/mu/ - Music (Temp full images)

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>>46365507
>it's absolutely got no emotion
Sounds like you didn't listen to Kingfisher

you wrote such a long paragraph when you could've just said "stop liking what I don't like"

>>46365630
But he specifically said it's good if other people like it.

>>46365507
you should give it a few more listens, OP

>>46365507
i didnt enjoy it either
i dont get newsom

>>46365507
So you accept that you don't get it?
ITT: Favorite Newsom lyrics
Can you hear me, will you listen
Don't come near me, don't go missin'
In the lissome light of evenin'
Help me cosmia, i'm grievin'

And all those lonely nights down by the river
Brought me bread and water, water in
But though i tried so hard my little darlin'
I couldn't keep the night from comin' in

And all those lonely nights down by the river
Brought me bread and water, kith and kin
But in the quiet hour when i am sleeping
I couldn't keep the night from comin' in

Beneath the porch light we've all been circlin'
Beat our duck's hearts, singe our flower wings
But in the corner, somethin's happenin'
Wild cosmia - what have you seen?

Water wet her limbs, fire warms her hair
[water were her limbs, fire was her hair]
See the moonlight caught her eye
And she rose through the air
Well if you see true light, then this is my prayer, oh;
Will you call me when you get there?

And i miss your precious heart
And i miss your precious heart
And i miss your precious heart
And i miss your precious heart
But release your precious heart
To its feast, oh precious heart milkymoon

The two-hour tour de force of Have One On Me (Drag City, 2010) was justified not by a broader stylistic palette but by a deeper understanding of her own psyche. In fact, many of the songs refrained from the potentially wider choice of instrumentation and returned to her harp soliloquies.
Newsom mines both the rich tradition of introspective female singer-songwriters and the rich tradition of avantgarde singing. She delivers meditation steeped in the profound aloofness of a Joni Mitchell. Easy follows in the footsteps of Jane Siberry, Lisa Germano and Kate Bush mixing childish bedroom nursery rhyme, austere renaissance song, Chinese opera and gospel melisma. The harp delight of '81 is a miniature version of the same multi-cultural and multi-generational synthesis.
The eleven-minute Have One On Me is an exercise in creating and dissolving chaos, as it begins quietly in the vein of neoclassical chamber music and cool jazz but slowly builds up, along the way toying with marching-band pomp, quasi-Caribbean effervescence and multi-voice choral counterpoint.
One of the most radio-friendly songs, Good Intentions Paving Company, delivered in a wavering tremolo voice over a sprightly country-rock rhythm, sounds like a cubistic version of vintage vocal harmonies. That's as much entertainment as she's willing to grant.

>>46365996
The soul of the album, in fact, lies in the more spartan songs. Vocal pyrotechnics provides the scaffolding for No Provenance, and it's just the appetizer for Baby Birch, one of her artistic peaks, over nine minutes of delicate spiritual-like invocation that achieves a sort of mildly psychedelic and Eastern spiritual ecstasy before embracing an earthly blues rave-up. The piano-based In California is a close second, with a tone that endlessly mutates from wailing to meditational and to tragic and to mesmerized, frequently soaring to chirping heights. Forming a trilogy of sorts with those two, Go Long (one of her zeniths as a poet) climbs even higher summits of pathos, the harp tinning like a baroque harpsichord while the voice is indulging in a fragile solo dance. The voice has to carry a significant weight when it is accompanied only by harp or piano.
Esme is more expansive and quick-footed, and anchored to a stronger melody, resembling an exotic melodic fantasia. Ribbon Bows pivots around another touching melody, imagining a quasi-operatic folk revival. You And Me Bess borders on the gentle pop lullabies of Burt Bacharach but slowed down to a pace more appropriate for a requiem. The ultimate perfection is sculpted in the solemn two-minute harp ode On A Good Day.
Newsom also returns to the abstract chamber lieder of Ys with Autumn and Kingfisher. However, that format here feels a bit weak and steely compared with the other more humane elegies.

