Nominated By: meccalecca
Genres [RYM]: Avant-Folk, Art Pop
Instructions:
Please listen to both albums in full before voting. Share your thoughts and/or your vote in this thread. This poll will be tallied in no less than twelve days. See Tournament Spreadsheet for the full bracket. _________________ Join us in the canon game :) / Add me on RYM
I don't expect 'Being You' to do too well, in all honesty I rated it a 6/10 when I first heard it, lol.
But hopefully some people hear in it what I started hearing on repeated listens. 'Being You' is a hazy and colourful dive into a culture of celebrated narcissism and perpetual self loathing. Where we are constantly told to take photos of ourselves looking our best and think we're the best looking person in the whole damn world. In reality we're just another deadbeat in one of millions of coffee shops looking for discounts online on more shit.
Most importantly it's the total irony of the whole situation. It makes no sense, so might as well just ride that wave. In an industry where we frequently celebrate melodrama, it's a total breath of fresh air that Quelle is able to drop something as genuinely funny and genuinely genuine. It's about everything and nothing at the same time. Quelle Chris is one of the few MC's that's actually a poet and a rapper. He proves that what you say is more important than how you say it. The beats are lo-fi and apathetic, sometimes barely coherent, and Quelle Chris and the featuring artists all totally play off it. A real 'complete' piece. I've listened to it more times than I'm proud to admit. Probably in my top 5 of the decade.
From his Bandcamp:
Quote:
Quelle Chris fucks with himself. Most of the time. Honestly, it might depend on when and where you catch him. That’s to say that the Detroit representative is like the rest of us—surfing on waves of self-confidence, enduring periods of self-doubt, and searching for a sustainable balance.
The primary difference between Quelle and us is that he’s supremely gifted at rapping and producing. He’s funnier too—in the way that the best comedians are deceptively complex and prone to bouts of melancholy. His new album, Being You is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often, is one of the most poignant, self-aware, and hilarious rap albums in recent memory. We should probably offer him some flowers, a case of expensive liquor, and cover the bill for the group therapy session.
...
Despite the preponderance of talent sharing the stage, the guests bend to the world that Quelle created. A darker shade of psychedelia, as if Madvillain gobbled anti-anxiety pills instead of psilocybin. Or maybe a fraternal drunken twin to Open Mike Eagle’s “Dark Comedy.”
The title comes from a real-life discussion about the difficulties of consistency. How each of us are subject to both our own bad spirits and bursts of inspiration, those unavoidable Serotonin and dopamine peaks and valleys. Being You is Great is an attempt to catalog those moods. It’s about learning to love, or at least recognize, the best and worst of one’s self. It’s about loneliness and comfort. Learning to hate love and learning to love hate.
Sequenced so that extreme confidence follows casual despair, the pendulum swings back and forth, mirroring our own emotions and validating something that Nietszche and Ray Bradbury once claimed: “we have art so we won’t die of truth.”
If hip-hop is filled with everymen and superheroes, Quelle Chris has done something quietly radical. This record is almost too human—full of the sublte revelations that only come to you later in life, when you realize that heroes make plenty of errors, and anti-heroes often have merit.
It’s not an exuberant celebration of human life, nor is it a politicized condemnation of what got us here. It’s a record with beats that will make you bob your head and tap your feet, and clever lyrics that will make you laugh and scrunch your face. But most of all, it’s a record with a tremendous reserve of empathy. Something that captures the wonder and madness of being human. Something relentlessly honest. Something great.
Last edited by Puncture Repair on 08/23/2018 07:37; edited 1 time in total
I don't expect 'Being You' to do too well, in all honesty I rated it a 6/10 when I first heard it, lol.
But hopefully some people hear in it what I started hearing on repeated listens. 'Being You' is a hazy and colourful dive into a culture of celebrated narcissism and perpetual self loathing. Where we are constantly told to take photos of ourselves looking our best and think we're the best looking person in the whole damn world. In reality we're just another deadbeat in one of millions of coffee shops looking for discounts online on more shit.
