Apologies for neglecting this thread a bit, it's been a busy weekend.
Anyway, one thing that stands out about your chart compared to most other BEA members is the relative lack of vocal tracks. In your top 10, all are predominantly instrumental except Pink Moon and The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Another Green World is a mix). However, in your description of your love for Joni Mitchell's music, you expressed a close personal connection to her lyrics. Do you find you have difficulty connecting to most lyrics in popular music? Is there anything deeper driving your preference for instrumental music or is it just a product of circumstance -- that is, the artists who you connect with most just happened to express themselves through music alone?
I know that note was some kind of a joke, anyway you described very well the points of that album. And it's not my favourite Dylan's album, but surely it's a great album. The songs you nominated are fabulous.
Well, since one of my favourite artists is Eno, my question will be about him.
First of all: how did you discover him? (if you remember)
Do you think his importance and influence on popular music did something for you appreciating him?
Another Green World is a mix of singed songs and more atmospheric ones.. which ones do you prefer?
And, in general, what are your favourite Eno's pieces?
Anyway, one thing that stands out about your chart compared to most other BEA members is the relative lack of vocal tracks. In your top 10, all are predominantly instrumental except Pink Moon and The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Another Green World is a mix). However, in your description of your love for Joni Mitchell's music, you expressed a close personal connection to her lyrics. Do you find you have difficulty connecting to most lyrics in popular music? Is there anything deeper driving your preference for instrumental music or is it just a product of circumstance -- that is, the artists who you connect with most just happened to express themselves through music alone?
This is actually a question I've tossed around a lot myself; being someone who values quality lyricism very highly, it has struck me as odd, and I haven't come to any real solid conclusion, but I'm more than happy to share some conjecture.
The ability to string words together in a way that evokes emotion is something truly special, just as is the ability to arrange sounds to the same end. For one person to be truly skilled at both is remarkable enough, but to be skilled at doing both in conjunction such that the two exist in perform synthesis without either feeling like an afterthought in regards to the other, that's practically impossible to do in a really meaningful way. Whereas I'll often find music I love but where I could care less for the lyrical content (but can overlook the specifics of said lyrical content if they are still delivered in a way that I find aurally pleasing -this is often the case with certain hip-hop (and other) artists where it's not the lyrical subject matter I care for so much as it is musical qualities the lyrics posses upon delivery, e.g. thoughtfully crafted internal ryhme patterns), it is exceedingly rare that I'll find an album where the inverse is the case. All of the lyric centric pieces I have on my chart are composed in a way such that even the most hyper-literate of works come together with the literary and musical elements blended into one inseparable whole, (which isn't to say that the lyrics can't act as art in their own right, but when separated from the music for which they were originally composed, they become something else entirely. Much like how when I see poetry set to music (a trend becoming increasingly common in contemporary lyrical classical -aside: American composer Gordon Getty fairly recently composed a cycle of 32 Emily Dickinson poems set to music in more of a 19th century classical style as The White Election and it was lovely-) the poetry and music, when worked together into one cohesive piece, become something entirely different, and possessing entirely different artistic qualities, from each of their respective origins.
Going back to whatever the fuck my original point was, I just think for me it is generally very rare to a find an album where I feel the lyrics and music are purveyed in such a way that both feel entirely integral to their collective unique whole; where both feel so entirely necessary that I cannot imagine consuming one separate from the other in nearly the same way; as much as I adore reading over the poetry of Nick Drake or Joanna Newsom, they've managed to purvey what already would've been gorgeous works of art in the realm of literature in a context that turns them into something else entirely, something where the collective whole is a completely fresh entity from the sum of its parts.
I feel like I've been skiting around some kind of general idea here but have yet to actually really fully articulate it in a way that feels right to me. I may revisit this but I hope for now the above made any minor degree of sense
Haha I don't. He's been with me for so long, though I think I probably found him via the Talking Heads some eternity ago...
Mies wrote:
Do you think his importance and influence on popular music did something for you appreciating him?
I certainly respect and appreciate (to varying degrees) influence on and importance to popular music (or the development of any music) from a historical (and to a lesser extent, artistic) standpoint, but an artist's historical status as in innovator doesn't necessarily affect how I perceive the actual music that they create. HOWEVER seeing Eno's influence everywhere does help me understand (to some extent anyway) his approach to music as an artist and an innovator, and greater understanding often brings with it greater appreciation/enjoyment.
Mies wrote:
Another Green World is a mix of singed songs and more atmospheric ones.. which ones do you prefer?
Neither. AGW is an album where I nearly always listen to in full. It is a wonderfully cohesive whole. I scarcely ever approach looking for a single song, (though I suppose "I'll Come Running" does work individually nicely as probably the closest thing on the album to a conventional pop song). Anyway, yeah I really can't separate the instrumental pieces from the lyrical ones, and I really can't say I prefer either over the other being how they are so clearly designed to fit together in the perfect jigsaw puzzle that is their album, (though to contradict everything I just said I will say "St. Elmo's Fire" might be my favorite bit.)
Mies wrote:
And, in general, what are your favourite Eno's pieces?
Haha this is actually probably the hardest of these questions, seeing as almost everything Eno (I suppose everything post-Roxy Music, whom I do love) album-wise, to me, shares the quality of "cohesive wholeness" such as I described for Another Green World. I'd be more than happy if everything he did (at least solo) was presented in a Thursday Afternoon "single-massive-track" manner. I hardly ever dissect solo Eno albums for listening, (though I will occasionally peruse Talking Heads, Roxy Music, other Eno produced bands/projects/etc. for some singles every now and then).
even if I didn't write any post I've been following this thread since the beginning and I'm really enjoying it
I really love the comment on Ys by Joanna Newsom:
"And essentially this is what Ys is all about, an implicit sense of beauty that slowly seeps into your consciousness without ever forcing itself. Very scarcely can an album be this intricately and meticulously arranged, and yet still so effortlessly beautiful"
was it love af first sight?
Anyway thanks for your answers.
I'm glad I feel exactly the same about importance and influence, and all those things.
About AGW, I imagined you would have answered like that, ahah. Though you satisfied my curiosity with the last period. Funny: I had that song in my head all the time today, and I haven't heard it for a while.
The answer to the last one would be hard for me, too, indeed. But maybe I would put more of my force in! ahah joking, it's just too hard: there are very long pieces, extreme differences between one and other, etc.. And yes as you said his pieces work better as parts of albums.
ok I know who Eno is but I never listened to any of his records, which is the best one to start with?
What??!!
Ahah
Ok start with Another Green World, it's really a classic, even people who don't like Eno (if they exist) prob like it.
Or maybe Taking Tiger Mountain, too.
...I hate this album, because I'll put on my ambient playlist, hoping to study without getting distracted by the music, and then The Disintegration Loops comes on and I know I am fucked. I want to put this on in the background, but I found myself unable, as I can't help but try to seek out every change in composition with each repeating loop...
As someone with ADD tendencies, this level of attention to detail is difficult to fathom. Regardless, your note got me thinking about ambient music and the role it plays in the life of avid music lovers. In your mind, what is ambient music? Here I'm not talking about the ambient genre, but rather "ambient" as a descriptive term. Would you say The Disintegration Loops failed as ambient music?
Also, what fraction of your listening is done with music serving an "ambient" role?
Would you say The Disintegration Loops failed as ambient music?
I (sorry, waiting for a better answer by dbz but in the meanwhile) think it depends on how a person like to listen to ambient music: some like to put it on background, some others like to listen to it with full attention. Though it depends on which album too.
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