Odd Blood
Encyclopedia
Odd Blood is the self-produced second studio album
by American experimental rock
band Yeasayer
. Recorded in the state of New York during 2009, it was released on February 8, 2010 in Europe and a day later in North America, with Secretly Canadian
as the primary label. "Ambling Alp", "O.N.E", "Madder Red", and "I Remember" were released as singles
. Odd Blood peaked at number 63 on the U.S. Billboard 200
and at number 64 on the UK Albums Chart
. It reached number five on the U.S. Billboard Independent Albums
chart. Yeasayer followed the record's release with an extended tour throughout 2010.
Odd Blood was mostly crafted with engineer Steve Revitte in a secluded cabin studio. During the sessions, Yeasayer experimented with different types of instruments and recording machines. Auxiliary musicians were hired to help with the process. The idea was to marry sonic experimentation with pop
structures, while primary songwriters Chris Keating and Anand Wilder explored a variety of themes such as boxing, addiction, and paranoia. Odd Blood also contains several love songs. The album received largely positive reviews from critics. Praise centered on its cohesive merging of genres, especially the pop
-influenced rhythms.
, was released in 2007 by independent label We Are Free. The band followed its success by supporting synthpop
duo MGMT
on tour and by part-producing and playing bass guitar on Bat for Lashes
' Two Suns
, a dream pop
record released in 2009. The same year, a new Yeasayer track, "Tightrope", was used in Red Hot Organization
's Dark Was the Night
compilation in support of HIV/AIDS sufferers, while vocalist and keyboardist Chris Keating sang on Simian Mobile Disco
's single "Audacity of Huge", from the band's electronic
record Temporary Pleasure
.
Backed by a new good-sized independent label, Secretly Canadian, and a bigger recording budget, Yeasayer started work on a second studio album in February 2009. The band traveled to Woodstock in upstate New York and rented the country home of percussionist Jerry Marotta
, converted into Jersville Studio. Keating was joined by guitarist and keyboardist Anand Wilder, bassist Ira Wolf Totun, and engineer Steve Revitte, but not All Hour Cymbals drummer Luke Fasano. According to a Rolling Stone
article, Odd Blood was inspired by a trip to New Zealand, where Yeasayer experimented with LSD
. Keating has pointed out that the aim was to "sonically challenge Rihanna
in the clubs", with an emphasis on bass, while Wilder has said that the band tried to make "a poppier album".
Yeasayer wanted a recording place close to Brooklyn
, but removed from it. The band members aimed to streamline their songwriting processes by only doing what things were necessary in whatever parts without embellishing with long songs. According to Revitte, nobody was "married to anything" and minute things like vocal lines were recorded and rerecorded until done right. Sometimes whole sections were redone from scratch. The engineer also helped the band with advice about what other groups their evolving work sounded like. Yeasayer created music in the context of thinking about the music they liked, including interesting works from contemporaries. The aim was to craft pop songs unapologetically and embrace the genre as much as possible. Wilder has noted that Keating singing lead vocals gives songs an added extra as he has "a true pop voice", while he and Tuton do not.
in New York City, while "Ambling Alp" was released as a promotional single digitally
and on a limited 12" vinyl
edition. Odd Blood tracks were also previewed at the Fun Fun Fun Fest
in Austin, Texas, on November 7. Acknowledging the full album's Internet leak
, Yeasayer posted a Twitter
status on December 10 that read "Presents are always spoiled for those who open them before they are supposed to". The cover art for Odd Blood was revealed the following day, a stylized bust design by artist Benjamin Phelan based on the vision of "a future with a distorted biology"; the chest portion is "sculpted from virtual clay" with a force feedback motion-capture device. The back cover features another Phelan work, a human head with no features apart from two computer nodes as eyes, while the gatefold sleeve and the inserted booklet and CD contain other designs and light sculpture photographs from the artist.
