You’re a braver man than I to even listen to the TS album - and your wise musical analysis suggests I’m wise to avoid it! Diamond Jubilee is a straight-up masterpiece, though.
"Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee is like the antimatter pair to The Tortured Poets Department"
You get the sense that we’ll look back on the release of these records years from now and mark it as an indicator of a shift. There were Spotify- and Bandcamp-induced tremors all last year building up to this moment, but that Cindy Lee record is the earthquake that shook a lot of music fans (myself included) out of a stupor into which the corporate music industry had lulled us.
DAW-based production has resulted in fussy, clean, “featureless soundscapes” as you called them. Social media has resulted in album releases driven more by their narrative context and story and brand than the actual songs. All Music From Everywhere Ever™ available at the frictionless click of a button has resulted in a feeling that music is disposable content: more is always better than better.
I’m not saying any of this is inherently bad. (Well, maybe the last one...)
But it does induce expectations and patterns of behavior. And that Cindy Lee record is the absolute antithesis of what we’ve grown to expect from a big album release.
The "messy production" and "sloppy musicianship" add to making Diamond Jubilee's songs, melodies, and riffs feel so uncannily, humanly, alive. A pal of mine had to Google how to import .WAVs into Spotify, feeling—for the first time since his Limewire days—the labor that goes into curating a music library you *actually* own. The little bit of friction—of having to put in track names and track orders—that gets you to pay a little more attention and feel a little more connected to the songs themselves. The slapdash look/feel of the Geocities site, the overall absence of any narrative context. You have to dig a little more to figure out what the fuck is going on. What *is* this alien artifact that landed in my back yard?
I've missed this feeling.
The fact that—like you—everyone I’ve shared it with has been gobsmacked by it is telling: It's very likely the album of the year, and will likely end up on the prestige, end-of-decade "Albums of the 2020's" lists.
I have the worst 'ears' for production of anyone I work with , but even I get what you're saying about Antonoff's soundscapes. The prime example of that to me was Pharrell Williams' "Happy"; where I couldn't even discern beyond the ghostliest notion the chord structure, much less what instruments were or were not present.
One gets the sense that Antonoff and Dressner are acutely aware that no listener is coming to hear anything but Swift's lyrics, so they shoved everything into drawers but those. "Serving the Song", but taken to its worst extreme, where "tasteful" vanishes into "flavorless".
But you know. The spice must flow; the pipeline must have product. In 10-15 years, one of those 31 songs will be in a TV commercial for mortgage loans or osteoporosis medication.
Thanks for the heads up on the Cindy Lee album. I will of course check it out as I missed it on Pitchfork. I keep listening to Swift but still don’t get it. English Teacher from Leeds UK are doing it for me right now…
I have no room in my life for Taylor Swift stuff, it has no relevance to my life or musical interests at all.
I still haven't listened to all of the Cindy Lee album yet, but so far what I've heard from it I am liking okay, and will definitely be playing some of it on my radio show, but I haven't heard anything from it yet that makes me think it's anything all *that* different from tons of other underground rock-oriented bands I've heard in my life. The word "revelation" has not come to mind yet. I'm probably terribly jaded about indie rock at this late stage of my life, but I keep thinking that Diamond Jubilee might mainly be the 2024 version of "Slanted and Enchanted." Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.
I reserve the right to reassess my opinions of it as I get around to hearing more of it, of course. I do appreciate the 1995 vibe of their website, and anti-Spotification. It's just difficult for me not to feel skeptical seeing so much fawning over anything anymore!
A release as offline as TS’s is online sounds so wonderful. Almost too wonderful. Too good to be true. I can barely get people to listen to my music when I make it as easy as possible to do so and promote the hell out of it. And I’m not alone. Maybe that’s the problem. I’m drawn to listen to Cindy Lee’s music because it feels like such an oddity. It has a mystique, an allure.
Great read. I’m glad I'm not the only one that made a connection between the two records. Diamond Jubilee is the first album I’ve heard in years that really blew me away. It’s the rare great double album as varied and as eclectic as The White Album.
Thanks for this article. In addition to your observations about production, I appreciate how you highlight the TS release approach in the context of a counter approach. As some others have commented above, we musicians are all functioning in a paradigm that appears to present just a few ways that we “should” release our music these days. It is hopeful to see the Cindy Lee album find its way via an alternative release paradigm even if that notice is largely reliant on a press review from a major outlet. Great topic.
"No one is going to call this 32-track Cindy Lee album tedious, anyway."
I've listened to it a couple of times after downloading the individual-track version. While I applaud its audacity and (to my ears) daring lo-fi sonics, I do find it tedious. Maybe I'll change my mind. The problem is I'll have to allocate another couple of hours to try it again.
