and just the idea of going out -- searching, in the midst of all these people, for something or someone. that is a very complicated issue, and it's not always just fun.
― janice (surm), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:30 (thirteen years ago) link
I just listened to only love can break your heart and it kinda hit that spot
― always be cozen (dayo), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:30 (thirteen years ago) link
I remember a Neil Tennant quote from when I was younger talking about celebrating your depression on the dancefloor, and that's always stuck with me. Of course I was an angsty pre-teen who probably did buy into 'the only meaningful music is sad music' with my Pumpkins t-shirt but still. I love to dance to silly songs and joyous songs and sad songs, and I take exception to the notion that the purpose is for one thing and one thing only.
― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
Although my experience on the dancefloor has always been a complicated one.
― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
One of my problems with Robyn is how her vocal melodies and lyrics insist on mirrorball tragedy when her voice is clearly designed for giddy show-me-love.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:35 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean this:
She has described her quasi-emcee "voice" as "kick-ass," but it reads more like pipsqueak—her Nordic tongue doesn't spit so much as gleek... [insert several unilluminating examples] ... Glance at a picture of this five-foot-three, blue-eyed, blonde-haired thumbnail sketch of Scandinavia, and ask yourself: Are you scared yet?
I mean this is just extraordinarily -- I dunno, conservative. Is Robyn disallowed from copping rap moves because she's white?? Because she's not American ... because she has a high voice ... is it because she doesn't sound like DMX? Because she's short???
I guess we have to disagree about whether she's living "inside the song". Some of her songs are not even made to live inside of, they're all surface. But others.. "Dream On" is probably my favorite thing she's done and Lex I have a hard time believing you wouldn't sweat your ass off to that late in a set somewhere.
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:35 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean, it's clear from her released work that Robyn herself subscribes to mirrorball heartbreak.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:36 (thirteen years ago) link
― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Friday, September 10, 2010 1:33 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark
otm x100, and my experience going out has always been a complicated one.
― janice (surm), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:37 (thirteen years ago) link
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Friday, September 10, 2010 1:35 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark
i still would like to hear why her voice conveys to you all the things that it does
― janice (surm), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:40 (thirteen years ago) link
btw that's a really good way to put it -- "...whether or not she's living inside the song."
― janice (surm), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:43 (thirteen years ago) link
surm OTM, lots of different scenarios can play out on the dancefloor. plus it's not as if liking the one type of song precludes liking the other? both can be done well, obv (lots of stuff on those "crying on the dancefloor" ILM list threads that i'm too lazy to link to right now)
― marilyn VO5 savant (donna rouge), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:46 (thirteen years ago) link
this is me if someone played robyn at a party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn3bvWd5_RY
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 00:47 (thirteen years ago) link
I did bring up Rihanna for a reason, Tr
I mean this:_She has described her quasi-emcee "voice" as "kick-ass," but it reads more like pipsqueak—her Nordic tongue doesn't spit so much as gleek... [insert several unilluminating examples] ... Glance at a picture of this five-foot-three, blue-eyed, blonde-haired thumbnail sketch of Scandinavia, and ask yourself: Are you scared yet?_I mean this is just extraordinarily -- I dunno, conservative. Is Robyn disallowed from copping rap moves because she's white?? Because she's not American ... because she has a high voice ... is it because she doesn't sound like DMX? Because she's short???
_She has described her quasi-emcee "voice" as "kick-ass," but it reads more like pipsqueak—her Nordic tongue doesn't spit so much as gleek... [insert several unilluminating examples] ... Glance at a picture of this five-foot-three, blue-eyed, blonde-haired thumbnail sketch of Scandinavia, and ask yourself: Are you scared yet?_
This is a massive reach, Tracer. The passage points out that Robyn is describing herself as a bad-ass but the audio (chirpy, high-pitched cutseyness) and the visual (short smiley girl) don't match the attitude displayed.
Robyn's big problem us the same as Rihanna's; she uses her voice the same way on almost every song, making it difficult to ascertain the emotion she's attempting to portray aside from the instances where her particular singing style lines up with the song's emotional center. That is really her biggest problem and the main thing keeping her in her loved-by-indie niche.
― and by "Heavens!" i mean WATERFALLS OF BIDDY (HI DERE), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:47 (thirteen years ago) link
people can definitely enjoy all forms of dance songs, i was just responding to lex's 'people harshing the buzz' comment.
xposts
― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:48 (thirteen years ago) link
me, surm & lex will be drinking pinot
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 00:48 (thirteen years ago) link
i love u jordan so much
― janice (surm), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:48 (thirteen years ago) link
for real tho i like "dancing on my own" a lot but robyn's more uptempo tracks have always come off to me as thin sonically & cloying emotionally
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 00:51 (thirteen years ago) link
and really if you want humor in your pop music, listen to mariah carey ffs
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 00:52 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm drinking pinot now!
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:53 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm going to karaoke in 45 minutes, guys. Need a ride?
yeah, that about sums it up for me too
xp that will also be true, in a moment
― marilyn VO5 savant (donna rouge), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:53 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm going to repeat:
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:54 (thirteen years ago) link
jordan i love that if robyn came on at a party u and i would just leave, and go find lex
why does that crack me up so much ?
