video review: 'all i ever see in you is me' by jillette johnson

You know, this is one of the vids where the prospects were never good - even if I wasn't months late it'd still be a tough sell to get to a mass audience, she's pretty underground...

But with YouTube dicking over the sub boxes for this as well, I'd still like to see it get some traction, so I'd urge you all to check it out.

Thankfully, I've got some content coming that should boost my fortunes, so stay tuned!

album review: 'all i ever see in you is me' by jillette johnson

So after the last album review I feel something needs to be clarified, namely with respect to the folks supporting me and voting on my schedule on Patreon - and a lot of it is gratitude. Seriously, with YouTube demonetizing the majority of my videos the second they go up, you guys have been a life saver, and you've introduced me to music that I would never have covered otherwise. Some bad - I'm not sure I'll ever forgive you guys for AJR - but a ton of it good.

And as such, given the rather peculiar state my schedule is in right now, I think it's time we handle some old business and review a record that took a long time to get to the top - and yet if I had done my homework I would have been pushing this months ago. For the majority of you who do not know, Jillette Johnson is a New York singer-songwriter who has been attracting comparisons to Fiona Apple, but really her style and instrumentation reminds me more of a split between Feist's personality, Regina Spektor's hyper-detailed writing, Florence Welch's power, and Vienna Teng's knack for slightly off-kilter indie pop production that could lead to phenomenal hooks all the same. Her debut album Water In A Whale came out in 2013 and my god, it is something special, full of the sort of indie pop that throws in enough left turns to keep you intrigued and enough bombast and creativity to suck you in. It's a terrific debut and it makes all the more sense why she actually turned down an offer to go on The Voice so she could focus on her career - she's a far more intriguing artist than what that show would have her do. In any case, she dropped a sophomore album in mid-July, and if it's anything like her debut I was definitely excited to see where this would fit. So, what did we get?

video review: 'choir of the mind' by emily haines and the soft skeleton

So this was... actually way better than I thought it'd be, really happy I got a chance to cover it. 

But now onto our scheduled event, the record I really was anticipating before this pleasant surprise, stay tuned!

album review: 'choir of the mind' by emily haines and the soft skeleton

So I'm a little stunned there was as much interest from my patrons in this project as there is - a primarily piano-driven side project of a Canadian indie pop rock singer who has never really crossed over to the states, with her last album in this side project coming over a decade ago.

Okay, let's back up. For those of you who don't know, Emily Haines is the frontwoman of Metric, an indie pop group that had a remarkable amount of success around the turn of the decade before hitting a snag with their 2015 record Pagans In Vegas - which really did deserve more attention than it got, because I think the satire went over too many heads. But it didn't produce the same singles and Canadian indie success, so I'm not really surprised Emily Haines wanted to step back towards solo work, especially as she already contributed to the Broken Social Scene album released earlier this year. Now I went back to listen to that last Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton record, and... well, it was alright enough. If you put it up against the piano-driven indie acts of the mid-2000s, I could see this standing out a bit thanks to the trip hop elements around the edges, but I was never wowed by the writing and you do need that to be on point if you're playing in this solo style. Never quite experimental or dark enough beyond some clever turns of phrase, it had the feel of a side project, and thus it's not surprising that Metric was the breakout act here. But hey, a few of my patrons wanted me to cover this, so what the hell: how is Choir Of The Mind?

video review: 'pure comedy' by father john misty

So I was up and down on this record a lot through many a listen... and you know, overall I'm landing on great. Pretty sweet record, definitely glad to cover it.

Anyway, the next record will be FAR less good, so after Billboard BREAKDOWN... well, stay tuned!

album review: 'pure comedy' by father john misty

I think there were a lot of people surprised by I Love You, Honeybear.

Hell, I was surprised. I had liked Josh Tillman's debut Fear Fun under the Father John Misty moniker, but his 2015 followup was in a different ballpark of quality. Huge, lush production, a knack for incredibly sticky melodies, and a narrative throughline that was as witty and twisted as it was genuine and heartfelt. I'll wholeheartedly admit the record's warped yet self-aware framing did require a certain headspace to appreciate - especially considering the romantic relationship that was being explored in plenty of lurid detail - but it connected for me, and it was very nearly my favourite record of that year.

