FKA twigs

it's one of those things talked about in consumption of just about all artwork and i've never really gotten a good def of what part of the reader/listener/viewer experience "identification" is supposed to be

I can relate to that

Really? Like, you have never heard a lyric (or read a story, or watched a scene in a film) and thought "wow, I know *exactly* how that feels"?

would also probably add that I think this is an especially valid topic to discuss in regards to LP1 because most of twigs' interviews have been largely about what roles people take in such things.

Or even "Wow, I would like to know how that feels!" (even if it's not something you have experienced personally yourself.)

yes and yes. is that it? it's not what i'm after i guess, never has been. and really not on the level of lyrics. the feeling of being moved by what's happening and what commonalities might exist between the performer and me, even fictionally, i mean... who even cares? i don't care about that, in myself. people take it as a given as something worth having in art, to the point where there doesn't seem to be much interrogation of what it is

moved by what's happening VS what commonalities etc, i should say

anyway like i said i haven't heard this yet so, take it away, actually informed ppl.

ok well fyi this is a list of all the artists she sounds like

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32863603/Screenshot%202014-08-19%2018.17.51.png

hth

This album is making me want to go back to the EPs and see if I get anything more from them; previously they left me extremely cold.

I don't think anyone without a major mental illness thinks that songs are sung directly *at* them

oh sorry i should have clarified - I'm DJ Yella

hahahahahahahaaaa

looool

I bet you think this song is about you

the whole idea of identification with pop music is interesting to me. I always put myself in the mind of the singer, never the subject, whether or not I relate to the lyrics. But it's the songs with lyrics expressing thoughts/emotions I can really identify with are the ones that usually end up meaning the most to me. The gender of the singer and my sexual orientation have almost nothing to do with it

hi I am digging the fuck out of this album

that is all

^^

yeah this, and for what its worth I've really not heard the lyrics in my first 5 or 7 whatever listens. I just don't think the words are at all prominent on this lovely sounding record. But I often think that.

i still haven't listened to this album but whats wrong w/ identifying w/ subject, object, or 3rd person remove & why should your gender/orientation be determinative of any of the above?

there are a lot of lines on this that stand out, memorably phrased or not - "tell me what do i do when you're not here"; "when i trust you we can do it with the lights on"; "was i just a number to you" etc

haven't heard this yet but as a general thing i just do not "get" the idea of identification.

― goole,

otm. I've mentioned this here. For years I thought it was a consequence of being gay -- 95 percent or whatever of songs aren't about me anyway, so fictive leaps are required.

yeah totally not identifying with the 'you' of the album, clearly i identify with FKA Twigs (and i'm a straight male).

explicitly sexual lyrics delivered in (even an "arguably") erotic manner will inevitably create a sort of fantasy space, a field of play connecting the imagined performer or "voice" with the listener. not every listener will relate to this construct in the same way, of course. we all desire different things, but we're also more or less open to this sort of engagement. some listeners will choose to maintain critical distance, some will deny or vilify the invitation, while others will enter only on certain terms.

i wouldn't fault anyone for finding "two weeks" sexy or for acknowledging that their response to the music has a sexual component. better, i think, to be honest about such things than to sweep them from sight in the name of propriety. that's not a blanket license to drool in print. to the extent that the discourse surrounding a female artist is dominated by "sexual appreciations" expressed by male fans, things can get very gross very quickly. fine line, i suppose...

"numbers," lyrically, is like the other side of soft cell's "numbers"

I've never understood Alfred's "I have a hard time identifying with singers because I'm gay" line. I've always identified closely with singers straight, gay, male, and female.

I guess I should read the rest of the argument before I comment.

I really don't want to ~shut down debate~ on this, because it is obviously a topic of huge interest to me... BUT I do think this is supposed to be a thread about FKA Twigs and people should probably listen to the album, and comment on whether or not or how they relate to {this specific set of lyrics} rather than making this another general "how do you relate (or not) to lyrics?" thread, because we already have one (possibly several) of those threads?

tl;dr you should probably listen to LP1 before you comment

i'm open to people commenting on whatever they like, so long as the conversation doesn't fall too far afield of the music. a bit of digression in threads keeps things interesting, and i tend to like conversations that move back and forth between the general and the specific. doesn't seem to me that anyone here's saying anything untoward or counterproductive. but that's just me.