On January 15–16, Odd Blood preview listening parties were organized across selected U.S. independent record stores, where promotional vinyl copies could be purchased. "O.N.E", the second single from the album, become available for free download on January 27, 2010, with an official March 23 release as a single also announced. The first pre-orders of Odd Blood were taken on January 29, which included a free exclusive package of a "die cut pin and shirt". On February 2, the album was posted in its entirety as a stream on Yeasayer's MySpace
page, while the band's February 5 concert at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles
was webcast
live. Odd Blood was released in Europe through Mute Records
on February 8, and a day later in North America by Secretly Canadian; the album's mail distribution in the latter region was delayed by a blizzard
.
The name was chosen after the band had a brainstorming session, where Keating wanted a strong title like Blood while Wilder aimed for something more offbeat like Coca-Cola
or The King of Queens
. Yeasayer followed the album's release with an extensive tour of Europe and North America until November 2010.
. The track's title comes from the nickname of one of Louis' adversaries, Italian Primo Carnera
, while the lyrics, including the lines "Stick up for yourself son / Never mind what anybody else done", are from the perspective of Louis' father. Keating wrote "I Remember" as a love song about a woman—later to be his wife—he met and kissed on a plane; he has noted that for that time he overcame his fear of flying. "Mondegreen" is Keating's attempt to mix the late 1970s drug-fueled paranoia of David Bowie
with the current 24-hour news cycle
and "the sort of absurd, psychotic rants" of Fox
newscasters Glenn Beck
and Sean Hannity
.
For his first track on Odd Blood, "Madder Red", Wilder wrote a song in the vein of John Lennon
's "Jealous Guy
", "about being a weak man, a gambler". The first lines which begin with "Even when my luck is down" are borrowed from a Celtic
book of verse. In "O.N.E", the lyricist tackled the issue of addiction, specifically alcoholism, but related it "to a way you'd get rid of a girlfriend". According to Wilder, the subject matter of "Grizelda" is drug lord Griselda Blanco
. It was written after Yeasayer watched Cocaine Cowboys
, a film about the violent Miami cocaine industry. The song is a fictional account of the film's main interviewee, a former hitman of Blanco's, who is writing her a letter in which he is both scared and in love following her extradition to Colombia.
s. The band members sang its harmonies through a fan and used pitch shifters and were determined to have the song as the first track, especially because Keating liked the idea of starting the album as "a departure point" from the last "very choral" song on All Hour Cymbals. Pitch shifting is also used on "Ambling Alp", first created as an instrumental demo
by Tuton. Using a Harmonic Octave
Generator effects pedal, he made his arpeggiated
bass guitar notes sound like a flute's acoustic output. Keating then sampled the solo
and built a song around it; his a cappella
singing was recorded both conventionally in a booth and in the studio's basement with a distant miking scheme inspired by David Bowie's 1977 album "Heroes".
The third track on Odd Blood, "Madder Red", was conceived as a "quiet, folky, acoustic lullaby" by Wilder. Once the basic opening structure was in place, Keating decided to add a "heavy beat" on top, which changed the feel of the song. The vocalist created "I Remember" himself in his basement with a similar recording setup to All Hour Cymbals. Using a damaged Nord keyboard
, he played "weird sounds" that were interesting together. Impressed with the track's tone, the rest of the band decided not to amend the demo too much. A live version was first recorded before being doubled in length, a "four-and-a-half-minute-long mixtape love ballad". "I Remember" is followed by "O.N.E", created when Wilder was exploring the idea of a song that included more than one chord
. The guitarist played a long riff
of about 16 bars
with different chords before adding "a big beat" over it. The track was trialled at different festivals, after which Yeasayer decided to keep its live "funkier vibe". For "Love Me Girl", Wilder used loops to evoke the emotions in the final scene of the movie Trainspotting
—in which a character finds a sum of money in a locker—followed by an R&B
style similar to Justin Timberlake
's. The song's melody was created using an acoustic guitar and MIDI notes on computer program GarageBand
, to which synthetic elements and a dancehall
-type beat were then added.
