Early April Fools Joke?

[haydendavenport]

www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/03/lady_gaga_s_bad_romance_owen_pallett_explains_the_pop_diva_s_genius_using.html

Seriously... What?

Since when did removing musicality equate to musical genius?

Is this an april fools joke?

[Carlo]

Haven't had the time to read this yet, but I already notice a lot of hate towards Owen on Pitchfork's facebook post linking to the slate article. Gonna go read the article.

Edit: Conclusion: Read it. I'm not intelligent enough to have an opinion.

[haydendavenport]

@cleaingserf: Well for what it's worth, by the definition of the word, you don't need to be intelligent or well reasoned to have an opinion.

But anyways, I'm glad I'm not the only one confused by this. Owen's music taste has always been a mystery to me, but I found this post to be exceptionally bizarre. I'm not here to hate on the article, but to respond to Owen because of my fear of what it might mean.

Owen Pallett's music was the primary force for me deciding to pursue music composition as a career. I literally mean that my love for Owen's music was enough for me to decide that pursuing a music composition degree would be worth the results if I could be half as good as Owen. I know how much the quality of his music has meant to me, and I want to affect people in the same way. I hope that Owen can see that as a very sincere compliment.

But then I see this article... And it concerns me.

You might remember the post I made a while back seeking advice for new music. I am extremely picky. Since that post I have found ZERO pop/rock artists who have created music that has a lasting impact on me. And I have been searching. And searching. I haven't been truly compelled by a new band since 2010.

Owen Pallett is one of VERY few pop artists who understands that there are rules to writing compelling music and they must be understood in order to be broken. I don't know if that understanding is completely internalized for him, or if it's conscious. But it certainly comes across in his music that he understands the importance of key relationships, the importance of dynamics and NOT ruining them with compression in the mixing phase (Almost all pop music is guilty of that), the impact of good orchestration and melody writing. Owen also has a keen sense of development that is logical yet unpredictable. I can't stress enough the importance of that last point.

I believe that Owen Pallett is a pioneer of a truly unique and valuable genre of music, and these pop analyses are disturbing me intensely. There are few things I genuinely look forward to, but I am highly anticipating Owen's next album, and I have been since it was first announced (so long ago).

My concern is also more prominent because of the overarching trend of Owen's music. It should be obvious that Owen's music has become more accessible over time*:

1. Les Mouches -- utterly inaccessible and some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard
2. Young Canadian Mothers -- inaccessible due to the fact that it was an EP, poor recording quality, etc.
3. Has A Good Home -- somewhat inaccessible due to the instrumentation (mostly violin) and less than stellar mixing
4. He Poos Clouds -- dat title, and parts that challenge the listener (this is my favorite OP album), but a more widely appealing instrumentation, and better recording quality (not great though), arguably less accessible than Has a Good Home.
5. Spectrum, 14th Century -- Better recording quality
6. Heartland -- More broadly appealing instrumentation and structures. More synthy stuff. No more screaming (which genuinely upsets me). Great recording quality.
7. A Swedish Love Story -- Very synth based, more straight forward structures, short track lengths (Definitely my least favorite Owen Pallett album/EP)

*omitting covers

Obviously Owen has been garnering a lot of attention lately. He's getting more and more popular. And he's aware of that (obviously). He has mentioned before that his earlier music wasn't written for such a large audience, and that he has changed his approach since he gained popularity. So far that hasn't necessarily been a problem for me (though I must note that his lesser accessible stuff has resonated with me more deeply), but I fear that if the trend continues, that will change. I can only hope that Owen will not choose to alienate his earlier fans for the newer ones.

If Owen really does think that Lady Gaga's money motivated approach to music is "genius" I could care less, so long as it has no impact on the quality of his future musical contributions to the world. There are plenty of Lady Gagas out there. It's all a rehash. But Owen's output to date has been novel and compelling. It would be such a shame to see him stoop down to anything close to "Gagaism", especially in an area of music that is so saturated with garbage.

I'm looking forward to your next album, Owen!

P.S. I just ordered/preordered the Heartland Deluxe Edition and the In Conflict 2LP... But I'm also still holding out for that He Poos Clouds score book... I'm hoping it'll come soon after the release of In Conflict. Or at least before my senior recital so I can study it some for my final compositions. One can dream...

