So, I figured I didn't see thread yet on this and it's one of the best releases of the year. after I calm down on it I'm sure it will be in my top 5 no problem. 5 songs total, this album is quite a beast. it doesn't get boring or anything and joanna seems to have a little bit of a change to her voice. great songwritting. anyway...

discuss


ps. there is the sendspace link I think in the 2006 thread.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6tch3o

i'm in love with it!
haterz be dissin tha cover art, but i like it a lot.


Joanna looks sexy holding that sickle,
even in animation she's cute.

the cover art is great, but i hate this album.

her singing style is less annoying, and the string arrangements are pretty, but Milk-Eyed Mender has better songs.

each song here is an endless elfin nightmare.

So is this a really admirable album or a really great album?

I've yet to decide. Milk Eyed Mender was definitely more song oriented. This one's lyrics are wonderful, in an overwhelming sort of way. There are some pretty melodies poppping up here and there, but nowhere near as many as MEM. The recordings are just so damned different -- it's hard to really compare.

maybe a bit admirable, i doubt she'll be building her fanbase with these less-accessible songs.

then again, her lyrics ring so false. i don't buy her shtick at all, it's all a fantasy persona...so maybe it's just crap.

you seem to really dislike this stuff. too bad, its damn good.

there are plenty of people buzzing about it on the net. it has its fans.

so far, i am enjoying "ys" more than the milk-eyed mender. the arrangements are great and her voice is far less grating. but i don't think she's a particularly good lyricist.

edite: mind you, i enjoyed milk-eyed mender a great deal. it was in my top five for that year. so yeah, "ys" is good.

The cover could be worse



>

Dr Jimmy, I was refering to you, I wasnt really worried about the buzz around it. and yeah the cover is ugly but who cares. the music isnt.

Thanks for the link. Downloading tonight, listening to in a few days.

'At one moment during the mixing of this record, I said to Joanna, "I've got an idea for the ad for this record, just a picture of you, and above it says "music" and below it says "is back"." And I really meant it, this record not only recalls, but is part of, why i loved music in the first place. Someone's vision seen all the way through, sweat lost, brain racked, soul searched, and fingers calloused. I doubt we'll hear anything as brilliant in a long, long time’ --Jim O'Rourke


While I'm not quite as enthusiastic as Mr. O'Rourke, I do love this album. Probably won't make my top 10 though, just because it's been a really good year for music.

i've been listening to this album nonstop for the past few days. it's absolutely gorgeous; i love it.

a friend once put on Milk Eyed Mender and I wanted him to shut it off after like 30 seconds.

But I'm willing to give her another chance with this album. I sampled it and it sounds much

more palatable.

actually, i like the cover art. and, yes, her vocal style is better and the string arrangements are great.

but the melodies are very weak, and her lyrics feel fraudulent, i don't buy that she thinks or feels what she's singing.

she was pushing it before with stuff like "inflammatory writ," but at least that album had better melodies.


does anyone else feel like she's imitating Devendra's vocal style?? she needs to grow up a little.

hmm, i was just talking to someone today about this. i do think "ys" has weaker melodies than "milk-eyed mender". actually, i like the way "inflammatory writ' falls on the meter in that song. there was a wonderful simplicity to some of those songs on "milk-eyed mender" and the way she sung them. i'm thinking of lines like; "this is an old song/these are old blues/this is not my tune". granted some bits of "milk-eyed mender" felt a little labored ("i killed my dinner with karate."). even if it all is a bit silly she can sing any nonsense so long as it's sounds good.

i hate to say it, but "ys" is far more consistent an album than "milk-eyed mender".

I think I'm the only one who misses her more annoying voice.

and fuck the string arrangements.

I like Milk-Eyed Mender more, but that is one of my favorite albums ever.

The orchestrations are an interesting addition, but I don't honestly think a lot would be lost if they were gone. Her voice sounds like Bjork at times, and I definitely preferred her quirks on MEM.

Overall, this album will probably grow on me, and I love Joanna. However, it will not be replacing MEM as my favorite of hers.

Man, the only thing that is holding me back from loving this album is her voice.

If you can change your voice that much, why can't you change it from sucking?

I agree with Dr. Jimmy that she sounds much too like Devendra, and she

is forcing her vocal style. It just isn't natural,

and that gets on my nerves when I listen. Too many artists nowadays seem to try too hard

to sound different, but they just come off as sounding annoying like everyone else that's trying.

I'm not sure how many of you guys have seen her live, but there's nothing forced about that voice. It sounds and looks about as natural as can be when she's belting out her tunes on stage. She has a wonderful sound that certainly isn't for everyone, but about the last thing I'd consider it to be is unnatural.

I know I don't post all that much so hopefully I won't get jumped on for this, but could someone upload Milk-Eyed Mender? Back when it came out I downloaded a couple songs and didn't like them, deleted them, and never listened again. But so many artists I admire rave about her that I'd like to try it again.

Ys is an absolutly fantastic album!

I tried to listen to The Milk-Eyed Mender, but to me that record is so boring.
So I havent liked Joanna, but thanks for the download link!

okay, the first song, "Emily" is sort of ok, but it should have been 5 minutes long.

otherwise, i stand by everything that i've said.

yeah, I'm still not sold on that voice and the lyrics are DOA.