The seventh track on Odd Blood, "Rome", features beats taken from Moroccan and Syrian dance music that Keating's wife had on her iPod
, while for "Strange Reunions", Yeasayer created a short song under three minutes by exploring unconventional time signature
s in different parts in the style of fellow New York City band Dirty Projectors
. "Mondegreen" follows and is an old song created by Keating using samplers
plugged into a television set. Using four channels which showed programs like infomercials and soap operas, he recorded four banks of sound and structured a song by singing on top of the material. The last track, "Grizelda", is, according to Tuton, "a nice way to close an album. It lulls you into sitting back in your chair, puts you in a trance a bit, although the subject matter might be a bit dark."
reports a normalized
rating of 78% based on 36 critical reviews. Greg Kot
of the Chicago Tribune
described Yeasayer's new material as a consolidation of the work on All Hour Cymbals into "a series of shapely pop songs"; he stated, "The album aims for pleasure rather than introspection, and most of the time, it hits the mark." Summing it up as "both odd and bloody marvelous", Will Dean of The Guardian
labeled Odd Blood "a masterclass in modern, multicultural, weirdo pop music". Will Hermes of Rolling Stone commented that, like fellow Brooklyn bands Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective
, Yeasayer are "pioneers of a scene that refuses to choose between a sense of experimental adventure and pure pop pleasure", while Allmusic's Andrew Leahey noted that the record is "a thinking man's album, one that requires its listeners to put on their thinking caps as well as their dancing shoes". Josh Modell of Spin
concluded, "So, two exciting questions: Where did this come from, and what's coming next?"
Todd Martens of Los Angeles Times
stated that Odd Blood "ultimately reveals that beneath all the weird sounds, tribal harmonies and otherworldly textures, Yeasayer are still a bunch of indie-rock sentimentalists", while Tim Chester of NME
wrote that the album is "a musical package holiday you can take vicariously". Although conceding that it "should appeal to a lot of people", Pitchfork Media
's Scott Plagenhoef was less receptive and suggested that the "overfed production and search for direction" often lead to "a bit too much of not enough". Amanda Farah of Clash
explained that Odd Blood is "an unabashed pop record that anyone should be proud to play at full volume", while Paul Terefenko of NOW
concluded, "Who'd have thought the psych-folk pile, already teetering on the brink of over-saturation, would peak with Yeasayer's second album?" Odd Blood figured highly in several end-of-year best album lists for 2010, notably, at number five by American Songwriter, at number eight by Time
and by Drowned in Sound
, at number nine by One Thirty BPM
, at number 11 by Under the Radar
, at number 12 by Spin, at number 14 by The Guardian, and at number 15 by NME and Q
. In October 2011, NME
placed "O.N.E." at number 90 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".
2011 Deluxe Edition CD 2
Yeasayer
Additional musicians
Production
Design
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American experimental rock
Experimental rock
Experimental rock or avant-garde rock is a type of music based on rock which experiments with the basic elements of the genre, or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique....
band Yeasayer
Yeasayer
-History:The band's three core members, Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, and Anand Wilder, first came to attention after appearing at the SXSW festival in early 2007. Their first single consisted of a double A-side of the tracks "Sunrise" and "2080"...
. Recorded in the state of New York during 2009, it was released on February 8, 2010 in Europe and a day later in North America, with Secretly Canadian
Secretly Canadian
Secretly Canadian is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana. It was started in 1996 by Chris and Ben Swanson, Eric Weddle, and Jonathan Cargill. Their first release was a re-issue of an album by June Panic...
as the primary label. "Ambling Alp", "O.N.E", "Madder Red", and "I Remember" were released as singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
. Odd Blood peaked at number 63 on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and at number 64 on the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
. It reached number five on the U.S. Billboard Independent Albums
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
chart. Yeasayer followed the record's release with an extended tour throughout 2010.