But then comes the bigger question: how the hell do you follow that? The grand romance of I Love You, Honeybear was so well-structured, a self-contained masterpiece... and while Father John Misty had flirted with social commentary on the record I was a little unsure how well it could connect on a whole album, which was what Pure Comedy reportedly had. Let's get real: even if Father John Misty's insight proved valid, I could see a lot of people dismissing it because of both the delivery and the messenger himself, especially if it threw in elements of self-aware satire. It's a fine line to trace, and while I was reasonably confident he could pull it off, I was tempering my expectations going into Pure Comedy - so did Josh Tillman pull it off?

video review: 'semper femina' by laura marling

I'm surprised I haven't gotten a ton more blowback against this review... but then again, it hasn't gotten a huge number of hits, maybe people are still digesting it instead of being little bitches on another review (sigh...).

Anyway, Billboard BREAKDOWN and probably Quelle Chris next, so stay tuned!

album review: 'semper femina' by laura marling

So I'll admit I was pretty slow to the punch to cover Laura Marling's last album Short Movie in 2015. There was a lengthy back catalog to listen through and decode - mostly because Marling's exploration of themes and ideas reflected wisdom and nuance beyond her years - and despite being transitional and what I'd argue is a slightly lesser entry in her discography, there was still a lot to discuss and untangle. But again, it was transitional in every sense of the word - not only did it feel like a stylistic shift away from her acoustic sound to add more electric distortion, albeit feeling a bit listless, thematically it was tracing different directions too. This was a record that was partially inspired by her move to Los Angeles, and the mingled desires for companionship and lonely purity that ran through it. All of this led to an album I liked but didn't love, and while there are a few standouts that I do revisit to this day, it's not really a record that I return to very often.

And believe it or not, while most critics were a bit warmer on it than I was, they tended to fall into similar opinions, that it was a bit of a lesser entry in her discography compared to I Speak Because I Can or Once I Was An Eagle. Not so this time around - in fact, the critical acclaim that Marling has received for her exploration of definitions of femininity has been considerable... not that I'm entirely surprised here. Marling has been a critical darling for some time - deservedly so, I should add - but there is also a pretty significant subset of well-meaning critics that'll throw praise for the exploration of specific themes without really touching on whether they're done well. Now again, it's Laura Marling, she's got the sort of insight and tact that can lead to brilliant writing, and especially coming after Short Movie, I was curious how she was going to evolve her sound. So what do we get with Semper Femina?

video review: '÷ (divide)' by ed sheeran

So this is going to get a ton of hits... and I'm not all that surprised, it was a fun record to talk about.

But next up, another movie review, so stay tuned!

album review: '÷ (divide)' by ed sheeran

The more I listen to Ed Sheeran, the more I'm a little baffled that he is as big as he is, especially in the mainstream.

Now that's not a knock against Sheeran, believe it or not - on average, he's probably released more singles I like than otherwise, because while I was no big fan of 'Sing' or 'Thinking Out Loud' or 'Photograph', I did really come to love 'Don't' and 'Lego House', and that's not even counting his big two singles from his new album, both of which I'd argue are really good. But it's more than the songs at this point, because Ed Sheeran doesn't make a lot of sense as a pop star, especially in recent years, from his look and presentation to his voice to his content! For one he's an acoustic singer-songwriter who isn't really playing to gimmicks beyond an uncanny knack for skipping into R&B and soul and blues and sticking the landing, and for another, his songs have the sort of distinctive detail and character that if anything show more of an auteur voice than a lot of modern pop. And that details matters, because Ed Sheeran is not writing about wealth and success - his stories are often small-scale and character-driven, with messy human framing and a lot of alcohol abuse - he'd be very much at home in the mid-90s adult alternative scene, which is a little bizarre to hear in 2017. Sure, he'll write the boring songs that'll make the young girls cry - he knows what pays the mortgage - but I'm far more interested in the Ed Sheeran that writes 'Don't' or 'Castle On The Hill' or the absolutely stunning 'Afire Love', which to this day remains one of my favourite songs of 2014. And it's amusing to me that Taylor Swift was one of the big forces to propelling Ed Sheeran to popularity around 2013, given that in the beginning she may have tried for populist authenticity and framing but never showed the courage to get raw or real outside of 'Back To December', so where she retreated into pop artifice, for Sheeran it all feels on the table - that's what gives it bite. 

