Album Rating: 4.5

Album hits different on a rainy day

Album Rating: 2.0

Johnny I don’t even know where you got that from. I’m saying this album specifically doesn’t have much emotional resonance with me. Some of my favorite albums are endtroducting, Eluvium - copia, grouper - alien observer and I listen to a ton of non lyrical music. You’re the one who brought up those albums, not me. Kind of a ridiculous basis to discredit me on but I know that’s your mo so won’t go much farther on that lol



If we’re talking about urban bleakness, then endtroducing already nails it for me and this doesn’t even scratch the surface. But you know just personal preference. Nothing to resonate on. However, deathconsiosness lyrical style IS completely unparalleled and I will argue that until my grave. Idk what edge cred is but I don’t find anything about the album remotely edgy. You laud fucking yeule glitch princess where the first line of the first real song is “the only thing that’s keeping me alive is, the scars I see that drips down from my arm” I don’t think you know what edgy means



And how tf am I gatekeeping? I listen to fucking asking alexandria. I’m nowhere near saying this is the only legitimate form of musical expression. Among serious works, I think being poignant is a very important quality and don’t think it’s that radical of a statement

Album Rating: 4.0

"I’m saying this album specifically doesn’t have much emotional resonance with me"

this is fine and fair

>>>didn’t feel it had much emotional expression.

this is a completely different statement and i'll leave you to figure out the difference

"how tf am I gatekeeping"

>>>The title track in particular was one of the more vacuous songs I’ve heard. I find for non-lyrical music there should be an expressive theme that the music is portraying"

this is literally gatekeeping what does/doesn't make good art, as is implying that all art should be functional

"I will argue that until my grace"

i'm sorry, but if foregrounding your entire album concept in an esoteric death cult to embellish your snapshot of depression doesn't count as edge cred, i don't know what does. if you want to play by first lines, "I feel the top of the roof come off / Kill everybody there / And I'm watching all the stars burn out / Trying to pretend that I care" is a frankly embarrassing standard of poetic brilliance. fwiw i love deathconsciousness and it has a load of memorable images, but rather than anything they do in themselves, its desperation to be poetic in its lyrics and to furnish a meaningful context for itself with its concept add far more to the album as drastic clutches at higher aesthetics/truths (respectively) that, in not quite getting there, complement the album's overwhelming wretchedness

"fucking yeule glitch princess"

glitch princess is articulated entirely from a personal pov and is extremely explicit about yeule's motivations for articulating herself the way she does. in much the same way as deathconsciousness, the force of the line you cited is less in the words themselves than in their intention in expressing themselves that way

Album Rating: 2.0

Those are basically the same statements, both expressing an opinion and not an objective truth. Notice the words “didn’t feel” short for “I didn’t feel” ergo saying “this album didn’t have much emotional resonance with me” cute try at petty semantics tho



I don’t think any quote starting with “I find” should be used as an example of gatekeeping lmao! As you can see I soefically choose certain words to make it clear that these are just my opinions and should not be taken to be the ultimate truth. Kind of the opposite of gatekeeping



Still some of the worst lyrics possible regardless of how you justify it

Album Rating: 2.0

Those deathconsiousness lines to me don’t seem to me edgy at all. Sounds genuine af tbh. Also that album “desperation to be meaningful in lyrics”. What! It is poetic and meaningful. If that’s desperation, then we can just write off all poetic lyrical content. “Sleeping in and out of an ice bath, no warmth no life without, it’s too much”

Album Rating: 4.0

"I don’t think any quote starting with “I find” should be used as an example of gatekeeping lmao"

gatekeeping is rooted in stating opinion as fact - whether or not the opinion in question is camouflaged within objectivised language has no bearing either way, all it takes is a personal standpoint expressed in a way that seems remotely definitive. any modal verbs that can be read as either deontic (~objective) or epistemic (~subjective) like "should/must" are classic tools of the trade(although i appreciate that you didn't mean it as such)

fwiw i also don't even consider gatekeeping an universal evil, but there is no way i would roll with it in the form of such an absurdly bad take on this album

