Album Rating: 4.5

yeah you're probably right, but you can't be lazy with terms, people are really picky about them

Album Rating: 4.5

"Sufjan Stevens is a composer, and he has proven that the term is not archaic. It may have to be dusted off and polished each time it's applied to a modern musician, but composers are certainly not absent and Sufjan is the most prominent of them."



but composer isn't an archaic term at all.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

oh my god you guys are idiots

Album Rating: 4.5

point taken



besides i'm arguing with chan why am i doing this, our words are futile devices



ok i will hang my head in shame now.

Album Rating: 3.0

yay discussion but I wouldn't agree with you conrad although we do agree a little. Reich is not more of a composer than Sufjan or Newsom. Verse-chorus-verse doesn't mean less "composed" than the common four movements of a symphony or repetition of Reich or avante-garde stuff. A writer of a sonnet isn't more of a poet than one who writes free verse. Some things may show elements of one's head being stuck (for better or worse) in tradition or strict forms, but they don't make one more or less an artist! Some people you'd think are historically "great composers" weren't buried in study or conventions like you could think, lame people just idolized them so much they drew conventions from their works.

Album Rating: 3.0

you're looking into it too much

Album Rating: 4.5

See I'm operating under the principle that "composing" and "songwriting" are different things. I realize that this is an unpopular/elitist view but that's just where I stand. There are exceptions to the rule on both ends of the spectrum - Newsom has talked about it before. It's an interesting topic, and my view is that although I think composing and songwriting are two somewhat different arenas, neither is more or less artistically important or valid than the other.

Album Rating: 4.5

"i only really used the term "composer" to talk about how the word is viewed in modern times by pretty much everybody aka composers were only around in beethoven/mozart's time which is pretty fucking clear when you read the review without singling out one sentence"



but see that's where I completely disagree, yes the modern conception of "classical music" is that it's written by dead Europeans but the term "composer" is used very often to describe artists today, not EVERYBODY views the word "composer" in that regard

Album Rating: 4.5

fuck, i meant that not everybody views the word "composer" as an archaic term



you can't generalize about the public either

Album Rating: 3.0

See I'm operating under the principle that "composing" and "songwriting" are different

things. I realize that this is an unpopular/elitist view but that's just where I stand

it means you singled out one particular sentence and focused all your amazing mental energy on it





in other words you TOOK IT OUT OF CONTEXT and MISREAD IT and THOUGHT I MEANT BEST WHEN I SAID

PROMINENT[

Album Rating: 4.5

"The variety of sounds present on The Age Of Adz might cause one to use a word like "pointless," but the music here represents everyday life in all its mundane drudgery, all the little moments that seem meaningless and are not remembered while we lay in bed, and at the same time the music embodies what life could be if we would just follow the path, if we would just follow our hearts, if we would just stop fucking around, if we would cut our bodies open and rip out our souls and turn them into something that means everything."



like.



anyhow your argument is valid and i think mine is too, just trying to see how you feel about it. i mean, obviously you didn't go into detail about how you were using the term "composer" since it wasn't relevant to the review itself, so at least when you explained it here i understood what you meant. i don't agree per se but i understand it. i'm not trying to present my argument as irrefutable fact, i'm just stating my viewpoint. it's always silly to extrapolate from one sentence but that stuck out to me..

Album Rating: 4.5

"I don't think it's really unpopular, it just doesn't make any sense. Want to justify it (somehow)?"



Songwriting often (fuck, generalizing again) has different intents than composing. When you're writing for the voice (the natural human voice) you approach melodies differently, you approach chord structure differently, etc. I think a 'composer' operates under a different mindset and considers slightly different elements. It's not really about instrumentation, it's about how you approach the work and think about form. Verse-chorus-verse is a consolidated sonata form, and on the flip side, minimalism is heavily influenced by pop inflections/sounds/structure. The difference is in the deliberateness.



goddammit

Album Rating: 3.0

Just came here to say good review Chan!

Album Rating: 3.0

Keeping songwriting separate from composing is really just semantics and an unimportant arguement.

still, historically music started with singing and lots of "composers" like Bach wrote with choirs and

"composed" operas.



and to say that verse-chorus-verse is "consolidated sonata form" is to piece things together

backwards. Humans tend to form things certain ways, evidenced by the similarities in novel, film,

song, and piece constructs. One doesn't result from another.

Album Rating: 5.0

Chan I love when you emphasize points with caps.

Album Rating: 3.0

SOMETIMES

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

getum chan

just started to listen to this guy. i wonder why i did not start earlier. i'm impressed. i read he plays 25 instruments ^^

the title track is so awesome

this album makes me feel so accepted

channing you are the only lover of my impossible soul