//Also, the overwrought wordiness of some of her lyrics often kept me at emotional arm’s length.//
I think there’s a lot to be said along these lines. While Ys was more sonically and structurally adventurous than MEM, it never felt as emotionally rich or “deep in the guts” to me. While I love Ys, I have never been brought to tears by it, like I have by “Sadie” and “Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie.”
I sometimes think there’s a practical tension between innovation and emotional depth–while the two are not mutually exclusive, an artist can often sacrifice the latter in pursuing the former. In my opinion, musical innovation is rarely valuable in and of itself; rather, it should be a means to an end of furthering the emotional life of the song.
The thing that excites me about these two songs is that they feel grounded, and they feel like they’re coming from an honest, deep place with minimal pretension. As long as the music isn’t overly simplistic or sentimental (which in this case it isn’t), I’ll take that over innovation any day.
//Also, the overwrought wordiness of some of her lyrics often kept me at emotional arm’s length.//
I think there’s a lot to be said along these lines. While Ys was more sonically and structurally adventurous than MEM, it never felt as emotionally rich or “deep in the guts” to me. While I love Ys, I have never been brought to tears by it, like I have by “Sadie” and “Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie.”
I sometimes think there’s a practical tension between innovation and emotional depth–while the two are not mutually exclusive, an artist can often sacrifice the latter in pursuing the former. In my opinion, musical innovation is rarely valuable in and of itself; rather, it should be a means to an end of furthering the emotional life of the song.
The thing that excites me about these two songs is that they feel grounded, and they feel like they’re coming from an honest, deep place with minimal pretension. As long as the music isn’t overly simplistic or sentimental (which in this case it isn’t), I’ll take that over innovation any day.