"I'll Sleep When You're Dead" Album Discussion
 

i loved it when i first heard it

i need to relisten to it if you want an in-depth dicussion

this album sucks dick lawl

I am downloading it now. Will get back to you.

Just finished listening to it and I was surprised to find that I had not actually heard this album before, I was sure I had downloaded it before.

Anyway, loved every minute of it. My favourite track is Drive because of the banging beat and how the lyrics perfectly suit the production. I think Up All Night would be my other track pick because of how instant it is. It just gets you from the first beat. Also, it is probably the best song conceptually on the album.

8.5/10 But will have to listen to it again.

I haven't played this album in a few months, but in essence this is a 9 out of 10 album in my book. I got into El-P on Smithereens.



My other go-to tracks are Up All Night, Run the Numbers, Drive, Dear Sirs...



Well, let me do it the other way. The only tracks I don't really dig are EMG, Habeas Corpses, and Flyentology (but the video is sick...)



I'm gonna have to re-listen to this one and come in and add more in depth discussion about the lyrics, which we all know are top notch. But we can really get into deciphering some of his cryptic wording if y'all want...

I used to be with you on this, but you really just gotta listen and let the boom bap take you over, especially after the 1:30 mark. It's a really addicting song once it connects.

It has such a great opening
That and No Kings are actually my favorite songs of the album as of late, it's just pure hip hop.

A lot of the other songs are either extremely melancholy or very subject focused, which i have to be in a particular mood for, but these two tracks I can always jam out to. They sound more in line with fantastic damage/company flow production style.

Just had a listen to the whole album, and it's okay. Nothing really stands out for me.

I can't help but compare this guy to Aesop Rock, but not quite getting to his level in terms of flow, lyrical content or style.
The production at times is just annoying and creeps over El-P's voice with dramatic effects being all of the rage, I'd have much rather preferred a solid, stable beat, so we can focus more on what he's saying, because some of what I caught was clever, witty lyrics.

The intro and outro tracks were far too long and over-stretched, and more or less sum up the album as a whole for me, okay, but ultimately falling short of being something memorable or exceptional.

That being said, there is nothing necessarily wrong with the album, but it just doesn't do much to differentiate itself from similar products.

In conclusion, I'm going to have to give I'll Sleep When You're Dead a 6/10.

Fuck similar products, this is about one specific EL-P album.

I was super-hyped about this when it came out because Fantastic Damage was one of my all-time favorites (still is) and I remember liking this one significantly less than that one. I've heard it a bunch of times but not recently. I'm sure I have a lot more to say about it but I need to re-listen before I give y'all the rant you deserve.

I'd love to know some of the similar products.

I think he's pretty much just saying 'None Shall Pass' by Aesop Rock which is a good album but not shit compared to 'I'll Sleep When You're Dead'

*****DISCLAMER****
I'm a huge El-P fan and will not hide the fact that i am totally biased and that I would blindly follow the man into a volcano with ****ing lava everywhere
***********

It's an aquired taste trust me, this album gave me a headache the first time i listened to it, but there is a lot of reward if you keep listening.

You get rid of the random chaos and overproduction and you lose El-P's identity. It doesn't impact the lyrics negatively, it just makes it harder to
decipher.

You know those crappy drug montages hollywood movies always have? Guy does 1 hit of drug X and all of a sudden the world turns into a crazy hysteria driven distopia with prodigy music playing? El-P is this scene done right in music form for me, it sounds really dumb but i don't know how else to articulate it.

Your main complaint was that it needed to be more simplified and formulaic, but you want it to be more original too. That's by no means a unfair opinion, but it kinda seems like your trying to find reasons to dislike it at this point.

Plz just listen to it moar >.<

It's good no doubt, but it lacks the emotional resonance and punch of El-P. He's a great lyricist, but El-P doesn't hide behind vague imagery and stream of consciousnesses the way aesop does, el-p actually says some ****!

I've been meaning to get this album since it came out and this thread finally inspired me to check it out (though I ended up with some damn watermarked version so if anyone has a lead on a legit one please let me know). Not only is this my introduction to this album but it's the first El-P album I've ever checked out, though I've been a fan of his production work on other people's albums for quite a while.

