Why isn't /mu/ listening to and talking about AOTY?

because I have good taste in music

>>73323751
I don't listen to Chipotle folk with an overinflated sense of self importance

>>73323941
>>73323762
Let's hear your AOTY

>>73323941
>>73323762

what's your AOTY?

>inb4 DAMN. or Sufjan or some shit

>>73323762
>>73323941
why are you commenting on this if you haven't even listened to it yet? are you that bored?

>>73323751

But I am, OP

But seriously, Robin Pecknold is one of the greatest songwriters of his generation and the arrangements on this album are fucking impeccable.

It doesn't get talked about that much because people still ignorantly associate Fleet Foxes with the horde of shit indie folk that got born in their wake.

And maybe I could see someone having that view if they haven't listened past their s/t. But Helplessness Blues is a near-perfect album, full of unprecedented emotional depth and virtuosic songwriting, and is certainly a contender for album of the decade.

And with Crack-Up it only gets better. Seriously. 10/10, a modern masterpiece. I actually feel sorry for people who outright dismiss it/won't give it a chance due to Fleet Foxes' (undeserved and unwarranted) reputation as >>73323941 "Chipotle Folk."

File: a0249360790_10.jpg (219KB, 1200x1200px) Image search: [Google]

219KB, 1200x1200px

>>73324016
>>73324054
Sure, this is mine.

>>73324056
I have listened to it. There's zero songwriting, zero relatable lyrics, zero coherence. It's just a bunch of "experimental" motifs. Yawn.

>>73324070
Haphazardly giving out 10s is a surefire way of not being taken seriously, but Pecknold really is a fantabular songwriter. HB is at least a 9, though I found S/T kinda boring

>>73324091
>zero relatable lyrics
that depends on who you are, no?

>>73324091
>zero song writing
so the album is just silence?

>zero relatable lyrics
>zero coherence
I think the problem here is you.

>experimental
yet you called it chipotle folk

and then you post your AOTY. No wonder you think Crack Up is too hard. Phil just says everything bluntly with no tact or subtlety on that album. The arrangements are barebones.

You are just a pleb. sorry.

>>73324091
>trashing one boring indie folk album
>posting an even more offensively bland one as your AOTY
anon what are you doing

>>73324094
Taken seriously by who? Are you trying to impress somebody?

>>73324110
I doubt it man. Reading all the lyrics, they come across as abstract namedropping and trite details. The whole album is stitched together using products of other artists. Take the new Mount Eerie, where Phil paints a vivid picture in your mind of the details he wants to express. He uses simplicity to his advantage, and conveys the emotions that he's experiencing. The power comes from using all that is needed and nothing more. Then you take Pecknold who just uses "elegant" words like Vesuvius or some shit to just sound pretty for its own sake. It just reeks of inauthenticity and inflated ego

>>73324135
I don't think it's too hard. There's nothing to chew on and nothing to explore. It's sad that you're ashamed to admit that lucidity is an important part of songwriting

File: a0274936379_10.jpg (390KB, 1200x1200px) Image search: [Google]

390KB, 1200x1200px

>>73323751
>album of the year
>by a guy who whines about reviews from stereogum
yea no, AOTY right here though

>>73324070
While I do love Crack-Up it's not a 10. Nothing this year has been a 10. I completely agree with you about Pecknold being disrespected, particularly on this board. No one is making Folk music like them now, and people just don't want to admit it.

>>73324204
>where Phil paints a vivid picture in your mind of the details he wants to express. He uses simplicity to his advantage, and conveys the emotions that he's experiencing
>literally just "wahh my wife died buy my album"
You got memed, kiddo

>>73323751

So far it's my AOTY. Helplessness Blues is the better album.

Crack-Up suffers from too many tracks having long and drawn-out verses that need to be shortened because much of it just becomes dull. The music just doesn't make up for it.

Helplessness Blues packed a punch and got right to the point every track. Crack-Up takes another approach and it doesn't work as well.

8/10

>>73324221
Yeah, you have to be 18 to browse this board.

>>73324208
i chuckled. but did you read that review? it's an awful piece of journalism.