I don't like that curly kind of voice. I don't know how to explain it,

but so many people do it in variations:

Vedder
Banhart
Natalie Merchant
Norah Jones
Creed
etc.

not my thing, but I appreciate the effort.

i got to track 2 and had to turn it off. it's just not happening.

i think that's the problem DJ, you're wanting to hear songs not an album

if you try and listen for a single out of this record you're gonna be very dissapointed.

you take a single song out of this record and it doesn't work

yep..it's a grower.
man i really can't stop listening now.

first of all, thats her voice. it really isn't forced (to the best of my knowlege).
second, if Emily was 5 minutes, it wouldn't be near the status I have for it. these songs need to expand and suck you up and let you drift and pull you right back in. then again, I did like it from day one so I don;t know how much of a grower it might be.

I'll give this a shot. MEM could have been good but her voice was fucking grating. If this is different, then cool.

That's because the "hook" is vaguely reminiscent of a song on MEM -- I'm thinking "Sadie," but I don't have it on my computer to confirm that and I'm not in the mood to spelunk into my mountain of mess to find the disc.

I absolutely love this album and definitely admire her for making an album and not a bunch of singles. That is a rarity these days. Her voice is far more accessible and not as exorcistic, yet many people hear or have heard this voice and simply won't give her a chance, and that's a shame.

This gets better with every spin. I can't wait to get my hands on a vinyl copy. Check out the sweet packaging for the CD.

Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender


Regarding the complaint about not as many melodies, I don't really believe that. If you break them down, each song has at least two (sometimes three) very distinct melodies that may not be able to stand as songs (verse/chorus/verse) on their own but provide something different to hum and look forward to as each song plays out.

does she have any naked pictures? if not, any old pic will do. she's hot

if you're into bestiality, check out the picture posted on stereogum yesterday.

thank you.

still fucking grating

man, i'm still on the fence with this thing! hate and love all at once...

this may sound stupid, but how many tracks is this thing? i only have 5 very long tracks.

you got the whole thing. its like 13 min, 9 min, 17 min, 8 and then 7 or something like that.

has anybody seen here live?

I was supposed to see her live and in person at the andy warhol museum in pittsburgh I believe was the place but it sold out immediatly to my suprise. I've heard quite a bit of live stuff from her from a friend. I can possibly see if he has any availiable to up but it might take some time to track him/it down.

i saw video of her playing live. just her and a harp. she was good.


this album sucks.

Yeah, I saw her a couple years ago and she was amazing.

This album rules.

I think, I agree with burzum yet again. I like your style burzum (though I can't get into all that noise/metal, some but not all)

As "Emily" was about to end, I thought "wow, this is a pretty amazing song". But now as I near the end of the album, it just all seems too much. I love the old Disney soundtrack orchestration. I do like that she toned her voice down a bit on this album. I like bits of the lyrics here & there, but I'll need time to absorb all of those. I never quite came to a conclusion on her as a lyricist. (On MEM, I thought that she showed promise and flashes of brilliance, but then there'd be a really forced, trying-to-be-clever line or something. Big words or fantastical imagery doesn't always necessarily = a good lyricist.) As for the length of the songs... some songs need to be longer than others. "Rubies" for example, has enough shifting and enough interesting things going on and it builds towards somewhere. The intro, the verse, the amazing percussion, the "lalalala..." bit, the "typical me" quietdown, the "aaaaaaah...ahhh....ahhh...", the acoustic bits, that inescapable lead guitar line that keeps returning - there's plenty going on. Not every song has to be under 5 minutes, but as with the new Dylan album, all of these songs don't feel like they needed to be this long. Had Dylan shaved about two minutes off of each song on Modern Times, I think I'd be loving it a lot more than I currently do. And had Newsom shaved a couple of minutes off of these songs - I think I'd find the songs more amazing.

talked about this in some other threads. i've seen her at Logan Square Auditorium and The Vic. LSA was really good, like Jimmy said, just her and her harp, i almost liked it more than the record (at the time MEM).

Vic was ok, just because it was that dopey WIRED magazine "NextFest" so not everyone was there for her and there was way too much talking going on. She did play some of these new songs there, though.

Thanks for upping MEM. As sometimes happens with me, I remember disliking it more than I did, so now going back to it I'm actually liking it. I think I went in the first time with expectations too high. Her voice isn't as irritating as I remembered; in fact sometimes it's even pretty. Now I'm actually hoping she comes through town soon so I get a chance to catch her live.

I've only given one listen to each of the albums so far, but it seems like a Joni Mitchell influence is heavily over the second album, but I'm not hearing it on the first.

Ys is easily my album of the year at this point. Although i thought some of the songs were a bit much at first, now i can't imagine any of the songs being shorter than they are without sacrificing what makes them so stunning (with the only exception being Monkey & Bear, which i find damn irritating). Granted, the style of music Joanna employs here is not for everyone. Unlike MEM, here the tracks ebb and flow, allowing the storytelling to take center stage. By freeing herself from the contraints of traditional 'song structure', Newsom creates an album that functions in the same way that most post-rock albums do. Each track floats along, without approaching, or rather not seeming to approach, any sort of conclusion. And yet, the songs do go somewhere, assuming the listener is willing to hear the story to the very end. And this, i imagine, is why some people will not embrace Ys. There may be a constant sense of building in some of these songs, but sometimes the climax will come early, sometimes late, and sometimes not at all. If there ever was an album that requires an audience moreso than simply a listener, than this is it.

Can't say I'm a huge fan of this album.
I have only had one listen, and i bet that it takes at least four or five to do its magic. But honestly, the songs are just too long.

Sawdust and Diamonds is fantastic though.