Album Review: i,i by Bon Iver
- lifeisbella
- Jan 26, 2020
- 3 min read
As part of my research into the 2019 Grammy's Album of the Year category, I listened to each nominated album 5 times in order to evaluate my own ranking.
Here are some quick stats about i,i by Bon Iver:
Okay, now let's dive into my thoughts. This is the first full album that I've listened to by Bon Iver. I've heard some scattered songs here and there, but have never looked into them too much. Overall, I liked this album. I thought it was a pretty unique sound.
On the first listen I thought it was pretty boring. I definitely thought it was unique though. I didn't think it was a generic kind of boring, but it still kind of bored me. But by the second listen, it definitely started growing on me.
There were definitely some issues with the sound mixing though. All other albums I can listen to at volume 2-4. This album some songs I could listen to at volume 4. Some songs on this album I had to listen to all the way up to 22. I would go like 30 seconds not hearing anything and then realize, "Oh this is when I have to turn it up now." It wasn't even audible at all at that point. It wasn't a dynamics issue. If they were trying to have a quiet moment, they need to have it so that you can actually hear the quiet moments, not have to turn it up 5x the normal volume. There were also moments where it would be really quiet and then it would turn really loud. It was pretty annoying to deal with.
From memory, the only song that still stands out is "Hey, Ma." From my notes, I also liked "iMi" and "Salem". I like the use of uncommon instruments in modern music, such as horns and saxophone. I wanted to do a ranking of the tracks, but the individual songs don't really stand out to me. I don't really remember them as individuals. There were also no songs that I disliked.
Another thing that is important to me when analyzing these albums is to know how involved the band/artist is in writing, producing, playing instruments etc.. Justin Vernon (the founder of Bon Iver) is credited on every song on the album. This is commendable, but I'm always skeptical when there are multiple people credited. Just because, in theory, Justin Vernon could have had a very minimal role, while the credited writers wrote the majority of the song. In this case though, I do believe that Justin Vernon was the biggest factor in writing these songs. He is the only person credited on every song, and there definitely is a consistency throughout the whole album that I feel like only he could make. Its such a unique sound that there's no way that this could be a compilation of songs written by different writers. It's hard to tell whether Vernon played some/any of the instruments in the recordings, but from my research I can see that he plays piano and guitar, at the very least. When there is a significant amount of time between album releases, I also give the artist a lot more credit. Because I feel like they're really trying to perfect their masterpiece. In this case, when Vernon is so involved in the writing, recording and producing process, you really can't rush this.
So overall, I think that this was a very unique, enjoyable album. I commend Vernon's obvious influence on this album. It is very obviously his work and I think that's very impressive. I may occasionally come back and listen to this album. I will definitely continue listening to at least a few of the songs.
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