Ariel Pink

I'd give Worn Copy an 8.5ish. New one a 7.9ish.

Worn Copy's more of a 8.52 imo

House Arrest and the Doldrums are still where it's at.

Bright Lit Blue Skies is a cover of a song by the Rockin Ramrods circa 1966.

<3 mark richardson

This is definitely not his best album. But it is good. The tracks are shorter, more confined and in a way this is not necessarily a good thing. I do like Butthouse Blondies a lot though.

Worn Copy is my fave. I should listen to his other stuff more, but it's all really hotchpotch. Even Worn Copy which I adore I rarely make all the way through. It becomes kind of exhausting.

couldn't disagree more, worn copy, doldrums, house arrest, and lover boy = all killer no filler

well ok 90% killer maybe 10% filler

Reposting Zeno's YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJLYq0tHAPk

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12909-grandes-exitos/ - 7.0
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10966-scared-famous/ - 6.1
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6555-house-arrest/ - 6.2
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6554-worn-copy/ - 5.9
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6553-the-doldrums/ - 5.0

"There's no way this Hollywood hillbilly called Ariel Pink knows who Stephen Merritt is"

― gorilla vs burrr (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, June 7, 2010 3:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I was hoping for a repudiation, or at least a reassessment, of this long history of trashing Ariel Pink albums. Instead, we get a list of supposed improvements in performance/production and a glib "It turns out that these details make a big difference". What a copout.

idg all the yapping this morning about the disparity between before todays score and previous albums, i mean he addresses it in the review (for basically its entirety), and even admits that there's been a reevaluation of his oeuvre.

i think the review and score are a bit overblown, for some reason this album just doesn't feel huge to me, and i feel like great pop albums should be huge. good songs, though, and i wouldn't want to discourage anyone from getting super excited about it. glad that probably thousands more people will hear it now, too.

xp skip - the review is pretty obviously intended for people who have never heard (of) ariel pink before, though. and i think the little differences adding up to something greater than the sum of their parts is true, if not *revelatory*. a talented nut who got his shit together, i don't know, music isn't always that much more complicated than just that.

Just heard "Round and Round." Damn -- amazing.

Dear Pitchfork: you ain't talking your ass out of this.(Just watched Pulp Fiction again)

i dunno its like fair enough, pink has always been awesome but it really wouldn't have made sense for pitchfork to be into him back in like 2005 so like

wait, why not?

9. POINT. 0.

MUST. DOWNLOAD. DISC. IMMEDIATELY.

Daniel has never been the same since Lala's demise

i welcome it

it's true it's true. i am heartbroken.

actually i love bright lit blue skies song so much, i am downloading the disc tonight.

Besides an admittedly nice hook, I'm not sure what is so incredible about "Round and Round." What about it are fans attracted to? (As easy as that question is to be read with an angry, rhetorical tone, it is actually an innocently curious question. I like hearing about what makes music work for people)

It gives me hope

it make me happy. seriously.

are there a bunch of 70s pop/rock songs sampled in that track? it feels like it.

the value you mortals place on your happiness astounds me!

i think part of what is appealing about Ariel Pink has something to do with this DFW-esque idea of burrowing into self-awareness and irony until you come back around to sincerity. i guess he's always appropriated soft rock and new wave of the 70's and 80's, but up until now it was filtered through a layer of lo-fi noise and weird song structure that allowed it to be received with a sense of ironic distance. but now that it is actually well-produced and he has a band he comes across more as actually just really loving this particular sound and wanting it to be as effective as possible. it's perhaps only updated in the sense of having the perspective of history and a wider scope of influence, e.g. ethiopiques, etc. but i think a lot of people project a certain innocence and naivety and therefore maybe freedom onto unselfconscious soft rock pop of the past, so its appealing to see the trajectory of a guy working through the lo-fi bedroom sound to the point where he can afford to produce an actual soft rock album without the indie-ness (and maybe the implied self-wareness/self-deprecation) of lo-fi production.

speaking of a move from lo-fi production to a cleaner sound, there are certain sections of songs that remind me of Pavement, which might also have to do with the sound of his falsetto.

not that lo-fi production isn't appealing it its own right. and there is obviously a component of Ariel Pink's sound that is just straight up weird and fractured unlike most soft rock of the 80's.

Ariels, in the sky
When you lose small mind
You free your life

Life is a waterfall
We drink from the river
Then we turn around and put up our walls

i have yet to identify the ethiopiques similarities, but maybe because i'm so pleasently surprised by all the 70s/80s pop sounds i'm hearing baked into these songs.

two of these tracks are already among my favorits pop songs of the year. and something on here i haven't focused on yet sounded like the alan parsons project?

xpost LOOOOL i've been trying to do a display name out of that all day

nabisco pointed out on another thread that "reminiscences" is a cover of an ethiopian song off a compilation that he helped compile.

http://www.calliebowdish.com/Birds/TurkeyVultureShaverLake090606_7491.jpg

http://eatourbrains.com/EoB/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/vulture01.jpg

Why does Pitchfork need to reconcile this review with their reviews of other Ariel Pink albums, written by other critics at other times?

because p-fork is an institution and the readers demand critical consistency ;) how many other music message board threads do you see dedicated to online music review sites besides p-fork ?

xpost LOOOOL i've been trying to do a display name out of that all day

― ლ support our troops ლ (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, June 7, 2010 11:25 PM (Yesterday)

hahaha

You know that thread about bandnames that you instinctively dismiss... also that album cover with the fox kiss is repulsive imo, too soon for furrie irony i guess? seeing all the love he is getting here i will give it a shot, I like some of the youtubes upthread, though i really can't get by the wobbly tape fx on some.

