And all that time those two reviews have stuck in my mind. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about them on the way to work, or while getting groceries, sometimes even in the middle of a conversation some spare remark will prompt the two Bon Iver reviews that Tim Sendra wrote, presumably for Allmusic. These reviews and the three-and-something years between them are, I think, representative of how the human socio-cultural system has shifted. Or maybe I'm a tin-eared bastard with a dumb, sloppy blog.
The two Bon Iver albums strike me as being remarkably similar. I haven't played them constantly; I haven't listened to either of the albums particularly critically (huh?); I have, however, listened to both of the albums in full at least four times. As far as I'm concerned, I have more respect for Bon Iver than for Tim Sendra, but Bon Iver has to admit that Tim Sendra has somehow managed to make Bon Iver weirdly important to me. I wouldn't have known about this band or even written them off if not for two reviews that produced a mysterious reaction in my mind. Tim Sendra, however, has explained where the last three years of my life went, for which I am in his debt - figuratively, of course.
The two albums are titled For Emma and Bon Iver, chronologically. Note how the second album title is eponymous. The fact literally does not matter to me. I somehow always think it's the first album, which may have skewed my idea of things, except that I knew exactly what Tim Sendra was talking about when he reviewed either album. Let me be concise for a moment: I think the first album is sincere and conceited; I think the second is sincere and conceited. I found both of them pretty enjoyable except they have a sombre, cool vibe to them. Let me post an image of Tim Sendra's review of For Emma. I hope he doesn't mind this mild intrusion, but I am acknowledging him as the author and Allmusic as the owner, so there's nothing to apologize about since I'm not planning on calling him uncouth names.
It seems to me an honest review. It's probably how Tim Sendra felt about the album. It's a fair representation and he does not oversell. He notes: 'subdued', 'isolated', 'voice', 'harmonies', and you can read the rest. I find the album decent, etherized and ethereal and with a few stand-out songs. "Lump Sum" is alright. In the end the album is alright. Some of the vocals are autotuned, so there is obvious conceit and if you are not a sensitive soul you will find these touches laughable or out-of-place. They are used for emphasis, don't sound entirely stupid, but still: fucking autotune in another heartfelt, subdued, harmonic indie-rock folkish lament. I don't even know if it's original but it surprised me.
So, cool album. Not something I'd want to listen to very often, but for times of illness or heartbreak I imagine it is suitable if unhealthy. In themselves, For Emma and Sendra's review are harmless enough and inoffensive. Now, gentle reader, please allow me to bring Exhibit B into these calm, idealized waters. Exhibit B is Bon Iver, the album, and Sendra's review as accompaniment in B sharp.
Oh, what a beautiful runt, stillborn, from a lamentable litter is Bon Iver. It makes me think that this nouveau-country indie-folk movement is a regenerated limb of shoegaze. But shoegaze is embarrassing 90's stuff for stoned teenagers. And those are now stoned twenty-to-thirtysomethings who have retained their internet literacy and used it to know how to be mundane and culturally literate. In essence they've put on the blinkers of adulthood and look straight ahead at goals, at love, and at whatever they are told to. They are no longer bashful teenagers who stare wistfully into grey November puddles – but that's not important, and outside my rightful purview. What you are about to see is the change in 'the World' that took place between 2008 and 2011. Bon Iver, as reviewed by Sendra:
You will actually have to read it. You will actually have to compare it. Then you will actually have to return here and read something that struck me. Keep in mind that, to me at least, the two albums are similar. And, to be honest, I think I prefer the second one. But according to Sendra it is a trashy, overproduced, cluttered, 'synthed' abortion that Bon Iver should've consulted Kanye West about. Oh, that's right. Sendra got pithy in those three years.
Don't forget what happened: the fistbump became predominant, the global economy was gamed into an early retirement, and the seething idiocy of the past continued despite dreams of hope and change. Science advanced .001% on the Great Progress Bar of the Installation of the Technical Singularity. Tim Sendra grew disillusioned and wan, abandoned by a train of coke-snorting fashion-model lovers and even by his treasured music. His honest pen grew cold and calloused and abusive.