You’re a braver man than I to even listen to the TS album - and your wise musical analysis suggests I’m wise to avoid it! Diamond Jubilee is a straight-up masterpiece, though.
"Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee is like the antimatter pair to The Tortured Poets Department"
You get the sense that we’ll look back on the release of these records years from now and mark it as an indicator of a shift. There were Spotify- and Bandcamp-induced tremors all last year building up to this moment, but that Cindy Lee record is the earthquake that shook a lot of music fans (myself included) out of a stupor into which the corporate music industry had lulled us.
DAW-based production has resulted in fussy, clean, “featureless soundscapes” as you called them. Social media has resulted in album releases driven more by their narrative context and story and brand than the actual songs. All Music From Everywhere Ever™ available at the frictionless click of a button has resulted in a feeling that music is disposable content: more is always better than better.
I’m not saying any of this is inherently bad. (Well, maybe the last one...)
But it does induce expectations and patterns of behavior. And that Cindy Lee record is the absolute antithesis of what we’ve grown to expect from a big album release.
The "messy production" and "sloppy musicianship" add to making Diamond Jubilee's songs, melodies, and riffs feel so uncannily, humanly, alive. A pal of mine had to Google how to import .WAVs into Spotify, feeling—for the first time since his Limewire days—the labor that goes into curating a music library you *actually* own. The little bit of friction—of having to put in track names and track orders—that gets you to pay a little more attention and feel a little more connected to the songs themselves. The slapdash look/feel of the Geocities site, the overall absence of any narrative context. You have to dig a little more to figure out what the fuck is going on. What *is* this alien artifact that landed in my back yard?
I've missed this feeling.
The fact that—like you—everyone I’ve shared it with has been gobsmacked by it is telling: It's very likely the album of the year, and will likely end up on the prestige, end-of-decade "Albums of the 2020's" lists.
right on! thanks...
I have the worst 'ears' for production of anyone I work with , but even I get what you're saying about Antonoff's soundscapes. The prime example of that to me was Pharrell Williams' "Happy"; where I couldn't even discern beyond the ghostliest notion the chord structure, much less what instruments were or were not present.
One gets the sense that Antonoff and Dressner are acutely aware that no listener is coming to hear anything but Swift's lyrics, so they shoved everything into drawers but those. "Serving the Song", but taken to its worst extreme, where "tasteful" vanishes into "flavorless".
But you know. The spice must flow; the pipeline must have product. In 10-15 years, one of those 31 songs will be in a TV commercial for mortgage loans or osteoporosis medication.
Thanks for this great piece! CL is nothing short of a revelation
Thanks for the heads up on the Cindy Lee album. I will of course check it out as I missed it on Pitchfork. I keep listening to Swift but still don’t get it. English Teacher from Leeds UK are doing it for me right now…
I have no room in my life for Taylor Swift stuff, it has no relevance to my life or musical interests at all.
I still haven't listened to all of the Cindy Lee album yet, but so far what I've heard from it I am liking okay, and will definitely be playing some of it on my radio show, but I haven't heard anything from it yet that makes me think it's anything all *that* different from tons of other underground rock-oriented bands I've heard in my life. The word "revelation" has not come to mind yet. I'm probably terribly jaded about indie rock at this late stage of my life, but I keep thinking that Diamond Jubilee might mainly be the 2024 version of "Slanted and Enchanted." Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.
I reserve the right to reassess my opinions of it as I get around to hearing more of it, of course. I do appreciate the 1995 vibe of their website, and anti-Spotification. It's just difficult for me not to feel skeptical seeing so much fawning over anything anymore!
A release as offline as TS’s is online sounds so wonderful. Almost too wonderful. Too good to be true. I can barely get people to listen to my music when I make it as easy as possible to do so and promote the hell out of it. And I’m not alone. Maybe that’s the problem. I’m drawn to listen to Cindy Lee’s music because it feels like such an oddity. It has a mystique, an allure.
Great read. I’m glad I'm not the only one that made a connection between the two records. Diamond Jubilee is the first album I’ve heard in years that really blew me away. It’s the rare great double album as varied and as eclectic as The White Album.
Thanks for this article. In addition to your observations about production, I appreciate how you highlight the TS release approach in the context of a counter approach. As some others have commented above, we musicians are all functioning in a paradigm that appears to present just a few ways that we “should” release our music these days. It is hopeful to see the Cindy Lee album find its way via an alternative release paradigm even if that notice is largely reliant on a press review from a major outlet. Great topic.
"No one is going to call this 32-track Cindy Lee album tedious, anyway."
I've listened to it a couple of times after downloading the individual-track version. While I applaud its audacity and (to my ears) daring lo-fi sonics, I do find it tedious. Maybe I'll change my mind. The problem is I'll have to allocate another couple of hours to try it again.