Hot Take/ Musical Confession Thread!

Hemotep said:
I've tried a few times and it doesn't click with me either, despite also enjoying his work in those other bands. The solo stuff leans a bit too hard in the direction that I don't care for in country sounds.

I never thought of it as too slick before, but that seems like an apt descriptor and possibly what doesn't do it for me with his stuff either.
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Also, this is great:
 
Meant to post this when the album was newer and discussion about it would be more relevant, but never quite got around to wording it in a way I wanted to. Better late than never, I suppose?

Anyway, the new Caribou album. The first time I listened to the it I thought "wow, he's using a lot more guest vocalists this time around, that's weird" but quickly moved past it. However, after repeated listens and the album not really clicking with me, I kept feeling like something about the album was off. That's when I do a little research and discover all the voices I thought were featured artists were actually performed by Caribou himself using some sort of AI-augmentation filter and that's when I went from "slightly disappointed" to "actively annoyed."

First off, let me preface that Caribou (and any artist, for that matter) is free to do whatever he feels when it comes to his music, it's his art and he gets to make it however he wants and he doesn't owe me a damn thing. However, as a longtime fan, this artistic decision just strikes a sour chord with me. I'm not even going to get into discussions about the ethics of it or anything like that, because I'm sure there's arguments to be made that what he's doing here isn't that different from using a vocoder or Autotune. While I've made my feelings on the use of AI in art very clear in the past (I don't like it, to put it lightly), giving Caribou the benefit of the doubt that this was just him being excited to experiment with new tech and that this isn't going to be a permanent fixture of his sound going forward, I still think this was a bad move personally.

While I get that Caribou might not be the greatest singer in the world or whatever, as someone who enjoys his work, I like his voice and it's one of the reasons I listen to his music. So for me, this creative choice is just really disappointing on all fronts. Before I knew all the voices on the album were him, I was disappointed at the lack of his vocals compared to his previous album. But then, once I knew it was him, I was disappointed that he felt the need to disguise his voice with a bunch of AI filters. Not only that, but it's more distracting than anything; now that I'm aware it's him singing, it's impossible to unhear and it just makes me wish I was hearing his actual voice. This is especially sad because I thought with Suddenly he was really starting to become more confident as a vocalist and I was excited to see where he'd go with that. Then he does this and I'm not sure what to think.

Anyways I'm not sure exactly what my point in posting this is. I guess I just wanted an excuse to vent and ask the rest of y'all if this is something that bothers you as well or if you think I'm just overreacting. I feel the need to reiterate that this isn't me saying Caribou should be shunned or anything, just that I'm really not a fan of the direction he went on this new project. To be fair, even if he wasn't disguising his vocals throughout, I'd probably still be a bit let down as the album sonically being way more dancefloor-oriented in nature after his last one showed off such a different array of sounds was a problem I had even on first listen. Like I said earlier, I'm hoping this is sort of a one-off thing for him, but if this his "new sound" going forward, so to speak, I'm not sure I'll be anticipating his next album like I was this one.
 
gaporter said:
Meant to post this when the album was newer and discussion about it would be more relevant, but never quite got around to wording it in a way I wanted to. Better late than never, I suppose?

Anyway, the new Caribou album. The first time I listened to the it I thought "wow, he's using a lot more guest vocalists this time around, that's weird" but quickly moved past it. However, after repeated listens and the album not really clicking with me, I kept feeling like something about the album was off. That's when I do a little research and discover all the voices I thought were featured artists were actually performed by Caribou himself using some sort of AI-augmentation filter and that's when I went from "slightly disappointed" to "actively annoyed."

