Mitski

How old did you think she was? Sounds about right to me

Yeah, idk why that would be surprising.

because her puberty album was just a few years ago, LOL!

fans of mitski, her producer Patrick recorded the new trust fund album. he is on the cover. its fun and silly.
https://trustfund.bandcamp.com/album/bringing-the-backline

One of the best albums of the year - I've sung its praises fruitlessly on two other threads - maybe it'll get more traction here. They did a great job supporting Mitski a couple years back

ha I think 27 just seems impossibly young to me. especially to have several albums. but I guess it's not that weird! I just feel like I have achieved nothing of worth!

Bury me at makeout creek is very very good.

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

wow that's gorgeous

My first impressions of the record are that it's full songs with very funny lines like Nobody, but that Nobody is the standout track on it.

I feel like as I get to know more of them it'll seen more even. Anyway... v v v good.

it's rare for pop musicians to grind it to a halt like this, a la 'low'... perfect!

so much of this seems to be extraordinary but the last three songs stood out for me in particular

enjoying this a lot but i do wish she'd let her songs be a bit longer and let the ideas breathe a little more. in this piece she says that her songs are deliberately short as "I’m not a straight white guy. No one’s going to listen to me noodle for 45 minutes" but that seems like an almost self-defeating attitude?

Geyser and Two Slow Dancers are as about as perfect an opener and closer as you can get

Voice Coils did some ≈5m songs fwiw. Her comment seems odd to me, honestly, especially when it comes after her saying that she had deliberately been seeking out venues where people didn't want to hear her.

This is beautiful! The singles aren't necessarily even my favourite tracks, which wasn't the case for Puberty 2. This is all so strong! I don't mind the short track lengths...it makes it feel more poignant and transitory.

Nobody is not the standout at all imo - this is brilliant and there's a few album tracks (Why Didn't You Stop Me, A Pearl, Washing Machine Heart) that are as great as anything she's done. The melodic choices!

Great album. It did take me a few plays to get my head round the brief and odd song structures, but everything has started to click pretty quickly. Nobody is still the best song I've heard all year.

i was so sure that the loud organ fading down at the start of geyser was secretly a transition from a previous track, then this morning i grabbed the album and it's track 1, lol

i'm only at nobody on my first listen and nothing but the singles have jumped out in a good way yet, guess i'll have to listen about 43 more times today!

ok nvm yeah play 2 and i like everything except me and my husband because it sounds too much like the opening theme for home movies

it sounds like a blur song haha

the only track i dislike is the horse one because it's too radiohead

there ends much of this album's similarity to 90s uk rock

baby, though i've closed my eyes
i know who you pretend i am
i know who you pretend i am

imo the short track lengths accentuate the feeling of ambiguity in a good way! sure it'll be a grower viscerally but the songwriting's strong all the way through

i.e. agree w tt lol

I've only heard the three lead songs from this particular album, all of which I like a lot. Tbc, though, I don't have any problem at all with Mitski's track lengths in general. I did raise an eyebrow at the idea that i) writing longer pieces of music as opposed to shorter ones is a matter of straight white male privilege and ii) this is the reason why Mitski of all people sticks to short songs.

where was that expressed? on this thread or did mitski say that?

short songs are good

short Mitski songs are very good

short Mitski songs on Be the Cowboy are just truly great

Yeah this is an absurdly good record

I think there will be an increasing trend toward shorter songs and albums given how people listen to music now/how our brains are all fried by social media. There have been a few notable 30 minute-ish albums recently

Treesh, it was in the Time piece that ufo linked:

Almost every song in her discography is under three minutes. This isn’t an artistic choice, Mitski stresses–it’s tactical: “I’m not a straight white guy. No one’s going to listen to me noodle for 45 minutes.”

interesting. yeah, i kind of think that it's wrong to take from that quote, as time did, that she has "tactically" decided to release only 2ish minute long song, anticipating sexist impatience. sounds like she has some idea about white male privilege being connected to artistic indulgence though

immediately i love this 1000x more than puberty 2 which i already thought was great

way to keep taking it to the next level mitski

feel like musicians are writing more sub-2 minute songs these days.

Molina, Pinegrove guy, Mitski...uh, I had others when I thought about this earlier.

joyce manor

One local guy that recorded some of my old bands albums had this theory that second verses and choruses should be shorter than the first ones because the listeners have already heard it before, he's kind of eccentric in terms of having a lot of these little philosophical rules and I don't really agree but I found it useful to think about in terms of cutting out the fat in songs or thinking about stuff that maybe didn't need to be there

Ha, that quote rules

To be fair I would listen to Mitski noodle for 45 minutes.

Yeah this is an absurdly good record

― Trϵϵship, Friday, August 17, 2018 4:30 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

re the theory that 'second verses and choruses should be shorter than the first ones ' i had never stopped to think about the structure of 'your best american girl' until a week ago and it's the most extreme demonstration of this imaginable. well, viz. verses, anyway.

This album v.v.good. I'm all for short albums, regardless of who's making them.

this album is really excellent

what are some of the consensus best tracks (i've named mine above)

To be fair I would listen to Mitski noodle for 45 minutes.

― Van Horn Street, Friday, 17 August 2018 22:47 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes please. As a "mixtape" or "playlist" or some nonsense.

Album is fire bops

Puberty 2 had that incredible run in the middle and YBAG is a crazy high peak but this album is much more consistently strong, imo

^^^

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

her live show seems drastically improved for this tour

Ugh I was all set to accept this as a new direction and prepared to love it based on the reviews but it's all so stodgy.

I'm listening to 'Nobody' and there's a brilliant song in there trying to get out, but the way the band attack every beat of the bar with the same emphasis just traps it. The whole album feels stymied by these gallumphing arrangements.

The melodic choices!

― imago, 17. august 2018 14:44 (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks for this! I started listening for this, and I think it kinda opened up the music for me. Thanks ILX, short incisive posts like this is why I don't leave.

Well, I don't get 'stodgy' as a criticism as the songwriting is so lithe and concise. All sorts of melodic and textural surprises packed into these intense little songs - nothing goes on for longer than it has to, and there's still plenty of elegance in the composition. Perhaps you mean that there isn't much time to relax - there's always something changing - and it makes demands on your concentration accordingly. Focusing on one of the louder tracks and extrapolating 'gallumphing arrangements' from a necessarily escalating and dramatic discopop vignette makes me think you haven't listened very attentively. The album is very obviously playing on the tension between vivid art-pop and immiserated garage brevity, and you've got to be able to handle both