`Tales Of Us` - Reviews By Us

iuventus · Post edited by iuventus at 2013-09-18 21:26:46

A_is_A said:
...it’s curious to me that
the only negative reviews seem to come from fans who were always critical of
the band in the past. Strangely, it seems like they’re only interested in
popping in here to give their continued negative criticism?

And you call them fans without an indication of sardonicism?

A_is_A

iuventus said:

A_is_A said:
...it’s curious to me that
the only negative reviews seem to come from fans who were always critical of
the band in the past. Strangely, it seems like they’re only interested in
popping in here to give their continued negative criticism?

And you call them fans without an indication of sardonicism?

Hahaha, I'm generous that way :D

error60091

A_is_A said:
If longing had a sound it would be Tales Of Us

Indeed... something i meant to mention before in my own assessments.. you can say there are plenty of artists out there who make weird/quirky music thru electronica (insert artist/record here) but what i realize what makes goldfrapp goldfrapp is that there's a sadness, a melancholy in their music... and they really get it... take, horse tears/black cherry/tiptoe/eat yourself/dreaming/and virtually all of tou, for example..

iuventus

Gay is out! Melancholy is in!

Joey · Post edited by Joey at 2013-09-19 00:30:28

EDIT: Never mind. Date added. Got it. :P

iuventus

Archway said:
There is no way Tales Of Us can be seen as sell-out. If Goldfrapp wanted to sell-out, they would have made another pop album. They would have put out proper singles and aimed for the charts (see Supernature).

Actually, they would have aimed for the US charts, which they did with neither Supernature nor Head First.

saizo

Here's my review: It's a beautiful life soundtrack album with no feature film attached to it. And when I mean feature film, I mean 90min or more.

Also, I can safely say that there is no fucking way you can twerk to these songs. Twerk-free zone!

:P

error60091 · Post edited by error60091 at 2013-09-19 02:45:03

Also, I can safely say that there is no fucking way you can twerk to these songs. Twerk-free zone!
:P

Hi saizo!^^//

Twerkworthy tou maynot bebut at least thea gets my head noddin!

iuventus said:
Gay is out! Melancholy is in!

That's right!

tattmaylor

iuventus said:
Gay is out! Melancholy is in!

:-)

la_catalina

Sartori said:

la_catalina said:
As a reflective point , you did that film as it was what you wanted to do artistically at the time ? I`m trying not to put words into Al and Wills mouths but I`d say they are doing that , its only with hindsight that one can throw it in a box . I`ve done things like this myself and failed to regret them (learned a lesson but not regretted) as if I hadn`t , then it would be a regret .
There is another argument that this is their riskiest album to date but it would require an intense bit of thinking of how to write it .

Regarding the film, it started out as my project but as more and more people got involved i felt it was taken out of my hands and i'd lost control...probably quite similar to what happened with head first?

Third parties get interested and try to influence what you're doing, in my case worse than that, i was bloody used ha ha ha!

Someone said earlier that alison and will didn't have the money to just chuck it in the bin and start afresh, but surely if i could do it, they could?

I would be interested to see how you can argue it being their riskiest album?

To me, it definitely feels like their safest to date: they chucked together the elements of FM and ST they knew people liked, added some LGBT themes to the mix, and poured it all into a concept album.

So i guess, in terms of making a concept album, you could argue that it is pretty risky.. but musically they stayed on fairly safe grounds, it's the instrumentation and orchestration of FM (heavy on the strings, tympany drums, the slower pace) added to the (very conventional) guitars they used on ST and some of the sound effects from that album, like the backward tapes.

But somehow they kind of missed what really made FM special: it was, amongst others, the depth of the sound texture (most of TOU sounds quite flat), the constant electronic noodling in the background, the crude experiments with vocals (they were so exciting!) AND sounds, to date i am always immediately impressed with those first notes of Lovely Head - it sounds like nothing you've heard before.

Sartori · Post edited by Sartori at 2013-09-19 06:13:06

I will muse on how to write certain bits but your last paragraph , Lovely Head was written at a time when their heads were bursting with ideas , they were young(er) , at a time when they had a desire to be different , they sang and wrote of things that were interesting to them at that point in time , experimenting with things and themes . To answer this -

If you`ll forgive me paraphrasing Noel Gallagher as he put it far better than I could , when asked why he didn`t write songs like the ones on their first album still , he replied that you can`t write songs about sleeping in gutters and drug taking in squats when you live in a mansion . I can join the dots to the first paragraph but I take it you see my (or Noels if you like) point .

