Destroyer - Kaputt (2011)

bois wrote me back! says hes working and will maybe have new stuff next year! i sent him a link to this thread, too

Righteous.

Yall have inspired me to pull this back out after a few months away from it.

Damn, what a great album.

yeah its basically made me seek out all the destroyer stuff i didn't have, feel a bit of an idiot for not having done so sooner.

Great work Max!

best of the year for me too

OK fine -- I'm playing "Savage Night at the Op-eh-RAAAAHHHH"

the turn in the weather made me reach for this. not as much of a summer jam

and yeah this is my top pick

I haven't heard a lot of albums released this year but this album's my favorite of the ones I've heard.

I'd like to listen my way through all the albums that people have compared this to on this thread. Somehow I've never managed to hear "Avalon" or "Boys and Girls", so maybe those should be next.

oh i'm regreting preordering the merge version now. i'll try and get the vinyl.

the videos for kaputt and savage night at the opera are pretty good. the savage night one is a bit of a slog but the pay off makes up for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puu3IvKnSb4&ob=av2e
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfuDbWD_PIk&feature=relmfu

ha, that's a pretty neat homage to the paris one

Whoa! This is the first Destroyer record I haven't listened to a bajillion times.

and this is the first Destroyer album I've listened to a million times.

^^^^^^

AOTY for me, too. That smeared trumpet blare is my favorite sound of 2011.

Everything I found at best arch and at worst loathsome in Bejar's voice finds its musical correlative here.

Interesting! I've come to selfishly expect certain things in a Destroyer record, maybe I should re-approach Kaputt with less neediness.

(Not saying I don't love it already, of course)

first album ive heard by the guy tbh

First I'd heard by him, too; really like it, enough to have picked up Rubies (awesome guitar playing, great songs) and Your Blues (only arrived today; not listened yet) too.

Streethawk is probably the most underrated Destroyer album.

that's weird, that one is usually acknowledged as his best

your blues is incredible, though. my second-favorite destroyer record. its his closest to the sound of kaputt while also being something very different.

I feel like there are now like two eras of Destroyer fans, those who were around to fall in love with Streethawk back when it came out and, in much larger numbers, those who only came aboard after the massive Rubies acclaim and the New Pornos exposure. I'm guessing Streethawk is considered the best by the former group and underrated by the latter.

if i were to pick a consistently unacknowledged destroyer record it'd be thief which i consider marginally better than streethawk

i think "kaputt" might be bringing in a new era of destroyer fans, especially per all the people who just said on this thread that they hadn't heard any of his older stuff.

Okay, well, sure, but I'd argue that the biggest jump in number of fans came post New Pornos and Rubies exposure.

maybe. regardless, a lot of people might be into kaputt because it has a very distinct sound, and they would likely be disappointed by the lack of that sound on previous albums

i always liked rubies but i have trouble listening to the other stuff. not because it's objectively bad by any means, but because i find his voice cringeworthy in certain contexts and i p much never want to listen to bowie-inspired indie musics from the 2000s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C07kT3N5H14

If you want to talk underrated Destroyer records, it's a toss-up between Thief and City of Daughters, the latter of which I'd esp. recommend to anyone who doesn't like the Bejar snarl, his vocal performance on it is subdued, the lyrics are appealing in how formative they sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WabZuP0FNQs

Listened to this on the way into work this morning and thought it was kinda terrible tbh. God help us if there's a war etc etc.

I suppose it's less an issue of the voice with me and more that I found the combination of the production and the songwriting really cloying, but then again this is a problem I have with a lot of North American indie.

All this debating over contingents of Destroyer fans has overlooked me and people like me: people who knew about him pre New Pornographers and didn't really like him, didn't really like him in the New Pornographers, didn't really like him live, and generally haven't liked a Destroyer album til this one. Which means he now faces a creative challenge: if you release a breakthrough album, does your follow up once again go a different direction and likely alienate the fans you broke through to or just offer more of the same, but even more of it? I'm not sure where this guy will go with this. On one hand, he has been known to lose interest and wander a la Oldham. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure he enjoys being popular. But maybe not.

I'm in your camp, Josh, and the only answer I can offer is: who knows?

pretty sure he's not gonna wring his hands about that.

All this debating over contingents of Destroyer fans has overlooked me and people like me: people who knew about him pre New Pornographers and didn't really like him, didn't really like him in the New Pornographers, didn't really like him live, and generally haven't liked a Destroyer album til this one.

^Me^

In fact this seems one of the biggest contingents for this album. I just think his lyrical approach and voice suits the music/production so perfectly you can't ignore even if your previous knee-jerk was "fuck this guy." I dunno, it's a singular album from him I think...don't think he will repeat it, as is his artistic wont.

We shall see. I didn't think M83 dude would be all, for my next album, I will make things even bigger and longer and more '80s and cheesier!! Curious what the Phoenix guys are going to do for their big breakthrough follow-up, too.

@ Matt DC, too bad, I'm disappointed. I love it. It is a record from 1998 (!) though, before everybody's ears got tired of indie rock.

@ everyone else, I understand that Dan's music isn't for everybody, or even half of everybody, and this 'tempered' version of him has appeal to those who didn't like him previously. And I think I'd be on your side of the argument if David Berman suddenly released some slick record.

And I think I'd be on your side of the argument if David Berman suddenly released some slick record.

This is pretty on point comparison.

@ Matt DC, too bad, I'm disappointed. I love it. It is a record from 1998 (!) though, before everybody's ears got tired of indie rock.

I thought Matt meant Kaputt?

Ah, so, that makes more sense.

does your follow up once again go a different direction and likely alienate the fans you broke through to

I'm sure it will

also the bar is pretty low for "breakthrough album" if Kaputt is one

some people like it ... maybe a few more people than past Destroyer records ... which had a pretty minimal fanbase

I mean I love the dude but

yeah the hugeness of this album is being a little overstated

one of the most interesting things about bejar is his desire to switch things up on almost every album, I mean he could've gotten years out of making rubies over and over again

seemed like trouble in dreams was the first real "holding pattern" album he made -- same group of musicians as rubies, same overall vibe?

ha I totally forgot about that record

i kind of forget about it too! though it had some good things on it. it did just feel like a lesser rubies overall.

i'm predicting a reggae inflected follow up to kaputt.

I think a big breakthrough on Kaputt is the 'less is more' approach to lyrics. Bejar's tended towards the verbose, but on this album he's elliptical, suggestive, laconic. I think it suits him well, so I hope he keeps that aspect of it, whichever direction he goes with the music.