That lyric sounds like something out of a countryside magazine. Also who the fuck uses the word marrow? Overall comes to me as overexaggerating something simple.

Uh lyrics I like eh?

Death was just a simple glance across a dim lit room
And those eyes did it
Those three words did it
Those three words killed him
And I surrender to it all
Between you and me, I surrender to you
Forgive me for the sadness
And the bringing of you down
I just needed a lover and I needed a friend
And there you were
Running from forever like all the rest
Three simple words bled me dry
Three simple word bled us dry, bled us dry
I love you

Is good, I guess.

melted cheese is a good defender. and I too like the way joanna can weave words around a simple thing such as, I am happy, or the trees look amazing with sun shining through them. what a good cd. jesus.

Edit. whoa, I forgot I changed my avitar and re-relized how fucking sweet it is.

Uh lyrics I like eh?

Death was just a simple glance across a dim lit room
And those eyes did it
Those three words did it
Those three words killed him
And I surrender to it all
Between you and me, I surrender to you
Forgive me for the sadness
And the bringing of you down
I just needed a lover and I needed a friend
And there you were
Running from forever like all the rest
Three simple words bled me dry
Three simple word bled us dry, bled us dry
I love you

Is good, I guess.
[/quote]

That's a pretty cool image. I like those lyrics. I just don't understand how you can toss around slander like 'grade school poetry' (really one of the ultimate insults you can chuck at a poet/lyricist', and then flaunt something as straightforward and blatant and much more reminiscent of grade school poetry as 'three simple words bled us dry / I love you'

I think for poetry to have any merit it needs to take a second (or third or fourth) read to wrap yourself around all its subtleties. There's not much subtlety in 'I just needed a love and I needed a friend'. Its just as fun to sit with Newsom's lyric sheet as it is to actually listen to the album. Though I suppose if you want to simplify it to 'some stuff about a monkey and a bear' (lol), then I suppose go ahead. I'll just write those lyrics of yours off as 'some stuff about love'... though if you really want to look at the lyrics to 'monkey and bear', you'll find it has a lot more interesting things to say about love than the above snippet...

But really it just seems like a fundamental difference in preference (as with all things on this board I suppose), so we don't have to argue it anymore... you just might be advised not to equate any lyrics that are as obviously thought-through and thought-provoking as Newsom's to grade school poetry... whether or not they're your cup of tea.

Grade school was a poor choice of grade.

Other than that I stand by what I think of the lyrics of the album. I'd rather lyrics got to the point and be brutal rather than trapse around things like Newsom does.

But I'm not one to go for the "Your an idiot for liking this lolz" rhetoric, so if you dig it, more power to you. I've just been trying to explain where I'm coming from re my dislike of the album's lyrical content.

Haha. I think we just kissed and made up. Our last two posts were pretty weak.

I think your choice of lyrics to share (where are those from, BTW?) really sort of settled this.

You like your lyrics blunt.
I like my lyrics subtle.

Let's go listen to Return to Cookie Mountain and call it a day.

See, as a lyrics lover (which I am), my taste in lyrics can really vary.

Newsom's lyrical floweriness really works for me. She's smart enough to pull it off without losing the point of what she's saying, and her choice of words is always pretty stunning.

Of course, I also love the blunt one-liners of Isaac Brock. He's like a trucker poet.

To look for 'subtlety' in a Converge song is to miss the point.

Wow, the good old "sophomore English poetry" insult isn't good enough anymore, it seems. It did get a huge workout after the Corgan record came out, though.

Most lyrics could earn that criticism if they were just pasted onto a message board out of context. It's kind of a setup for anyone to say whatever they want about it and doesn't really prove a point most of the time.

No one is looking for subtlety in a Converge song. Just the pointless exercise of assessing lyrics copied and pasted onto a message board.

Obviously it's difficult for any lyrics to stand up when converted into stand-alone poetry... but that, I think, is why Newsom is so gifted. Hers do. She could be belting them out angelically over harp music or reading them somberly in some coffee shop open-mic session and I think they would be equally impactful.