As such, I was very interested in his next album ÷, which has been getting some interesting reviews, with the critical line seeming to hang on whether you buy into Sheeran's authenticity, especially in the detail of his stories. Whether or not that's fair is a different question - I have the suspicion if Sheeran was just any other indie folk songwriter nobody would care to ask - but given that authenticity is a pretty key factor to the emotional throughline of Sheeran's stories, it was always going to be a question. For me, it all came in the execution, and I had reason to hope this would click, so what did we get with ÷?

video review: 'poison season' by destroyer

And about time I could get this done! Fantastic record, so highly recommended!

Next up, the next of my extremely deep backlog before the tidal wave of CHVRCHES, Kurt Vile, Julia Holter, Silversun Pickups, The Underachievers, and so many more! Stay tuned!

album review: 'poison season' by destroyer

Let's talk a little about lyrics. I've often been told that in comparison with most music critics, I pay much more attention to the writing than the sound of the album itself, and in a few conversations with other critics, I've come to realize that I might be the exception than the rule with that approach. Where the conversation gets interesting is when it comes to the mainstream public, because where I'm fairly certain I care about the writing more than some critics, I know for certain I care more than most audiences, and even then it breaks down by genre how much one might care - lyrics matter more in folk and country and arguably most of hip-hop than they do in, say, electronica. Now I could argue that I care more about lyrics because I'm a writer myself and I love to decode poetry good and bad alike, but I reckon even in the cases where they're easy to ignore good writing plays a purpose. It's the primary method for the songwriter to convey their art's story or meaning to the audience, with the sonic palette around them being what sets the mood and atmosphere. For me, writing and instrumentation need to have a certain amount of balance when I consider an entire piece, with strengths and weaknesses in both being enough to save or sink an album.

That's why, believe it or not, when I hear about records that are highly touted for their lyrics above all else and aren't hip-hop albums, I'm intrigued but cautious. Sure, I'm predicated to like this sort of thing more, but that means as a critic I have to make sure I'm not giving undue praise when it's not earned. Thankfully, today we're talking about Destroyer, the project of Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Bejar and an artist whose lyrical eccentricities often are matched by eclectic and interesting instrumentation that at its worst can feel sloppy or indulgent but at best can be genuinely breathtaking in beauty and melodic composition. Affiliated with critically acclaimed indie rock group The New Pornographers, who really have a disturbingly high record of producing great side projects from their members, the most striking thing about Destroyer is the choice to switch up musical sounds with nearly every album. From the tight cohesion that defined the excellent Streethawk and Thief to the meandering and yet compelling mess of This Night to the synth-touched and goddamn spectacular Your Blues to the drunken cacophony of Trouble In Dreams. Now since his 2011 album Kaputt - which I thought had some great writing and some gorgeous melodies but could meander a little in late-80s easy listening territory, Dan Bejar has been taken longer and longer between releases, and now he's finally got a new album: Poison Season. And with it came the explosion of critical acclaim: was the album actually worthy of it?

video review: 'carrie & lowell' by sufjan stevens

Well, this took WAY too long to get to - it happens, but man, I want to ease back on wait times for these records. 

Now only one more record to knock off my backlog, but first, let's tackle something light, shall we...

album review: 'carrie & lowell' by sufjan stevens

Man, it's taken me too damn long to get to this review, especially considering this is a guy I've been wanting to talk about for a while but have always had a hard time nailing him down. Because of the many, many artists I've talked about, Sufjan Stevens is damn close to one of a kind - and for the longest time, I had just ignored him because on my first few listens through his debut, he was just another quirky singer-songwriter from the indie scene that had critical acclaim and little else that really stuck with me.

