Tyler, the Creator is a meme-like artist, whereas he can show earnestness in his feelings, while still remaining just as frank with his bizarre (and often cringing) sense of humor. While his lyrics spew out like there’s some kind of consistency (it helps that his style is completely steady; with his beats being repetitive and familiar, while still feeling hypnagogic), Goblin is a contradictory album that’s as maddening as it is fascinating. Much praise has been given to “Yonkers”, which is a summation of Tyler’s craft, and the very themes of Goblin itself: paradoxical, but all sides of each subject is undeniably honest.
9
“No family is safe, when I sashay”. An intentionally blunt rebuttal to heteronormativity and the fears of the homosexual man, Perfume Genius’ Too Bright starts off with a self-destructing piano ballad before bursting into heavy synth and bass for “Queen” – a song that shifts the entire direction of the album into an abstraction of overt gay lingo. Whether considering himself a “queen” and raising a middle finger to gender norms, or letting himself fall into demonic screams while trying to figure out what it means to love, his messy self-reflection reaches poignancy when he finally ends the album reflecting back to the first track, by allowing himself to remain conflicted on whether or not companionship is the very thing that’s causing his doubts.
8
https://youtu.be/pKMibrA71LQ
Swans has always felt like a band singing straight from hell – and with The Seer, they make that analogy a reality with Satanic verses that dare to have you condemn them for their pleas for individualism. “Your life pours into my mouth, my light pours out of my mouth”. A criticism on the world, at large, done so nihilistically it hurts. Throughout the album’s many shifts from spoken word (which borders on beat poetry when read by itself) into psychedelic instrumentation, the album feels like a summarization of every little negative thing we can comment on the current American climate; and a strikingly supportive view on individualism within a world of what they see as pointless.
7
A love letter to music, on the whole, Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City is borderline Biblical in its religious imagery – but it’s also tongue-in-cheek while balancing out sincerity. By the time the album’s best track, “Ya Hey”, comes around – the way in which the band captures the industrialization of cityscapes eventually becomes something more primitive. By emphasizing the shifts in music itself, and appropriately changing up what is expected in delivering the old under the mask of something new, Vampire Weekend’s album becomes an alarming album that is pinnacle 2010s, while drawing attention to the very artform’s endless branches of change. Somehow, camel-riding in Jerusalem feels no different than a bicycle on the city streets. Vampires, indeed.
6
https://youtu.be/pYeNahbUNrw
Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz feels like it was made in Miley Cyrus’ basement. Many tracks reprise the same production, while lyrics are reprised again and again on tracks down the road. Everything is triggered by common things: smoking weed and having sex, all told through an off-putting dream logic. With references to emojis, and lines such as “let’s go na-na-nah” representing sex (as if Cyrus just couldn’t find the energy to write any more lyrics), Dead Petz is a hedonistic and annoying album, but so well-defined by its concept that it captures exactly what is necessary; a 92-minute break from a studio-controlled pop artist so that she can share her multi-faceted feelings of emptiness, confusion, depression, loneliness, incompatibility, and a need for expression.
5
Sufjan Stevens has been on the verge of retrospection almost his entire career, and yet his calming, reverb-natural voice has always felt a bit detached. His albums of the past have always had this distant, yet close, oxymoronic feeling (recall Illionis). On Carrie & Lowell, Stevens makes way into the realm of “mommy issues” by, once again, approaching the subject from afar. While trying to steer away from anything that would admit to trauma, he finds himself incapable of avoiding the most violent of imagery to show both his grief and anger through what he’s reminiscing. “Head on the floorboards, drunk as a horsefly, climb on the mattress pad, twist my arm”.
4
https://youtu.be/cDFg7kuX97U
If Perfume Genius is insistent on facing outsiders with a maximalist representation of queer identity (and an embracement of male sensitivity), John Grant is less self-aware – with a voice akin to Godsmack, but with lyrical content that intentionally blurs the line between emotionally resonant and downright goofy. On Queen of Denmark, he opens up with two tracks (“TC and Honeybear” and “Marz”) that include references to food (delicious desserts, to be exact), spewing out trivial lyrics to the point of where they feel alien. By the time we reach the last half of the album, his track “Jesus Hates Faggots” (where he compares gays to Froot Loops cereal) delivers the album’s queer overtones into the heights of surrealist. The imagery of this album is like Sweet Movie by way of self-loathing on being a gay man forced to stray into what it means to be “masculine”.
3
Salad Days by Mac Demarco is a surf-wave-cum-stoner-grunge type work that operates on some kind of off-putting relationship with Demarco’s self. There’s glimpses at love, but also glimpse at nihilism. While Demarco has founded an image off the absurd – and could very well be genuine – it shows through in his lyrics that he’s at a tug-of-war with himself while equally being comfortable in it. “Chamber of Reflection” is a terrifying horror-show of self-retrospection, speaking it in third-person by a way of expressing a fear of loneliness; something that is applicable to a millennial mindset, especially in terms of the contemporary, under-the-radar, Instagram-driven musician that isn’t pushing for universality.
2
Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is equally in a hellish landscape – only West’s hip-hop repetition and asinine lyrics create a genuine representation of a man stuck within both his fame and his origins, while creating a pop character of his own that is representative of a multitude of constructs that dare to tread into the shameless. His vulgarity isn’t necessarily off-putting, but instead quite tragic. By the time the track “Blame Game” comes around, its like a cry for help – and whether its stemming from a real place, or not, is best left up to the unknown; a fantasy, have you will - and one that is euphoric and tragic.
1
Ultraviolence is peak Lana Del Rey, even though she has consistently proven that she can stay on the same wavelength throughout her other albums. The criticism for her cycling the same themes is valid, but its also exactly what causes such a reaction to her work that is overly positive. The woman is a storyteller, paying homage when due, and then remaining self-aware to her pop image while crossing into different genres – sometimes within the same track. Ultraviolence beautifully blends her pop sensibilities with progressive rock and jazz – creating a baroque atmosphere that peaks into hellish territory; both a cautionary tale and masochistic love story.
Solar Fields liked a post in a topic by KingOfConeyIsland in Arca
thatsomason liked a post in a topic by KingOfConeyIsland in Arca
latothemoon liked a post in a topic by KingOfConeyIsland in What Are You Listening To?
National Anthem liked a post in a topic by KingOfConeyIsland in What Are You Listening To?