TITTWW continue to laud, debate, discredit, and dismiss Joanna Newsom's Ys

The first album really shouldn't sound SO much more alive in comparison if it's supposed to be this good.

newsom's pretty much a lock for my top 10 but it's not as good as paris's album (in top 3).

'cosmia' is like wow!

she reminds me, in very many surface ways, of tori amos: i admire this more than i love it right now (though am heading towards the second category with speed with every listen), but 15-yr-old lex would be LAPPING THIS UP.

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i like tori amos, bjork, karin dreijer and diamanda galas though, so Weird Women Voices are rarely a turn-off for me.

I'd flip that and say there are few other albums with such virulent detractors

Destroyer's Rubies

although on that thread I don't think too many people were saying it was flat-out terrible, just complaining that the praise was so over the top

(I'm a big fan fwiw ... of Destroyer and Newsom)

actually, I retract my statement to agree with this 'un.

Also this: Lol at "that Paris Hilton joint"

12/1/06 Santa Cruz, CA The Rio Theatre
12/2/06 Eugene, OR Wow Hall
12/3/06 Portland, OR Aladdin Theater
12/4/06 Seattle, WA Showbox
12/5/06 Vancouver, BC St. Andrew-Wesley Church
12/8/06 Minneapolis, MN 400 Bar
12/9/06 Madison, WI Great Hall- Memorial Union
12/10/06 Lawrence, KS Granada
12/11/06 Norman, OK Univ. of OK-Meacham Theater
12/12/06 Houston, TX Orange Show
12/13/06 Austin, TX The Parish
12/14/06 Marfa, TX Ballroom Marfa
12/15/06 Albuquerque, NM Launchpad
12/17/06 San Diego, CA Casbah
12/19/06 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
12/20/06 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall

SO massively preferable to the studio record it's actually rather tragic :(

I might well change my mind back but on a first playthrough it's something I'd y'know, like to hear more than once... as opposed to the 9, 10 or more plays through gritted, clenched, tired teeth I've tried to give to understand the studio record, knowing there's something there I dig I'm not getting to. Painful.

If I don't change my mind (again) I'll be hanging out for the live DVD... otoh, that'll be an orchestra date won't it? I'm still not convinced this record needs an orchestra. Sorry. I like VDP's melodies fine, I just don't like the way they sound on Ys AT ALL.

M@tt OTM basically.

this is how i hear them on ys as well! i haven't really paid much attention.

that helium video is amazing.

I'm going to look a bloody fool If I start disliking it all over again tomorrow but wow, for now.

Thanks for that live stuff, Nu-Edward. I'll check it out before I go.

I can also take or leave the orchestration (the most breathtaking moments of the record instrumentally are definitely the harp lines) but it doesn't ruin the record for me, in fact (after 4-5 listens) the orchestra seems fairly unobtrusive to me. I'm probably wrong, though.

Portland sold out so the WOW Hall was packed in Eugene. You could hear every little tiny detail. I was struck by how much intensity she communicates with such minimal body language, her impact is largely sonic.

I will write more tomorrow when I come back down to earth.

There was bitter, genuinely hostile conflict in the crowd over the "stand up or sit down" issue. She mentioned that during her Chicago show people argued the whole time and "it was really depressing". Here people decided to sit, which was good.

Aside from that weird off-putting accent/articulation of hers that (as Edward noted earlier) has been considerably toned down as of late, I found her voice to be strong, well trained, precise, and very emotionally resonant. The band was similarly ON. The saw solo was indeed lovely. It sure looked like she was wiping away tears between some of the Ys songs.

ALso worth mentioning that she did 4-5 solo pieces first, then the entire album in order, then another 3 song encore, easily a 90-minute set.

Arrangement dislikers need to just listen to "Sawdust And Diamonds", which is pure harp goodness. And yes, "Monkey And Bear" was much better in a stripped down version.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061204/music_nm/review_music_newsom_dc

the others im still trying to figure out.

i haven't 'discovered' the structure of the songs on ys either (apart from 'cosmia' which is relatively straightforward), though i've no doubt there are structures; i kind of enjoy it as an improvised listening experience.

are you people retarded? you just might be.

I started one on the old ILX thread (or at least blathered at length about "Emily" until people started slowly backing out of the thread without taking their eyes off me):
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:j9nl7SOut1EJ:ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php%3Fmsgid%3D7225866

well just think of each song as having several choruses that she comes back to rather than verse/chorus/verse/chorus/blah/blah/blah.

thats not a hard and fast rule, though. "Sawdust and Diamonds" is more like a series of long and crescendo'd verses. "Only Skin" is ambulatory but works in several cycles with random phrasing in between.

Its better to think of the structure of the songs like poems than linear prose: lots of self-referencing, weaving of meaning, rhymes and slant rhymes. Go read some Whitman or Yevtushenko and then come back to it.

I wouldn't call my cat an acquired taste.

http://files.filefront.com/Joanna_Newsom_Live__The_Fdivx/;6254877;;/fileinfo.htmlhttp://files.filefront.com/Joanna_Newsom_Live__The_Fdivx/;6254877;;/fileinfo.html