[ben]

Wow, really? In my day job, I publish 'high-brow' international poetry in translation with a readership of other poets and academics... in the literary world, you might equate what we do with Owen's early output - it's challenging, rough-cut, powerful, to some minds inaccessible. In my spare time, I read such dazzling talents as Tom Clancy and Chris Beckett. Does this mean my creative output at work is lessened? Far from it. Also, have you read the articles? If I was writing a textbook on tongue-in-cheek, they would be in it.

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

Some notes about the Slate pieces:

1. They began as private Facebook posts that I wrote for my friends. I am friends with a music writer who c+p'd it on to the Slate editor, and they asked for "as many as you wanna write" and I wrote two more.

2. They are ironic responses to the Ted Gioia article, where he commented that "music crit has become nothing more than lifestyle reporting". I genuinely love "Teenage Dream", like "Get Lucky", and am ambivalent about Lady Gaga but love "Bad Romance" and the article is somewhat of an exploration as to why. I also love music theory and am often using it, mentally, to describe what I'm thinking of.

3. The irony is not sarcasm, I am not making fun of theory or pop music. I am making fun of the idea that the two could be combined. Think The Larry Sanders Show, which is lovingly about Garry Shandling and late night TV. It is serious but it is absurd.

4. I don't know whether or not I succeeded in writing these pieces. People continue to persistently think I have some magical book-taught ability that came from "taking a course". My friends see me typing music on my computer and say "oh I gotta take a minute to learn how to do that" and I'm like "try every day for the twenty years at the expense of physical fitness and social life". When I say: music theory is irrelevant, I am saying so from a position of privilege.

With regards to the other concerns about "my arc", I have a wonderful thing to tell you. I have absolutely no belief in the authentic artistic voice. I don't believe there are people out there making music that is rooted in true artistic expression. Except covers on Youtube. Really, I believe this. Les Mouches was a calculated effort to try and Do Something, as was Final Fantasy, as was Owen Pallett. With Les Mouches the Something was rooted in making music that appealed to my friends and the city, but also kind of pissed them off. With Final Fantasy it was to exercise some experiments on the fusion of classical instrumentation with pop writing. With current Owen Pallett stuff I'm more focused on creating the "transgressive" as a synergistic relationship with music + lyrics; musically I'm more interested now in hybridizing something technically demonstrative with something off-balance and aggressive.

All these projects have been my job, and I love my job. I sign contracts and I do work for clients. I describe my albums as product. I make decisions to try and make money because I currently make less than a kindergartener. (Successful musicians like Leslie Feist will make, averaging her income out from age 20-50, as much as a grade school teacher).

If anything I'm saying suggests to you that my music is somehow disingenuous, I assure you that it's the opposite. I mean every word I say and I believe in every song I write. I feel that I am an extremely generous artist. I respect my relationship with my audience and do not license my tracks willy-nilly because I seek to maintain a relationship with y'all for as long as I can. I type posts like these because I like you as customers! and I want us to continue our relationship! I worry as I'm typing them that I'm coming off as a smart-ass but I'm not about self-censorship these days.

To treat an artist as a coatrack to hang your own aesthetic hat-- "I am worried that his motivations might be more $-oriented because it seems he wrote an article about Lady Gaga and his songs have been getting more major key"-- I dunno. I'm not Guns & Roses, I don't have a coke problem, I am in control of my life. My decisions are of course $-oriented, if I didn't make the $ I would be doing something that did. I stand by all my choices and all my work, and if my work is spinning away outside of your window of "what you need in your life", that is because you've changed or I've changed but I would never blame you or blame myself.

My father always told me "you won't like Beethoven 'til you're 40" and it's true, my tastes change over time. As a kid I loved Shostakovich and Bartok and Ligeti. I used to hate Boulez and Messaien but started to love them in my 20s. Same with Bruckner and Stockhausen in my 30s. Maybe I'll even like Beethoven in my 40s?

Love and respect at you

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

I think "the desire to express self" holds a tyranny over so many musicians, people who aren't able to figure a paying audience into the equation. It's a big problem! About 90% of the music people send me, I want to write back: "who are you writing this for?" As soon as you establish the functionality of your music it's easier to talk about. This is why dance music is so easy to talk about. "Is it a hit? Not yet? Let's fix it!"

