I'M WAITING TO KNOW YOU
Dear The Fiery Furnaces,
I'm listening to your new album, "Bitter Tea." I almost didn't get it because I hate to say it, but "Rehearsing My Choir" never completely did it for me, and I didn't want to go through the disappointment of buying an album that doesn't live up to your very own love of the band itself. But you got me in the end, mostly because of your song titles. It's always your song titles that get me. Songs called "The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry" and "Police Sweater Blood Vow"? Man alive, you know how to entice a writer, at least a writer like me.
But oh furnaces, how you frustrate as well as entice. What do you have against nice, normal chord progressions? When you use them, the wacky lyrics and production have a frame of reference, an anchor, something to make the actual listening part more visceral and less about evaluating your artistic decision making. And it drives me CRAZY, especially when slap together some slow dance doowop fuzzy bass thing that makes my heart flutter.
In some ways, I can understand: you want to push past making things that are just pretty and simple. You want a real deal challenge, to get yourselves beyond the morass of POST POST POST POST POST POST irony pantsuit gullible and so on. I know, I know. The poetry world has the same issue. And I respect you for your fantastic difficulty. I defend difficulty. I am, myself, difficult.
But consider doing me a favor (and you really should, because I bought all of your albums at full retail price, saw you once in Pittsburgh, and also bought a t-shirt which I have since tried turning into a halter top with no luck). Try the Carpenters thing for a little while. Songs like "Evergreen" and, come to think of it, "I'm Waiting to Know You" prove that you could do it. The Carpenters are secretly crazy avant, and you're a pair of siblings. Come on. Please.
It doesn't take a genius,
Sarah
Dear The Fiery Furnaces,
I'm listening to your new album, "Bitter Tea." I almost didn't get it because I hate to say it, but "Rehearsing My Choir" never completely did it for me, and I didn't want to go through the disappointment of buying an album that doesn't live up to your very own love of the band itself. But you got me in the end, mostly because of your song titles. It's always your song titles that get me. Songs called "The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry" and "Police Sweater Blood Vow"? Man alive, you know how to entice a writer, at least a writer like me.
But oh furnaces, how you frustrate as well as entice. What do you have against nice, normal chord progressions? When you use them, the wacky lyrics and production have a frame of reference, an anchor, something to make the actual listening part more visceral and less about evaluating your artistic decision making. And it drives me CRAZY, especially when slap together some slow dance doowop fuzzy bass thing that makes my heart flutter.
In some ways, I can understand: you want to push past making things that are just pretty and simple. You want a real deal challenge, to get yourselves beyond the morass of POST POST POST POST POST POST irony pantsuit gullible and so on. I know, I know. The poetry world has the same issue. And I respect you for your fantastic difficulty. I defend difficulty. I am, myself, difficult.
But consider doing me a favor (and you really should, because I bought all of your albums at full retail price, saw you once in Pittsburgh, and also bought a t-shirt which I have since tried turning into a halter top with no luck). Try the Carpenters thing for a little while. Songs like "Evergreen" and, come to think of it, "I'm Waiting to Know You" prove that you could do it. The Carpenters are secretly crazy avant, and you're a pair of siblings. Come on. Please.
It doesn't take a genius,
Sarah