I have to agree that the final track on Bon Iver, entitled "Beth/Rest" is an unmitigated 80's-sounding piece of shit. I look at it as penance, as true suffering elaborated for the listener, an ironic embrace of vulgar and nauseating cliches. Sendra is spot-on and I have to admire that he was even capable of biting his tongue. However the rest of the album is subdued and less waxy than the previous offering. Some of the heartfelt honesty is gone, but 'Skinny Love' was at its heart an annoying song about scrawny hipsters groping for solace in the wake of a broken relationship, and has been replaced by the delightful "Holocene" - subdued with a cliche refrain, gentle effects, and decent lyrics. A man cannot go into the woods twice to produce an indie-folk masterpiece. He must be resigned to the slick, garbagey sounds of the studio and trust that his listeners have not grown tired of a bloated subset of music.
"Holocene" by itself is individually better than any song on the previous album. But when Obama ceased to be a liberal demigod, and consumer positivity was smashed by greed, and plutocracy was unveiled as an iron monolith, Tim Sendra became depressed. Then Bon Iver released a second album that was slightly less sedate, slightly hotter than the first, and all hell broke loose. Suddenly Bon Iver was a "sub-Enya with a beard". I don't think Enya ever made anything with a heartbeat, unless she gave birth. I think Sendra's problem is that 'overproduced pablum' means 'Bon Iver made a slightly lively album' to him. With a worldview like that many things would become confusing and irritating, and
Justin Vernon's vocals were never the highpoint of his albums. It might have been, like, execution or something. His lyrics were alright, he sung well enough; he simply managed to fit into his obscure, asymmetrical, nouveau-shoegaze ballads because he wrote them. His vocals do not change between the albums, so Sendra has to emphasize that production is the enemy. The first album had a slightly sparer feeling but was roughly just as produced. It just didn't use staggeringly obvious reverb effects. In short, it forgot that Nick Drake had already completed three superior albums 40 years prior – even going so far as the prophetic song "Man in a Shed", which could've been about Iver or Sendra. And the point of the digression is excusable, so the first album isn't called a milquetoast fuckshow. And eka-god forbid that Bon Iver tries to make a sophomore album that isn't a rehashed version of the first.
Ultimately I discovered that Tim Sendra had fallen into a trap I once fell into, a very comfortable and meaningful and sensible trap. He had met the first album at a time in his life when he could relate to it, and instead of reviewing it with the noncommittal shrug of, say, Christgau, he allowed himself to become infatuated with 'promise' and 'breathtaking arrangements', possibly because he had not heard their type before. Then he grew up and matured and his earlier sensibility was lost, and he was called upon to review the second, eagerly-awaited Bon Iver album. (Note: eagerly awaited by solemn, bearded, urban men in flannel). The album was distressing because he was no longer in a state where the album could speak to him personally, and as a result he felt betrayed, and he had to rationalize it.
Again, note how the length of the review increases. In music journalism, the length of a review is inversely related to its honesty, relevance, and focus. Either Sendra learned more words or perspectives he wanted to display, or he had to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the 'sophomore slump' was still a feared rule-of-thumb in the music industry. Also he spent a good three sentences nostalgically reviewing For Emma and how he felt it portrayed a certain thing. Context is well and good, but I wonder why he needed a mini-review instead of a lean, meaningful lead sentence. Skinny lead.
Finally, to be personal and heartfelt and to idolize a thing that speaks to me personally, Bon Iver the sophomoric sleazy synth album has the only of Justin Vernon's lyrics that ever made sense and illustrated something for me. They're cliche and apparent and if you listen to the album you might identify them.
So two very similar albums, one which is not criticized for using Autotune, and one that is criticized for cluttering its sonic landscape with 'synth noises', each produced and reproduced and filtered and planned and plotted, are entirely different things because... and this is going to sound as stupid and Platonic as it is.... they weren't released at the same time by different artists. And that, my gentle readers, is the only way I imagine each would've gotten a fair hearing by Tim Sendra.
Two reviews by our esteemed subject that dispel the myth of progress (of music) and progress (of everything else by proxy and fallacy). In a perverse way, the whole trip has just basically been Hippy Bon Jovi Nonsense. Next week I will trust my instinct, and something interesting will no doubt occur, and be noted on this blog in an excruciating write-up.
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