The Father John Misty Thread

his lyrics can be outwardly funny in a slap stick kind of way – but they can also be really funny/engaging in a way I’ve never heard before (like they lyrics I just posted).

xp and that's honestly at the like, softer end of his sardonic side. "the night josh tillman came to our apartment" from the new album is on a "like a rolling stone" level of bitterness

that letterman song did remind me of john grant. which isn't a bad thing really. i don't really know fleet foxes at all but wiki says he was just drumming for them anyway.

and then he drops a song that is just plain beautiful like I Went To The Store One Day.

i also just heard abt this guy
but the letterman performance was great, i like the theatrical aspect of it

listening to his 2012 album

sometimes he reminds me of Nilsson a bit, he's more explicitly bitter and stuff but the same sort of sense of dread and angst bubbling up in these little perfect studio pop productions

i dig the novelty of an indie guy trying to Say Something but the lyrics to "bored in the usa" get so corny

some of the other pull-quotes here are more promising though

He had to expect that people would have felt that way, hence the laugh track. This part always makes me chuckle: Oh good the stranger’s body’s still here/ Our arrangement hasn’t changed

corny != funny unless you are xposting some distance to the slapstick humor post

I like some songs on Fear Fun. But I think that croup is correct in calling out 'Bored In the USA'. It doesn't work as well for me as similar stuff from Nilsson (or Newman), such as 'Gotta Get Up'->'Driving Along' or 'Love Story (You and Me)'.

Nilsson could be sincere and moving. FJM does not try for that.

you know, I was going to say the same thing. but then I thought 'Oh wait, he has a song titled 'o i long to feel your arms around me''. and well...

so I am still looking for something sincere because I think that is something I'm missing compared to Nilsson or Grant.

yeah i shouldn't have compared him to a great like nilsson

there's a kind of 70s pro studio vibe to it though, grant kinda has that too

The schism btwn his records as J. Tillman and FJM is really interesting to me, as the Tillman records are more traditionally "sincere"-sounding, yet he is much more engaging in this new persona. (Which he claims to be a more honest representation of where he's at these days, anyway.)

Nilsson doesn't seem like the right point of comparison to me. If we're talking 70s pro-studio gloss + darkly cynical/sarcastic lyrics about sex and drugs and assholes then the obvious reference point is everyone's favorite Coachella 2015 performers

hmmm. FJM songs have so much reverb, though, and it doesn't really sound 70s pro-studio gloss imo. And I don't think you'll see too many drummers drumming along to these FJM songs on youtube anytime ever.

Ideal Husband is great. That second verse is so brutal. I do find his lyrics moving actually.

guys guys you're going waaaaaay too far back for your reference points

consider bright eyes and later bad seeds

ok that was ign'nt since i've only heard bored in the usa

haha very ignorant just after flipping through "bored" again and some other stuff. i think his caustic literalness just reminds me of some of their stuff, but the sound is very different

i'll accept he sounds further back, how about a meaner rupert holmes

He does have some of Cave's black sense of humour but I hear Nilsson all over this. I think it's the arrangements and the general air of 70s LA barfly debauchery. He wears a string section like an old suit that needs dry cleaning.

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

Life's a constant disappointment
When you live on celluloid
But my movie expectations are a dream I can't avoid
Waiting for a girl to say the things
That I heard in a film last night
But she doesn't want to play the role
And she can't pick her cues up right
Will I dream? Yes, I might

his hooks would have to be hookier and his attitude more whimsical (if dark) for me to bring up nilsson above 80 other 70s singer-songwriters

As a genre I like "charismatic self-loathing asshole who wrecks everything he touches but has a great arranger".

lol that prob deserves its own thread

marcus maronus

As a 70s singer-songwriter archetype it beats "soulful nice guy who wants you to forgive his fuck-ups because it's so hard making it in this crazy world"

you guys are hilarious.

can't wait for the divorce album

people put out too many records...these days...

10 albums! (plus EPs and singles...)

but how much does he resemble jackson browne?

God sends his spaceships to America the beautiful
They land at six o'clock and there we are, the dutiful
Eating from TV trays
Tuned into Happy Days
Waiting for World War III while Jesus slaves
To the mating calls of lawyers in love

when oswald shot kennedy he was insane and still we watch the reruns again and again...

but how much does he resemble jackson browne?

― $80 is absurd and very ridiculous! (Sufjan Grafton),

You should prob check out Blake Mills' "don't tell all your friends about me" if you're looking for a jackson browne version of this.

not that you were

i thought that was so profound in whatever year that was...

but how much does he resemble jackson browne?

― $80 is absurd and very ridiculous! (Sufjan Grafton),

You should prob check out Blake Mills' "don't tell all your friends about me" if you're looking for a jackson browne version of this.