But you say potato , I say potato (don`t think that works on paper) , if you see an album of ticked boxes to make a generic safe album , whatever I say won`t convince you to see it as an album of songs that you like or dislike according to your ears tastes . I look at music as a piece of art , without any baggage from one album to the next , that will make me love it or not by itself .

If they did an interview and said that FM was a box ticking exercise , that they`d made it experimental sounding cynically and Mute had told them they had to include yodelling ......would you still love FM ? If you say Yes , then what does that say about your points on TOU ? if you say No .... what has physically changed about FM to make it so ? Doesn`t art have a right to stand on its own two feet , no matter who its parents are ?

la_catalina

Ah! lets see.....

I don't necessarily think it has too much, or so much, to do with personal taste. Long ago I figured out how to accomodate appreciating an artist even if I hated their work ... can't stand Picasso, but you just have to accept it, he's a serious artist of immense importance in art history. I recall Steve Reich talking about Wagner " the man was an anti semite and if I'd have had a gun, and had had the man in my sights I would have blown his head off , but the music is great, and you just have to lump it" it was pretty much that as I remember it....

Now pop music exists in less rarified air than fine art, although not in my book, because I hate snobbery and elitism, but I think the same applies.

So, I've nothing personal going on,and I hope I don't let taste colour my judgement.

If someone at Mute, lets hope it was Daniel Miller, had told them to make FM experimental then I'd say the talk worked and perhaps he should have another whisper in Alison's shell like!

I don't think thats what happened, of course they had lots of new ideas and like i said earlier they weren't worried about whether they were going to be famous or not (atleast it doesn't sound like that)

And indeed to follow up FM with Black Cherry was still a bold move, and it worked!

But then to follow that up with SN, it feels a bit like the rot had set in (even though there are still some good songs on there)

But when Alison herself says the upcoming album (as she did a few months ago on twitter) will be appreciated by people who liked FM and ST because it comes from similar bones, then she kind of invokes the references herself. Almost like she doesn't let it stand on its own...is that not marketing?

Is that not adding your own "if you like this, then you might like that" kind of ads you see on online webshops?

As for Noel Gallaghar ha ha ha, forty year old with a mod haircut and a parka ? (see also Prof Brian Cox ha ha) His songs still sound the same to me, whether it's oasis or beady eye!

Sartori · Post edited by Sartori at 2013-09-19 08:36:15

la_catalina said:
Ah! lets see.....

I don't necessarily think it has too much, or so much, to do with personal taste. Long ago I figured out how to accomodate appreciating an artist even if I hated their work ... can't stand Picasso, but you just have to accept it, he's a serious artist of immense importance in art history. I recall Steve Reich talking about Wagner " the man was an anti semite and if I'd have had a gun, and had had the man in my sights I would have blown his head off , but the music is great, and you just have to lump it" it was pretty much that as I remember it....

I`m rather confused by your post really , musical taste is what drives a person to listen and like something . In your example of art , I also can appreciate art .....but I dislike Picasso , so I don`t waste my time looking at his "stuff" , he might be a God amongst artists but um.....so bloody what .

But I`ve made my points , although you seem determined to wriggle from them , if you are determined to look at Alison with no benefit of the doubt and polarise your opinion on this , that`s really the cynicism of old age creeping in . As I said , you say potato , I say potato .

Noels music has nothing to do with this , he makes the point that you write about what you`re experiencing now , not what you were experiencing when you were younger .

Ok , you`re right .

saizo

error60091 said:
Hi saizo!^^//

Twerkworthy tou maynot bebut at least thea gets my head noddin!

Hi! At least "Thea" won't make me do this...

la_catalina

Sartori

I may be right, but equally you're not wrong

in matters of perception there can be no right or wrong - just difference

I think you made interesting and valid points, and I certainly don't think my ideas are right and yours are wrong. ....and I really don't mind what anyone makes of the record, if they love it then all well and good, if it holds meaning for them again, all well and good, in that way the record works, I was just trying to analyse why it fails for me

I'm in part a product of my art background, in that in a cultural world that is driven so much by subjective outpouring , aesthetics has over the years attempted to examine and assess artworks in an objective way and that's all I'm trying do really, to see if I can work out an objective critical view that holds up... .. so it's just fun to see how long a particular critique can hold up,

When I was 15 I had to get a letter of referral from the Head of my school to take to my Art School, the silly buggers gave it to me to pass on at my interview so I steamed it open and read what they had to say about me, I was "suprisingly cynical for one so young" so it has nowt to do with getting older! sorry ha ha ha I do have to try and fight that!

Howdy, Stranger!

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