Most importantly it's the total irony of the whole situation. It makes no sense, so might as well just ride that wave. In an industry where we frequently celebrate melodrama, it's a total breath of fresh air that Quelle is able to drop something as genuinely funny and genuinely genuine. It's about everything and nothing at the same time. Quelle Chris is one of the few MC's that's actually a poet and a rapper. He proves that what you say is more important than how you say it. The beats are lo-fi and apathetic, sometimes barely coherent, and Quelle Chris and the featuring artists all totally play off it. A real 'complete' piece. I've listened to it more times than I'm proud to admit. Probably in my top 5 of the decade.
Quote:
Quelle Chris fucks with himself. Most of the time. Honestly, it might depend on when and where you catch him. That’s to say that the Detroit representative is like the rest of us—surfing on waves of self-confidence, enduring periods of self-doubt, and searching for a sustainable balance.
The primary difference between Quelle and us is that he’s supremely gifted at rapping and producing. He’s funnier too—in the way that the best comedians are deceptively complex and prone to bouts of melancholy. His new album, Being You is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often, is one of the most poignant, self-aware, and hilarious rap albums in recent memory. We should probably offer him some flowers, a case of expensive liquor, and cover the bill for the group therapy session.
...
Despite the preponderance of talent sharing the stage, the guests bend to the world that Quelle created. A darker shade of psychedelia, as if Madvillain gobbled anti-anxiety pills instead of psilocybin. Or maybe a fraternal drunken twin to Open Mike Eagle’s “Dark Comedy.”
The title comes from a real-life discussion about the difficulties of consistency. How each of us are subject to both our own bad spirits and bursts of inspiration, those unavoidable Serotonin and dopamine peaks and valleys. Being You is Great is an attempt to catalog those moods. It’s about learning to love, or at least recognize, the best and worst of one’s self. It’s about loneliness and comfort. Learning to hate love and learning to love hate.
Sequenced so that extreme confidence follows casual despair, the pendulum swings back and forth, mirroring our own emotions and validating something that Nietszche and Ray Bradbury once claimed: “we have art so we won’t die of truth.”
If hip-hop is filled with everymen and superheroes, Quelle Chris has done something quietly radical. This record is almost too human—full of the sublte revelations that only come to you later in life, when you realize that heroes make plenty of errors, and anti-heroes often have merit.
It’s not an exuberant celebration of human life, nor is it a politicized condemnation of what got us here. It’s a record with beats that will make you bob your head and tap your feet, and clever lyrics that will make you laugh and scrunch your face. But most of all, it’s a record with a tremendous reserve of empathy. Something that captures the wonder and madness of being human. Something relentlessly honest. Something great.
i wish i'd read this before voting. i liked both albums and went with the folkier one, but i can't help feeling like i need to listen to both of these a few more times to truly click with'm. _________________ follow me on the bandcamp.
I feel like this whole era of art pop is knocking it out of the park. Maybe it's because I'm white and growing old[er]. Whatever it is, it feels awesome.
Both are lovely, but Quelle Chris for me, who has been one of my favourite rappers since Shotgun & Sleek Rifle dropped (which you should really go check out if you liked this one). _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
I have a bit the opposite feeling than Luigii: when I first heard the Circuit Des Yeux album when it came out I was very enthusiastic about it. When I listened to it a second time later in 2017 my enthusiasm cooled a bit and now when I hear it for the third time I'm wondering why if thought it was so special. It's still in my top chart of 2017 and it's certainly better than its hiphop contender (which didn't really convert me to hiphop) though.
Listened to both, still can’t choose. Which for me is something of a surprise as you’d have thought Circuit Des Yeux would have pressed all the right buttons (hell, she sounds like a cross between Beverly-Glenn Copeland and Robbie Basho). And it sure does, but for a genre I know next-to-nowt about (and the fact that on paper it sounds like Fantano fanboy fodder) I’m really enjoying the Quelle Chris LP.
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