"If that’s desperation, then we can just write off all poetic lyrical content"

all lyricism is situational

this means that when lyrics are Good, they are good because they complement whatever happens in the rest of the music

glitch princess engages explicitly and in its digital production stylings with the blurred lines between 'candid' self-portraiture and dissociative self-fashioning

therefore the opening line of Electric is entirely appropriate for that album. it challenges you to localise an earnest hint of personality within a crass statement. it is not a matter of the line's literal truth, or poetics, and it sits with an obvious context

the atmosphere on deathconsciousness is overwhelmingly morbid and depressing

the lyrics and concept both smack of the kind of thing that you would only be able to earnestly fixate on if you too were depressed and morbid. that is despair.

therefore they are good for that album

if you think those lyrics are good *because* they're poetic then, well that's your opinion and you're welcome to it (but lol)

i have nothing for or against poetic lyricism, but in many cases (often including deathconsciousness), trying to approach lyricism *as* poetry is silly, unflattering and unrepresentative of the role it actually plays within whichever song

this is because most lyricists are shit poets

Album Rating: 2.0

Gatekeeping is a universal evil dawg. It goes with all kind of pretentious bs people do for self preservation



I agree most lyricists are shit poets but it doesn’t apply to Ian Curtis or Dan Barrett on deathconsciousness. Tracks 3-5 have some of the most beautiful lyrics I’ve ever read. I also don’t agree that context is that important. What’s important to me is that the lyrics seem organic, have thematic depth and fit with the music being played

Album Rating: 2.0

And of course opinions are going to sound definitive. An honest opinion is rooted in the systematic framework of one’s ideologies. It doesn’t mean expressing it in a definitive manner is gatekeeping of that ideology. Often times (at least for me) it is the opportunity to explore the concept in greater depth and expand upon it from other peoples opinions. Accusing me of gatekeeping when all I’m doing is giving my opinion on the album and justifying my thinking is outrageous man

Album Rating: 4.0

a world without gatekeeping (aka curation) of any form is just an unfiltered mass of content with none of the prestigious platforms that (however imperfectly) shape a cultural landscape. it demands to be problematised carefully and often, but no one person has the time or attention to source everything they consume entirely off their own bat, and you benefit from this as much as the rest of us

and I'm not sure how you expect to have depth without paying any mind to context, but whatever works for you

Album Rating: 2.0

I have no clue what you’re trying to say first paragraph there. That’s some heady shit



Lol my point is there is no context for most lyrics or music for that matter. I do t have an intimate relationship with pretty much any if the musicians I’ve listened to or know where they’re coming from. I think you’re just grasping in to hairs to justify glitch princess shithole lyrics



Anyway I’m starting to lose interest in this but I appreciate the dialogue

Album Rating: 4.0

lol lyrics are literally words that exist in the context of music, and "I" lines are just lyrics that exist in the context of a narrator it really isn't that deep

Album Rating: 2.0

You’re talking about the context of an artists intentions on glitch princess which how tf am I supposed to be privy to that

I’ve read enough paragraphs of johnny trying to quadruple down his way out of absurd nonsense for the week but I just want to say that deathconsciousness has some very awesome memorable lyrics, especially bloodhail

Tho I agree that lyrics are context-bound but I’ve exhausted my patience for that argument recently with pitchforkarms

Have you ever listened to singers recite their lyrics out of context? Like those genius interviews? It’s so painful.

Album Rating: 4.0

anode, even though he is pretentious, if you can’t understand what Johnny’s saying then open more books

Album Rating: 2.0

Alright relinquished I just didn’t feel like deciphering that but sure I can make sense of it. It’s just a little exhausting. My understanding is he’s saying that gatekeeping is another form of organizing of cultural phenomena into something that is digestible by the masses. Which i disagree with. Maybe I don’t understand cause that don’t make no damn sense

Gatekeeping is literally the opposite of organizing cultural phenomena into something that is digestible by the masses

Album Rating: 2.0

Lmao fr. Likely my tiny brain misinterpreted that

Album Rating: 4.0

AI Johnny won’t stop until his computing is complete. This message will destruct in 5 minutes. Don’t call me

Idk if it’s the case right now cuz I didn’t read all that but sometimes I think Johnny does this thing - whether intentionally or not - where he will arbitrarily choose a contrary stance and perform a mental exercise of seeing if he can brute force the point into being true with mental gymnastics and ad-libbing, something he is convincing at because he is v smart and good at explaining things in such a vaguely enigmatic way that is just ever so slightly beyond the grasp of total comprehension that he can tweak the details on the fly when they come into scrutiny.

The only reason I suspect this is because I totally do it too 😬