>>73324204
>nothing to chew on or explore
you are an idiot. you say the namedropping is abstract but then you don't think there's anything further. did you ever think that maybe you're the one not getting it? that you SHOULD try to explore and understand the lyrics better? I think you are honestly too stupid to understand music that isn't laid out in front of you. just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's meaningless.

>>73324091

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA look buddy that's a great album but it is absolutely nowhere near the level of Crack Up, it's literally just "MUH DEAD WIFE FEELS: The Album". musically it is completely uninteresting and Phil isn't really a great singer either.

I love how people always bash Fleet Foxes due to their lyrics. Calling them "vapid" or "trite" (which are just buzzwords that people use if they can't think for themselves)

My point is all critics of Fleet Foxes never touch base on what they are doing musically for the folk genre. They truly do make beautiful music whether you like their lyrics or not.

>>73324094
>>73324211

Sorry, not memeing the 10, I just honestly think that. Robin's songs and lyrics have the ability to emotionally resonate with me in a very personal way, unlike almost any other songwriter.

because FFHKS is the entire AOTY list...

>>73324271
If the abstractness is for its own sake, it DOES mean there's nothing more to explore, friend.

I'm not going to rate an album highly just cause it makes a contextless reference to WWI or some shit. There's no incorporation into the song, into a bigger picture. What is anyone supposed to take away from that?

I've already said that it's not that I don't understand it, it's that there's nothing there.

By the way, everyone who has liked this album can't explain what they like about it. Because it conveys a bigger image than what it can actually provide. That's the definition of hollow...
>>73324287
"muh dead wife" at least has better relatability and meaning than the shit like the recycled "cinder and smoke" image that's in EVERY DAMN FOLK ALBUM EVER

btw, listen to FF live and you'll see Robin isn't a great singer either.

>>73324204
>who just uses "elegant" words like Vesuvius or some shit to just sound pretty for its own sake. It just reeks of inauthenticity and inflated ego
pretty flaccid criticism tbqhfam.

>>73324394
So you're saying if lyrics are not thought provoking or relatable, they're not good lyrics?

>>73324394

>If the abstractness is for its own sake, it DOES mean there's nothing more to explore, friend.

This is objectively wrong. Just because you don't find any value in it doesn't mean other people won't.

For instance, as I matured, and grew with the album Helplessness Blues, the lyrics more and more became applicable to my state of mind and my approach to the world around me. They now resonate very deeply with me.

Just because you can't find value in seemingly esoteric, macrocosmic lyrics doesn't mean others don't. I personally find Pecknold's lyrics to be profoundly human, yet intelligent, in their philosophical depth, with the inclusion of natural and mythological imagery contributing a grand, almost transcendental atmosphere to the music - something that, personally, feels like the perfect musical rendering of the wonder and awe which I feel for the world, and for the experience of my own existence.

So maybe they are esoteric lyrics, in that they're not meant for everyone. Or maybe you just haven't given them enough of a change. Idk. No need to be a dick about it though.

>>73324505
Well, kinda. It definitely helps in them being memorable if they are. I just can't get behind obscure or artsy references to people, concepts, or historical events if they aren't used to build towards a grander message or even just an image in my mind.
>>73324592
Dude, I like HB a lot too. Because it had actual substance and relatability. But you and I related to lyrics like "I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see"
or
"So now I am older
Than my mother and father
When they had their daughter
Now what does that say about me?"

because they had substance. Because they conveyed a feeling, an insecurity, and because we could relate to the singer since he opened up about himself. What is there to relate to in Crackup? Are you seriously telling me you find meaning in "When the world insists
That the false is so
With a philippic as Cicero
"The tighter the fist
The looser the sand""?

>>73324394

>better relatability

I'm gonna tell you something that will blow your fucking mind.

Music isn't about "relatibility". Good music doesn't require you to relate to it. If that's all you look for in music, then your taste is probably very shallow.

>>73324707
I'm gonna tell you something that will drop a nuclear armageddon into your mind.

Every song that you've ever liked is one that you've related to. Prove me wrong

>>73324394
>If the abstractness is for its own sake, it DOES mean there's nothing more to explore, friend.

My entire argument was that it wasn't just for it's own sake. I don't know why you keep making a strawman argument over and over again.

