Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold - August 16th

"did anyone else read that NYT piece like St. Vincent was now a part of SK?" yes, which was kind of what was annoying about it.

"how/why did this become everyone's business"

she was a lot of people's favorite person in the band?

That's an interesting response. My feeling is that the article is about a musical group, though, and the central point of interest for such an article is...music.

It talked about the process of making the album and what it sounds like, but it was a profile based on an interview in the direct aftermath of an integral member leaving the band.

If Dinosaur Jr. made a new album and Lou quit again right before it was released, there would probably be questions in a profile.

actually can't comprehend the level of nosiness and bitchiness around weiss leaving this group. while i like what i've heard of SK, i'm not a listener, so maybe i'm missing something, but... fuck me, how/why did this become everyone's business? fans worried about them selling out? like, what? have only been checking in on this here and there. enlighten me.

― meaulnes, Tuesday, August 6, 2019 11:59 PM (yesterday)

i mean you're right that it's no one's business but it's also kinda inevitable. i mean it was no one's business when the beatles broke up! ppl project all sorts of things on bands that they care about, and ppl care about this band a lot.

personally i'm still bummed that janet left but i've finally come around to enjoying/appreciating the new songs.

It talked about the process of making the album and what it sounds like

Not my belief that it really does the latter. Forty or so minutes of music, seemingly - I don't think using a few adjectives does much to talk about what that IS or what it sounds like.

You take the minimal descriptions of the music as a whole and they could add up to a million different things.

m.i.a. ate truffle fries

The result is “Love,” an affectionate catalog of the humilities of indie-rock life — those broke nights sleeping in the tour van — that crescendos into an unyielding bond. “We can be young/We can be old/As long as we have/Each other to hold,” Brownstein sings, as her bandmates provide a chorus with a bright throwback vibe. In Sleater-Kinney fashion, there’s also a turn toward anthemic fury: “Done with being told that this should be the end.”

“They were the classic things that Sleater-Kinney has always done so well, which is great guitar parts and big firework, lightning-in-a-bottle kind of songs,” Clark said, “but then there was this other side that I also felt in the demos — kind of an extra vulnerability from both of them.”

It came through in their vocals and subject matter, which both writers called unusually personal, taking on depression, suicidal thoughts and #MeToo. “Broken,” the wrenching piano ballad that closes the album, invokes Christine Blasey Ford.

Clark, Brownstein said, directed them to “not circumvent the emotion, but actually really delve into it.”

Production-wise, “I remember I was using the word ‘corrosive’ a lot,” Clark said, when she joined the group interview.

They wanted the album to sound “really gross,” Tucker, in contrasting lacy white, said, as her collaborators mmm-hmmmed in affirmation. “Like, disgusting, dirty, gross, dusty.” She went to a Depeche Mode show and got absorbed by synths; Clark and Brownstein saw Nine Inch Nails, and heard industrial.

The three or so weeks they spent in the studio with Clark were, to hear Brownstein and Tucker tell it, transformative. Choruses and bridges were revised; major keys were introduced; Tucker, whose raging vocals have helped define the group’s sound, sometimes sings two octaves higher than normal.

“She pushed us further,” Tucker said, just as they were ready for someone to challenge their instincts. (The trio similarly left its comfort zone making its sprawling 2005 album “The Woods;” after its bruising tour, they went on hiatus for nearly a decade.)

This time, the band pushed back, too. On the poppy “Love,” Clark questioned a Brownstein lyric: “There’s nothing more frightening and nothin’ more obscene/than a well-worn body demanding to be seen.” It’s essentially the album’s defining statement. Clark and Brownstein exchanged a look when I mentioned the line.

It’s something they discussed while conceiving “The Center Won’t Hold.” “This band is always a place for us to go when we feel vulnerable and fragile and angry,” Brownstein said. “It houses emotions that aren’t necessarily sanctioned in our day-to-day life, that people don’t make room for — because we can’t. You wouldn’t function if you allowed the ambient anxiety of the current era to permeate every cell.”

The lyric about the well-worn body was also asking, “How much can any of us withstand right now?” she added later. “All the characters, all the narrators — all of us in this album are seeking a means of resistance and withstanding pain. But I didn’t want to express that in a way that was like a screaming match. I wanted to give people something that buoyed them, that reached a chorus where they could sing together, and sing along with us.”