And that is a Converge song.

quote]
And that is a Converge song.
[/quote]

Dude its not a Converge 'song'. It's some Converge lyrics taken completely out of context, is what I'm saying.

Obviously if I'm listening to Converge I'm not gonna be like 'damn these lyrics aren't nearly subtle enough for my taste'. But it was posted as a counterpoint to Newsom's lyrics, which had been critiqued as 'grade school poetry' (later ammended to 'high school poetry'), which is a joke. I'm a creative writing student and I haven't seen many graduate students (or professors or 'professional poets' for that matter) that have a command of language as deft as Newsom.

So I finally listened to the album of many flames and arguments and i'm feeling kinda meh after my first listen. I'm feeling it as a good album and i'm sure i'll enjoy my next few listens but I can't call it a great album or album of the year. It's a bit lacking in variety for me, and it seemed like the parts I was really in to only lasted for 45 seconds or so before the songs would shift back into the parts i was pretty meh about. Maybe upon a further listen i'll hear some buried stuff in the mix to get excited about but i'm not counting on it. Personaly for me the lyrics are secondary to the music so she can write all the great lyrics she wants but if the music isn't doing it for me I won't be interested for very long.

Anyone ever seen her live performace?

I have a chance to see her tomorrow night, and I'm trying to decide if it would be worthwhile. I'm not a super-fan or anything, but I've listened to Ys a few times and enjoyed it pretty well.

Saw her last Sunday and it was really amazing. She played 2 songs of Milk-Eyed Mender, a scottish folk song, then all of Ys, then an encore with 2 more old songs. She plays with a band that includes percussion, accordian, musical saw, banjo, guitar, and mandolin and they do a wonderful job of transposing the orchestral score. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Thanks for the recommendation Burzum. I think I'll try to go if I can manage to snag a ticket. They're only $7!

I am still realy pissed that I missed her at the Black Cat last Friday.

I saw her at Bonnaroo two years ago, and was pretty blown away. Of course, I was at Bonnaroo, so it was bound to be pretty breathtaking.

I don't want to seem nasty (too late, I know), but that's funny on a number of levels.

And nice of Rob to duck and run.

lol... yeah, set those pins up for you quite nicely... thanks for not knocking them down too hard...

After my further investigation, which is admittedly not thorough, this album is solid.

Pretty arrangements, strumming. I love her voice. The lyrics are probably good, but I really can't listen to lyrics that carefully.

I can see why people like this. It's STRAIGHT out of the Sufjan Stevens school of pop music. I haven't listened to Sufjan much either (I can't, really), and like him, this isn't something I'll keep listening to, or get worked up about.

It's just another contender for album of the year that everyone seems to love, making it difficult to argue on behalf of Sunset Rubdown for that top spot.

I wouldn't worry too much about 'everyone' loving this album. It might get a couple number one votes (like mine), but there will likely be a lot of lists that it falls off of completely.

You know, lists made by mildly retarded people who don't know anything about music.

I don't really have a gauge on the popularity of Sunset Rubdown on this board yet (I don't really have a gauge of anything on this board yet), but I love that album. Spencer Krug is a dude.

It just got another #1 from me.

Yeah I had a feeling I could count on you...

I was busy attempting to stand up in Skyrack, you seemed to handle it ok.

And that student multi member jazz band that plays there kicks ass.


On the subject of Y's I'll probably give it a low vote because I liked the melodies on it and I enjoy her voice, just think she could be putting it to better use.

They tend to throw around a lot of trendy names, like hers.



Not a big deal though.

Another vote for this album being awesome.

Oh, and what's this? Pictures where she doesn't look like an elf?!

OGLE.

Not "oogle."

ALRIGHT TOUGH GUY.

Uhhh, "all right."

Welcome back, man.

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19990604

I dominate.

Yeah, wtf. I only use "alright." One of my editors changed one to "all right" and I just figured she messed up.

Oh, and I just downloaded this CD tonight. I knew I was back in this thread for a reason (other than to ogle that cute sig pic of her). I haven't listened to it yet.

I dunno I love Sufjan and I only like this album maybe she got only a C average at his pop school?

