The question that people have not been asking themselves is this: "Is an artist just doing what they normally do worthy...

The question that people have not been asking themselves is this: "Is an artist just doing what they normally do worthy of acclaim?" Music history would tell us no: an artist should bring new understanding, new ideas in order to receive acclaim. Mozart and Haydn were not acclaimed for having tuneful music (quite the contrary, often!). They were acclaimed for their breaking of conventions, for Haydn's near-avant-garde experiments with the symphony and the string quartet and for Mozart's tremendously long, technical, and expansive works throughout his late period (in ADDITION to playing with formal procedures). Similarly, composers through Medieval times through the present all strove to present new ideas. And, yes, even in popular music the **new** has been what defines the great and memorable artists.

The Glowing Man has no new ideas from Swans. Certainly it is more chant-like than either The Seer or To Be Kind, but in style and form it is essentially the same: repetitious grooves with a gradual crescendo of sound. It's clear on this album that Gira has run out of ideas. This isn't even the case of Radiohead, where there are clearly new ideas at play but the energy to present them in lacking. This is a frontman who has been in music for 30 years and is feeling drained of creativity.

There's nothing wrong with this: Steve Reich's recent compositions (roughly 2006 to the present) have been lackluster, and ever since Glass left minimalism he went straight in the trash. But they do what they do, people like it, and that's the end of it.

But not so for Swans!

No, we have people who think "by-the-numbers" is high art, worthy of praise. These same people likely give the latest Max Richter or Colin Stetson albums high marks for naught more than "I like these artists and they're doing what they always do." So therefore, people who don't care about art in a historical sense.

good thread
i drop most artists the moment they put out an album that makes no progress(whether in concept/aim or level or style of composition and performanc) compared to the last one they did
haven't regretted it yet

...

Here we see the typical Sup Forums newfag.

Is this a pasta?

It's my review.

I haven't listened to it myself yet, but judging from what I've heard from people who have it's pretty accurate. I don't really mind having "more of the same" though.

You wanted people to discuss your points and appreciate or constructively criticize your writing style.

I definitely could do that, but I won't, because I want you to be sad and upset. ROLTMFOA

>This isn't even the case of Radiohead, where there are clearly new ideas at play

lmao

Nah this is bullshit though. Mozart has an assload of Symphonies to his name some of which use similar ideas but still vary just like how much Gira's new trilogy does. Also

>Mozart
>Technical

>New Radiohead
>New ideas

Make better b8. Having such obviously objectively wrong stuff is easy to point out.

The Italian orchestra, therefore, settled down to work; but, faced with the ocean of notes which lay blackly across the pages of this wild, foreign score, the poor players could make nothing of it. You see, it meant that each one of them had to play strictly in time, and, above all, that each instrument had to enter and finish exactly where Mozart had said that it should. The lazier players, in disgust, referred to this unfamiliar principle as barbaric; the epithet was beginning to gain ground, and the whole project was on the point of being abandoned, when one or two of the wealthier dilettanti of the town, whom I might name if I thought it worth while, and who were inspired by a spirit of proper pride rather than by the superficial pin-pricks of vanity, loudly asserted that it was absurd that Italians should let
themselves be defeated by the mere difficulty of any music; and so, by threatening to withdraw their support from the theatre where rehearsals were in progress, they eventually secured a first performance of Mozart's opera. Poor Mozart! Certain persons who chanced
to be at that famous premiere, and who, later, have learned to love this great composer, have assured me on their honour that never in their lives did they hear such an unimaginable witches-sabbath! The choruses, the ensembles, and above all the finales, were transformed into a cacophony of positively appalling dimensions; while the over all effect was of some howling carnival of raging demons! In all, perhaps two or three arias and one duet managed to swim on the surface of this boiling sea of discords, and achieved a reasonably adequate performance.

>I don't like the band who went from brutal no-wave to gothic rock to post-rock to folk to drone-rock because they don't try new things enough

>AMSP
>new ideas
Lol

What does any of that have to do with the derivative nature of nu-Swans?
Nothing by Radiohead sounds like AMSP. It's much more ambient and subdued.