I know, I read it!

First quote - One of the songs is "affectionate." It has a "bright throwback vibe" and "there's also a turn toward anthemic fury." This is what I was talking about - that could be describing a million different things.

Second quote - Some general comments on lyrics. The music is "corrosive."

Third quote - More adjectives on that same point - "disgusting, dirty, gross, dusty." "Choruses and bridges were revised; major keys were introduced" - This tells me very, very little.

Fourth quote - Music that is not a screaming match, buoys people, "a chorus they could sing together." Could also be describing a million different things.

the writer forgot to write about the music!

Yes, that is what I said and that is what I am still saying.

I only read it once because of the pay wall, but didn't it say Clark pressured the band to deviate from minor keys to major keys? Or something like that?

xpost oh, there it is, sorry

It's an interview rather than a review, though, so... what's the problem? Most record reviews I read don't actually describe what the music sounds like anymore than a few adjectives. In fact to even mention major keys is practically musicology!

It would be funny if people wrote profiles the way many write record reviews, by constantly comparing the personalities of the band members to other people.

I dunno, people tend to disagree with me on this. My perspective is that the reason why there's a feature being written is because they are musicians, so I wonder why the art itself - the reason why we're talking about these people - tends to be such a minor thing of interest.

is there a piece you would cite that "talks about the music" to a satisfactory extent for you?

Why does "talks about the music" need to be in quotes? We know what talking about the music means.

do we tim

do we

Yes, it's when we identify the time and key signatures and discussion the means of modulation, etc. j/k

There's a Song Exploder episode now if people want to nitpick St Vincent's producing decisions some more

most times I feel lucky if there's even a description of the instrumentation/arrangements used

Yikes

pic.twitter.com/bRgHulyArq

— Janet Weiss (@jazzzhand) August 14, 2019

and I was about to post: the album is pretty good, different sonically obv.

damn can’t believe st vincent tried to assassinate janet weiss

Weiss knew they were going in a new direction, she should have been more careful.

who had access to the navigation system and when did they have it?!?!?

oh man poor janet :(
that sucks

Thank God she's OK and will be able to drum!

Damn

damn can’t believe st vincent tried to assassinate janet weiss

― (Appears only as a corpse) (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, August 14, 2019 9:31 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

irl lol, thanks for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fSXmrVJkeM

The new album is great imo, first listen through and enjoyed it mucho.

She went to a Depeche Mode show and got absorbed by synths; Clark and Brownstein saw Nine Inch Nails, and heard industrial.

Hoping it doesn't sound like this

The first song begins with a drone that reminded me of Some Great Reward.

https://www.stereogum.com/2054809/sleater-kinney-the-center-wont-hold-review/franchises/premature-evaluation/

breihan struggling with a record is a pretty sure sign i'll like it and think he's a wiener, reliable as the sunrise

I have many thoughts which I hope to see published tomorrow.

by sunrise???

good morning!

where's those tax returns st vincent??!?!1!!!

reach out is totally what i want from s-k doing depeche, great song

and restless! always like when they wear their go betweens influence proudly

This album is great

"reach out" is so sick

i pretty immediately like this way more than no cities. love what they did here

A bit too much of this reminds me of the harsh, plodding sound of The Woods (my least favourite S-K record) but "Reach Out," "LOVE" and "The Dog/The Body" are immediate standouts. I can really hear St. Vincent on the latter.

gonna go buy this now :)

This is really good at first pass

I like it, it's obviously not the greatest-ever SK album, but it's a good SK album in 2019, which I'm glad to have. What Annie Clark does for them, productionwise, reminds me most immediately of what Flood did for PJ Harvey -- provides a new sonic landscape for songs and ideas that still basically sound like Sleater-Kinney songs and ideas, but also the landscape itself helps shape the songs in ways that they wouldn't have found without it.

Having a *Name That Tune* fail on the beginning on the chorus in "Can I Go On." Wish I could put my finger on the song that reminds me of.

It's a better album than NCTL, which, for obvious reasons, played it safe.