Now lets pretend for a moment...

Now lets pretend for a moment, this album had no lyrics and you had to solely base your reaction on the instrumental music the artist composed.

Would it still hold up?

>let's gut this fish and see if it can still function

lmao

No. The lyrics make the album.

How is that relevant criticism at all ?

Answer the question, bitchboy.

I reject the question's premise you dweeb

Would still be boring as fuck. If it wasn't for DAMN it would be the most overrated album of 2017

>uh....uh...who cares if the music is good or not...it doesnt matter

bitch

musically it was garbage.

it would still be garbage pandering for soyboys to give Phil the faggot some shekels so he can sleep at night comfortable since he killed his wife without going to jail then exploited her """death"""

bitch

These lyrics are not very good (reading them right now desu)

Sometimes a whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.

>reading lyrics

kek

I know how phil sings, it'd take too long to listen to them.

For fuck sakes

Yes. Ravens would still be SOTY

What? I like to listen to music that doesn't coast on tragedy points like this and C&L

>bitching
>hasn't even listened to it

l a m o

>C&L coasting on tragedy point

Have you even listened to it?

Yeah, coming from Age of Adz and Illinoise man, it was really disappointing. Thought he was gonna take a more Giles Corey root myself.
I read the lyrics, though. I'm pretty sure I get the jist.

What the fuck is this board in 2016

You're trying to dissociate elements of a piece of work when it's supposed to be taken as a all.

You're asking us to imagine how the album would be with no lyrics and only the instruments, when it's completely irrelevant and pointless since such an album doesn't exist. The lyrics are part of the album and they complement the music.

This is as useless and ignorant as people criticizing certain rappers by quoting dumb lyrics, without taking into account the instrumentals, the tone, the mood, which can sometimes work really well with the "dumb lyrics"

I bet I could beat you up in a fight.

*as a whole, fuck

A place to discuss music (I don't have to like what you like)

too bad the album just plain sucks

edge
I never heard it, but the difference between instrumental and lyrical music is instrumental is trying to convey something through our emotions, the pineal gland, and the creative brain while lyrical is trying to convey something through the logical brain, the memory reaction of the hippocampus. (I don't know if you believe in the spiritual side of this or not, I do but we must admit this is how mentally we perceive it.) both combined make a truly musical experience. and also: the more vague the lyrics the more memories and thoughts it can provoke. the sensory input is maximized with both so as a simple instrumental it would be a different experience entirely, and since art is a message I'm going to assume your asking if the instrumental reflects the feeling conveyed in the lyrics without the lyrics being present, and that can also be contradictory because you can put lyrics in an entirely different context by the instrumental; and an instrumental may convey a completely different experience without the lyrics putting it in context. so the question is: is the context still the same, and is it used to match and not clash with the lyrics, and the answer is either yes if they put minor slow music to sad lyrics and upbeat major chords to happy lyrics, or no if they clashed them, that's my answer.

I bet I could beat you up in a fight too.

>the more vague the lyrics the more memories and thoughts it can provoke

this is a horrible sentence to put anywhere someone can see it and maybe act on it. vague writing is lazy writing and bad writing

Man you're fucking braindead, even if you don't care about lyrics vocals have a massive impact on how a song sounds. Also Age of Adz was also massively emotional. A song being stripped down does not mean it's bad. Sufjans biggest songs are all more toned down and vocal based.

which would you rather have
"I'm depressed about society everyone is so lame, I remember my parents were abusive and I want to kill myself: also I have stomach isssues..."
OR,
come as you are by nirvana?
you can be too vage obviously, but specificness KILLS lyrics.
I mean if taylor swift wasn't vague it'd literally be like
"I remember this dude I went out with, he was an artist who I can't say his name because copyright, but ANYWAY we went out and he was really into drugs and we got into a bar fight, and blah blah blah blah blah..."
or...
"I knew you were trouble when you walked in..."
see? vagueness. it takes talent too. not everyone can write vague.

>song being stripped down does not mean it's bad
didnt say that, but it sure as fuck didn't work for C&L
>vocals have a massive impact on how a song sounds
what the fuck does that have to do with anything?
>Also Age of Adz was also massively emotional
of course it was, its my favorite Sufjan
>Sufjans biggest songs are all more toned down and vocal based
define biggest here , please

this is the dumbest response to anything i've ever seen, you don't even show specific lyrics, you just made up bad lyrics to prove your point, and why the fuck are you confusing specificity with some sort of weird TMI-confessional

Phil fans are the biggest sudos on this board.

They think just because they cried to this bitchboy's music he's some kinda genius or something.

well, lyrics are often confessions,
I'm just saying bro: I mean if the lyrics are as you say: we wouldn't have to go through interview footage and behind the music blogs to figure out what they meant would we? But you know you have, and that's because they weren't very specific,

seriously, what the fuck are you talking about

Why do people find it so hard to swallow that huge bereavements can incite artists to create and grapple with their emotions differently than usual?
Not everything that's overt and on the nose is inauthentic exploitation. These artists and their dead are all real people.

I don't think that he's exploiting her. I think he's too upset and too close to the subject to meaningfully edit, and I think that people hold the album up BECAUSE he's suffering. I don't hate him for losing her, I just also don't automatically like the music.

what the fuck is wrong with you why are you like this what is your problem

The sad and wimpy instrumentals are only complimenting the lyrics.
Phil said himself that it's barely music, without the lyrics you're going to have a really hard time understanding what's going on.

people treated phil with kid gloves over this album due to his personal tragedy

I'm a giant Phil Elverum fan with a large collection of his music but yeah this album isn't amazing! So what. I wasn't expecting a musical masterpiece from a guy who's life got completely fucked up and have him release an album months after everything happened.

I still think that Real Death and Soria Moria hold up as really well written songs and the rest are varying shades of pretty good.

a lot of people on Sup Forums are teenagers in high school who haven't experienced real loss. even if some people have experienced real loss they still might not resonate with the album. i like the album. its kinda therapeutic to listen to. musically speaking its very simple and would definitely be boring or bland without the vocals

Removing the context from music is like removing cogs from a machine and expecting it to work

to piss off low test nu-males like yourself

Calm down bitch