anyway, discussion of the sexyness of this music is a little strange to me. for one thing, i rarely relate to music & musicians that way. to use my earlier language, i hang back from the field of play, maintain my critical distance or w/e. i'm struck by the delivery of lines like "you're the only one who instigates, get your mouth open," but i don't swoon. it's not like she's singing those words to only to meeeeee. for another, the sort of whispery, upper register singing twigs typically trads in strikes me as strangely disembodied, perhaps especially when set against booming, hollowed out beats. fragile humanity stranded amidst precision-engineered future junk, evokes an inner state, but seems somehow to deny the physical. get the same thing from radiohead, tbh, and grimes too.

for contrast, the lower, fuller voice twigs uses to deliver the "how would you like it if my lips touched yours" section of "hours" seems more vivid, physical and (yeah) sexy to me than the rest of the album. it's a great album, btw. much more satisfying as a whole than the discussion itt this thread suggests.

trads = trades, natch

"numbers," lyrically, is like the other side of soft cell's "numbers"

― when you call my name it's like a prickly pear (Crabbits), Tuesday, August 19, 2014 7:46 PM (Yesterday)

otm! one of soft cell's finest, and yeah, the twigs song is almost an answer record (intentional or not). something similar in the arrangement, too, though i can't put my finger on just what. maybe those clanking bell noises? echo the synth stabs in the soft cell track. suspect i'm reaching there...

I've never understood Alfred's "I have a hard time identifying with singers because I'm gay" line. I've always identified closely with singers straight, gay, male, and female.

same - i've always found that kind of transference pretty natural, it's like as long as i identify with the spirit of the lyrics the details don't impede that

yeah i would have thought identification is that much more powerful for the songsphere not being the reality in which it features

I've never understood Alfred's "I have a hard time identifying with singers because I'm gay" line. I've always identified closely with singers straight, gay, male, and female.

― The Reverend, Wednesday, August 20, 2014 3:40 AM

I enjoy the story the singer tells; I don't look for parallels with my own life. That's what I meant.

OK, I started typing on the other thread, but I guess we're having this discussing here still.

saw it! Thanks.

No, I haven't posted it yet, I'm still typing. Sigh. It's a complicated post. (Which means that it will probably either go over people's heads, or just be misinterpreted, hoo hah.)

OK, I'll put it here because the revived thread now seems to have a good conversation about non-English language audiences and lyrics. Christ this is an epic now, which I didn't intend when I started typing.

I've never understood Alfred's "I have a hard time identifying with singers because I'm gay" line. I've always identified closely with singers straight, gay, male, and female.

same - i've always found that kind of transference pretty natural, it's like as long as i identify with the spirit of the lyrics the details don't impede that

― lex pretend, Wednesday, August 20, 2014 9:39 AM

I mean, this is such a nebulous thing because, granted, there can be so many layers to what it means to "identify" with a lyric or a singer.

I'm going to start right out, by saying that there are likely people for whom this is a "can't" - people who experience neurodiversity, people on the spectrum, people who are for whatever reason just can't or don't experience that emotional brain-mirroring state so that "identifying" with the subject or the object of a song is just not within their capabilities. And I'm going to then say, if this is your deal, I am not talking about you. I recognise this is a thing.

I'm talking about people who state that they are certainly capable of listening to a lyric or a singer and thinking "Oh, I know what that feels like" or "I would like to feel like that" or "I am certainly capable of feeling like that, if I were in a similar situation." And yet think that this experience is unimportant, or not worth considering, or even (quoting goole) "who cares about that."

Because that doesn't sound like a can't, that sounds like a won't (or, in some cases, I'd venture, a "mustn't")

(Also, I am not talking about the "I don't really listen to lyrics" crowd. I am mostly of the "I don't listen to lyrics" persuasion, in terms of lyrics are not the number one thing that attract me to a song - yet I am still able to identify with lyrics, and think it is important and worthy of consideration and worth caring about when I do.)

"There are not a lot of lyrics available for my particular subject position" is, I feel, a valid complaint. For gay ppl in a world full of str8 lovesongs; for women who are interested in male-dominated genres of rock music; for PoC who have been pushed out of American chart music. I certainly *get* what it's like to rarely see anyone like you represented in the music of your choice. But many, many people in this position develop the ability to identify with the subject positions of the more represented. (I found a way to identify with the lyrics of the omnipresent cis-het dudes of indie-rock through some common emotional resonance!)

