Dirty Projectors

'up in hudson' too. i just found it boring more than anything else, and it really weighed down and distracted from the (often very good, even great) music. especially 'up in hudson'

Nah man alive people are just bitter - good shit

Problematic in the sense that he sounded like a dick when he sang "What I want from art is truth, what you want is fame" really, even though I'd say it makes much more sense in that song that that is being said to the song's narrator rather than by him.

I also just didn't like how that song sounded with everything slowed down. I still generally enjoy that album. Lots of great stuff on it.

Lamonti otm he didn’t need to throw amber under a bus

He should just retiitle the project it won’t dirty projectors without amber

Okay, at this point I'm kinda impressed. Is it just me or does half the instruments sound like they're being played backwards? Strings, harmonica, and that weird robotic guitar sound. And yet it all fits rhythmically, in a way that is just lightyears beyond anything else happening in indie-rock. Not that it says that much, but still.

Problematic in the sense that he sounded like a dick when he sang "What I want from art is truth, what you want is fame" really, even though I'd say it makes much more sense in that song that that is being said to the song's narrator rather than by him.

I also just didn't like how that song sounded with everything slowed down. I still generally enjoy that album. Lots of great stuff on it.

― in twelve parts (lamonti), Friday, 4 May 2018 06:04 (seven hours ago) Permalink

Right this is what I'm talking about, I mean it's very much at least open to that reading. Also, I think it's ok to have songs in which the narrator sounds like a dick. It's also an example of why I dislike the word "problematic"--it becomes this way of blurring the space in between just being a bit of a jerk and being racist, misogynistic etc., an inconclusive innuendo that make something "not ok" without quite having to justify why.

He should just retiitle the project it won’t dirty projectors without amber

― done and dusted (Ross), Friday, May 4, 2018 1:08 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It was Dirty Projectors before Amber.

Are bitter breakup songs toxic masculinity now?

i feel like this q is really disingenuous and doesn’t have much to do with reality? the answer is no not necessarily

the greater flaw of the dp record was it was a boring breakup record, and yeah knowing who the songs were about and how uncharitable and shitty they were kinda hammered the point home!

Lol man that’s not my point. She’s so much part of that sound it doesn’t matter whether it’s his Og shif

also yeah i think there’s a point to be made that amber shifted the direction of this band significantly

Shit

Dunno about you but stillness is the move is my litmus - fuck this guys corner after breakup shit

Corny ***

I love the pre-Amber stuff though. The breakup record I agree, not so much. Didn't hate it but didn't feel compelled to listen to it that many times.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34STLHtu97A

also yeah i think there’s a point to be made that amber shifted the direction of this band significantly

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Friday, May 4, 2018 9:53 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

angel deradoorian was a huge part of the change in sound too but i don't think anyone is losing sleep about the fact that she's not in the band anymore.

the greater flaw of the dp record was it was a boring breakup record, and yeah knowing who the songs were about and how uncharitable and shitty they were kinda hammered the point home!

I was a weird thing to see DPs tour post-Stillness, and see that 2/3rds of the crowd was there for that song, and was into the hocketing and Angel moments, but really not enamoured with the Dave solo moments

It felt to me like Swing Lo was, instead of giving in to "what had resonated"-- putting the spotlight on Amber-- was Dave attempting to reclaim DPs as being the vehicle for his own voice and performance

And subsequently s/t was strange and bitter and frustrating. I think I described it upthread as "being forced to listen to a man berate his girlfriend on the subway"

I really like this band and am looking forward to this new album

Call all destroyer - I haven’t slept all night so nope

angel deradoorian was a huge part of the change in sound too but i don't think anyone is losing sleep about the fact that she's not in the band anymore.

― call all destroyer, Friday, May 4, 2018 7:00 AM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is true (sorry angel)

fgti generally otm

Right this is what I'm talking about, I mean it's very much at least open to that reading. Also, I think it's ok to have songs in which the narrator sounds like a dick. It's also an example of why I dislike the word "problematic"--it becomes this way of blurring the space in between just being a bit of a jerk and being racist, misogynistic etc., an inconclusive innuendo that make something "not ok" without quite having to justify why.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Friday, May 4, 2018 2:44 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't like that line read either way really, if it's him saying it, or him putting those words in someone else's mouth. The main thing I dislike about that song is that it's boring by the standards DL has set. There are some great moments on that record though.