And man, was I wrong in spectacular fashion. After a hard left-turn into weird electronica, Sufjan Stevens dropped the absolutely incredible Michigan, a tribute to his home state that had such an incredible balance of sound and tone it's incredible. Sufjan might not be the biggest presence as a singer - one of the reasons I've found him difficult to get into in the past was that he tended to feel overtaken by his instrumentation - but his writing and hooks were impressively detailed and eclectic, with a vibrant energy and life that made the odd kitsch of his instrumentation incredibly endearing. Is it a little over-long, off-kilter, and oddly corny at points? Yeah, but I didn't mind it, because the songwriting was so well-grounded and human that it clicked incredibly well.

Ever since then, though, Sufjan Stevens' work has struggled to recapture that balance. The closest for me came on Seven Swans, which eased things back perhaps a bit too much to bring the songwriting into tighter focus - which I'll admit clicked because most albums exploring religion with Stevens' complicated brand of framing have a lot of potential to really connect with me. His follow-up state album Illinoise went in the opposite direction and was even more elaborate, and while it did hit some spectacular highs, it didn't quite stick the landing as well for me. And then came The Age Of Adz, a weird, warped record diving back into electronics in a way that felt even more garish than before - and honestly, it doesn't quite connect, at least for me.

So when I heard that Sufjan was stripping things down to folk again and opting for a much tighter, personal focus, I was looking forward to it, especially considering the titular characters of his late mother and stepfather are placed in greater focus. Of course there'll always be moments of indulgence that are quintessential parts of his records, but it's been over a decade since Seven Swans - so what did Sufjan Stevens deliver as he came home?

video review: 'short movie' by laura marling

Dear god, it took me WAY too long to get to this. Hopefully, the wait time for Sufjan Stevens will be less, but again, not quite ready for that yet.

On the other hand, this Shawn Mendes album or Passion Pit? Yeah, those coming soon, plus the new Zac Brown Band record! Stay tuned!

album review: 'short movie' by laura marling

Man, this record took way too long for me to talk about.

Now some of this I can blame on a turbulent month and a hefty back catalog, but I'd argue it's more than that in the case, so I think some explanation about my schedule is required. Before I review an album, I go back and listen through their entire back catalog. Not just the singles, not just the hits, the entire list of records - and I also endeavour to be an active listener. I'm the sort who if there are oblique or confusing lyrics, I'm going to digging through them line by line to truly parse them out, and that tends to require multiple listens. Coupled with the fact that I still try to get out multiple reviews in a week plus Billboard BREAKDOWN plus work a full time job... well, yeah, you get the picture.

And a lot of this comes down to the singer-songwriter we're going to be talking about today, a critically-acclaimed artist whose knack for intricate and mature lyricism meant her work didn't just merit additional listens, it demanded it. Yep, we're going to be talking about Laura Marling today, the sort of folk singer-songwriter that I have a hard time not liking, not just for her literary sensibility but for the fact she brought a level of maturity and songwriting craft that seemed beyond her years. And as her songwriter ventured more towards abstraction and layers, her material got trickier to process. Her first creative peak for me came on her second album I Speak Because I Can, which recruited Marcus Mumford to contribute to a record that not only easily outstripped anything he did with Mumford & Sons, but also had strong enough melodic grooves and writing to stand as one of the best of 2010. Her 2011 album A Creature I Don't Know was a little trickier to gauge given its slightly more abstract writing, but it was still incredibly solid if only because the writing was so damn good and it wasn't afraid to get noisier and nastier deeper into the record for cuts like 'The Beast' which kicks all amounts of ass. Then came Once I Was An Eagle in 2013, a record that dipped into even greater abstraction with even less instrumental accompaniment and one that took so many listens to really understand - and yet I'd still argue that as a songwriter Marling had never sounded better, an album that felt transitional only in that she was stepping towards something new and dropping an air of finality on what came before.

So when I heard she was releasing a new album that apparently featured electric guitar - a first for her - I was excited. After Once I Was An Eagle, a new beginning felt inevitable... so what did we get with her newest record Short Movie?

video review: 'sometimes i sit and think, and sometimes i just sit' by courtney barnett

Dear god, this took way too goddamn long to get online. And odds are, it'll probably go over poorly. Just my luck.

