FKA twigs

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.

It's just that, in this particular space, some people have to work harder to *find* art that mirrors them (while others have to work to find art that *doesn't* mirror them). This is a problem.

This album is good and gradually opening up to me, but I think the last three years of palid, arty, Internet-hyped R&B have numbed whatever "OMG" impact this might've made on me

even more thankful now that I have avoided most of the past three years of pallid, arty, Internet-hyped R&B now

This album is good and gradually opening up to me, but I think the last three years of palid, arty, Internet-hyped R&B have numbed whatever "OMG" impact this might've made on me

― Evan R, Wednesday, August 20, 2014 2:18 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol this is exactly why i haven't listened to this

cant think of a less interesting direction for crit music at this point

I wish this was arty! It's just pallid.

i dunno seems "arty"
who knows what that means tho

put it in the banned words file along with "angular"

it's kinda hopped up on goofballs compared to a lot of R&B that i hear at least, but i dunno maybe it's like a lot of stuff like deej says

though generally a slam, "pallid" seems a fair reflection of the breathy vocal approach, low impact beats, and hookless drift of the songwriting. where gothic ethereality meets post-burial beatmaking, the connotations become less negative anyway.

"arty" is harder to parse. i suppose it typically means, "not conventionally pop, not formally bound by genre, perhaps willfully <strange> or <difficult>." also suggests either sophistication or pretension. again, can see why folks might apply it here.

laurie anderson's music might just as fairly be called "arty and pallid", and i love laurie anderson, so...

"But this bag of sand is so baggy and sand-shaped!!!!"

What is "the other thread" ppl keep mentioning here?

Do You Identify With Lyrics, And Ifso, How?

ty

One unexpected thing I'm taking away from this album is a healthier respect for Paul Epworth's versatility.

He's got more than just an EP's worth of ideas

I just tried to like that post, I've got to get off of Facebook

current lyrical obsession: "I could kiss you for hours and not miss a thing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkK8g6FMEXE

one thing i'm gradually noticing is that music everyone else goes nuts for that i don't is often characterised by really spidery, skittery beats which i guess are complicated syncopated rhythms or something.

i wish there was more layered choral stuff on this album! it's growing on me though

xpost mtv played that video so much in 1998. EVEN WHEN I DREAM OF YOUUUUUUUUUUU

The headphones pro tip helped me a lot with this album.