Odd Blood was mostly crafted with engineer Steve Revitte in a secluded cabin studio. During the sessions, Yeasayer experimented with different types of instruments and recording machines. Auxiliary musicians were hired to help with the process. The idea was to marry sonic experimentation with pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
structures, while primary songwriters Chris Keating and Anand Wilder explored a variety of themes such as boxing, addiction, and paranoia. Odd Blood also contains several love songs. The album received largely positive reviews from critics. Praise centered on its cohesive merging of genres, especially the pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
-influenced rhythms.
Origins and recording
Yeasayer's acclaimed debut studio album, All Hour CymbalsAll Hour Cymbals
All Hour Cymbals is the debut studio album by Brooklyn-based experimental rock group Yeasayer. It was released by We Are Free on 23 October 2007, and 24 March 2008 in the UK.- Reception :...
, was released in 2007 by independent label We Are Free. The band followed its success by supporting synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
duo MGMT
MGMT
MGMT is an American alternative rock band founded by Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. After the release of their first album, the members of their live band, Matthew Asti, James Richardson and Will Berman, joined the core band in the studio...
on tour and by part-producing and playing bass guitar on Bat for Lashes
Bat for Lashes
Natasha Khan , also known by her stage name Bat for Lashes, is an English musician. She sings and plays the piano, bass, guitar, harpsichord and the autoharp....
' Two Suns
Two Suns
Two Suns is the Mercury Music Prize nominated second album by English-Pakistani solo artist Bat for Lashes , released on 6 April 2009...
, a dream pop
Dream pop
Dream pop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s, when bands like The Passions, Dif Juz, Lowlife and A.R. Kane began fusing post-punk and ethereal experiments with bittersweet pop melodies into dreamy, sensual soundscapes. The term was almost...
record released in 2009. The same year, a new Yeasayer track, "Tightrope", was used in Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
's Dark Was the Night
Dark Was the Night
Dark Was the Night is the twentieth compilation release benefiting the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS...
compilation in support of HIV/AIDS sufferers, while vocalist and keyboardist Chris Keating sang on Simian Mobile Disco
Simian Mobile Disco
Simian Mobile Disco are a United Kingdom-based production and remix team formed in 2005 by James Ford and Jas Shaw of the band Simian. Musically, they are known for their analogue production...
's single "Audacity of Huge", from the band's electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
record Temporary Pleasure
Temporary Pleasure
Limited Edition Second Disc-Extra Temporary/Extra Pleasure:Both of these titles refer to the same release of the four bonus tracks included in the limited edition of the Temporary Pleasure studio album...
.
Backed by a new good-sized independent label, Secretly Canadian, and a bigger recording budget, Yeasayer started work on a second studio album in February 2009. The band traveled to Woodstock in upstate New York and rented the country home of percussionist Jerry Marotta
Jerry Marotta
Jerry Marotta is a drummer currently residing in Woodstock, New York. He is the brother of Rick Marotta, who is also a well-known drummer and composer....
, converted into Jersville Studio. Keating was joined by guitarist and keyboardist Anand Wilder, bassist Ira Wolf Totun, and engineer Steve Revitte, but not All Hour Cymbals drummer Luke Fasano. According to a Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
article, Odd Blood was inspired by a trip to New Zealand, where Yeasayer experimented with LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
. Keating has pointed out that the aim was to "sonically challenge Rihanna
Rihanna
Robyn Rihanna Fenty , better known as simply Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers...
in the clubs", with an emphasis on bass, while Wilder has said that the band tried to make "a poppier album".
