Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

i just prefer their more traditionally structured stuff, songs with a bit more variety.

― ledge, Thursday, February 16, 2023 4:18 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Stewing over this post. Aren't these sentiments at odds?

I warmed to Dragon... because it had more sonic variety.

yeah it does have a lot of variety between songs, it's the in-song variety i think is lacking - verse verse verse verse verse just grates a bit for me. in this instance.

and some of the verses are scarcely two lines long - sparrow is the one that really kills me, doesn't help that it's followed by little things, which I might quite like in isolation but in the middle of the album it's just more evidence for the prosecution.

"sparrow" is pretty easily one of the weakest tracks because it just plods along with that verse over and over but nothing else is really like that

sparrow is still the only one i skip over - i often start with "little things", just because i love that 4 song stretch it kicks off which is unlike the rest of the album, and because i've listened to that first handful of tracks a million times

unbelievable

i am very sure that someday i'll come back and sparrow will be my favorite :)

it would appear that the title of world's undisputed #1 fan of Spud Infinity might potentially be in dispute

unfortunately, earlier last summer i was forced to sell the title on ebay to make rent :(

what's it gonna taaake?

*tears of regret*

I love Sparrow. Little Things does nothing for me

Co-sign. Was listening in the car the other day, absolutely crumbling to sparrow, then just taken totally out of it by little things. Half this album I find incredible, the other half is by no means bad, but just not for me.

Give me sparrow, no reason, changes, certainty, spud infinite, time escaping forever. Probably just need to invest more time into the other tracks, but they definitely don’t hit at immediately as those listed

Sparrow is totally devastating, hits the same place as “not” does for me. Its lyrical subject matter is our limitedness, and the melody reflects. It’s a song where all the parts are working with each other. It feels very carefully and intentionally constructed for the effect it makes

I don't really get Certainty. Surprised it's so popular. Feels like a less catchy version of some of the other stuff on the album. But to each their own

I always forget which song it is when I see the title.

There should be a name for that feeling for how music changes when someone else enters your listening space or when you're sharing a listening space. I feel this most profoundly with jazz for some reason, how I suddenly become more aware of any discordance.

Anyway, Sparrow is the one song I think I've turned off more than any other. I've even come in from another room just to turn it off.

Idle posts that reveal way more of oneself than first realised #14.

The Chinaski Effect

lol

“certainty” is lovely, but i can see it not appealing to people who don’t appreciate country music or at least that late 60s era when all the hippies loved country-ish music

it's the one Jeff Tweedy chose to cover, and that seems like it could be a good indication of who'd be drawn to it

I'm totally familiar w/the Chinaski Effect. It's a cousin of the thing where you've been telling someone, "This is show is great, you gotta see it!" – and then, when you finally sit down and watch an episode sitting next to them, you're hyper-aware of every bad line, every corny joke, how every not-great element may be landing ("...uh, it's usually better than this, I swear"). It can also work with a movie you haven't seen in a while.

oh yeah, that's a very real thing with music. I played the Cassandra Jenkins album a ton while working solo last year, then tried to put it on the car on a family road trip and yeah, bad choice...

It's a cousin of the thing where you've been telling someone, "This is show is great, you gotta see it!" – and then, when you finally sit down and watch an episode sitting next to them, you're hyper-aware of every bad line, every corny joke, how every not-great element may be landing ("...uh, it's usually better than this, I swear").

uh have you been peekin' through my windows

i have heavily experienced the Chinaski effect in my attempts to share Curb Your Enthusiasm with two different people. suddenly everything seemed very not funny at all

forget this Jake Gyllenhaal film. it's the chinaski effect

'little things' makes me ;_;

^^

If the 'watch this great show!' experience is the cousin of the Chinaski effect, the wicked stepmother is when I enter a room and everyone else fucks off.

Reading this thread earlier had me listening to the album in the house; my Significant Other happened to walk in the door as "Sparrow" was playing. I turned it down... but not off! (defying the Chinaski Effect)

All power to you. We must let Eve talk to the snakes if she must and in full hearing of any and all intruders.

Sparrow is basically brutal as a streaming/CD track but makes so much more sense as a side opener on vinyl.

My wife was in the car when I was playing Sparrow but we were driving to Church so she couldn't right tell me to tune out these heavy theological truths could she? Chinaski Effect countered by religion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4KmVnwqBJg

another new one

They posted some cute IG pics today, hanging out (in Nashville?). They seem to still have a great vibe together.

That new one's real nice. She/they sure have a way with a melody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqdqATE8em4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CckLqi3mIxo

more new songs!

There should be a name for that feeling for how music changes when someone else enters your listening space or when you're sharing a listening space. I feel this most profoundly with jazz for some reason, how I suddenly become more aware of any discordance.

― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, February 17, 2023 11:24 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is definitely a thing, and definitely a thing with skronking jazz

i have heavily experienced the Chinaski effect in my attempts to share Curb Your Enthusiasm with two different people. suddenly everything seemed very not funny at all

― President of Destiny Encounters International (Karl Malone), Friday, February 17, 2023 3:54 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Might be because it's not very funny, you ever think of that? No

There's a kind of experience I think every music fan has had. I call it the "bad ears": It's a kind of one-on-one Wyatting, and it's what happens when the assumptions you make flip over and leave you the one vulnerable. It's when you're with a friend, and you play them some music you like and you want them to like too. They don't say anything. And suddenly you're hearing it with the bad ears: Every pretension, every flaw in the music becomes utterly obvious to you. The lines you thought were terrific are revealed as facile. The lines you thought were lovably dumb are chasms of embarrassment. The song ends. You want to vanish. And your friend smiles and says "Yeah, that was good," and then it's their turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XCMoPu8TXw

"vampire empire" on colbert with flute! the arrangement's really come a long way since last year

Really nice

That's great, I hope the rumors of another album ready to go soon prove true.

Might be because it's not very funny, you ever think of that? No

dog latin i had never thought of that!!

The song ends. You want to vanish. And your friend smiles and says "Yeah, that was good," and then it's their turn.

oof, we've all been there.

i do want to say, though, having been there many times, what a horrible way that is to engage with music and share your enthusiasm with people, to be the person who says "yeah that was good" in a perfunctory way and immediately it's "their turn". how awful it feels to be the person who shared the unliked music, or even just another person in the room wanting to just relax and be normal but instead finding themselves in the middle of a contest to see whose subjective taste reigns supreme. it's a competitive way of looking at art that isn't competitive at all, and yet it's what "being into music" is like, almost all of the time, when it involves other people. suddenly this thing that seemed so wonderful is not so wonderful, because it is now haunted by negative vibes. it can only be clean many years later, after the initial incident has long been forgotten and you hear the song again and only think "oh, i used to love this song!" without remembering why you stopped

don't expect anyone to agree with that on a board dedicated to listening to, sharing and criticizing music which rewards having unique contrary bold takes, btw, and i fully expect to completely contradict myself repeatedly in the future

if they do put out the dwnmibiy leftovers this year i don't think "vampire empire" would be on it, i get the impression that it's newer than that - adrianne was still figuring out the lyrics a little when i saw them last year and the arrangement's much more fleshed out now

they've said they want to build their own studio for their next album so i'm not necessarily expecting any new recordings until next year but who knows

i would be so down for a "we built our own studio for this album" kind of album from big thief. also i love the move of playing an unrecorded, commercially unavailable song on tv. i would be curious to see a list of other acts/songs of that nature; i bet it would tilt toward the special