But the comments that come up repeatedly in this argument, the "mustn't"s and the "that's uninteresting" or "oh, that's just how ~girls~ listen to music, me, *I* am objective and not distracted by identification or not" that bug me. It's not whether you're male or female, or gay or straight - it's whether you think that ~identifying with a song's lyrics~ is a useless, de-emphasised, non-objective, illegitimate, weak-sauce, over-touchy-feely, girly way of consuming music. And I do think that's a position that's tied up with machismo, and the privileging of certain *conceptions* of masculinity.

...

I guess to bring this back to Twigs, this is the main thing that feels really different to me from the ~ethereal baebe~ school of goth I hear in it: There is no "I" in the ~ethereal baebe~. There are lots and lots of female singers, but they are either 1) singing in made-up languages (Cocteau Twins) or Latin and Medieval French (Dead Can Dance, Miranda Sex Garden) or Bulgarian or made-up syllables to make note-holding sound good. Or 2) they are female vocalists working as mouthpieces for male lyricists or curators (This Mortal Coil, His Name Is Alive). It took ages for me to work out why I loved this kind of music, but found it so emotionally unsatisfying. There is no "I" there; it runs the risk of girly voice as accessory or even gimmick. But it wasn't until I heard Lush, who sung in ~ethereal baebe~ stylings, but very pointedly sung from their own subject-positions - and were criticised for doing so! (or else, their agency was denied, and it was assumed that their (male) producer was doing all the work.) that I suddenly realised what it was that was bugging me about ~ethereal baebe~ as a genre and a trope!

One of the things I like about this record is that it is ~ethereal baebe~ with a very strong subject position "I", and an object. An ethereal baebe, but with agency and desires of her own, which ethereal baebes are not supposed to be, they're supposed to be, well, ethereal and wan and incorporeal and wispy.

Anyway, I've been typing forever now, so I guess I'm gonna put this on the twigs thread instead now. Sorry for the great length. Oh lord, please don't let me be misunderstood. :-/

God I feel like I've farted in this thread now. I should have posted it in the other thread. Or just not at all. I never feel good after posting massive ILM posts. Never, ever, ever.

not like i've lived with this album long enough to have strong opinions one way or the other, but i do feel that it drops off a bit in the closing stretch. "kicks" wraps things up nicely, but "closer" and "give up" pass in a blur. perhaps over time i'll find something there, but for now, i'm more inclined to start over when "numbers" fades.

I really don't want to ~shut down debate~ on this, because it is obviously a topic of huge interest to me... BUT I do think this is supposed to be a thread about FKA Twigs and people should probably listen to the album, and comment on whether or not or how they relate to {this specific set of lyrics} rather than making this another general "how do you relate (or not) to lyrics?" thread, because we already have one (possibly several) of those threads?

tl;dr you should probably listen to LP1 before you comment

― Shugazi (Branwell with an N), Wednesday, August 20, 2014 2:52 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

classic threadpolicing

classic something

It took ages for me to work out why I loved this kind of music, but found it so emotionally unsatisfying. There is no "I" there; it runs the risk of girly voice as accessory or even gimmick. But it wasn't until I heard Lush, who sung in ~ethereal baebe~ stylings, but very pointedly sung from their own subject-positions - and were criticised for doing so! (or else, their agency was denied, and it was assumed that their (male) producer was doing all the work.) that I suddenly realised what it was that was bugging me about ~ethereal baebe~ as a genre and a trope!

the truth is that i listen to a lot of female singer-songwriter artists where i identify primarily w/ the subject role and not the object - i'm thinking primarily of like neko case, kathleen edwards, laura marling, etc where the gender difference is not an impediment to identifying w/ their content. i think partially it's different w/ FKA bc the kind of lyrics are less... carefully i'm going to use the word 'introspective' here, but really i think the lyrics are just very dominating - sudden and explicit. so i don't think it's about the gender, but maybe more about whether i can imagine myself saying these things - or easier imagine myself hearing these things. i don't know if this complicates what you're saying at all - bc i think these singer songwriter artists (i wouldn't describe them as ~ethereal baebes~) do have a 'strong subject position I, and an object.'

oh, also i wanted to add maybe it has something to do w/ the production as well. that there's a feeling of distance + space from the vocals and singer which makes me feel as a remove, whereas some of these other artists i mentioned are incredibly intimate from a production pov.