Yeasayer wanted a recording place close to Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, but removed from it. The band members aimed to streamline their songwriting processes by only doing what things were necessary in whatever parts without embellishing with long songs. According to Revitte, nobody was "married to anything" and minute things like vocal lines were recorded and rerecorded until done right. Sometimes whole sections were redone from scratch. The engineer also helped the band with advice about what other groups their evolving work sounded like. Yeasayer created music in the context of thinking about the music they liked, including interesting works from contemporaries. The aim was to craft pop songs unapologetically and embrace the genre as much as possible. Wilder has noted that Keating singing lead vocals gives songs an added extra as he has "a true pop voice", while he and Tuton do not.
Promotion and release
After the Woodstock sessions, Yeasayer undertook a summer 2009 U.S. tour. On October 30, the band made a new track, "Ambling Alp", available for free online streaming and confirmed the Odd Blood track list and release details for 2010. On November 3, 2009, Yeasayer previewed material from the album at the Guggenheim MuseumSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
in New York City, while "Ambling Alp" was released as a promotional single digitally
Digital distribution
Online distribution, digital distribution, or electronic software distribution is the practice of delivering content without the use of physical media, typically by downloading via the internet directly to a consumer's device. Online distribution bypasses conventional physical distribution media,...
and on a limited 12" vinyl
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
edition. Odd Blood tracks were also previewed at the Fun Fun Fun Fest
Fun Fun Fun Fest
Fun Fun Fun Fest is an annual music festival held in Austin, Texas. Started in 2006, the festival brings together many progressive and underground musicians with a focus on indie rock, punk rock/hardcore, and hip hop/DJ....
in Austin, Texas, on November 7. Acknowledging the full album's Internet leak
Internet leak
An Internet leak occurs when a party's confidential information is released to the public on the Internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such...
, Yeasayer posted a Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
status on December 10 that read "Presents are always spoiled for those who open them before they are supposed to". The cover art for Odd Blood was revealed the following day, a stylized bust design by artist Benjamin Phelan based on the vision of "a future with a distorted biology"; the chest portion is "sculpted from virtual clay" with a force feedback motion-capture device. The back cover features another Phelan work, a human head with no features apart from two computer nodes as eyes, while the gatefold sleeve and the inserted booklet and CD contain other designs and light sculpture photographs from the artist.
On January 15–16, Odd Blood preview listening parties were organized across selected U.S. independent record stores, where promotional vinyl copies could be purchased. "O.N.E", the second single from the album, become available for free download on January 27, 2010, with an official March 23 release as a single also announced. The first pre-orders of Odd Blood were taken on January 29, which included a free exclusive package of a "die cut pin and shirt". On February 2, the album was posted in its entirety as a stream on Yeasayer's MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page, while the band's February 5 concert at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, USA in 1913 as the Museum of History, Science, and Art. The moving force behind it was a museum association founded in 1910. Its distinctive main building, with fitted marble walls and domed and...
was webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
live. Odd Blood was released in Europe through Mute Records
Mute Records
Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:...
on February 8, and a day later in North America by Secretly Canadian; the album's mail distribution in the latter region was delayed by a blizzard
Second North American blizzard of 2010
The February 9–10, 2010 North American blizzard was a winter storm and severe weather event that afflicted the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England regions of the United States between February 9–11, 2010, affecting some of the same regions that had experienced a historic Nor'easter three days prior...
.
The name was chosen after the band had a brainstorming session, where Keating wanted a strong title like Blood while Wilder aimed for something more offbeat like Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
or The King of Queens
The King of Queens
The King of Queens is an American sitcom that originally ran on CBS from September 21, 1998, to May 14, 2007.This show was produced by Hanley Productions and CBS Productions , CBS Paramount Television ,and CBS Television Studios in association with Columbia TriStar Television , and Sony Pictures...
. Yeasayer followed the album's release with an extensive tour of Europe and North America until November 2010.
Lyrics
Yeasayer's two main lyricists, Keating and Wilder, shared writing duties for the 10 songs on Odd Blood. Keating, whose grandfather was a boxer in the late 1930s and early 1940s, was inspired to write "Ambling Alp" after reading about American boxer Joe LouisJoe Louis
Joseph Louis Barrow , better known as Joe Louis, was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time...