is this a rym reviews thread

>>46366027
She still shuns facile emotions. The closest she gets to being martial and anthemic is in the piano-based Occident. The most powerful rhythm emerges from the bolero-like piano crescendo and flamenco-like castanet rustle of Soft As Chalk. The album closes with a final spiritual-like piano-based incantation, Does Not Suffice, that boasts the one moment of dissonance in over two hours: it's the moment when everything disintegrates and she disappears like a philosophical fairy queen.
She has partially abandoned the turgid meandering of Ys and its baffling Joyce-esque lyrics, a fact that brings forth the elegance and sophistication of the lower, inner layer. Exhausting and exhilarating, this album pushed Newsom to a higher orbit than any of her contemporary singer-songwriters.

Ys is better

>>46366137
Well yeah

>>46365978
So, with the courage of a clown, or a cur
Or a kite, jerking tight at its tether
In her dun-brown gown of fur
And her jerkin of swansdown and leather

Bear would sway on her hind legs;
The organ would grind dregs of song, for the pleasure
Of the children, who'd shriek,
Throwing coins at her feet
Then recoiling in terror.
>that intricate yet tasteful use of poetic device
>that vivid imagery
>that overarching metaphor of the song in general

I only really like Ys. Have One on Me and The Milk-Eyed Mender are good but nowhere near Ys.

OP is literally deaf if he missed the emotion on Baby Birch.

>>46365507
It took me a couple of listens to get into it, but now I think it's easily the best album of the 2010s so far. The arrangements, the songcraft, the lyricism, everything about it is immaculate.

if I started a thread for every artist I dont like then mu would be all me. this thread would not exist. maybe I should do that

>>46366333
HOOM > Ys > Mender
Everyone picks Ys, because it's concise, but with lengthy songs.
Have One On Me has so much more though. And I do mean that in the sense of more better.

>>46365507

>>46366480
good luck faget

>>46366481
Well, what do you think is better about HOOM? I'm open to other opinions.

>>46365996
>>46366027
>>46366065
I either listen to this guy who has dedicated his life to studying music, visual arts and history or I listen to the tripfag who invented the term "memerap" on image board for japanese cartoons.

Oh god, I can't decide which one to listen to

>>46366480
At least we'd have music discussion. Do it.

>>46366559
Or you could listen to the album and form your own opinion. Tough choice.

>>46366547
It has all the beauty of Ys, but with demonstrably more restraint and subtlety shown in her songwriting. Better arrangements too.

I prefer her voice on Ys (except for those few squeaks), I don't get why people complain about her "weird" voice, it really doesn't sound weird to me at all.

>>46366481
I can totally see the appeal of all three albums and understand why people prefer the album they do. Even TMEM is great for when you're not in the mood to listen to something as ornate and grandiose as her other albums, although it does have one or two weak tracks.

>>46366751
Her voice is only too much for me on Milk Eyed Mender, which is a shame, because that album does have good songs on it.

>>46366629
Screw that, Scaruffi is way smarter than me and has way more experience than me when it comes to music and art.

Milk Eyed Mender is the superior album

>>46366877
said no one ever

>>46366873
Please don't actually have this mentality.
You will be a pleb forever :^(

>tfw you can play '81 on piano

>>46367055
It's not like it's particularly hard anon :^)

>>46367055
>tfw you can sing '81
Now that's the feel. Hitting the low notes is actually the hardest part for me if I sing in my natural range.

>>46367115
>implying I was showing off or gloating in anyway possible within that post, instead of just showing happiness for being able to play a song i enjoy

>>46366926
I've got to get my music from somewhere and it sure as hell won't be here or RYM forums. I never said I loved Have One On Me anyway, just that Scruffy has a more reliable source for objective music criticism than WWWW or me.

>>46367252
Yeah, but letting just one person inform your taste? Top shig.
RYM can be okay. Not so much the discussion forums, but people's lists of albums are usually good places to look for essentials.
I don't even have a regular source for music recs, but I still find new music all the time.

