My main issue with your latest music is what I’ve been noticing in your entire (internet) persona since I started following your career: you seem obsessed with your curated image. Obsessed with your story. To me, you seem to do everything to prove that you’re still that gifted child.
This whole substack feels like it offered no real insight into your emotions or what it’s like to live your strange life- you just seem to point out the impressive parts of your resume. I can resonate with that. I’ve been there myself. But it feels like you’re getting lost in that performance.
I check in on your media every once in a while and always find you dancing the same dance. I’m interested in what’s behind the mask of the gifted child who can do it all. Maybe it has to do with our age of supposed hyperauthenticity- which doesn’t feel quite legit either.
Still, there was something so delicate and lonely about your first record. I was mesmerized by it. Not wanting to be relatable doesn’t sit right with most people. I think you’re very charming nonetheless. I hope this doesn’t come off as a “mean girl” comment- that’s why I’m not posting anonymously. I’m genuinely interested in what remains hidden. I hope you
continue looking for your way. You are insanely talented
I appreciate your comment! Though I fear this was just the point I was trying to communicate here, which I feel you’ve missed: how much longer will I be confronted with my story, and how much longer will it define me? If anything I aimed to express frustration with it, not obsession. However, I will never be able to escape myself either! And also a chance to give people that perhaps haven’t been here since album 1 and are less familiar with me to get to know me.
In terms of sonically — I’m not ever going to be making a record like my first, like my second, like my third, ever again. They are all timestamps of particular time periods. The first specifically I did write during a moment of big loneliness and despair (dealing with extreme lows of my mother having cancer, potentially confronted with losing her, my life self-destructing when I quit my jobs to leave the US to be with her)… maybe if life throws me a few more curveballs you’ll have a sadder, more isolated record. Yet personally I’m happy to no longer be there anymore.
If there’s anything else you’d like to have an insight on feel free to share, and happy to include that in my next post.
Thank you for your reply- I really appreciate it! It’s interesting that I didn’t pick up on that; maybe it has to do with the introductory nature of the post.
I didn’t mean to suggest that I wished for you to make another record like your first. It’s just that your more recent work feels a lot more intellectual, more focused on (pop cultural) references, cues and media you consume. It reminded me of the effect Infinite Jest had on me- there was this big, witty wall hiding the things I really wanted to understand. But of course, that’s just my perspective. And there are a lot of people who love that very deciphering in DFWs work.
I’d love to hear more about your writing process. What have you noticed has changed for you over the years?
My main issue with your latest music is what I’ve been noticing in your entire (internet) persona since I started following your career: you seem obsessed with your curated image. Obsessed with your story. To me, you seem to do everything to prove that you’re still that gifted child.
This whole substack feels like it offered no real insight into your emotions or what it’s like to live your strange life- you just seem to point out the impressive parts of your resume. I can resonate with that. I’ve been there myself. But it feels like you’re getting lost in that performance.
I check in on your media every once in a while and always find you dancing the same dance. I’m interested in what’s behind the mask of the gifted child who can do it all. Maybe it has to do with our age of supposed hyperauthenticity- which doesn’t feel quite legit either.
Still, there was something so delicate and lonely about your first record. I was mesmerized by it. Not wanting to be relatable doesn’t sit right with most people. I think you’re very charming nonetheless. I hope this doesn’t come off as a “mean girl” comment- that’s why I’m not posting anonymously. I’m genuinely interested in what remains hidden. I hope you
continue looking for your way. You are insanely talented
I appreciate your comment! Though I fear this was just the point I was trying to communicate here, which I feel you’ve missed: how much longer will I be confronted with my story, and how much longer will it define me? If anything I aimed to express frustration with it, not obsession. However, I will never be able to escape myself either! And also a chance to give people that perhaps haven’t been here since album 1 and are less familiar with me to get to know me.
In terms of sonically — I’m not ever going to be making a record like my first, like my second, like my third, ever again. They are all timestamps of particular time periods. The first specifically I did write during a moment of big loneliness and despair (dealing with extreme lows of my mother having cancer, potentially confronted with losing her, my life self-destructing when I quit my jobs to leave the US to be with her)… maybe if life throws me a few more curveballs you’ll have a sadder, more isolated record. Yet personally I’m happy to no longer be there anymore.
If there’s anything else you’d like to have an insight on feel free to share, and happy to include that in my next post.
Thank you for your reply- I really appreciate it! It’s interesting that I didn’t pick up on that; maybe it has to do with the introductory nature of the post.
I didn’t mean to suggest that I wished for you to make another record like your first. It’s just that your more recent work feels a lot more intellectual, more focused on (pop cultural) references, cues and media you consume. It reminded me of the effect Infinite Jest had on me- there was this big, witty wall hiding the things I really wanted to understand. But of course, that’s just my perspective. And there are a lot of people who love that very deciphering in DFWs work.
I’d love to hear more about your writing process. What have you noticed has changed for you over the years?
Excited to read more from you here. Xx