I agree with some karl's post that some of the appeal of Ariel Pink's music is the "burrowing into self-awareness and irony until you come back around to sincerity."

I also agree that difference between his previous records and this has something to do with indie lo-fi production. Elements of the lo-fi production and weird song structure are still there on this new record, though. As someone mentioned above, the music still sounds "melted", and the production (maybe with the exception of Round and Round) still doesn't read as particularly high-value, at least not on good speakers.

I disagree, however, about the effect of the changes in his music, at least for me. While listening to songs of the previous incarnation, the underwater production and muffled lyrics made it feel possible for me to ignore the ironic distance and imagine the innocence and naivety and unselfconscouness of the music itself. I could project my own feelings/memories/fantasies onto it. With this newest record, with him working this particular sound to make it as effective as possible, he seems more of a japester, and the irony and thinness of the recording are more jarring. It's a little offputting to me.

As jokey as his song concepts and some of the lyrics are, I appreciate the ambiguity of the music and the slightly dark lyrics, so he hasn't completely lost me. The complex structure of the songs is fantastic.

To respond to Evan, Round and Round has a great chorus, yes, but I love how I'm never quite sure when it's going to come again, and the way he alters the instrumentation that accompanies it each time, ending with the bass dropped out for a good chunk. In addition, that one song (like several others) has so many components, interludes, and false starts that it takes a lot of listening to absorb. I wish he would evolve further on the sound of that song.

it sounds like he's not as lonely anymore, which is nice for him.

the intensity of feeling that comes from loneliness is tempered though

and something on here i haven't focused on yet sounded like the alan parsons project?

― Daniel, Esq.

i basically never get that DFW irony-coming-full-circle-to-sincerity thing from AP. though i accept that his enthusiasm for cheezy 70s/80s pop is legit, there's always this massive sense of ironic distance, and it has nothing to do with how clean or dirty the sound is. that's not a complaint on any level, as i genuinely love a lot of what he's done so far, and the new record is great, easily his best yet. his stuff is funny and smart, the tunes are often quite strong, and sincerity seems overrated in the 1st place.

could you please define where the ironic distance is? if it's not from the music, what is it from?

I agree with Contenderizer. He's always loved soft-rock, blue eyed soul etc and the lo-fi sound was simply down to technical limitations. It's others that have projected the ironic distance on to it, as if they can only listen to this off-limits music if it's filtered through lo-fi haze. One of the things Ariel Pink - and people like Gary War, James Ferraro and Daniel Lopatin - nails is the sheer oddness of so much soft-rock and early 80s MTV fodder. You've got all these prog journeymen like Alan Parsons trying to make pop songs, while retaining some of their proggy interest in texture, extended song structure etc. Add in brand spanking new digital technology that they haven't quite got the hang of yet and the result is some kind of avant-AOR.
The demented humour in Ariel Pink's music shouldn't be mistaken for irony either.

well, that isn't quite what i meant. my point was that one can feel a sincere affection for something yet still remain ironically distanced from it in expressing that affection. lots of people do this with their guilty pleasures. i mean, i don't doubt the sincerity of AP's affection for the music he's referencing and creating, but his entire presentation (lyrics, attitude, persona, production) is extremely arch. and no one makes and releases records that sound like worn copy & the doldrums without wanting them to sound that way. it's a mistake to pretend that his aesthetics haven't been the product of real choices all along, especially given how central they are to his artistic identity. after all, it's not like he's suddenly stripped away all the "melted" noise to reveal the pure pop underneath. the sound is still pretty bleary and warped.

my point was that AP's positioning relative to his inspirations strongly reminds me of the "ironic" embrace of sludgy 70s rock that emerged among post-hc bands in the 80s. the superficial sarcasm and irony = a defense mechanism cloaking and permitting the expression of a deeper, unironic affection. the distancing helps establish a context, admitting that this music is not of the now, and thus enhancing its otherness and nostalgic power.

it's sort of like ducktails. there's nothing insincere or particularly ironic about mondanile's music, but calling your band "ducktails" tends to put an box around everything you do. it's a way of saying, "look, i'm a giant dork. i not only grew up loving this dorky awesome crap, i still love it enough to name my band after it. and i know that you're a giant dork, too, and that you loved and still love the same shit, so you should totally join my gang."

ariel pink's doing something similarly self-effacing, but in a way that's fully integrated with the music he makes. it's proud, but very aware of its geekiness - sincere in its love, but preemptively obfuscatory about where it's really coming from.

Ok, I see your point about defence mechanisms. I don't really believe in guilty pleasures - I don't really care about what's cool anymore - but I suppose when I do share my love of, say, Yes or McCartney II with others, I do tend to point to the charming oddness of the music, as well as its melodic qualities. It's not defensive as such. I think with a lot of soft-rock, prog and blue eyed soul there's a certain transgressive thrill in embracing its sheer glutinous, oversaturated glory, particularly if you've come from a hairshirt wearing indie background where such things are frowned on.
You're quite right about wanting the records to sound that way - I was only really referring to the lo-fi recording quality, not the overall sound. One of the best things about the new album is that all the flange, phase, reverb and echo effects that gave the early albums that wonderful melted quality are still there. It's just the tape hiss that's missing.

It's pretty catchy, but just not as warped. There's no equivalent to "MANKIND IS A NAZI" 10 minute freakouts or "Life In LA" languishing or "Credit" boomboxery or "Drummer" hypnosis. It's really just good inventive pop.

What do you all think of this music video I'm working on for "Round and Round"? I'm thinking that I need to get rid of a bunch of the cheesy effects and maybe tighten up some edits but otherwise I'm pretty happy with it. Constructive criticism would be awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc4rb-3EJkY