― Heez, Thursday, January 15, 2015 11:57 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like this. I need to find this thread.

actually, I saw Blake Mills with Fiona Apple in 2014 and then forgot to check this album out

i was asleep and driving my kids to school this morning and i swear this is the first time i ever heard this song. on the radio in the car. i looked it up. no. 2 in the country! who knew? or it was no. 2. sold 190,000 copies. of the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSVMgRr6pw

it was just a weird song to hear in the car in the morning. while asleep. i was all: pop radio is weird or something...where's my all about the bass song i hear twice in ten minutes on the ride to school?

it wasn't unpleasant to hear. and way way better than the faux-arcade fire geronimo song i heard a little later on the radio.

these nu-dudes are all over the place. john grant is the first one i was genuinely moved by.

funny that john grant also has a song with honeybear in the title

sometime last year a critic I don't always like (steven hyden) said something about this album like "it is likely to inspire rapturous reviews and unreadable thinkpiecess" and after several listens to it...that seems pretty otm

FJM unveils stunning new digital release strategy

http://www.fatherjohnmisty.com/sap/

Those SAP'd renditions are great.

Josh Tillman is on some fuck shit. I loved the three new tracks I heard in the lead-up to the album's release (well, leak), but I should've sensed that I was in for a disappointment when I found myself returning exclusively to live versions of the songs. Like the last album, which featured sterilized, overproduced versions of his demos and live cuts--another clue I should've caught--this one has been so diluted in the studio as to make close listening to his lyrics unpleasant.

But, the thing is, even his lyrics--sharp as they sometimes are--tend to veer into their own sort of excess. Which is to say that, for all their wit, they're sometimes so willfully clever, so self-satisfied that they read like the sass of an adolescent who's just discovered sarcasm.

The lyrics and the overproduction, then, work similarly and together: they often seem pointless--and he pointlessly clever, pointlessly cruel--and they more often seem to miss the point entirely--that, for instance, Tillman comes across as more or less the male equivalent to the person he's bitching about in "The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apartment". Maybe that's part of the joke, but the sheer, overwhelming amount of sarcasm and self-consciousness (self-obsession, really) makes it hard to read his intentions well, makes it hard to tell whether and when he's being genuine. I mean, this is probably a dumb question, but my confusion maybe epitomizes my response to the album: he's making fun of us on "True Affection", right, with its vocal effects and its pop-electro instrumental? He's mocking us like he mocks the girl who uses the word "literally" too often and in the wrong situations--as Tillman himself mis- and over-applies his needlessly cutting lyricism and his studio bells and whistles. It seems instructive that Tillman, in spite of his apparent disdain for the girl in "The Night Josh Tillman...", chooses to sleep with her anyway.

http://grantland.com/features/father-john-misty-i-love-you-honeybear/

excellent longform profile

Sort of related, but was just thinking I'd totally be into a FJM Christmas album.

Elton John's been mentioned a few times itt, "Ballad of the Dying Man" came on shuffle recently and before I skipped it I was struck by how reminiscent it was of a Captain Fantastic track

New Single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n38R1JTEAPo

Apparently the new album is a Concept Album about being Fucked Up In A Hotel (or, in other words, the most FJM thing FJM has ever FJM-d)

I was interested in his thing at first but the longer he keeps up with this schtick the grosser it seems and it’s retroactively ruining my enjoyment for his earlier material.

"total entertainment forever" is an amazing song
― Treeship, Monday, 30 October 2017 14:16 (three months ago) Permalink

were you high bro

"it’s retroactively ruining my enjoyment for his earlier material."

Yes, I'm experiencing this.

more like father dumb shitty

"total entertainment forever" is an amazing song
― Treeship, Monday, 30 October 2017 14:16 (three months ago) Permalink

were you high bro

― trife's rich padgett (rip van wanko), Saturday, February 24, 2018 8:39 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wasn’t but I am sort of mystified at my positive first reaction to it now.

he's not doubled down, but quadrupled down on the meta-josh-fjm schtick. tiresome.

One of the 2 new songs; Just Dumb Enough To Try is fantastic IMO.

'"Josh Tillman has said the new album is “the real I Love You, Honeybear but without the cynicism”'.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/files/2018/04/fjm.jpg

new album is great. Definitely feels like a "smaller" record than "Pure Comedy" even though there's still a lot of big-sounding orchestration and slow piano balladry. Lot of great, funny lines, that's for sure.

Jason Isbell's here as well
And he seemed a little worried about you

They're co-headlining this summer!?!? Maybe they'll duet that song?

man I really like God's Favorite Customer.

He's Back...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES2WW4JJ_84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdkzXL-KO5w

Two hour long Barbican show from earlier tonight. Many new bangers debuted. He legit sounds like Manhattan Transfer on a couple. Not a bad thing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIPp53FTYpU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o93hYhytAmI

the album from this year is really great. Stunning live show too.

This is pretty damn great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGk0QUXXj-4