Anyway, next up... zzz...

album review: 'sometimes i sit and think, and sometimes i just sit' by courtney barnett

I've mentioned in the past that I'm not a fan of 'twee' music, music that emphasizes willful immaturity and cuteness and normalcy for its own sake. Part of it is the aesthetic - bubblegum pop can work really well when it's done right for example - but the general aesthetic and atmosphere just turns me off. Part of it is I have a flair for the bombastic and dramatic - I like power metal for god's sake - but I reckon it runs deeper than that, because it's not like I don't like regular, down-to-earth human stories. Hell, I listen to country music and have praised artists who pull their inspiration from the most mundane of details. But to me, the combination of a willfully immature tone or sound and a choice to go for a more mundane or 'twee' approach just turns me off.

And it seems a lot of this music coasts by on relatability, where as a critic things get tricky. I'm not going to deny that there's a factor to being able to relate to an artist or sound that influences why people like it - it lends a degree of authenticity to the experience - but I'd argue there should be more than that. For me, the best artists can make that connection with their audience regardless of the stories that they're telling. On the other hand, I tend to react negatively when artists try to elevate the very mundane into something to connect with their audience and maybe along the way make it mean something. Even coming from me, it smacks of pretentiousness, a cheap way to connect with an audience without the imagination to push more boundaries. And considering so much of it doesn't play for bigger drama, it strikes of trying to find something powerful where there really isn't much there.

As such, I had a real sinking feeling going to cover Courtney Barnett, Australian singer-songwriter who had won a lot of critical acclaim for her embrace of fragments of 90s grunge, garage rock, and hints of very 'mundane' lyricism. Her debut follows two very well-received EPs, and this looks to be her most critically-acclaimed to date. As such I'm almost obliged to cover it while I work through the back catalogues of Laura Marling and Sufjan Stevens to review their albums. And even though I expected this would not be my thing at all, I vowed to give it a fair chance - part of my goals this year would be covering music outside of my usual comfort zone. So, with that, how is Sometimes I Sit And Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit?

video review: 'goon' by tobias jesso jr.

Well, I was leery about this album going in, and it's frustrating that my suspicions ended up being confirmed. Man, this was underwhelming.

Next up, I think I should plow through some more of Pitchfork's critical darlings - either that or the Madeon album. Stay tuned!

album review: 'goon' by tobias jesso jr.

Before we begin, let's talk a little bit about one of the most common song templates in music: the piano ballad. Long held as one of the most basic but most versatile set-ups in the industry, it's a formula that's almost classic, and can be played in many different forms. The crowning era of this - as it was for many singer-songwriters - was the 70s, where the piano could be soft and intimate or clattering and loud, aggressive or graceful. As a pianist myself - albeit one without much subtlety, I can admit - there's a certain affinity I have to very good piano ballads for their ability to craft intricate melody with every note.

But it seems as time has past, the piano ballads that get popular these days are more maudlin and subdued, where our singer-songwriter goes to the piano because he wants to evoke an atmosphere of downbeat simplicity and nothing else. This really came to a head in the first half of 2013, where we were deluged with piano ballads that weren't bad, but rarely had the songwriting heft to really grip me - sure, I like sad love and breakup songs as much as anyone, but there's more to the formula and stories that could have been told beyond that. And it can fall along a similar line of the opinion I tend to hold of 'white guys with acoustic guitars' - if you can't elevate the bare minimum into something of substance or emotive weight beyond the very most basics, it's hard for me to connect with it, simply because I've seen so much of it before.

This is one of the big reasons I've been leery about checking out the debut album from Canadian singer-songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr. Originally starting as a bassist in LA for several years, Jesso eventually moved back to Vancouver and after a particularly rough breakup and family difficulties, he started working on this album. From there Jesso was able to leverage some pretty interesting connections - JR White formerly of the duo Girls, Ariel Rechtshaid, John Collins of the New Pornographers, and most interestingly for me, Pat Carney of The Black Keys. He also managed to enlist help from one of the sisters from HAIM, and wow, it seemed like this guy hit the lottery when it comes to critically beloved friends in indie rock. And from everything I had heard going in, I wasn't going to be getting the hyper-literate and intricate songs of Josh Tillman, but something simpler and more emotive. And that can work - Perfume Genius proved that on his earlier albums - so I decided to give Tobias Jesso Jr. a chance with his debut album Goon - how is it?