I thought "problematic" was the right word to use because it's just used as an ill-defined red flag for a huge range of types of behaviour generate online criticism, from really serious shit to writing a (possibly/somewhat) mean-spirited song about one's ex -- the fact that they get bundled together is a bigger conversation. I think there's some fairly nuanced discussion of the record on this thread. I think it gets less bitter as it goes along, finishing with the sentiments in Cool Your Heart and I See You.

But yeah... there are couple of real clunkers dropped in it.

Are bitter breakup songs toxic masculinity now?

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Thursday, May 3, 2018 10:49 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

toxic masculinity and bitter breakup stuff (songs, art, or otherwise) have been intertwined since the beginning of time, this isn't some ~*social justice*~ invention

angel deradoorian was a huge part of the change in sound too but i don't think anyone is losing sleep about the fact that she's not in the band anymore.

Deradoorian released much more interesting music over the last few years than Dirty Projectors.

katherine otm, way better answer than mine

Katherine hitting it out the park

[*hockets*] She she takes takes just just like like a a woman woman, yes yes

that song is actually misogynistic though

I mean, for me, the bottom line is I'm not a fan of Dave's singing voice and the way to get me on board is not to add proportionally more of his voice

Otm

Sounds like he swallowed some
Marbles. Devendra Barnhart shit

New Attitude and Getty Address are fantastic records. My wife feels the same about his singing voice fwiw.

Your wife is otm

big fan of his voice. marmite stuff though, obviously. i enjoy the shameless abandon with which he exposes it on the early stuff.

Saw them tonight and was kind of let down. Longstreth seems a bit creatively spent, like he’s just coasting on the past. New band is serviceable but not very exciting.

They’re touring? Totally forgot about new record & the (really catchy & good imo) single. That’s a drag. He seemed bored?

It was a festival in NYC so not sure they’re touring. I mean he had some good presence I just felt like the band was trying to recreate past sounds and playing the hits. Nothing was really done in an interesting new way.

Yeah I can see that, the single kinda made me think Bitte Orca 2 (not that I minded, though I liked the s/t).

yeah he had two new female singers that seem like they were very much hired specifically because they could do the Angel and Amber parts, and I find it kind of boring to just recreate that sound (even on the old material) rather than just do something new with it

yeah that blows. so vegas / state fair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9__9oOkq2c

really enjoying the new record. those two tracks they had released before had really wormed their way into my head. feels like he took some of the good stuff from the s/t record (brass arrangements and interesting percussion) and left behind the painful lyrics

Loving this album so much

I love the new live show. Dave is more charismatic than I've ever seen him, all the new songs are amazing, the band is amazing, I was floored. My only two criticisms were "this is not the best use of the singer of Ava Luna's time because her own band is easily as good as this" and the fact that they played "Keep Your Name"

extremely otm about ava luna. kinda looking forward to checking this out now though

It doesn't make up for the ugliness on the last one, but I do like that it kinda seems from the start that he realized he has kinda been an asshole lately:

I don't know how I'm going to be a better man
I don't know how I'm going to reach the Promised Land
I don't know how I'm going to get you to take my hand
But I'm going to try and I know when

Now (now)
Right now (now)
Right now (now)
Right now (now)
Right now, now (now)
Right now, now (now)
Right now, now (now)
Right now

Yeah it was really weird and great to see Dave having fun and looking like a real frontman

It's interesting, at all times I have an at-arms-length approach to songwriting and producing, deliberately, and I even play it up, and somewhat cheekily refer to people I work with as "clients", and the music we make as "product", which seems like I might be trying to be demeaning, but it's actually, literally me-trying-to-disconnect this inherently dangerous idea that creativity is linked somehow to "self-expression"-- that is, that the songs that one sings and/or writes are done so out of necessity, instead of out of intentionality. You don't have to write a shitty song about your ex-lover and to claim that there is some kind of therapeutic need for that song to exist is false. You have a job and that job is to create useable sonic material, not to use a "tortured artist" model to be shady to your exes.

Sorry lol I just woke up

I really like the new line-up and I really was upset about that last album

A song doesn't need to be 'about' something, a song IS something.

i'm pleasantly surprised by how good this is, he's playing to his strengths again and most importantly not coming across as a total asshole the entire time

Xpost I mean some of us do write shitty songs about our ex lovers and it is genuinely therapeutic but we don't have to release them.

This is deer