― janice (surm), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:54 (thirteen years ago) link
More resourceful vocalists can do something with this tension -- she can't.
xpost
alfred, you're looking too deep
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 00:54 (thirteen years ago) link
she's like if a literal robin was a pop singer? is that the point?
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 00:56 (thirteen years ago) link
Well, robins can generally sing
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:57 (thirteen years ago) link
and they have pretty plumage
well -- the Swede does too
even tho i love "dancing on my own" this is the visual equivalent of robyn in that song
http://www.theolivepress.es/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/robin.jpg
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 00:57 (thirteen years ago) link
if Robyn was a robin, and she caught a worm, she wouldn't celebrate how delicious the worm was -- she'd lament how the worm might give her heartburn.
rofl xp
― janice (surm), Friday, 10 September 2010 00:58 (thirteen years ago) link
u guys are seriously cracking me up
If Robyn was a robin she'd think it uncouth to leave her nest and risk mockingbirds stealing her song. The male robins are all like, "fuck that."
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 September 2010 01:01 (thirteen years ago) link
xposts -- I think lovers and haters could maybe agree that lots of Robyn tracks are basically using a voice that doesn't naturally read as "tough" and putting them in this heartbreak context where they get to act tough but convey vulnerability. Right? To me that seems like the great trick on "With Every Heartbeat" -- her voice is perfectly suited to "I am not naturally a tough person but I am being tough to get through this emotion." This is surely a lot of why indie fans find her relatable and various other people find her wimpy and cloying!
So, regarding her "rap moves" and whatnot: maybe I'm nuts, but to me her normal speaking-English voice sounds like she took a few language lessons in the Bronx or something. And given the shades of American and hip-hop stuff in her work, I wonder how much of it was stuff she absorbed during her mid-90s teenage pop-star period -- in other words, I get the feeling it's way more "authentic" to her than it comes off to a lot of listeners! Or else maybe they just have "street" lessons in Max Martin school, I dunno.
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Friday, 10 September 2010 01:05 (thirteen years ago) link
I shouldn't say "naturally a tough person," because it's about the voice, not the person -- but you probably know what I mean
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Friday, 10 September 2010 01:06 (thirteen years ago) link
I should add that "With Every Heartbeat" is my favorite Robyn track because her tentativeness for once works with and for the music instead of undermining it.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 September 2010 01:09 (thirteen years ago) link
"with every heartbeat" is good again because it's on the more ballady side of things as well -- it's stuff like "fembot" that really grates
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 01:13 (thirteen years ago) link
nabisco dropping dimes, as usual.
― fuck ya law! (Spinspin Sugah), Friday, 10 September 2010 02:37 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah even i love "with every heartbeat". she doesn't really sound like herself on it.
robyn's "tough" voice just makes me feel like i'm being attacked by a rubber, you know? i think björk does that tough-though-i'm-not thing a million times more effectively.
would party at non-robyn soundtracked parties w/jordan and surm.
this bears repeating:
― J0rdan S., Friday, September 10, 2010 12:52 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, 10 September 2010 07:32 (thirteen years ago) link
Is Robyn disallowed from copping rap moves because she's white?? Because she's not American ... because she has a high voice ... is it because she doesn't sound like DMX? Because she's short???
it comes off as gimmicky, whether it's authentic or not - like i don't doubt that diplo really does love all the music he samples and plays, it's just the way he does it is so thoughtless and superficial - robyn is the diplo of scandopop really. i think there's something telling in how her urban moves are embraced so much by popjustice types, who are notoriously allergic to any actual rappers or dancehall artists.
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, 10 September 2010 07:40 (thirteen years ago) link
she's not Real, yeah we get it Lex
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Friday, 10 September 2010 11:25 (thirteen years ago) link
don't know why authenticity matters for synthpop.
― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Friday, 10 September 2010 12:53 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^ Real talk.
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Friday, 10 September 2010 13:11 (thirteen years ago) link
i think there's something telling in how her urban moves are embraced so much by popjustice types, who are notoriously allergic to any actual rappers or dancehall artists.
This is the old, tired "the audience damns the artist" argument -- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Friday, 10 September 2010 13:12 (thirteen years ago) link
infinite xpost
Bjork hilariously utterly unmoved throughout the performance of "Hyperballad".
― matt2, Friday, 10 September 2010 19:14 (thirteen years ago) link
it's never about authenticity in any case -- most criminals are not good rappers, and most good rappers probably would not make good criminals -- it's about how you PULL OFF that authenticity -- even taking out their various talents as musicians, that's why young jeezy is respected and rick ross is largely seen as a clown
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 19:49 (thirteen years ago) link
and i think that's the argument that lex is making
to use a pop example, katy b went to the same school as kate nash & adele but she can pull off singing over funky tracks while i don't think you could say the same about kate nash or adele, even tho they are all equally 'authentic'
― J0rdan S., Friday, 10 September 2010 19:51 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah but i don't understand how you define 'authentic'
― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:00 (thirteen years ago) link