Something that I didn't state explicitly in my last post but I'll state for clarity: I am of the opinion that all music, all musicians, and all musical motivations are equal, and I do not make distinctions or give special preference toward music that is less-or-more "accessible". I don't believe in binary genders either

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

An hour later, having eaten breakfast, I came back here to make sure I hadn't shot my mouth off. I guess I did! Or at least, I was responding to criticisms that were not being spoken here. I apologize if it seemed I was venting. Some specific responses:

Owen Pallett's music was the primary force for me deciding to pursue music composition as a career. I literally mean that my love for Owen's music was enough for me to decide that pursuing a music composition degree would be worth the results if I could be half as good as Owen. I know how much the quality of his music has meant to me, and I want to affect people in the same way. I hope that Owen can see that as a very sincere compliment.

Thanks! that does mean a lot to me.

You might remember the post I made a while back seeking advice for new music. I am extremely picky. Since that post I have found ZERO pop/rock artists who have created music that has a lasting impact on me. And I have been searching. And searching. I haven't been truly compelled by a new band since 2010.

This is a symptom of your lack of investigative skills, or perhaps aural fatigue? Not of a failure of musicians. I don't know how old you are, but when I was a teenager, even when I was in my early 20s, music was harder to access, it was CDs you had to buy. Now you can hear anything and everything. I don't know! You can hear Stars Of The Lid so easily now, you don't have to save your tips all week and mail-order it. I don't know what to tell you. There's lots of amazing new music out there all the time.

Owen Pallett is one of VERY few pop artists who understands that there are rules to writing compelling music and they must be understood in order to be broken. I don't know if that understanding is completely internalized for him, or if it's conscious. But it certainly comes across in his music that he understands the importance of key relationships, the importance of dynamics and NOT ruining them with compression in the mixing phase (Almost all pop music is guilty of that), the impact of good orchestration and melody writing. Owen also has a keen sense of development that is logical yet unpredictable. I can't stress enough the importance of that last point.

The decisions I make in recording my albums are not an argument, they are not a rebuttal to other musicians or music-making procedure.

I have identified in myself two methods of music-appreciation. The first is sort of "homophilic" where I enjoy listening to music because I identify myself within it. Music that I work towards. Great music! This is a short list: Tori Amos, Lisa Germano, OMD, Bartok and a handful of others. The second is "heterophilic" where I enjoy listening to music because it reminds me nothing of myself, and forms a sort of "other". This list is endless, but includes pop stuff like Gaga and Katy Perry, as well as US Maple, Pere Ubu, Stars Of The Lid, Stockhausen, it includes Joni Mitchell and Taylor Swift.

Lastly, I can't tell anybody how to (or how not to) listen to my music, but if I ever hear an album by somebody that really, deeply touches me, I feel indebted to them, not the other way around. I don't resent Tori Amos for making five albums I adore and nine albums I care not for, that woman saved my life five times. I want her to be happy in pursuing her interests, not feeling indentured to fans who want a repeat of "Little Earthquakes". Does this make sense? I understand that other people have a different relationship with music than I do.

If Owen really does think that Lady Gaga's money motivated approach to music is "genius" I could care less, so long as it has no impact on the quality of his future musical contributions to the world. There are plenty of Lady Gagas out there. It's all a rehash. But Owen's output to date has been novel and compelling. It would be such a shame to see him stoop down to anything close to "Gagaism", especially in an area of music that is so saturated with garbage.

I do think Gaga is a genius, I proved that she was a genius when I posted the video of Haitian kids dancing and singing to Pokerface. The idea that one could write/record/promote a song well enough to disseminate beyond one's circle of friends/city/country/class/race/language to the point that Kreyol-speaking kids in a third-world country wearing nothing but aid-provided underwear would dance and sing along to your music? Hello? It's like, what did Mozart do in comparison?

All genres have their share of garbage, I hear a higher signal-to-noise ratio in pop music than I do in indie, to be really real, and even more garbage in the new music community.

Anyway I'm sorry if it seems like I'm yelling, I'm not, I'm typing with a smile I appreciate that I'm able to take the time to communicate with people directly and that people are willing to do so x x

[haydendavenport]

Thanks for the responses, Owen. I have to go eat with some friends before a class, but I will edit this post with a response in (hopefully) about an hour.

EDIT:
It has been well over an hour, but I have time now. Before you read any further, please understand that all of this is meant for the sake of expressing my own viewpoint and attempting to understand yours. Nothing I say here is meant with any sort of hostility, and I am expressing my views with respect to yours.