Holy fuck! That's Bill Callahan singing on the second-to-last last track!

(three minutes later)

Holy fuck! I just went back and read something in this thread that said that they're DATING! Ew! So I guess that's why she played piano on A River Ain't Too Much Too Love... because she twirls around on his dick all fucking day.

Joanna took this picture of Callahan, that's her shadow.

I listened to this album last night. It was almost semi-alright. I'm listening to the soundtrack from the Tenacious D movie right now, and am enjoying myself immensely, so I can't really process my exact thoughts on Ys at this very moment.

Well, she's definitely better at the harp than Sufjan is at any of the instruments he plays... though he does play like 20 instruments so I think he might have the edge...

Really I don't think the two of them are all that comparable, though. Sufjan's writes pop songs, generally with choruses and such. Newsom did on the Milk-Eyed Mender but the stuff on Ys is nothing like that. Sufjan's melodies are the center of his music while I think Newsom tends to sort of bury hers... which I think is what I like so much about this album. You get swept up in the harp and the strings and everything's nice and then wham! out comes one of the loveliest melodies you've heard in a while (no I don't usually use the word 'lovely', but doesn't it just seem to apply to Newsom?)

except her melodies don't hit me this way. they're too unwieldy. then again, i also have a hard time with Mahler.

sufjan works much harder on constructing complex, cohesive melodies. joanna's melodies wander whimsically with the wind.

I think this fairly accurately describes the difference between them as a whole. Sufjan's songs feel very calculated, structured, each note and each track on the mix meticulously poured over. The end result is obviously pretty spectacular.

While I'm sure Newsom is just as obsessive, her songs seem to just flow. They start and they go and they keep going and along the way they hit these peaks and valleys and stuff. I just haven't heard much songwriting like it, which I guess is why it feels so cool.

I also like when you can see an artist make a noticeable jump from one album to the next. Either in quality or technique or musical style or whatever... somthing I think Newsom clearly did.

As staggeringly good as Illinois is (and I think it's a solid leap beyond Michigan), all of the conventions that were in place on Michigan sort of reappear on Illinois. I wish I knew more technical music because I could articulate this better, but the fundamental songwriting--the way the songs build into these choruses punctuated by sticatto woodwinds and strings and such--feels pretty similar between Michigan and Illinois. I think unless Sufjan makes a more significant break from this sort of sound in the next album, he runs the risk of that sound feeling a bit stale. Not to say he needs to go back to electro-Sufjan or anything... but 50 (or how ever many he actually goes through with) albums that sound like Illinois and Michigan would be pretty tired.

I love this album so much. It's in my top 5 of 2006.

Any1 here have any doubt whatsoever that this will b P4k's AotY??????

Thread's proving why this will always be a B-level board.

name some A-level boards.

Music discussion:
ILXor (RIP?)

Etc. discussion:
hipinion

I could suggest more but I know some people would get upset by their mere mention here.

Who the fuck cares what magic letter you assign the board? I enjoy reading the discusions here...I could care less that some other board is somehow "better" and those people what? Somehow their feelings about music are better then the people on this boards feelings about music? Why even make a comment like that?

But you said that the rest of the internet sucked, Undo.

lol... this is like off the 'superior dick' scales...

what reason could you possiby have for taking the 20 seconds it took you to post this?

It's interesting, because I just finally gave Sufjan some more good listens last night, and I really enjoyed Michigan and Illinoise, definitely more than Ys. Sufjan vs. Joanna is what made me want to listen to Illinoise, a well-reviewed album I hadn't given a shot for over a year.

Sufjan is easy to like, I think. Everything about what he does seems purposeful and constructed. You can argue all you want about how great Ys is, but the fact that she and Van Dyke Parks collaborated after-the-fact does not help the sounds cohesiveness.

yeah i don't think we should give an A-level award to hipinion, considering the horrible child porn threads that hit them two years ago. disgusting time for boarding.

oh and it pretty much sucks now anyways.

I can't believe I hadn't seen this photo until now. It makes sense of this entire thread.

Wow, I hate music.