. The track's title comes from the nickname of one of Louis' adversaries, Italian Primo Carnera
Primo Carnera
Primo Carnera was an Italian boxer, nicknamed the Ambling Alp, who became the world heavyweight champion.-Biography:...
, while the lyrics, including the lines "Stick up for yourself son / Never mind what anybody else done", are from the perspective of Louis' father. Keating wrote "I Remember" as a love song about a woman—later to be his wife—he met and kissed on a plane; he has noted that for that time he overcame his fear of flying. "Mondegreen" is Keating's attempt to mix the late 1970s drug-fueled paranoia of David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
with the current 24-hour news cycle
24-hour news cycle
The 24-hour news cycle arrived with the advent of television channels dedicated to news, and brought about a much faster pace of news production with increased demand for stories that can be presented as news, as opposed to the day-by-day pace of the news cycle of printed daily newspapers...
and "the sort of absurd, psychotic rants" of Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
newscasters Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
and Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
.
For his first track on Odd Blood, "Madder Red", Wilder wrote a song in the vein of John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
's "Jealous Guy
Jealous Guy
"Jealous Guy" is a song written and performed by John Lennon which first appeared on his 1971 album Imagine. It is one of the most commonly covered Lennon songs, with at least ninety-two recorded cover versions, the most notable being Roxy Music's version, which reached number one in several...
", "about being a weak man, a gambler". The first lines which begin with "Even when my luck is down" are borrowed from a Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
book of verse. In "O.N.E", the lyricist tackled the issue of addiction, specifically alcoholism, but related it "to a way you'd get rid of a girlfriend". According to Wilder, the subject matter of "Grizelda" is drug lord Griselda Blanco
Griselda Blanco
Griselda Blanco is a former drug lord for the Medellín Cartel, and was a pioneer in the Miami-based cocaine drug trade and underworld during the 1970s and early 1980s.-Biography:...
. It was written after Yeasayer watched Cocaine Cowboys
Cocaine Cowboys
Cocaine Cowboys is a 2006 documentary film directed by Billy Corben and produced by Alfred Spellman and Billy Corben through their Miami-based media studio Rakontur. The film explores the rise of cocaine and resulting crime epidemic that swept the American city of Miami, Florida in the 1970s and...
, a film about the violent Miami cocaine industry. The song is a fictional account of the film's main interviewee, a former hitman of Blanco's, who is writing her a letter in which he is both scared and in love following her extradition to Colombia.
Composition
Odd Blood is built around sonic experimentation with different genres and synthetic musical elements. Yeasayer tried to commit to certain styles for an entire song and "not jump around". Opener "The Children" is an electronically manipulated song created with the extensive use of subwooferSubwoofer
A subwoofer is a woofer, or a complete loudspeaker, which is dedicated to the reproduction of low-pitched audio frequencies known as the "bass". The typical frequency range for a subwoofer is about 20–200 Hz for consumer products, below 100 Hz for professional live sound, and below...
s. The band members sang its harmonies through a fan and used pitch shifters and were determined to have the song as the first track, especially because Keating liked the idea of starting the album as "a departure point" from the last "very choral" song on All Hour Cymbals. Pitch shifting is also used on "Ambling Alp", first created as an instrumental demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
by Tuton. Using a Harmonic Octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
Generator effects pedal, he made his arpeggiated
Arpeggio
An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...
bass guitar notes sound like a flute's acoustic output. Keating then sampled the solo
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
and built a song around it; his a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
singing was recorded both conventionally in a booth and in the studio's basement with a distant miking scheme inspired by David Bowie's 1977 album "Heroes".