>Nothing by Radiohead sounds like AMSP. It's much more ambient and subdued.

okay but that doesn't mean it had "new ideas"

this is the closing of this era of swans.
if Gira decides to start another era it'll probably be different, he's already done it 3 times

Yeah, because the artist is trying something different, it's a different approach.

the OP post was implying that Radiohead had new ideas in a general sense, which is not true. there hasn't been a new idea in pop music since the 70s, at least not one that was done in art music first.

Someone should've just told them "hey, at least you aren't playing Mass In B Minor"

Ful stop and the numbers is vintage Radiohead

Nude was subdued

completely agree with you in regards to what you said about Swans.

Nothing "bad" about the album, just similar and, as a result, disappointing

>the OP post was implying that Radiohead had new ideas in a general sense
Well since I'm the fucking OP, I know what I was saying.
Radiohead moving to a different style with their own way of doing things is objectively a new approach, a new contextualization of a style. Whether or not it's properly executed or properly good is a different matter.
>there hasn't been a new idea in pop music since the 70s, at least not one that was done in art music first.
Well aware of this...

I don't care about music by people who are over 40, let alone 60. How can someone have not peaked creatively by that age?

Good point

No, Nude was actually a lot louder and dynamic than anything on AMSP, where everything is mostly at a medium-soft/medium-loud dynamic.

Which part? The "put multiple ideas in a watered down subdued way" in songs that Radiohead has done before and has been a thing since The Beatles?

Or the minimalism post rock style approach that has existed since even before the Beatles?

How about the ambient, droney rock style which is at least new to them

New to them maybe, but again that can be traced all the way back to TVU&N. At least when Swans approach a similar style, they either bring a fuck hueg palette of sounds (SFTB) or bring a certain sense of heaviness that doesn't quite sound like drone doom the closest comparison to that approach (TBK.)

>at least when Swans does it it's the same shit they've always done
See OP post.

They never did what they did on SFTB ever again though. Their recent stuff has a similar approach, but even then the ideas presented through the approach are very different. See every other post after the OP post.

It's the culmination of the formula they've been working on since their reformation. It's not supposed to be original. Their work after this will be something new, but this isn't supposed to anything but the highest point of their Seer-TBK-TGM formula. And it is very good at what it does.

>It's the culmination
Always a shitty excuse.
>And it is very good at what it does.
Half the tracklist sounds the same.
You're clearly new to Sup Forums.

I agree but I enjoyed this much more than TBK which I thought was a bore
the seer being my fav out of the trilogy

>Zs Zs Zs Zs Zs Zs Ys
What did he mean by this?

I threw up
0/10

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as “the greatest or most significant or most influential” rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

I'm not OP, and though there are small phrases or things that are sort of dumb about his post, overall it's still worthy of discussion and being an ass and just dismissing it through jaded irony and jokes accomplishes nothing.

i heard
what is is is is is is why

If you think that TGM has nothing new to offer over TBK, you clearly haven't listened to the album at all. It's completely different.

Also, Mozart wrote over 50 FUCKING SYMPHONIES you piece of shit, if each one has the same kind of technical progression Swans albums do, he'd be looked upon as history's greatest artist.

Fuck you and fuck this thread.

nice blog fagface

the album was meh. better than TBK, though.

Am I the only one who doesn't like the album cover? It feels lacking, on the lower right there is some sort of animal arm extending from something else, it has no coherent body or design.

Did gira just grab a red pen and some cardboard, do a little scribbling and decide, yes, this bent monkey arm thing is just perfect?

Look at the seer, it's a black eyed dog? wolf with human teeth? We're not sure what exactly it is but we have an idea. It works with the music by being able to imagine this thing in the background, prowling and hunting.

To be kind lets you think about a little child calling out for mother while stuck in a well, or being babysitted by michael gira himself, scared of scary people.

The filth teeth give a nice accompaniment to the music, while the music entices you to flex your muscles the listener is flexing his teeth, possibly unable to move. A hint of something worse or that something could be even worse lies through out the album.

The white light rabbit is a metaphor of a forgotten childhood toy, maybe lost in an attic somewhere. Nostalgia.

Love of life has two burning rabbits, this follows the music in the album because it really is similar to the previous one. Perhaps an abusive parent destroyed these.