Maybe it's not threadpolicing. Maybe it's more like "I'm about to write a big massive fuckoff post which is only tangentially related to the artist being discussed in this thread, and I recognise that some people prefer not to read my massive fuckoff tl;dr posts, so shall we take this somewhere else?" as a gesture of respect to other readers of the thread, that they might not be interested in the same stuff as me?" Just maybe?

Maybe if you're going to say things in a public forum you should chill abt how they're received?

I don't understand not being into "Closer" and "Give Up", PARTICULARLY "Give Up"

Closer is the one that always gets me, because of the shape-note harmonies.

look i feel like I'VE been misunderstood, so i'll have to answer on that other thread i guess, when i have some time, if this post doesn't cover it

"And yet think that this experience is unimportant, or not worth considering, or even (quoting goole) "who cares about that.""

that isn't what i meant and i don't think my post indicates that. the point is my, goole's, experience doesn't seem that important or interesting. the emotion brought out by music has a feeling of coming from outside the self or from non-linguistic sources, so tying them back into some personal similarity with my life (if that's what people mean by identification) isn't something i tend to do. certainly some music 'feels' closer to me than others, but how is that identification? rather than just liking it?

and i wasn't denying that this is important, or the being "represented" in a hierarchical world as you say isn't vital and tied up in body politics, that's all true. i was saying, people talk about identifying but i don't know what they mean when they say that -- the implied def's keep slipping around in this thread already. i don't think representation and identification are the same thing, exactly, are they?

x-post to goole, sorry if I misunderstood, gonna read you again and come back on that?

The feeling of distance and space (plus the alienness, the remoteness) of the production and delivery is what totally codes "ethereal baebe" here - and the interesting thing is first, the contrast between the distance/space/remoteness of the production and the warmth and intimacy of the content.

But the thing about the "ethereal baebe" was that she was always coded so *passive*. (My former housemate used to do a great ~ethereal baebe~ impression of hanging her head limply and singing "I'm tooo drugged to fiiiight yooouuu".) And part of the schtick here is the contrast between the expected passivity implied by taking the Submissive's position, and the fact that these lyrics actually end up almost aggressive in their pursuit of the desired object. Which, yeah, as I think katherine pointed out - this is almost a cliche. The cliche being, "ooh, in psychosexual dynamics, the submissive partner almost always ends up in control". But it's that I/you subject switch, which of these positions is on offer to you? Which one is the passive or active position? The submissive pursuer, or the dominant pursued?

sometimes i don't identify w/stuff because the ppl making it seem so far from my experience but whatever lyric might tap into something inexpressible or universal sadness

like danny says by the ramones:

Danny says we gotta go
Gotta go to Idaho
But we can't go surfin'
'Cause it's 20 below

like the ramones are far from me as surfing and idaho but i dunno i think about that lyric all the time

that isn't what i meant and i don't think my post indicates that. the point is my, goole's, experience doesn't seem that important or interesting. the emotion brought out by music has a feeling of coming from outside the self or from non-linguistic sources, so tying them back into some personal similarity with my life (if that's what people mean by identification) isn't something i tend to do. certainly some music 'feels' closer to me than others, but how is that identification? rather than just liking it?

I think this is what I was trying to get at with my addendum, where I started with identification as "I have felt like this" but also proceeds beyond that to "I could imagine feeling like this". It's kinda the process of being able to look through someone else's eyes, from their point of view.

And on one level, representation is important, because being able to see someone *like you* represented as an available subject position is really important.

But, on the other hand, one of the purposes of art, is to try to instil a sense of... emotional imagination. Of experiencing the subject position of someone unlike you, and being able to recognise their humanity, and recognise their experiences and emotions as real - and potentially ~identifying with~ (in the more nebulous sense) someone not like you.

It's this dual process that is why art is important, what art is *for*, really. That two-step process of identification - firstly seeing your subject position represented. And then again, learning to identify with someone unlike you, is really important in the formation of sympathy, empathy, compassion, all of those emotions and capabilities that get demoted in the "treat everything ~objectively~" approach (and not coincidentally, get coded as "feminine" in the weird gendering of emotions scheme.) I do think that learning to put yourself in the place of the "I" in a song is part of that formation of emotional imagination process.