First and foremost I would like to express my gratitude toward the fact that you are willing to openly have a conversation about this, despite my seemingly selfish motives. I did not mean to accuse you of being money-oriented or "selling out", that having a financial a financial plan can ruin artistic integrity, or that accessible music is inherently bad.

I also did not mean to imply that I am ungrateful for your output to date, or that I feel a sense of entitlement for more. I am very satisfied by what your musical contributions have been so far.

But still, I will admit that I have a Liszt-like mindset when it comes to this sort of thing. With great power comes great responsibility--it's a cliche that resonates with me. And so I believe that it would be a shame to see someone waste a beautiful talent. (I'm not accusing you of this.)

It seems to me that you are labeling Gaga for her ability to brand and market herself and garner attention. That is best done by studying the success of the past and focusing on "polish" rather than content; there is an emphasis on recording quality over musical content, and live showmanship over live sound. It is about image over music. And to be honest I'm not even sure what novel thing Gaga has done in that respect that makes her worthy of praise. I have seen it all done before with current acts and with acts of the past (like Kiss). If you want to call that art, I am not only fine with that--I would actually agree. But acts like Gaga come at the cost of musical integrity. I have always found the exploitation of predictable progressions and melodies in an attempt to cash grab as less-than-responsible. I believe Gaga and her crew often face questions like, "How much musicality can we have before the average person is alienated?" and "How can we copy our last hit without our intended audience noticing?" These are semi-interesting questions with boring and dissatisfying answers.

I'm digressing from my main point, but I do want to make one more comment on the topic of Gaga (and Mozart). I'm not sure if your comment was a joke or not, but Mozart perfected the classical form in his short lifetime, and more impressively than Gaga, created works so wholly artistic that they transcended not only place, but time as well. His works are still studied to this day by masters. Mozart did things that no one else can do even to this day. Gaga has done something that anyone who has made radio play has the opportunity to do.
I suspect that a camera crew and an iPod filled with typical dance music could inspire dance and singing in other cultures of the world, even if Gaga wasn't chosen. All it takes is one of millions to have that iPod. In the current technological age, finding any sort of information or media in any part of the world is not surprising. (I sincerely hope that this paragraph in particular doesn't come off as offensive.. Communicating with text is tricky.)

It's very obvious to me that we disagree fundamentally on our view of music. I have known that for years, but I am still perplexed by it.
"I am of the opinion that all music, all musicians, and all musical motivations are equal, and I do not make distinctions or give special preference toward music that is less-or-more "accessible"."
While accessibility is not actually a criteria for which I judge music, my reasoning for mentioning it at all is because the most broadly accessible music has always been uninteresting to me. So while I don't simply prefer music that is less-or-more accessible, I prefer music that is sophisticated and written by someone who I feel is knowledgeable and creative (especially those who I feel are more knowledgeable and more creative that myself).
But I am certainly not of the opinion that "all music, all musicians, and all musical motivations are equal". I get nothing from just about anything I hear on the radio. There is no information transfer because I hear nothing novel. To date, I have gotten nothing from atonal music. Again, because there is no transfer of information. This time because I can sense no logical system through which I can attain information. If I believed that all of these things were equal, I would enjoy all music the same. And I would not be going to school for music. If the music of a master composer is on equal grounds with a toddler smacking a piano, then improvement is absolutely irrelevant because it cannot exist. I also believe that informed and inspired musical decisions result in interesting music and that uninformed and uninspired musical decisions result in uninteresting music. I believe that rules exist in music, and that breaking them is acceptable if there is an artistic reason to do so.

I truly wonder how our tastes can differ so dramatically, yet I like and am inspired by every single one of your albums and EPs. It has perplexed me for so long. 0_o

And more on my taste:
"This is a symptom of your lack of investigative skills, or perhaps aural fatigue? Not of a failure of musicians. ... I don't know what to tell you. There's lots of amazing new music out there all the time."
"My father always told me "you won't like Beethoven 'til you're 40" and it's true, my tastes change over time."

This is ironic and pretty funny. If there is one composer above all others that I can say I genuinely enjoy the most, it is Beethoven. And I promise I'm not saying that to just to be ironic or contradictory. I actually legitimately said that to someone yesterday and their response was, "I know." Which surprised me for some reason. Anyways, I'm 21, and the composers of the past who I am most interested in are Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky. And the living composers I am most interested in are Owen Pallett, Nico Muhly, Steve Reich, and Sufjan Stevens. (In no particular order.)

