BEA's Year-End List Extra: The Most Controversial Albums - Music

Muslim-Bigfoot

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

LevonTostig wrote:

What in the heck are you talking about? Have you even read the story behind the album? Did you listen to the lyrics?
I respect you giving it a few tries, but that's really quite the opposite of what this record represents.

Lyrics can't save a musically banal album.
_________________
"I feel like for the last two years there’s been sort of a sonic evolution happening and I’ve been experimenting more and more."

Mercury
Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male
Location: St. Louis

Lost In The Dream is a very beautiful album, melding as it does, distant, dreamy ambience with a space and dynamic and contemplative grace reminiscent of Talk Talk, it has the voice and emotional delivery of 80s era Dylan or Kaputt-era Destroyer, also it has the great pop rhythms of mid 80s Kate Bush albums or latter day Roxy Music. Man, This album is hopeful, lonely, bitter in parts, it feels completely immersed in internal emotional struggles, yet it manages to stay composed enough to push along with a knowingness or, at least, a hope that it will all be okay in the end. It's just awe inspiring the way it seamlessly incorporates blissful and downright emotionally plaintive guitar tracks with reverb drenched vocal tracks which, to my ears, expresses exactly that swimy-eyed sadness and aching that can overtake a person living in the modern world. The lyrics aren't pure poetry or particularly impressive prose, but from snippets that ring out loud and clear there is a bitterness and sadness which is tangible and beautiful and inclusive as I'm sure most anyone can relate to these downhearted feelings. As a complete record it flows from layered ambient parts which contain huge amounts of human emotion, to urgent, vital rock parts to extended streaming guitar parts. I love how sometimes the guitar will just find that perfect heart wrenching chord or note and will stay on it and return to it. Those guitar parts in a way seem to be releasing these feelings The vocals are nice and emotional as hell at times and hark back to late 70s Dylan and late 70s Petty and Henley and even a little bit the vocal tones of Springsteen.

Yeah the record as a whole is just about as immersive and beautiful and expression of love lost as I've heard. And as for it being "suburban" or "white" - well fuck off. It's human, it expresses the universal feelings of being demolished emotionally and not knowing what the fuck you're supposed to do next except just keep on trying and living and searching for some sort of reason. This album was a revelation the first time I heard it. And to this day is a favorite.

So, basically, yeah this is super "bland" and "boring" and "beer rock" an blah blah blah
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-Ryan

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dmercado

Gender: Male
Age: 32
Location: Cambridge, MA

Lost in the Dream is also in my top 10 for this past year. But I also like Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, and those two albums kinda go hand in hand. Definitely wouldn't put it at the top, it was a good album, very enjoyable to listen to, much American "whoo!", wouldn't say it's boring, don't see what's there to hate about it Think

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mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

Mercury wrote:

Lost In The Dream is a very beautiful album, melding as it does, distant, dreamy ambience with a space and dynamic and contemplative grace reminiscent of Talk Talk, it has the voice and emotional delivery of 80s era Dylan or Kaputt-era Destroyer, also it has the great pop rhythms of mid 80s Kate Bush albums or latter day Roxy Music. Man, This album is hopeful, lonely, bitter in parts, it feels completely immersed in internal emotional struggles, yet it manages to stay composed enough to push along with a knowingness or, at least, a hope that it will all be okay in the end. It's just awe inspiring the way it seamlessly incorporates blissful and downright emotionally plaintive guitar tracks with reverb drenched vocal tracks which, to my ears, expresses exactly that swimy-eyed sadness and aching that can overtake a person living in the modern world. The lyrics aren't pure poetry or particularly impressive prose, but from snippets that ring out loud and clear there is a bitterness and sadness which is tangible and beautiful and inclusive as I'm sure most anyone can relate to these downhearted feelings. As a complete record it flows from layered ambient parts which contain huge amounts of human emotion, to urgent, vital rock parts to extended streaming guitar parts. I love how sometimes the guitar will just find that perfect heart wrenching chord or note and will stay on it and return to it. Those guitar parts in a way seem to be releasing these feelings The vocals are nice and emotional as hell at times and hark back to late 70s Dylan and late 70s Petty and Henley and even a little bit the vocal tones of Springsteen.

Yeah the record as a whole is just about as immersive and beautiful and expression of love lost as I've heard. And as for it being "suburban" or "white" - well fuck off. It's human, it expresses the universal feelings of being demolished emotionally and not knowing what the fuck you're supposed to do next except just keep on trying and living and searching for some sort of reason. This album was a revelation the first time I heard it. And to this day is a favorite.

So, basically, yeah this is super "bland" and "boring" and "beer rock" an blah blah blah

Not the comparisons I would make, but yeah, Mercury is on point here.

sp4cetiger

Mercury wrote:

And as for it being "suburban" or "white" - well fuck off.

I can't say the hostile responses of some of the album's fans have worked to make the it sound less like it was coming from a position of self-absorbed naivete. Surely you can acknowledge that not everybody will see it the way you do.

Muslim-Bigfoot

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Mercury wrote:

Lost In The Dream is a very beautiful album, melding as it does, distant, dreamy ambience with a space and dynamic and contemplative grace reminiscent of Talk Talk

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

_________________
"I feel like for the last two years there’s been sort of a sonic evolution happening and I’ve been experimenting more and more."

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

sp4cetiger wrote:

I can't say the hostile responses of some of the album's fans have worked to make the it sound less like it was coming from a position of self-absorbed naivete. Surely you can acknowledge that not everybody will see it the way you do.

I don’t know man, it’s just calling something too “white” or “suburban” seems almost like a non-criticism to me, like you are reaching for a good putdown to inspire argument rather than proper exchange of dialogue (or it seems like you don’t really have a developed sense of why you dislike it and instead choose to use this put-down for some reason that I could not know). Maybe your mindset is just a sort of blasé exhaustion as you are tired of something realmed in familiarity? But that’s me trying to analyze based on assumption and lack of understanding here.

I do not mean to be hostile or dismissive, but I can’t wrap my head around what you’re getting at or trying to do here.

Saoirse

Mercury wrote:

Yeah the record as a whole is just about as immersive and beautiful and expression of love lost as I've heard. And as for it being "suburban" or "white" - well fuck off.

You clearly like this album a lot and that;s great, as is ... most... of that summary, but when you put a "fuck off" in there it comes across as even more insulting than those (including myself) who only poke fun (and maybe sometimes go a bit over-the-top in doing so) at the actual music (which is all Ive seen here), not the listeners. Different opinions abound, no reason to get worked up about it.

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

Saoirse wrote:

You clearly like this album a lot and that;s great, as is ... most... of that summary, but when you put a "fuck off" in there it comes across as even more insulting than those (including myself) who only poke fun (and maybe sometimes go a bit over-the-top in doing so) at the actual music (which is all Ive seen here), not the listeners. Different opinions abound, no reason to get worked up about it.

I thought the “fuck off” was an apt way of vocalizing frustration from the non-criticism that equated to a backhanded argument bait. Even if I did not like Lost in the Dream I would feel that way. I suppose this is all can deconstruct into an argument about tact and such. I don’t know, but the excessive nature of the "lol this record sucks, deal" (not that was Tiger's point at all or his intention, or yours) can get exhausted in conversation when that conversation feels especially one-sided.

sp4cetiger

Gowienczyk wrote:

I do not mean to be hostile or dismissive, but I can’t wrap my head around what you’re getting at or trying to do here.

I was explaining how the album made me feel. That's all. Do you like it when you're attacked for how you feel about something?