Soundtracks for the blind has a great cover in relation to the title and music. It's whatever you make of it, the grey circle could mean forgetting or losing something, or actually being blind which is mentioned on "how they suffer'' and the title. Something worse could be behind that circle, covered up by your blindness to the plight of those with less happy lives. Or it can be a mirror which reflects on you, you have become nothing emotionally, no success to speak of and so you cannot see even yourself.

But what does this cover have, it's there, I can't find another reason for it except for 'durr it just looks cool man!'.

>Am I the only one who doesn't like the album cover?
no you fucking autistic inbred literally everyone on here hates it

the album art is basically body parts of the glowing man himself
that said I am sure the question will be asked during some interviews that will probably surface soon
by the way Gira chose the babies for TBK precisely because they looked cool. He said there was no meaning or anything involved, he just liked the look.

This.

There are plenty of differences between all three of the recent Swans albums. If you're not used to the "drone" style, you're probably not going to care to dig too deeply into the subtleties.

I've never seen Spacemen 3, for instance, scrutinized for similar "unoriginality."

didn't he also say that he wrote "i see it all" on The Seer because he thought it sounded cool?

I hear if you get all 6 pieces of the glowing man in your hand then you automatically win the duel

yes. The album name was then derived from this

I literally read the first two sentences of this review and immediately knew it was boldfaure, went to RYM and lo and behold it was boldfaure

The TBK babies were meant to represent innocence and primal forms of the band members I think. A lot of the lyrics on TBK are about what it means to be human and the artwork reflects that.

The Seer is a spoopy dog because it's a spoopy album.

TGM represents Joseph or the 'glowing man', the entity Gira believes controls what he writes. The limv's are 'glowing', but they're also visually and conceptually an extension of his hand-drawn yellow-and-red style seen on his fundraiser records. I think he sees Joseph as the thing which controls his hand and represents it with red and yellow.

>TGM represents Joseph or the 'glowing man', the entity Gira believes controls what he writes.

This is like basic background reading, man.

anyway let's break this piece of shit down

>The question that people have not been asking themselves is this: "Is an artist just doing what they normally do worthy of acclaim?"
there is no answer to this, people will acclaim something if they personally enjoy it. maybe some answer this question with "yes, I enjoy the ideas in TGM" or "no, I don't care about new ideas, I just want sounds that I enjoy on a visceral level." you're trying to frame this discussion with your own pre-disposed belief as to what merits "acclaim."
>Music history would tell us no: an artist should bring new understanding, new ideas in order to receive acclaim.
"should" is once again framing this in a subjective opinion that some people have. "it should be evaluated THIS way." no, that's YOUR OWN way, and maybe many others possess a similar view, but not everybody can or should view it like you do.
>Mozart and Haydn were not acclaimed for having tuneful music (quite the contrary, often!). They were acclaimed for their breaking of conventions
Swans certainly aren't acclaimed for having tuneful music either, they're acclaimed for the mood and aesthetic they have, along with their sound in rock music. "innovation" is NOT REQUIRED for music to be acclaimed, it is not required that people should enjoy it, either. this is not a classical record, it's not indebted to these forms of expression and judgement, it's just a rock album by a rock band that has gained a strong following for having a unique career that nobody really has replicated in a similar way. the point is: who fucking cares if this isn't a significant departure from their previous two records? you might, and some others, but this is your own subjective feelings, I know myself and many others believe that the kind of music they've been playing for the past few years is emotional, exciting and compelling so a continuation of the sound that we enjoy so much isn't a bad thing, clearly, which leads to acclaim. because people enjoy it. (1/2)

Don't post part 2, it's clear you're new here.

boldfaure you are such a retard

What these guys said
It offers quite a bit of newness. These tracks are willing to meander in a way nothing on TBK was (i suppose some could see that as a fault, but it's definitely deliberate). Gira sings in a much more emotive and sincere tone then we've previously seen him, and two and a half of the tracks here (one could argue more) are fairly straightforward "songs" which rely on obvious melodic vocal repetition. In some ways it's the least "pretentious" of Swans post-reformation work.

It's similar, for sure, but it has a bombasticity and immediacy to it that simply isn't found on the previous two Swans releases. This is Swans still, and it's still of great magnitude, but it's Swans seeming very human, vulnerable, and relatable. Pretty.