The album is great, gets better upon repeat listens.. had anticipated it before it came out, took my time getting into it..

But there's so much anger in the lyrics under the surface... it takes away from the beauty of the images.. and the kitsch of "Good Intentions Paving Company"... "the will to remain for the duration/waving the flag/feeling it drag. Like a bump on a bump on a log/Like I'm in a fist fight with a fog"

God, that's bad, and I think she's bad-campy on purpose, and I think it's just bad art and a waste of technical proficiency. She needs to spend more time around poets and writers, not Ren Faire hipsters.

new album when

>>46367435
I think I've worded myself pretty badly, but I don't "drone" him if thats the term. I just think he is way more experienced than me and yes, I do occasionally use him as a source for recs.

>>46367619
>there's so much anger in the lyrics under the surface
Well, yeah. It is an album about her bitterness after a failed relationship. I think a little anger is to be expected.

>>46367847
Relationship with whom? Hadn't she been with Adam Samberg for a while then?

>>46365507
Ys is one of my top 5 favorite albums but honestly, Have One On Me was and still is a disappointment. I really like the first disc but, despite having some highlights, Disc 2 and 3 are boring as hell. It feels like a double album's worth of material stretched thin to three discs.

>>46367619
>God, that's bad
pistols at dawn, sir

>>46367883
Yes, but the lyrics centre around her prior relationship with Bill Callahan.
Also, it's Andy Samberg FYI.

I find her first 2 to be complete shit and that's 100% due to her awful awful voice.

HOOM she has a much better voice, her music finally became listenable and it is damn good.

>>46367888
It's probably pleb of me to say this, but I really don't think it's meant to be a one-sitting album.

>>46365586
>>46365507
Looks like someone needs attention

>"Bump! pls aknowledge my opinion >.<

>>46367888
I can partly agree with this. Disc 2 is pretty tight though. 3 is where it really falls down. Aside from the last two tracks which are god-tier, especially Kingfisher.

>>46367959
ah, ok

>>46368034
>>46367888
Disc 3 is actually my favourite out of all of them.

>>46367965
Maybe if you relistened to Ys you wouldn't find her voice so intolerable?
Just a suggestion :3

ITT: People spam lyrics and walls of text from meme critics because they lack the vocabulary and mental capability to articulate themselves on why this album isn't shit
>but muh harps and medieval dungeons and dragons music *tips fedora*

>>46368173
You're a bit l8 m8

>>46365507
Why do people say this is a folk album?

>>46368268
Because most people don't know what baroque pop is, and also her songwriting has folk elements.

I enjoy that album but it's an exhausting listen in my opinion. I don't think I've ever made it from start to finish in one sitting. I always have to take a break between discs.

>>46368318
Do you have ADHD?

>>46368342
No.

>>46368192
this is literally you right now

>>46365507
Listen to TMEM at least

>>46367847
The maturity of the musical styles does not match the immaturity of the lyrics. "When time was just a line that you fed me when you wanted to stay." Jesus, it's just naggy as fuck. Then the next song, "Kindness prevails." Does she practice that maxim? Maybe when it comes to Esme and girls like Emily, but I think she thinks all bad in the world is caused by men. Why else would she marry Mr. Harmless, man-hating bitchass Andy Samberg?

Instrumentally, "Autumn" bounces and twists. It's beautiful. But the lyrics.. I'm not kidding. They're oddly a lot like the shit my ex-girlfriend would say around 2010, just this never-ending pretending that she could do no wrong, interest in images and actions over introspection and admissions of guilt in terms of emotional negligence. Find me a single line on the entire three discs where she admits to doing anything wrong. But I play this for Newsom detractors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vmHaYZ2mEE
That bridge is heart stopping. But even this song is based around "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire," and I'm not sure WTF that has to do with anything on the album. She's got to be a pretty mentally unstable to write such great music; she's always seemed a little cross-eyed and autismal, and her growing out of it means she releases a triple album of her swan songs, her being perfect, and the title of the thing seems like some sexual reference: "Have One On Me." Maybe kinky like "Take A Shit On Me," IDK. Like that "Three Little Babes," holy ... fuck.. make the self-indulgence stop.