First off, let me preface that Caribou (and any artist, for that matter) is free to do whatever he feels when it comes to his music, it's his art and he gets to make it however he wants and he doesn't owe me a damn thing. However, as a longtime fan, this artistic decision just strikes a sour chord with me. I'm not even going to get into discussions about the ethics of it or anything like that, because I'm sure there's arguments to be made that what he's doing here isn't that different from using a vocoder or Autotune. While I've made my feelings on the use of AI in art very clear in the past (I don't like it, to put it lightly), giving Caribou the benefit of the doubt that this was just him being excited to experiment with new tech and that this isn't going to be a permanent fixture of his sound going forward, I still think this was a bad move personally.

While I get that Caribou might not be the greatest singer in the world or whatever, as someone who enjoys his work, I like his voice and it's one of the reasons I listen to his music. So for me, this creative choice is just really disappointing on all fronts. Before I knew all the voices on the album were him, I was disappointed at the lack of his vocals compared to his previous album. But then, once I knew it was him, I was disappointed that he felt the need to disguise his voice with a bunch of AI filters. Not only that, but it's more distracting than anything; now that I'm aware it's him singing, it's impossible to unhear and it just makes me wish I was hearing his actual voice. This is especially sad because I thought with Suddenly he was really starting to become more confident as a vocalist and I was excited to see where he'd go with that. Then he does this and I'm not sure what to think.

Anyways I'm not sure exactly what my point in posting this is. I guess I just wanted an excuse to vent and ask the rest of y'all if this is something that bothers you as well or if you think I'm just overreacting. I feel the need to reiterate that this isn't me saying Caribou should be shunned or anything, just that I'm really not a fan of the direction he went on this new project. To be fair, even if he wasn't disguising his vocals throughout, I'd probably still be a bit let down as the album sonically being way more dancefloor-oriented in nature after his last one showed off such a different array of sounds was a problem I had even on first listen. Like I said earlier, I'm hoping this is sort of a one-off thing for him, but if this his "new sound" going forward, so to speak, I'm not sure I'll be anticipating his next album like I was this one.
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I am not a fan of his but have been meaning to check it (new album)/him out. He is electronic adjacent at least? I would expect many electronic artists will play with AI with varying degrees of transparency, if he was forthwith about it, then I just think it is, for better or worse, a natural progression for music (especially electronic genres). If he was less than forthwith then not cool dude:
 
Nee Lewman said:
I am not a fan of his but have been meaning to check it (new album)/him out. He is electronic adjacent at least? I would expect many electronic artists will play with AI with varying degrees of transparency, if he was forthwith about it, then I just think it is, for better or worse, a natural progression for music (especially electronic genres). If he was less than forthwith then not cool dude:
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He used to be more on the folktronica side of things but since about 2010 he's been pretty squarely electronic. I'm not someone who pays a lot of attention to album rollouts and things like that these days, so if this was something he advertised about the album, I missed it completely. I'll say that the reviews I read discussing it seemed to suggest it was something he kept concealed, basically saying something to the effect of "and you'll never believe who's behind all those voices" in the headline, which implies to me he wasn't very forthcoming about it.

In regards to it being a natural progression, that's why I mentioned in the original post that I felt like it was more an issue of artistic intent than any kind of genuine malice on Caribou's part. I'm sure that a lot of the misgivings I have about this project aren't too different from how people sounded lobbing criticisms at Daft Punk for manipulating their vocals to sound more robotic. The only big difference in my mind is that Daft Punk were doing that as early as their debut album, whereas Caribou has spent basically his entire career up until now using his unaltered vocals, which is why it's particularly strange to me that he's doing this now.
 
gaporter said:
Meant to post this when the album was newer and discussion about it would be more relevant, but never quite got around to wording it in a way I wanted to. Better late than never, I suppose?

Anyway, the new Caribou album. The first time I listened to the it I thought "wow, he's using a lot more guest vocalists this time around, that's weird" but quickly moved past it. However, after repeated listens and the album not really clicking with me, I kept feeling like something about the album was off. That's when I do a little research and discover all the voices I thought were featured artists were actually performed by Caribou himself using some sort of AI-augmentation filter and that's when I went from "slightly disappointed" to "actively annoyed."