The third track on Odd Blood, "Madder Red", was conceived as a "quiet, folky, acoustic lullaby" by Wilder. Once the basic opening structure was in place, Keating decided to add a "heavy beat" on top, which changed the feel of the song. The vocalist created "I Remember" himself in his basement with a similar recording setup to All Hour Cymbals. Using a damaged Nord keyboard
Clavia
Clavia Digital Musical Instruments is a Swedish manufacturer of virtual analog synthesizers, virtual electromechanical pianos and stage pianos, founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 1983 by Hans Nordelius and Mikael Carlsson.-The Company:...
, he played "weird sounds" that were interesting together. Impressed with the track's tone, the rest of the band decided not to amend the demo too much. A live version was first recorded before being doubled in length, a "four-and-a-half-minute-long mixtape love ballad". "I Remember" is followed by "O.N.E", created when Wilder was exploring the idea of a song that included more than one chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
. The guitarist played a long riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
of about 16 bars
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
with different chords before adding "a big beat" over it. The track was trialled at different festivals, after which Yeasayer decided to keep its live "funkier vibe". For "Love Me Girl", Wilder used loops to evoke the emotions in the final scene of the movie Trainspotting
Trainspotting (film)
Trainspotting is a 1996 British satirical/drama film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life...
—in which a character finds a sum of money in a locker—followed by an R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
style similar to Justin Timberlake
Justin Timberlake
Justin Randall Timberlake is an American pop musician and actor. He achieved early fame when he appeared as a contestant on Star Search, and went on to star in the Disney Channel television series The New Mickey Mouse Club, where he met future bandmate JC Chasez...
's. The song's melody was created using an acoustic guitar and MIDI notes on computer program GarageBand
GarageBand
GarageBand is a software application for Mac OS X and iOS that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is developed by Apple Inc. as a part of the iLife software package on Mac OS X.-Audio recording:...
, to which synthetic elements and a dancehall
Dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably,...
-type beat were then added.
The seventh track on Odd Blood, "Rome", features beats taken from Moroccan and Syrian dance music that Keating's wife had on her iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
, while for "Strange Reunions", Yeasayer created a short song under three minutes by exploring unconventional time signature
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
s in different parts in the style of fellow New York City band Dirty Projectors
Dirty Projectors
The Dirty Projectors aka David Longstreth includes Amber Coffman , Angel Deradoorian , Brian McOmber , Nat Baldwin , and Haley Dekle during live performances...
. "Mondegreen" follows and is an old song created by Keating using samplers
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
plugged into a television set. Using four channels which showed programs like infomercials and soap operas, he recorded four banks of sound and structured a song by singing on top of the material. The last track, "Grizelda", is, according to Tuton, "a nice way to close an album. It lulls you into sitting back in your chair, puts you in a trance a bit, although the subject matter might be a bit dark."
Critical reception
Media response to Odd Blood was generally favorable; aggregating website MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reports a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating of 78% based on 36 critical reviews. Greg Kot
Greg Kot
Greg Kot is an American writer and journalist. Since 1990, Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he has covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues...
of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
described Yeasayer's new material as a consolidation of the work on All Hour Cymbals into "a series of shapely pop songs"; he stated, "The album aims for pleasure rather than introspection, and most of the time, it hits the mark." Summing it up as "both odd and bloody marvelous", Will Dean of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
labeled Odd Blood "a masterclass in modern, multicultural, weirdo pop music". Will Hermes of Rolling Stone commented that, like fellow Brooklyn bands Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective
Animal Collective
Animal Collective is an experimental psychedelic band originally from Baltimore, Maryland, currently based in New York City. Animal Collective consists of Avey Tare , Panda Bear , Deakin , and Geologist...
, Yeasayer are "pioneers of a scene that refuses to choose between a sense of experimental adventure and pure pop pleasure", while Allmusic's Andrew Leahey noted that the record is "a thinking man's album, one that requires its listeners to put on their thinking caps as well as their dancing shoes". Josh Modell of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
concluded, "So, two exciting questions: Where did this come from, and what's coming next?"