I can tell you exactly what I liked about it. His arrangements and melodies are wonderful and interesting. It's extremely layered and there are tons of things to pick out and listen to on each playthrough. It needs to be listened to with headphones. It's a deeply personal album but he also tries to link his personal struggles in a cultural and historical manner - likening relationship history and struggles to a violent painting of a firing line.

You just keep making a strawman argument that there is nothing there, but you only think nothing is there because you don't understand it.

Also Robin is a great singer - go find the live NPR concert from HB. It's incredible.

You're just an idiot who wanted to be cool and contrarian but has nothing to actually say once he gets challenged.

>>73324705
Can you really not understand lyricism being theme based rather than someone just telling you a story? Do you not relate to loneliness or confusion or love or depression? These themes are all over Crack Up, but they aren't presented bluntly. Again, you are just too dense to understand it.

>>73324726

yeah man I really relate to the songs on Ice Cube's Death Certificate about hood thug life, getting STDs, racism, getting shot etc.

dumbass

>>73324759
i honestly think he's too stupid to understand the difference between relating to something and empathy.

>>73324705

>What is there to relate to in Crackup? Are you seriously telling me you find meaning in...

Maybe not now, since I haven't had time to sit with it. But given some time to interpret, and to further my life experiences, almost definitely yes.

Obviously art is subjective, and you don't have to value the same thing that I or anyone else does, but to wholly discount art as worthless/pointless simply because it is lacking in directness and explicitness displays an absence of open-mindedness and a creatively sterile approach to life on your part. In doing this you're essentially invalidating vast amounts of art because they require you to dive in past the surface level to understand what they're about, which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to do.

>>73324726

I like Migos. I'm white and don't sell drugs.

>>73324705
you should relate to that Crack Up lyric right now, ironically.

"when the world insists that the false is so" you think our claim that Crack Up is good is false
"with a philippic as Cicero"
We are giving you speeches about how it's better
"the tighter the fist the looser the sand"
but the more we tell you, the more you slip out of our argument and we lose ground on you (or so you think).

Or you could relate that to the Trump election.
Or to SJWs
Or to personal relationships and arguments.
Or to anything, but instead you chose to be a fucking retard instead.

>>73324734
>Dude you just don't get it man
Melodies and arrangements serve no purpose if the songwriting isn't there. It's the reason this album is dismissible self-wankery. It can't speak for itself if you need a thesaurus to understand its purposefully obfuscated references.

How have I had nothing to say, eh? I've been backing up my arguments every time you've questioned them. The only thing with nothing to say here is Crack-Up
>>73324759
>>73324800
>>73324893
Empathy is IMPLICIT relation, not EXPLICIT. Crack open a dictionary my friends. I should have known better than to attempt a serious discussion on a 4chan board

Enjoy your self-flagellating college boy white man lyrics

>>73324906

>Enjoy your self-flagellating college boy white man lyrics

It all makes sense now

>>73324906
>Crack open a dictionary my friends.
Don't you mean crack UP a dictionary?

>>73324906
>if the songwriting isn't there
This statement means nothing. Define this.

>It can't speak for itself if you need a thesaurus to understand its purposefully obfuscated references.
You don't need a thesaurus to know who Cicero was or what Philippics are. See >>73324898

>>73324898

this

>>73324091
It's kind of sad that you need relatable lyrics in order to enjoy something.

>>73324906

>I should have known better than to attempt a serious discussion on a 4chan board
>I don't listen to Chipotle folk with an overinflated sense of self importance

wew lad

>>73324906
lurker here, just wanna say watching this guy get thoroughly BTFO by the FF fans in this thread is hilarious, please keep it up guys

>>73324204
>uses "elegant" words like Vesuvius or some shit
Lmfao this has gotta be bait

>>73324726
if you just take 'relatable' to stand for 'thing you like', congrats, your position is tautologically true.

but try (for an example relating to communicating a clear textual message):
>gold digger - kanye west

king me--i can't relate to the song in the least, and yet, it totally bangs. (or make some dull argument about how i'm actually relating to it, and thats why i like it). but more so, take any piece of music that doesn't trade on explicit communication at all. if i enjoy satie's gymnopedie, i'm surely not relating to it; at least, not the way you are relating to phil's 'i have a dead wife' confessionals. there's something more abstract and slippery going on with satie than phil, and the same is true of fleet foxes.

