Jump to content

The Free Citizens' Movement to Bring Sufjan Stevens to Glastonbury 2017


Amy Lawn
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/27/2017 at 10:07 PM, GETOFFAMYLAWN said:

This is out there. Anybody given it a listen yet? Essentially just a new Sufjan album. Very The Age of Adz at times, but also like nothing he's done before. Sounding pretty flippin' great on my first listen through (only half way through but the things 75 minutes long so got a pretty good gist :P).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

May be in part to the joint I smoked before/during listening to this but it's sounded absolutely incredible to me on first listen. Never felt like it overstayed it's welcome despite it's length. Can easily see this becoming a AOTY for me... although maybe I should listen to it not high to decide that one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

was about to upload this to Youtube, but I see someone already has. Anyway, this is the earliest full set recording available, I think. Nice trousers and even better coordinated dance. Also, still haven't listened to the Planetearium stuff, need to sort that out.

 

Edited by Chawk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Yes, amazing track especially with that video

Quote

TONYA HARDING, MY STAR

by Sufjan Stevens

I’ve been trying to write a Tonya Harding song since I first saw her skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1991. She’s a complicated subject for a song partly because the hard facts of her life are so strange, disputable, heroic, unprecedented, and indelibly American. She was one of the greatest figure skaters of her time, and the first American woman to perform a triple axle in an international competition. She was an unlikely skating star, having been raised working class in Portland, Oregon. Being a poor outsider, her rise to fame in the skating rink was seen, by some, as a blemish on a sport that favored sophistication and style. Tonya’s skating technique was feisty, fierce, and full of athleticism, and her flamboyant outfits were often hand-made by her mother (who was abusive and overbearing). (They couldn’t afford Vera Wang.) And then there was the Nancy Kerrigan incident. In January 1994, Tonya’s then-boyfriend Jeff Gillooly hired an assailant, Shane Stant, to break fellow figure skater Nancy Kerrigan’s leg at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Cobo Arena in Detroit, so that she would be unable to compete at the upcoming Winter Olympics. The after-math of the attack was recorded on camera and ultimately set off a media frenzy (and an FBI investigation). Gillooly and Stan were eventually found guilty, and Tonya pleaded guilty to hindering the prosecution, and was subsequently banned for life from the U.S. Figure Skating Association. Nancy Kerrigan recovered from her injury and won a silver medal at the Winter Olympics. Tonya Harding finished eighth.

But that’s not even half the story. When Tonya and Gillooly got married, they filmed themselves having sex on their wedding night and produced one of the first-ever celebrity sex tapes (which they sold to Penthouse for $200,000 each). Tonya also had a brief career as a boxer, and is most famous for her bout with former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones (whose sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton precipitated his impeachment in 1998). Tonya was also (very briefly) in a band called the Golden Blades (they were allegedly booed off the stage during their first and only performance). She also raced vintage automobiles (setting a record by driving a Ford Model A over 97 miles per hours on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah). And in 1996 Tonya used mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive an 81-year-old woman who collapsed at a bar in Portland while playing video poker. That’s a lot to accomplish before the age of 30!

Tonya Harding’s dramatic rise and fall was fiercely followed by the media, and she very quickly became the brunt of jokes, the subject of tabloid headlines and public outcry. She was a reality TV star before such a thing even existed. But she was also simply un-categorical: America’s sweetheart with a dark twist. But I believe this is what made her so interesting, and a true American hero. In the face of outrage and defeat, Tonya bolstered shameless resolve and succeeded again and again with all manners of re-invention and self-determination. Tonya shines bright in the pantheon of American history simply because she never stopped trying her hardest. She fought classism, sexism, physical abuse and public rebuke to become an incomparable American legend.

I admit, early drafts of this song contained more than a few puns, punch lines and light-hearted jabs—sex tapes and celebrity boxing make for an entertaining narrative arc. But the more I edited, and the more I meditated, and the more I considered the wholeness of the person of Tonya Harding, I began to feel a conviction to write something with dignity and grace, to pull back the ridiculous tabloid fodder and take stock of the real story of this strange and magnificent America hero. At the end of the day, Tonya Harding was just an ordinary woman with extraordinary talent and a tireless work ethic who set out to do her very best. She did that and more. I hope the same can be said of us all.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
7 minutes ago, Chawk said:

@GETOFFAMYLAWN Did you see Call Me By Your Name in the end? It's coming to my local next weekend 

Yes, definitely see it. One of my favourite films of last year, it's made to be enjoyed in the cinema. It's full of these big wide lingering shots where the Italian countryside is just hung up there like a painting, and there's very prominent ambient background sounds in the sound mix, so when you see it on a big screen in the dark with surround sound it just takes you right there. I reckon it's going to get a few Oscar nominations, because it's catnip for people who have a taste for "serious" and "artistic" films but also have quite conservative attitudes towards what kind of film they want to see. I'm not saying that as a slight against the film, it's incredibly evocative and beautifully made, but it's not at all challenging, just a coming of age story about teenage angst and fucking. Oscar noms usually comes with another cinema run, so I'll probably go back and see it again. I had the soundtrack on in work yesterday and it brought me straight back into the film, I sat there for 70 minutes and got fuck all done, just thought whichever scene that particular track was from.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



×
×
  • Create New...