6/30/11
6/24/11
6/17/11
how we listen
"I think the background is the big issue now. When bands are doing lots of harmonies and reverb, I think it's a drawing back from the foreground from having to say anything. The Flaming Lips sound was always about individuals, but they created a way out of putting mortal feeling into their songs, while seeming to still embrace the good. Which is all about the "ahhhhhhh." It's like My Morning Jacket--love the way it sounds, until you have the opposite experience. Until you're on the subway, and you can concentrate on what he's saying, and all of a sudden, you're like 'Oh my God, this guy had no idea what he was doing, and he was just hoping to get this stuff by without anyone really noticing.'" And he's done a wonderful job of it, because if you don't pay attention, you don't notice these terribly embarrassing things. If my music doesn't get heard or concentrated on, then its below the standards of regular people. If you put on a Silver Jews record at a regular office, this sort of dislike that is expressed, is not that this is egghead music. That this is other music performed with a more rudimentary singer, with not as thrilling of hooks or something. But if you put it in another context, and treat it like something that is throwing its weight, and needs to be listened to, and more interpreted . . . I need people to raise their standards, so I can have a chance. If you don't raise your standards, then I lose. Left alone with regular people and the mainstream, then I fail, in that Venn diagram."
From The Vilage Voice interview, 2008.
6/16/11
6/5/11
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