First off, let me preface that Caribou (and any artist, for that matter) is free to do whatever he feels when it comes to his music, it's his art and he gets to make it however he wants and he doesn't owe me a damn thing. However, as a longtime fan, this artistic decision just strikes a sour chord with me. I'm not even going to get into discussions about the ethics of it or anything like that, because I'm sure there's arguments to be made that what he's doing here isn't that different from using a vocoder or Autotune. While I've made my feelings on the use of AI in art very clear in the past (I don't like it, to put it lightly), giving Caribou the benefit of the doubt that this was just him being excited to experiment with new tech and that this isn't going to be a permanent fixture of his sound going forward, I still think this was a bad move personally.

While I get that Caribou might not be the greatest singer in the world or whatever, as someone who enjoys his work, I like his voice and it's one of the reasons I listen to his music. So for me, this creative choice is just really disappointing on all fronts. Before I knew all the voices on the album were him, I was disappointed at the lack of his vocals compared to his previous album. But then, once I knew it was him, I was disappointed that he felt the need to disguise his voice with a bunch of AI filters. Not only that, but it's more distracting than anything; now that I'm aware it's him singing, it's impossible to unhear and it just makes me wish I was hearing his actual voice. This is especially sad because I thought with Suddenly he was really starting to become more confident as a vocalist and I was excited to see where he'd go with that. Then he does this and I'm not sure what to think.

Anyways I'm not sure exactly what my point in posting this is. I guess I just wanted an excuse to vent and ask the rest of y'all if this is something that bothers you as well or if you think I'm just overreacting. I feel the need to reiterate that this isn't me saying Caribou should be shunned or anything, just that I'm really not a fan of the direction he went on this new project. To be fair, even if he wasn't disguising his vocals throughout, I'd probably still be a bit let down as the album sonically being way more dancefloor-oriented in nature after his last one showed off such a different array of sounds was a problem I had even on first listen. Like I said earlier, I'm hoping this is sort of a one-off thing for him, but if this his "new sound" going forward, so to speak, I'm not sure I'll be anticipating his next album like I was this one.
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You said right up front that even with repeated listens the album didn't click. The rest of this just seems like rationalizing this fact. Now, that's all fine and good, I do it all the time but let's just be real that the album is pretty mid regardless whether you have this knowledge to rationalize it.

Maybe you have more investment in Caribou than the vast majority of artists? In that case, I can be a little more sympathetic. It sucks when an artist you are invested in moves in a direction you are fundamentally opposed to. I try to remember that there's always been more music being made at any moment than we have life to listen to and these days we have unprecedented access to find it and hear it as we please.

I feel like it was you that tried to tell me the whole point of Oneohtrix' use of autotune to "become the machine" was the point. I basically don't care. I hate the sound and it makes it all suck for me. Clearly, my opinion is irrelevant because he has a rabid fanbase that eats it up. But I sure as shit am not giving it repeated listens to retrain my brain, I like it how it is thank you very much.
 
debianlinux said:
You said right up front that even with repeated listens the album didn't click. The rest of this just seems like rationalizing this fact. Now, that's all fine and good, I do it all the time but let's just be real that the album is pretty mid regardless whether you have this knowledge to rationalize it.

Maybe you have more investment in Caribou than the vast majority of artists? In that case, I can be a little more sympathetic. It sucks when an artist you are invested in moves in a direction you are fundamentally opposed to. I try to remember that there's always been more music being made at any moment than we have life to listen to and these days we have unprecedented access to find it and hear it as we please.

I feel like it was you that tried to tell me the whole point of Oneohtrix' use of autotune to "become the machine" was the point. I basically don't care. I hate the sound and it makes it all suck for me. Clearly, my opinion is irrelevant because he has a rabid fanbase that eats it up. But I sure as shit am not giving it repeated listens to retrain my brain, I like it how it is thank you very much.
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I wanna make a joke about @nolalady smacking you on the side of the head like an old television cause you are glitching. The problem is, I don’t really care about Oneohtrix either, but I still wanna invoke it all the same.
 
debianlinux said:
You said right up front that even with repeated listens the album didn't click. The rest of this just seems like rationalizing this fact. Now, that's all fine and good, I do it all the time but let's just be real that the album is pretty mid regardless whether you have this knowledge to rationalize it.