I search for music semi-frequently, and will sometimes listen to 30-50 artists in one sitting attempting to find music that is challenging or novel. To offer a silly example, I wouldn't want a doctor to perform surgery on me if he was only interested in being a doctor as a side endeavor, and didn't care to learn proper procedures. Likewise, I don't want to hear music from a band that hasn't taken the time to learn artistic and composition-oriented concepts. What I mean by this comparison that I expect people to know what they are doing in order to take them seriously. The reason is because it shows. If a band doesn't know what it is doing, I can tell. And if a band is just rehashing a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure, I can tell. And it's ineffective to me. It's so stale. And I believe that most bands are guilty of these things in some way or another, which leads me to say that it is a failure of musicians. Because some, like yourself, have proven that I can be satisfied, and have even lifted the bar for me, and what I strive to become. And I am incredibly grateful for those who have affected me in that way.

That is what I would call having a developed taste. Every time I raise the bar for myself, I feel as though my taste has developed. I become aware of more possibilities, and determine whether or not they are effective, and in what context(s) they are effective. In this way I consider my taste to be progressive and linear rather than amorphous. So rather than simply saying "my tastes change over time" I would say "my tastes develop over time".

And you say that your music is not an argument, and if that is your intention, that is fine. But you do claim to make calculated musical decisions. In other words, your musical choices are not arbitrary. You know what you want to say, you make sure to pick things that are interesting to say, and you know how to say those things in a very musical way. That comes across loud and clear. It comes across artistically in a way where I can see the decisions you made and say, "Wow. I'm not sure a better choice could have been made to convey that idea. I'm not sure I would have ever thought to do that. That was artful."

That is the kind of music I am interested in listening to.

And it seems to me that you are telling me that you will continue to choose interesting topics and explore/develop them in musically interesting ways. If that is the case, I am completely satisfied and I have no fear for your future output.

P.S. Since it seems to have been brought up briefly, I feel I should also mention that I applaud your lack of consistency in sound. As much as I love He Poos Clouds, I do not want another He Poos Clouds. Personally, I want you to improve and go beyond it. To explore even more interesting ideas, and make even more precisely calculated decisions.

[ben]

Apr 2, 2014 7:35:49 GMT -5 Owen from Final Fantasy said:

I have a wonderful thing to tell you. I have absolutely no belief in the authentic artistic voice. I don't believe there are people out there making music that is rooted in true artistic expression. Except covers on Youtube. Really, I believe this. Les Mouches was a calculated effort to try and Do Something, as was Final Fantasy, as was Owen Pallett.

Everything else aside, I can't tell you how good it is to read these words. I have been trying to explain this, my view, to friends, band members, co-song-writers, anyone who will listen, for so long. People see the above sentiment as a Bad Thing. You've expressed so succinctly why it isn't.

[Carlo]

Perhaps adding to what Owen said about aiming for his music to 'do something', I also think he succeeded in writing those articles in the way of Doing Something. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think those articles were written for a somewhat 'casual' audience and succeeded in delivering something informative and interesting about 'pop music' using music theory that wouldn't necessarily be over people's heads.

Like for me, I'm just a guy who listens to music a lot, reads about it every once and awhile and connects with it on a very personal level, but I'm not someone like haydendavenport where it's my career or anything. Maybe I'm getting this all wrong and the level of my discussion is on magnitudes of intelligence lower than what others are talking about, but I think those articles take the pop music to another place that is really quite interesting where people like me can appreciate it.

As for Owen's apparently outrageous statements, I'm not informed enough to have a real opinion. Just trying to contribute to the conversation as someone who I think is a good example of Owen's target market.

Still kind of interesting how many people Owen's made angry haha.

[haydendavenport]

Apr 2, 2014 17:51:18 GMT -5 Carlo said:

Perhaps adding to what Owen said about aiming for his music to 'do something', I also think he succeeded in writing those articles in the way of Doing Something. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think those articles were written for a somewhat 'casual' audience and succeeded in delivering something informative and interesting about 'pop music' using music theory that wouldn't necessarily be over people's heads.