Todd Martens of Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
stated that Odd Blood "ultimately reveals that beneath all the weird sounds, tribal harmonies and otherworldly textures, Yeasayer are still a bunch of indie-rock sentimentalists", while Tim Chester of NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
wrote that the album is "a musical package holiday you can take vicariously". Although conceding that it "should appeal to a lot of people", Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
's Scott Plagenhoef was less receptive and suggested that the "overfed production and search for direction" often lead to "a bit too much of not enough". Amanda Farah of Clash
Clash (magazine)
Clash is a popular music and fashion magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its magazine title is published 12 times a year. It has a circulation of around 40,000....
explained that Odd Blood is "an unabashed pop record that anyone should be proud to play at full volume", while Paul Terefenko of NOW
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
concluded, "Who'd have thought the psych-folk pile, already teetering on the brink of over-saturation, would peak with Yeasayer's second album?" Odd Blood figured highly in several end-of-year best album lists for 2010, notably, at number five by American Songwriter, at number eight by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and by Drowned in Sound
Drowned in Sound
DrownedinSound.com or DiS is a UK based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway . The site is an editorially independent music website.-History:...
, at number nine by One Thirty BPM
One Thirty BPM
One Thirty BPM is a New York-based online publication providing reviews, news, media, interviews, features, and more from both the independent and mainstream spheres of the music world...
, at number 11 by Under the Radar
Under the Radar (magazine)
Under the Radar is an American magazine that bills itself as "The solution to music pollution" and features interviews with accompanying photo-shoots. Each issue includes opinion and commentary of the Indie music scene as well as reviews on books, DVDs and albums.Items are reviewed based on a...
, at number 12 by Spin, at number 14 by The Guardian, and at number 15 by NME and Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
. In October 2011, NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
placed "O.N.E." at number 90 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Yeasayer.2011 Deluxe Edition CD 2
Personnel
Those involved in the making of Odd Blood are:Yeasayer
- Chris Keating – vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments... - Anand Wilder – guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, keyboards - Ira Wolf Tuton – bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, backing vocals
Additional musicians
- Jason Trammell – drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
- Ahmed Gallab – timbalesTimbalesTimbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and usually much higher tuned...
, electronic percussion - Jerry Marotta – drums, Taos drums, percussion
- Kevin Bewersdorf – pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, synthesizerSynthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s - Stuart Bogie – horns, bass harmonica, jaw harp
- Steven Stetson – horns
Production
- Yeasayer – producers
- Steve Revitte – recording, engineeringAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
- Britt Myers – recording, engineering, mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
- Jake Aron – additional engineering
- Todd Brozman – mixing assistant
- Jay Culliton – mixing assistant
- Geoff Vincent – mixing assistant
- Chris Gehringer – masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
Design
- Chris Keating – art direction
- Benjamin Phelan – artwork, light sculptures
- Daniel Murphy – layout
Chart positions
| Chart (2010) | Peak |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
66 |
| Belgian Albums Chart Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... (Flanders Flemish Region The Flemish Region is one of the three official regions of the Kingdom of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region. Colloquially, it is usually simply referred to as Flanders, of which it is the institutional iteration within the context of the Belgian political system... ) |
56 |
| Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically... |
64 |
| Netherlands Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
43 |
| Norwegian Albums Chart VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
14 |
| Swedish Albums Chart Sverigetopplistan Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association .... |
47 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
64 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
63 |
| U.S. Billboard Digital Albums Billboard charts The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine... |
17 |
| U.S. Billboard Tastemaker Albums Billboard charts The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine... |
6 |
| U.S. Billboard Independent Albums Billboard charts The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine... |
5 |
| U.S. Billboard Alternative Albums Billboard charts The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine... |
8 |
| U.S. Billboard Rock Albums Billboard charts The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine... |
13 |
External links
- Odd Blood recording at Yeasayer official blog
- Odd Blood artwork at Benjamin Phelan official website
- Odd Blood critical reviews at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...