>>46368369
how did you get that picrture :O

>>46368173
>dungeons & dragons music

criticizing meager intellectualism isn't something you should be doing

I like Joanna Samberg

>>46365507
It's a meme album bro, don't waste your time

>>46368380
She does seem a bit childish and... sheltered. I'm not sure how to express it but she does seem kind of unaware of the world around her, like she's living in her own little fairytale or something. I still like her music a lot though.

>>46368314
I don't know if I'd call it baroque pop either. Most of the songs lack standard pop song structures.
Maybe... baroque prog? I don't even know.

>>46368380
>>46368500
You are aware lyrics can be a metaphor right? She always gets pissed when people call her music "childish" because they don't get the metaphors or the technical difficulty.

>>46368485
le "memes" meme

>>46368673
"I'm not a shitty lyricist, you just don't get it!"

Seems legit.

>>46369088
>>46369088
>>46369088
^^^ THIS

>>46369088
>your inability to detect metaphor
>Joanna's fault
It's no one but your fault for illiteracy.

She is my favorite artist but much of her lyrics are still impenetrable to me. Case in point from Only Skin:

I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
little sister, he will be back again
I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangelin'
silently from all the blooming cherry trees
in tiny nooses, safe from everyone
- nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done
be a woman, be a woman!

though we felt the spray of the waves
we decided to stay 'til the tide rose too far
we weren't afraid, 'cause we know what you are
and you know that we know what you are

awful atoll
- o, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!
bawl, bellow:
Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow

toddle and roll;
teeth an impalpable bit of leather
while yarrow, heather and hollyhock
awkwardly molt along the shore

>>46369277
Extrapolate on a few of Joanna's metaphors off of HOOM, anon. It seems to come easy to you, so give us a minute of your time.

bump

bump

>>46369439
'81 is about her birth, the loss of virginity/innocence, and sin in reference to adam and eve(pretty obvious given the title). I'm pretty sure it's written from god's perspective hence:
>The unending amends you've made
Are enough for one life, be done

Also, there's a blog somewhere that has all her songs sorted out. The one I remember reading about in depth was Cosmia. I can no longer find the aforementioned blog though. I think it was on tumblr or blogspot.

>>46365507

She's shit. She's clearly talented but her silly meme voice ruins everything. Would be nice if she stopped trying to be quirky and just made real music because she'd probably be pretty good at it.

>>46371783

kill yourself

>>46371783
>artist has an aesthetic
>hurr meme durr

>>46372026

yeah a meme aesthetic.

>>46371783
>meme voice
>spitting out pointless buzzwords

>>46372035
You are literally shitposting at this point.

>>46372138

it's a serious criticism.

>>46372187
Sure it is.

>>46371783
>meme voice

>>46372035
>meme aesthetic

What are you doing? Maybe people would respond seriously to your criticism if you didn't throw meaningless forced memes around you.

>>46372216

why are you pretending you don't know what i mean by a meme voice?

>>46372245
not that anon, but I don't know what you mean. Care to elaborate for me?

>>46372245
It doesn't mean anything.

Definition of MEME
: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

That has absolutely nothing to do with voice.Why can't you even try to describe what you don't like about her voice/music?

>>46372245
I know what you mean, but goddamn is it facile.

>>46372216
I know what you mean but I would use different wording

I would say novelty

>>46372338

I stated what I dislike about it. It's intentionally quirky and attention seeking and sounds stupid. She does it in an attempt to stand out and her for brand to spread like memefire.

>>46372398
And I would disagree.
The novelty of her voice and demeanor is a sort of hook, but the scope of her songwriting and musicianship is where the appeal is.

