclosure: robin was the nicest dude at bimbo's bitchin burrito kitchen when I did go there, so I am biased.) The interviews I read make it seem that most of those guys aren't music geeks at all. It's like they all grew up with these soppy old 60s/70s rock records, and that's all their universe consists of... I have a hard time believing that's all there is to it, especially if some of these guys had friends in Capitol Hill (i.e. hipster neighborhood), but that's not evidence against either.

Anyway in brief: I wouldn't attribute any Fleet Fox appropriating anything below the radar with a wink. These guys are not James Murphy.

ban Seattle

straight outta Lynnwood CWA

*disgruntled grunt*

The interviews I read make it seem that most of those guys aren't music geeks at all. It's like they all grew up with these soppy old 60s/70s rock records, and that's all their universe consists of... I have a hard time believing that's all there is to it, especially if some of these guys had friends in Capitol Hill (i.e. hipster neighborhood), but that's not evidence against either.

I disagree. Their June interview with MOJO has their singer talking a great deal about how their generation (he's only 22 or 23) differs from older ones in that they grew up with P2P networking and the ability to listen to old records with ease. His love of old, obscure albums he found on the internet is something they talked about briefly. Plus his parents were described as being hippies, so there's also that angle when it comes to their musical influences.

Interview on Jools Holland, dude specifically mentioned Fairport and Steeleye Span as influences. Don't hear *that much* Fairport in them, but 'Gaudete' is a pretty close match isn't it?

wtf lol goths...

Not the Steeleye version though sadly :(

I reread the RS interview, and saw the Mojo piece. Nevermind!

I'd kinda respect the Fleet Foxes or at least their cover art person/group if Balaklava was the inspiration! It's close enough to resemble it, but different enough to not really ape it either.

So is the basic complaint in music aficiando/critic circles about Fleet Foxes topping the End Of Year charts not so much the dislike of the music but that the music doesn't RAWK, doesn't have a captivating backstory, and/or isn't original enough?

I heard them in starbucks earlier. Buncha starbucks yuppies.

sounds like a dude with a nice voice and average musical talent listened to a lot of yellow house. maybe that's just me though (it's not)

my main complainzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This is basically like if music critics as a unit decided the Shins were the freshest and most exciting thing going on in the world of sound instead of placing them at #14 or whatever.

So is the basic complaint in music aficiando/critic circles about Fleet Foxes topping the End Of Year charts not so much the dislike of the music but that the music doesn't RAWK, doesn't have a captivating backstory, and/or isn't original enough?

What I keep reading (and happen to agree with) is basically that they have a great sound but kind of weak songs—nothing really to do with rocking or backstories or originality at all.

that's it pretty much exactly. the album sounds amazing, and obviously their harmonies are right there. but the songs are really not that good. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up liking them more down the road, but usually when a group is this lauded the people who liked them initially cool on them--doesn't have the same spark as the initial stuff, or whatever the argument is.

I also find them pretty saccharine, to be honest.

I guess I've already ended up "down the road" then, because I really like this album now. It just went over my head not even six months ago. Granted, a turning point was seeing them live at SP20. I was nonplussed with the album, but the live show was excellent.

haha well I'm not guaranteeing I'll ever like them down the road, either. like I say, I think they're cloying. ("Oliver James"--ugh.)

better than "Jamie Oliver"

good album

and cloying in a way that I find worse because it's pretty obviously heartfelt. the turnaround line in "White Winter Hymnal"--"And there you go!"--is a good example: it's a cliche, it says zip, they might as well be singing "Everything is everything, brah!"

you mean like dance music lyrics?

*hides from flung knife*

No, not like dance-music lyrics, because dance-music lyrics don't tend to announce themselves as, you know, profound.

Of course they do! The fact that the most famous ones are sampled again and again is testament to that!

The major point i didn't make is that Fleet Foxes aren't exactly a dance group, lol

Actually, that's wrong--sometimes they do, esp. with the stuff that's more cosmic-minded or whatever. (I was thinking about that when I typed the last response but figured I'd leave it alone until someone else brought it up. Didn't take long at all.)

xpost

Well, this point may become important if Fleet Foxes sign to Nocturnal Groove for the sophomore album, but in the meantime

Oh, better you than some dickhead who's still mad at me because I didn't memorize half the Guided by Voices catalog instead of actually enjoying myself during the '90s.

"there you go" could likely mean seeing someone departing rather than "it is what it is"-type meaningless bullshit

Here's the lyric, cribbed from some website:

"I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied 'round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin' in the snow
And I turned 'round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime"

So the line is closer to what passion bucket suggests than what I did--fair enough. I heard it as a pivot line--the perspective changes with it, which I heard it as, just not that specifically. I still don't care for the song or the line, but yeah, I'll cede that point.

"what I heard it as" = a pivot line, not necessarily the sort of pivot line I'd thought of it as, mainly because that line jumps out and sticks in my memory in a way the others don't.

i think nabisco was riding for that verse on the vampire weekend thread

great imagery

haha, well I apologize for belaboring it if it's already been widely discussed here. I don't read anywhere near all the threads around here (and haven't in a long time).

nah not getting on u--just saying that seems to be the verse that everyone picks out, whether its as an example of their hidden lyrical talents or as an example of how poor they are as lyricists

I'm petitioning my local MP to revise the laws on Fleet Foxhunting.

I guess I've already ended up "down the road" then, because I really like this album now. It just went over my head not even six months ago. Granted, a turning point was seeing them live at SP20. I was nonplussed with the album, but the live show was excellent.

Yeah, me too basically. Seeing them live has cast the album in a different light, partly because I've been furnished with a sense of personality which I hadn't quite grasped before. They really are a superb live act - and there's some added intensity and muscularity on stage which mitigates against the soppiness.

I was in the "sounds nice, no songs" camp (I think I said so upthread?), but having the album forced into my ears quite a bit recently I'm beginning to see that there are in fact a few songs in there. At least two! If the whole album's going to grow on me it's really taking its time, though.

the album sounds amazing, and obviously their harmonies are right there. but the songs are really not that good.

I'd take issue with that. At the very least, "White Winter Hymnal", "He Doesn't Know Why" and "Your Protector" I think are very fine purely as songs and melodies. Their entire sound seems to be based on "The Only Living Boy In New York" by Simon and Garfunkel and the singer's voice is quite Lee Maversy.

Wait, that was a Vampire Weekend thread where I was talking about that song? No way. But yeah, I think that lyric is really well-assembled, with loads of craft packed into something that short and simple -- the sounds and internal rhymes, the color scheme, the appearance of the "you" in that turnaround, the way specific things land on specific musical changes, etc. (Even the fact that it starts with that repeating "I was following the," which sounds like some kind of fake-mystical "I was following the eye" until it hops out of the loop and continues into something concrete!)

I dunno, I believe they have three songs that have really stuck with me as great, solid songs; the rest seems, you know, good.