Composer Reacts to St. Vincent - The Strangers (REACTION & ANALYSIS)
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- Опубликовано: 19 сен 2021
- Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on The Strangers
ORIGINAL VIDEO // • The Strangers
ALL LINKS // linktr.ee/criticalreactions 
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![St. Vincent - Masseduction |Reaction| [reuploaded]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-N93aXRBeSo/mqdefault.jpg)
Great break down as usual! I picked this one because it is quite a bit different than what is typically featured on your channel.
I’m not really sure about the lyrics. The vocals, while gorgeous, don’t really grab me to dissect the words the way that the musical arrangements do. This for me, is Baroque Pop done about as well as anything else in the genre that dropped in the last decade or so.
Elsewhere in the comments section, Gideon had this to say about the lyrics:
"I read the lyrics to be about repetitive self-destructive habits in her intimate life that lead to failure after failure (she doesn't play to win)"
And I have a whole new appreciation for this song now. The idea of cyclical actions that the singer is frustrated about making but feels unable to stop herself. It gives a lot of meaning to the distorted guitar section while also allows the music to tell the story as well -- highly repetitive music speckled with little nuances that ultimately never change the underlying musical passages.The details change but the story stays the same.
Fantastic pick with this song! I'll definitely have to dive into her works eventually.
St. Vincent’s music, especially her earlier work, is very textured. To me this song evokes not just the image but the actual feel of very evenly spaced, rigid bars that are draped in big swoops of different types, cuts, and colors of gauzy fabric. During the crunchy guitar section, there are swinging strings of irregularly shaped beads added. I love that her songs put those sensations in my head. It’s almost like induced synesthesia.
Annie, here (bit of another one-woman musical wonder), was very influenced by Talking Heads and worked with David Byrne earlier in her career, but she's got a very distinctive voice now in every sense. There's a great video over on la blogotheque of her performing an impromptu duet with Andrew Bird that is super-appealing and satisfying, I think. I think she's another of the early 2000s Brooklyn indie-ites that I love so much, with all kinds of disparate sounds and influences (I'm a totally fanboy of the National and the like).
I know, I know, it's all one version of hipster dad-rock or another, but what can I say? If the shoe...
St. Vincent is really good, and this earlier work from her has always reminded me of theatrical/baroque indie stuff like Sufjan Stevens (with whom she has collaborated), My Brightest Diamond, even some Wilco or Arcade Fire. She has evolved a lot, moving towards pop in some of her albums, but still maintaining some indie sensibilities.
I kind of get the punkish feel from the guitar, even if it's not necessarily just a punk idea. Great analysis as always, Bryan!
St. Vincent is one of those artists I've always had a healthy respect for: she has a very distinctive artistic voice, almost every song is finely crafted, and she pulls from a rich mixture of rock/pop music history for influences; but I always come away from her music missing a certain "wow" factor. Maybe I've left wanting more hooks (whether musically or vocally), or maybe I'm left wanting more surprises or originality. Instead I always pass through her music like pleasant landscapes going "look at this, and that, aren't they nice," but that's it. This song is no different. I can admire the orchestral textures, the ethereal vocals, and how the noise rock crashes through that prettiness for such an interesting contrast, yet it's not a song that I finish and go "oh, yes, I need to hear that again and many times in the future." Maybe part of it is that I always compare this kind of baroque pop/rock with XTC, and XTC are a top 10 band for me and most every other artist/band in the genre seems to pale in comparison for me.
That final idea resonates with me so hard, about finding what you personally see as the pinnacle of a type of music *before* you find its peers.
I read the lyrics to be about repetitive self-destructive habits in her intimate life that lead to failure after failure (she doesn't play to win). Doesn't that suit the repetitive rhymic nature?
Certainly. And being able to see the habits but feeling, or being, unable to change them; getting lost in that cycle. I could totally see the music tying into those themes. It also ties the distorted guitar part in as that could be her frustrations with her actions. Thanks for that insight.
Cool stuff! No punk in there to my ear though. A gritty guitar could be heard in many genres 😊.
Nice breakdown.
For sure, the guitar could really be any heavier genre. I'm not really sure why I went with punk initially.
Leprous - Nighttime Disguise please
"Is pop-punk a thing?" Well, the entire mid-90s and 00s happened, so... yeah. :D Less sarcastically, Green Day (and The Offspring to a lesser degree) were the blueprint for pop-punk, with bands/artists like Blink-182, Sum 41, Avril Lavigne having massive success, and continuing later with bands/artists like Fallout Boy, Paramore, and Panic! At the Disco. Some would even argue that many of the original punk bands like Ramones were basically pop punk as well. There's also some truth to the fact that punk was always tied to pop given that it was initially influenced by the (often quite poppy) garage rock bands of the 60s, and only some punk bands really moved away from its pop roots.
It's funny, I tend to look at most of those bands as either pop-rock or punk -- but it's very possible that I just don't know what "true" punk is and I've only heard the more popular bands like Sum and Blink. Might have to do a Punk week so I have something to compare those radio-punk bands to.
@@CriticalReactions Like most rock/metal genres, punk has a long history so it's changed significantly and gotten extremely hybridized wit other genres over time, so I wouldn't worry too much about what constitutes "true punk." The closest you'd get are many of the OG punk bands, and even they tend to be quite different from each other and from what came after.
I tossed in Punk for the Theme Poll. Maybe it's time I checked out some of the OG stuff to see where more mainstream punk and post-punk came from.