>>46372439
yeah i hear ya

>>46372470
i hear ya too.

I'm not a fan of Joanna personally but I can see the appeal

>>46372439
>her brand
Joanna Newsom is not Kanye.

>>46372439
I really don't think her voice is that weird and it definitely doesn't stand out when listening to her music. I doubt her voice has anything to do with her success and popularity.

Oh wow a real thread with real music discussions. You can tell how bad /mu/ is getting from the people who can't even argue about why they disagree with OP.

>>46372533
Every musician these days have a brand. Get over it.

>>46372607
Okay, I'm over it :^)

>>46372560

I think it's 100% responsible, because her entire image is based on being quirky and strange. I don't think that makes her bad but she's like Wuthering Heights Kate Bush or something. A song that, while good, is successful because of it's meme aesthetic.

>>46372718
Please stop using the word meme, you obviously don't understand its meaning.

>>46372755

You don't understand what it means if you think having a gimmick isn't a meme.

>an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.

Her voice is funny and she's spread online. Get over it.

>>46372718
>I think it's 100% responsible, because her entire image is based on being quirky and strange.
Possibly, but I don't think that's entirely because of her voice. Her personality, the way she dresses, her lyrics, and style of music are much more responsible for her image. So do you not like her because of her image or do you actually dislike her music?

>>46367210
r u grill

>>46372801

yeah it's part of the meme aesthetic.

i dislike her voice primarily. her music sounds like it could be ok if she didn't sing in that stupid goofy voice. I don't really have an opinion on her image, in my head she's a pretty girl who wears a lot of dresses and has a nice bottom, that isn't an issue for me. I also don't dislike her as person, she seems nice enough in that interviews and such i've seen. it's just the voice part of the aesthetic.

>>46372784
>Her voice is funny and she's spread online. Get over it.
It would -maybe- be a meme if people actually imitated her voice. But liking and spreading someone who has a weird thing about them is not a meme.

>>46372718
Except that the entirety of her style is inextricably woven together. Her plucking style, her uncompromising weird vocal timbre, her impish lyrics. It's all a solid package, not just normal folk with a 'quirkiness filter' placed over it, like you seem to think.

>meme voice
>meme aesthetic
The saddest thing is that it wasn't even WWWWWWW who mentioned those.

>>46372884

You have to understand I'm not really attacking her as an artist. I'm explaining why I don't like her. She's perfectly entitled to do whatever she wants and more power to her cos it's helped her stand out and make money. But personally, I greatly dislike the voice to the point I can't enjoy the music.

>>46372814
Naw bra

>>46372912
That makes sense, but the initial reason you gave for disliking it is that it's a 'meme', which is ultimately a shiggy reason to like or dislike something.

>>46372973

actually what I said originally was "her silly meme voice ruins everything". If you remove the word meme you have the exact same sentiment I just expressed only without expressing why I think she does it.

>>46373038
So, why didn't you just say that? We're reasonable people.
Well, I am.

>>46373186

Because meme voice expresses my feelings on why she does it.

>>46373452
I think it's more complicated than that, especially when you consider that she used to do more of it, and now does less of it.

>>46373452
The problem with your argument, and this is coming from the guy who posted the long post about her seeming naggy and pro-woman to a fault, is that her voice has changed, physically, with vocal nodule surgery. You can totally hear the difference on HOOM, she coos more and doesn't squawk as much. But my main reference point is MEM for an album.

Actually, if you wanna talk about her voice, I find the first few words on "Emily" to sound way too much like Devendra Banhardt for my liking, and just 'cause she toured with him doesn't mean she gets to do that yawping thing. But.. I think there's a frustrated anger to Joanna's styles, and her dealings with men.. IDK it goes too deep to really verify, because she's relatively private.

>>46373587
>I think there's a frustrated anger to Joanna's styles, and her dealings with men..
Could you expand on this? I've never really bothered too much with reading into her lyrics, I actually don't find them as fantastic as other people seem to so that's probably why.