Maybe you have more investment in Caribou than the vast majority of artists? In that case, I can be a little more sympathetic. It sucks when an artist you are invested in moves in a direction you are fundamentally opposed to. I try to remember that there's always been more music being made at any moment than we have life to listen to and these days we have unprecedented access to find it and hear it as we please.

I feel like it was you that tried to tell me the whole point of Oneohtrix' use of autotune to "become the machine" was the point. I basically don't care. I hate the sound and it makes it all suck for me. Clearly, my opinion is irrelevant because he has a rabid fanbase that eats it up. But I sure as shit am not giving it repeated listens to retrain my brain, I like it how it is thank you very much.
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To be clear, I never said that the vocals were the main reason I didn't like the album. I stated in my post that on first listen I thought he was just using a bunch of guest vocalists and my reaction was still on the "meh" side, so it's more that learning they were created with an AI voice changer rather than actual human beings featured on the songs just added on to my intial disappointment. I feel like I'm invested in Caribou only to the extent that I cared enough to wonder why he wasn't singing as much on the new album and decided to do a little research to see if there was any info on why that was.

That's more curiosity than anything, and while I guess me waiting to a month and a half to post something about it would suggest otherwise, it isn't really something that's been bothering me nonstop since the album came out or anything. I just thought it was an interesting topic to bring up, since as far as I can tell this is one of the more high-profile examples of an artist integrating AI into their music so far. Plus while you're correct that the project as a whole isn't really what I expected (or wanted) sonically from a new Caribou album in 2024, I can't ignore that a rather large part of that sonic palette is the vocals. But my choice to expound on that specific aspect of the record in my post came more from a desire to discuss a specific point than to say, "I didn't care for this album because AI was used to help make the vocals."

Also I'm fairly certain that wasn't me who said that about OPN, though it's possible I'm misremembering. In any case, there are a lot of artists who manipulate their vocals to achieve some kind of effect (like the Daft Punk example I mentioned above) and I think it'd be ridiculous to say that any artist who does that is being deceptive. I think there's a slight bit of gray area with this Caribou example only because he has used featured artists here and there in the past, so I feel like anyone picking this new album up without context would probably think that's what they're hearing.
 
I don't know there was any deception involved because I knew this about the Caribou album when the singles were released. Not sure where it came up, but I had read it. I wasn't a fan of the recent material, not as much as his previous records. He had a run of 4 pretty excellent albums to this point as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, these recent songs weren't doing it for me. His not using his normal singing voice probably had something to do with it, because I like his voice. Has that Erlend Oye vibe to it, that goes well with his production. Anyway, that's all I have to chime in on this. Good on him for experimenting, it doesn't always work or please everyone. Hopefully comes back to "basics" next go around.
 
Not so much a hot take as a rant:
Nee Lewman said:
Blame @tvham
View attachment 221922

Edit, based on the first song, unless this takes some kind of turn, I am going to have to disagree with @tvham - this is terrible.
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I’m at the beginning of track six as I type.

First, was this sequenced by the shuffle function? It’s is head snapping in its lack of coherence.

Next, the first three songs are soaked in auto tune which is funny cause dude has a nice voice.

Track three is a laughable Avett’s style vocal over a mall Christmas beat and includes an incredible line about Jesus being “BORN TO LAST.”

Then track four. He turns that autotune off and proceeds to FUCKING BUTCHER Joni’s River by being all over the place. Like what the actual fuck. I’m pretty sure if I played this over the HiFi my wife would punch me and then punt the NAD into the lawn.
 
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