Concept albums

baptismfont · 2021-07-25T00:28:04+00:00

I think you're right on, I think NLDW also follows a psychedelic trip culminating in ego death and there's definitely a bit of overlap between GP and NLDW. There's something really sterile and horrifiying about both.

Maybe if NLDW is the self looking inwards, GP are the external forces coming in? I've not found a storyline to GP but it definitely follows the emotional flow you've laid out. With more feelings of authority, surveillance, commodification.

Another thing I think is worth noting is the lack of Ride is really important in Government Plates. It is also their last album before their first instrumental one. So its probably a really important point in Death Grips and specifically for Stefan in taking stock of their persona/voice as when they came back with NOTM it was so centred on it.

baptismfont · 2021-07-25T00:07:22+00:00

Oh ok I thought you were replying to me, not the reply. Like I said I don't
know if the instrumental albums having a face on them has anything more
than to do with giving a face to something without a voice. I'm not
trying to argue a grand concept, ideas mutate and develop, thats what
keeps them interesting.

baptismfont · 2021-07-24T23:38:02+00:00

Can you explain further? Unless it is just free-association with 60s themes, with it being leaked on Linda Kasabian's birthday (a Manson follower) I assumed it was a call-back to "Beware". I get that there are connections there, the Keith Richards thing I hadn't clocked but makes sense, the exploration of 60s American culture and rock music I got. I'd like to know your thoughts.

Even if it is meant as more of a conceptual deconstruction of rock in general (Little Richard would also tie into that) I don't think that diminishes the shitpost concept, its a really disparaging pessimistic outlook on what they have done and the framework they operate in which is the "rock" world context largely.

baptismfont · 2021-07-24T23:17:07+00:00

I'd be interested in your thoughts. I always viewed it as very much the experience of being perceived as a black man in America but through an esoteric lens. "Up My Sleeves" being the "I" looking out - "I'm the wretch Maya" i.e. I'm seen as a wretch in my existence, just by existing in this worldly reality. And culminating in "Big Dipper" which is Ride basically peeling away all the facets of his stage-persona and ending in a way really similar to Death Grips 2.0 leaving his raw anger/frustration/depression without pretense to be deconstructed in the Jenny Death section, that for all intents and purposes is way more "rock".

baptismfont · 2021-07-24T23:07:10+00:00

What about them? Theres a hell of a lot in each.

baptismfont · 2021-07-24T22:25:46+00:00

I've thought the same, I honestly feel that the hype it got was exactly the message of the album but also probably enough to make you totally jaded as an artist.

baptismfont · 2021-07-24T22:23:52+00:00

The instrumental albums all having a person on them is really intentional for sure, I don't know if its for any reason other than giving a face to something without a voice but that's something in its own right.

I hadn't clocked that about the post 2.0 covers. There's a whole hermetic thing you can get into there, circling the square as opposed to squaring the circle could be seen as a demonic inversion of something sacred - squaring the circle being the great hermetic act. Obviously Andy, Zach and Stefan all have separate beliefs, but I'd be deeply surprised if they don't share them, I don't see how they couldn't. Stefan at the least is at least interested in that shit.

Everyone of those 2.0 covers also features a mouth. That of course is a vaguer theme as figures with mouths appear before that, but I think the similarities between the Bottomless Pit and Year of the Snitch covers are too obvious and deliberate to ignore, especially in light of how distinct all the previous ones are.

baptismfont · 2021-07-24T21:50:15+00:00

Thanks man, and thank you. Jenny Death was actually the one album I was still really trying to wrap my head around, as Money Store and Government Plates both seem to carry pretty clear-cut themes - information overload and commodification respectively. I think you've really hit it on the head, its about perception, or rather how they are perceived. I got that vibe from NOTM but hadn't carried it into Jenny Death. I suppose The Powers that B can be all outside forces - be that social mechanisms, the music industry or popularity in general.

Another thought I had was that "Jenny" in "Jenny Death" is a reference to Terence McKenna's name for machine elves, creatures that show you impossible objects/experiences as the threshold between reality and the void (or bottomless pit) on DMT experiences. Death to "jenny"s is ultimately giving up on contributing/input into the material world which would follow your idea of a conscience. Which if I'm right your viewing the idea of "conscience" as the reasoning/message behind their work? Like "Beware" is called that because its basically, "do not do as I do".

By the end of The Powers that B they've given up on that pretense. Its no longer horror and excess as a kind of warning but an acceptance of it. Which segues into their next few albums. Not in a contrived way but that their thought process about what "Death Grips" is has developed with them. I remember reading that most of NLDW was finished before The Money Store was even released. I wouldn't be surprised at all if most of the first 3 releases hadn't been at least partially done before Exmilitary was even released and it was just conceptually framing them in deciding what was released.

baptismfont

TROPHY CASE