Anyway, after one listen my reaction is this: I like it. A lot. The production, as expected, is phenomenal, and the music is incredible. My initial thought while listening to the album was how dream-like it is. Not "dream-like" in the way that people usually mean when they talk about music—all trippy and sugary sweet and ethereal—but really like a dream—odd pieces fitting together in ways that are simultaneously utterly non-obvious and completely intuitive. It's not just any dreams, I guess. It's the kind of dreams you have when you're sick, forehead hot to the touch, eyes dry and smoldering, your subconscious matte-black with barely glowing embers at the very bottom of this pit. That is what this album sounds like to me. I can't wait to delve deeper into it.

This is what i was trying to explain with my ****ty movie analogy. yet once again my brain lets me down...

nice job! :thumb:

I don't know if I was being overly harsh in my estimation of the album, and I've been caught out by thinking about what I said, and not being able to name many similar albums.
As somebody else said None Shall Pass, but even at that, they're not really that similar in the production aspect.

I just guess on the first listen this album did nothing for me, but I will revisit it soon, and perhaps will come back with a different perspective.

The features are interesting too. We get The Mars Volta, Aesop Rock, Cage, and Trent Reznor (and Cat Power, apparently, whoever that is). It took me a while to warm up to Tasmanian Pain Coaster with The Mars Volta but it really really grew on me. Besides that, El-P and Aesop Rock together is always an awesome combination. And then having Trent Reznor to the hook on Flyentology is a nice touch. What do you all think of the features?

What do you all think of the dark themes here? Thematically, it does make a good sequel to Fantastic Damage does it not?

Do you really not know who cat power is? I haven't listened to her since I was a wee lad, but Moon Pix is worth checking out for some soft indie ish. Where was she on the album?

The guest spots do nothing for me, I would have preferred trent reznor not be on the album of anything. It sounds gimmicky and he's only there for 20 seconds.

A lot of El-Ps subject matter involves his struggles to fit into routine life, but tracks like Drive and League of Extraordinary Nobodies does a good job of delivering that with a deep sense of paranoia and frustration. It's more self-reflective, I don't know if it's neccessarilly darker though. I think a lot of it is tongue in cheek, the way the crew laughs at the end of habeas corpus

"she was dead, just how i wanted her" or something, and then they burst out into laughter. I think it's genuine, but may be slightly pandering to an emotionally vulnerable adolescent fanbase.

On a related note, I noticed Cat Power will be at Coachella 2012. Funny how the world works.

Habeas Corpses is dark. The laughter at the end is maniacal. Habeas Corpses is a story of Cage and El-P being corrupt guards on a prison ship and talking about raping one of the cute prisoners, and Cage shoot prisoners for fun, and El-P's questioning his job and how he's living his life

and daydreams of running away with a prisoner girl and living a happy life forever with her,

but he snaps back to reality and he's ordered to shoot her, and he does without hesitation.

Not very tongue in cheek in my opinion, that's one ****ed up and intricately painted story.

Yeah your probably right. But it sounds kinda like they're clowning around at the end to me, but maybe i like interpreting it that way more.

I mean, you can if you want I guess. /shrug

It is called Habeas Corpses (Draconian Love) after all.

'Habeas Corpus' - Latin 'you have the body' - Prisoners often seek release by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus

Draconian is an adjective meaning great severity, that derives from Draco, an Athenian law scribe under whom small offences had heavy punishments

^This is just for my reference, and anyone interested, but the title says it itself if you think about it.

Rapes and Executions.

here, a habeas corpus is what you file to escape from detention from a Draconian law called the Internal Security Act which allows for indeterminate prison-time in the interests of "national security"

Just given it a first listen, is it just me or does it sound a bit "muddy"? What I mean by that is there is a lot of noise going on in the background, like its overloaded. I guess though that adds to its darkness.

I thought it seemed ok, nothing groundbreaking imo, but decent. Track 6 "Dear Sirs" is my best track so far.

Will have a more thorough listen & come back.

if you think it's noisy, you should steer clear of Dalek's Absence

i think it has the right balance of raucous noise and clear beats

Muddy? No, I think the production is pretty clean sounding really. I do agree there's a lot going on though. That's one of the things I like about the album.

Track 9 "the overly dramatic truth" - anyone else hear a small similarity between the flow on this and Eminems "superman" track?

I love the Beatles homage at the end of Tasmanian Pain Coaster.