and its certainly not clear that this music as confessional is better than music as enigmatic text; it not clear that one kind of folk music is 'better'. we could analogize to poetry. that william carlos williams poem about about eating the berries, a literal confession, is certainly more relatable than elliot's dense wasteland allusions. but i think we would all hesitant to say that either was better than the other; just different artist modes. you can't say elliot is worse for not writing like williams.

so if you want to make an argument as to how the fleet foxes record fails on its own terms, feel free, but accusing it of self-importance just because you don't dig or get cicero references is pretty impotent.

Now that the retard is gone, can we talk about the album?

10/10 moments:

>Hi-Hat and then:
>I was a child in the ivy then

>Song of masses

>Piano in Naids, Cassadies

>when you rose to be ossified as a rose of the oceanside

>and is all that I might owe you carved on ivory

>Dat mearcstapa bassline

>switch and second half of On Another Ocean

>dividing tides far as I can see

>>73323751
For those who heard it: does the album have a maritime aesthetic/mood/atmosphere (since there's a pic of the sea in the cover)? Haven't listened to it yet, would like to see FF's take on a sea-themed album desu

>>73324705
The more I read what you say about this album the more it sounds like you care primarily about the lyrics. I understand you not liking them for not being immediately relatable the first time you hear them but it's baffling to me that you can't see any merit in something that requires thought to understand. Yes HB (and ACLAM) have great lines that immediate and there's a certain emotional resonance to that, but that doesn't necessarily make them better than CU's deeper and more thought provoking lyrics. I want an album to have things that keep me coming back, and the lyrics as well as music of CU do that. It's not for everyone, but it's pretty dismissive and narrow minded to consider more complicated lyrics worse. It's a little sad to me that you can't enjoy lyrics that you don't immediately understand. I find a lot of enjoyment in understanding and analyzing lyrics like this. The same way I do with movies or books or poetry.

>>73325308
It does have ocean themes in the same way that HB does. He uses the sea/ocean as an idea of physical and metaphysical distance quite a bit.

The music does fit the cover well, but it's not overly ocean themed.

>>73325263

I feel like, this album more so than their other works, really shows the emergence of Fleet Foxes as a BAND.

Even though Robin's songwriting is better than it has ever been, I think the creativity in the arrangements, and the instrumental interludes really shows the depth of talent in the band.

For instance, though I didn't care for Odaigaharra quite as much as its place in the single, at its position in the album it is absolutely perfect, and it hit me for the first time what an earth-shaking, emotionally and pictorially evocative of a piece it really is. I Should See Memphis, too, stands out as a highlight overall with its creative use of atmosphere, especially the barrage of noise at the end. On this note, I can definitely see some influence of Skye's project, Japanese Guy, spilling over into this album. I think it's really cool the new avenues they're taking.

>>73325481
I agree.

The only song that I'm not toooo big of a fan of is Fool's Errand but it comes after On Another Ocean and serves to "lighten" the mood again I guess.

but yeah the arrangements are awesome and there's just so much going on. I really want a FLAC for headphone listening. It feels like they took The Shrine and wanted to make a whole album out of that type of songwriting.

File: 1494201971784.jpg (165KB, 735x611px) Image search: [Google]

165KB, 735x611px

>>73324091
>zero songwriting
>zero relatable lyrics
>zero coherence
>AOTY is fucking ACLAM
This has to be a joke, right?

>>73325685
Uhh, you're kinda the retard here anon. Everyone can relate to death, and the album is pretty fucking coherent in what it's about.

>T. took the bait from typical weaboo shitposter

>>73324208
I liked flying microtonal banana more

>>73325787
It's coherent in the sense that the lyrics are just rambling on and on about the same scenarios

>>73325816
Lel well anon when someone close to you dies, be sure to let us know how quickly you get over it you big strong man you

>>73325886
>strong man
>anime poster
he stands no chance.

File: pandemonium.jpg (301KB, 1280x1067px) Image search: [Google]

301KB, 1280x1067px

>>73325263
>end of mearcstapa