Like for me, I'm just a guy who listens to music a lot, reads about it every once and awhile and connects with it on a very personal level, but I'm not someone like haydendavenport where it's my career or anything. Maybe I'm getting this all wrong and the level of my discussion is on magnitudes of intelligence lower than what others are talking about, but I think those articles take the pop music to another place that is really quite interesting where people like me can appreciate it.

As for Owen's apparently outrageous statements, I'm not informed enough to have a real opinion. Just trying to contribute to the conversation as someone who I think is a good example of Owen's target market.

Still kind of interesting how many people Owen's made angry haha.

Music really isn't my career quite yet, but I'm on my way. I actually started out listening to music just like you. Back then everything was good, and I just had things I leaned towards. Then I started noticing similarities, and how dissimilar parts in songs were more or less effective. I started paying attention to song structures, and overall arcs. Climaxes and stuff. And suddenly everything wasn't as good. But the things that I perceived as good at that point were even more compelling. And it continued from there until I decided that music was important enough to me to start making it.

Owen mentions his "heterophilic" way of listening to music. That is something that is absolutely foreign to my own musical experience, and I don't know if I could ever understand it.

And for the record, I'm cool with Owen objectively analyzing pop music using music theory. Apparently Owen thinks it's absurd. And so do I. But I think it's absurd because it's useless... Because nothing worth talking about is actually happening. And, to me, the purpose of analysis is to be able to talk about what is happening musically, and whether or not it is effective. In pop music, for me, the answer to the question "Is it effective?" is almost always "NO!!!" and if it isn't it's "Yes, but there were better choices that could have been made."

Where I wasn't okay with Owen's claims was where he got subjective and called Gaga a genius for reasons I found to be weak and unconvincing. But again... I don't care much about that. What I do care about is whether or not Lady Gaga's influence on Owen Pallett affects the quality of his music. And it seems to me that it won't after hearing from him. That's really all I'm concerned with... Because if I lose my affection for Owen's music, I will pretty much be done with listening to pop music in any form (but not creating it). Which would be sad, because I actually have a great love for the possibilities that pop music provides for artistic expression.

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

Re: Gaga vs. Mozart, I kind of thought about this in the shower and wanted to type some fun points I thought of.

Mozart: stole from the masters. Gaga: stole from the masters.
Mozart: relied upon a focused harmonic language. Gaga: relies upon a focused harmonic language.
Mozart: relied upon collaborators (copyists, orchestras, librettists). Gaga: relies upon collaborators (co-writers, producers)
Mozart: had to shave head for lice and wear a wig. Gaga: has to wear wigs for other reasons.
Mozart: in the first seven years of being an active musician, Mozart created two long-resonating works. Gaga: we'll see but "Bad Romance" isn't going anywhere imo.
Mozart: a polymath! composer, conductor, pianist, violinist, ? Gaga: a polymath! pianist, composer, singer, dancer, model, fashion designer, video artist, ?
Mozart: had the benefit of being born into a musical family and was ushered into a patronage position. Gaga: had the benefit of being born a white American but had to hustle.
Mozart: has hagiographical anecdotes such as "he knew how to play the violin from the moment he laid hands on it". Gaga: has same, such as "is a hermaphrodite".

Generally, I am always ready to go to bat for any living musician, especially women, and especially women who are songwriters. It is clear to my ears that Gaga is majorly responsible for the majority of her songs-- I know that a lot of pop stars get writing credit for publishing reasons (Mariah, Rihanna-- no judgement, either, it's a good move for performing artists, watch a Motown doc i.e.!)

hayden you wrote a lot and I'm going to take a day to digest it before responding further

Still kind of interesting how many people Owen's made angry haha.

They were pretty well received! Really well received! Just a few misreadings made me sad but what can you do?

[cobblestone]

I just want to pop in and say that when Owen listed OMD as an example of homophilic music it made me very happy. I can't put it into words very well, but I definitely enjoy their music in similar ways. Also it was kind of serendipitous because I've been listening to a whole lot of OMD lately. Telegraph, what a song.

[cobblestone]

...And I just discovered that there are videos of Owen covering Dazzle Ships live. Super hype to watch them in a few minutes

[Carlo]

Apr 2, 2014 20:07:28 GMT -5 Owen from Final Fantasy said:

Still kind of interesting how many people Owen's made angry haha.

They were pretty well received! Really well received! Just a few misreadings made me sad but what can you do?

Oh good! I guess the few angry tweets and Facebook comments I saw stood out more than they should have.

Anyways, great work Owen!