ANOHNI - HOPELESSNESS (May 6, 2016) Album • Page 2

def hope i never hear that Obama diss track again tbh

really not sure about this but Im not going to form a strong opinion until I have the lyrics. Nothing as good as Indian Steps imo, was a little hard to take this seriously. Production is unbelievable though

 

The bluntness of the lyrics stood out a lot more the second time around. It's distracting from times but it's what I expected after the Pitchfork feature from a month or so back.

 

Man I hate to keep echoing the same thing but the lyrics reallllly dissipate my enjoyment of the album as a whole. The production and vocals on here are right up my alley though.

But 4 degrees is still my shitttttt

 

9.0 on p4k.

The production and Ahnoni's voice are stellar, but the cynic in me says a good chunk of that score is inflated for political reasons.

 

Kind of difficult to separate the politics from the art in this instance and the review explicitly focuses on the politics of the album so I guess you're not wrong?

 

The politics are literally the defining aspect of this record

 

I find it hard to take seriously the defense of all the too-on-the-nose lyrics in so many of these songs as an artistic choice when there are also a few songs on the record that are actually well written without being distracting (i.e 4 Degrees, Why Did You Separate Me from the Earth).

 

subtlety is not inherently valuable. the songs written in a "less distracting" way do not mean that the arresting, attention-throttling lyrics on others are less good

 

the distraction is the point

 

the album opens with a song titled "drone bomb me," what were you expecting? lyrics that just wash over you? the power of the songs is as much in the polemic embedded in their lyrics as the actual vocalization and production surrounding them

 

like literally the entire point of the record is to agitate and call to action. if the lyrics weren't 'distracting,' if they were just there, that defeats the entire purpose. even if they were like radiohead-esque, clearly political but easy to ignore, that defeats the point. the goal was for it to be impossible to ignore them

 

i will say "obama" might be the weakest track on the album anyway, because it focuses on a single person, but it still effective at conveying rage boiling over from disappointment and disillusionment

 

very excited to spend more time with this

Violent Men could have been on Garden of Delete

 

If this album is a successful call to action using this lyrical tactic, i'd be ecstatic considering I'd surely agree with every political point being made in the album. So from a political perspective, it's great that this exists. But from a musical perspective, there's nothing wrong with valuing a more nuanced and less simplified approach to songwriting. (I guess simplified is the right word here, I don't want to say "dumbed-down" because the subject matter is FAR from dumb). So I'm not going to give it a pass because the subject matter is objectively important to me/the world, and then pretend like I enjoy it all. I reject the idea that the lyrics need to be this way to be powerful. The songs I mentioned earlier (4 Degrees, Why Did You Separate Me from the Earth) ARE incredibly powerful, and not overly simplified. And I think to me that's what causes the most frustration, because it proves this album could have been tackled in full that way. I really do think writing political lyrics without coming off too blunt is one of the hardest things to do in music. This is a comparison ripe for jokes, but it makes me think of someone like Connor Oberst who, for every 1 successful political song, has probably written 2 that make you roll your eyes.

 

Listened to it twice more today. Overall, I think it's a very good album (I could listen to Ahnoni sing the phone book), but there are occasional moments that are cringey as hell.

 

I don't know if cringey is the right word (for me). Jarring is more fitting, because it's meant to be jarring.

 

but in the way you are presenting it, adding "nuance" is essentially skirting the topic entirely. "4 degrees" is incredible but reading the lyric sheet wouldn't necessarily give you any clear idea about what it is addressing. she isn't writing full length dissertations, these are, at their heart, dance songs (if not pop songs outright). there are obviously constraints about what she can say in that framework and to expect her to add nuance when she has four minutes to address a topic is completely unreasonable. the songs work as cries of anguish from a person who feels so deeply what is happening to them and the world around them that they have to howl it without concern for how articulate it might be or if it satisfies an unrealistic expectation of subtlety and nuance, this isn't an academic paper

 

calling the lyrics cringey is borderline insulting to anohni

 

I didn't

 

I mean I think it's pretty clear what 4 degrees is the minute you read the lyrics, without being harshly on the nose. I think she can give the listeners more credit if she wanted to. Though, she has no obligation to. Just my own preference.

 

Songs I've heard are great. I haven't listnened to A&TJ in a while. Adore her voice though

 

Well I've listened to the two singles like 10 times in a row now

 

Three listens and its incredible

 

On my first listen now. Watch Me and Execution are great.

 

Haunting, beautiful record. Listened to a lot of A&TJ last night, her voice is unrivaled