Album Rating: 2.0

This is like a textbook pitchfork album. I'm not surprised by the 9.0 at all luls

Album Rating: 1.5

Nothing about this album is innovative. It's catchy indie electro-pop without lyrical or thematic substance. And if you're unsure as to whether you should listen to this, just listen to I Am a Bird Now instead, you'll have a much more rewarding time.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

This is so different than I Am a Bird Now though

Album Rating: 1.5

Well yeah, and not in a good way

Album Rating: 4.5

Nice job on the review Arcade. This record is the most politically contrived bullshit I've heard in a while. Some white American wallowing in imagined heartache of being a drone bomb victim in Afghanistan or having a brother sent to Guantanamo is peak navel-gazing white liberal guilt.

Her being a transgender woman in no way absolves her from commodifying the suffering of others. That comment by Anthracks earlier is a perfect example of how racial issues are swept under the rug in favor of social liberalism: "Arcade brought up race in one of his posts. Which its funny that he would bring up Antony's race as opposed to, say, the fact that she is transgendered and had to suffer through that her entire life."

That's a textbook example of using LGBT as a diversion tactic. We're talking about a white American here who believes that she's free to aestheticize the suffering her government has wrought across the world. The fact that she's suffered as a trans woman is wholly irrelevant to this argument.

identity politics versus identity politics, look at all this insightful critique

Album Rating: 3.5

play nice guys

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

"she's free to aestheticize the suffering her government has wrought across the world"

Explain to me why she is not allowed to do this?? Is she a part of the government? I would get this only if she were trying to downplay the suffering, but she is not doing that whatsoever. She is making the listener feel bad for the people in those situations and she hates the government for ever making these situations a reality.



Doesn't sad music always aestheticize suffering? Tries to make it artistically pleasing?

Like Arcade Fire's Funeral for example.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

Like yeah she is a white American

So she's not allowed to feel bad for kids bombed in the middle east? She's not allowed to sing about it? Are you just annoyed that she put herself in that perspective? Haven't artists done that throughout generations? I just don't get it.

Album Rating: 1.5

She's allowed to do whatever, but it comes across as superficial, surface level stuff. It's just a bunch of pointing fingers at things that are bad without saying anything worthwhile.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

Hmm I guess, but it brings attention doesn't it?

Album Rating: 4.5

@AmericanFlagAsh

I believe that victims should hold the primary space to speak of their suffering instead of it being communicated through the perspective of the dominant party. Anohni's record aims for empathy, but the centering of her white, Western perspective ultimately detracts from that goal. We are compelled to empathize with Anohni's feelings about the suffering rather than the suffering itself. This might work for Westerners, and I'm sure many of them will find this record eye-opening or revelatory, but as a Middle Eastern man I feel commodified by what she does here.

To put this in a different context: would you rather listen to an album by a straight guy imagining what it's like to be gay or an actual gay man? isn't the latter inherently more valuable?

In regards to the point about how sad music aestheticizes suffering: in Anohni's previous work that all she did. But it was always weepy piano music about her *own* suffering, not claiming dominion over that of others. That's the primary distinction between her work as Antony and Johnsons and what she's doing now.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

"Would you rather listen to an album by a straight guy imagining what it's like to be gay or an actual gay man? Isn't the latter inherently more valuable?"

Yes you're right, but it also doesn't make the straight guy one less valuable, as long as it's sincere. I mean if a straight guy wanted to go and make a song imagining himself as gay and fighting for his rights, I wouldn't be offended by it. He's not diminishing the struggle of homosexuals, but rather just protesting the government.



"We are compelled to empathize with Anohni's feelings about the suffering rather than the suffering itself."

I just think we get both. Her feelings toward the government and the actual suffering of the person she is portraying. Idk.

Album Rating: 2.5

'A straight man imagining what it's like to be gay'



I don't know, could be a comedy classic if you picked say, James Hetfield

Album Rating: 2.0

I don't care who sings about what, I just want to like it by the end of the album

Album Rating: 5.0

daddy, daddy.

I guess to piggyback off Lucid (sorry if what I'm doing isn't along the same lines and feel free to correct me) it's a matter of the perspective you take. A straight man writing a song as though he were gay is one thing, but it's another thing entirely (and, from what I understand, parallel to ANOHNI's shtick) for him to spin that song as "oh look at me how considerate and circumspect am I! I am validated by my empathy." (and a subliminal "buy my album" along with it doesn't help)

so imo it's a question of how the self-centeredness works. if it's a matter of "I'm straight, but here's how it'd be if I were gay - it's something I can't understand, but this song is a small gesture of solidarity and I will continue to fight as best I can for the rest of my days" (as I see you arguing) that's pretty positive. if it's more like "I'm straight, but here's how it would be if I were gay - oh, how terrible is this fate, and how great I am for talking about this issue" that's something else entirely

Album Rating: 1.5

"Hmm I guess, but it brings attention doesn't it?"



The only people who even know who Anohni is are probably the same kind of people who are already well aware of these world issues. She doesn't exactly have the mainstream reach that could actually introduce unknowing ears or the ears of people not fully understanding of the situations at hand.

^ yea pretty much

i mean it's one thing to write from the perspective of another which is w/e...but drone bomb me, seriously? it's straight up tactless

Album Rating: 2.0

Is this where i go to appease my perceived white guilt or should i take my business elsewhere?