So in June of 2014, The Guardian reviewed this
highly anticipated indie album and just brutally
dismissed it. They literally called it a soundtrack
to heartbreak and general misery. Yeah, which
is quite a statement. Just totally savage. Right.
But then, that exact same week, Pitchfork reviews
the exact same album, gives it an 8 .8 out of
10, and hails it as this modern masterpiece of
eternal transparency. It's wild. You don't usually
see that kind of whiplash between two major outlets.
Exactly. And, you know, welcome to another Deep
Dive. Because today isn't just about a record.
It's about what happens when an artist just rips
away the performative gloss and the, like, structural
scaffolding of pop music. And forces you to look
at this really uncomfortable, bleeding reality.
Yeah. Today we're looking at a Wikipedia article
detailing a highly specific, very polarizing
piece of modern music history. We're talking
about the 2014 album, What Is This Heart? by
the American musician, Tom Krell. Right, who
you probably know better by his moniker, How
to Dress Well. And it's the perfect subject for
a deep dive because it operates entirely on friction.
Friction, yeah. Like, it perfectly illustrates
that tension between the polished emotional escapism
we usually demand from our art and the raw uncurated
vulnerability that an artist is actually willing
to subject us to. And our mission today is to
explore exactly that friction. We want to see
how this single album used extreme transparency,
aggressive genre blending, and just raw emotion
to challenge the modern music landscape. And
completely polarized music critics right down
the middle in the process. Okay, let's unpack
this. So to understand the critical civil war
this album started, we actually have to look
at the genesis of the project, like starting
with how Krell framed it for the world before
anyone even heard a single note. Right, setting
the stage. Exactly. So the album was released
on June 23, 2014 on Weird World. Which is an
imprint of Domino, right? The indie label. Yeah,
the prominent indie label Domino. But the title
itself is really the first piece of the puzzle
here. It is incredibly specific grammatically.
The title is What Is This Heart? But you have
to include the quotation marks and the question
mark. Which is so unusual. And Krell was actually
militant about this formatting. Oh, absolutely.
In a Twitter message leading up to the release,
he explicitly told his audience, he said, my
new album is called What Is This Heart? Just
Like That, in quotes, like a spoken question.
What's fascinating here is how that grammatical
choice fundamentally changes the artist's relationship
with you, the audience. Oh, so. Well, usually
an album title functions as this definitive thematic
umbrella, right? It's a declaration. Yeah, like
a statement. Exactly. But by framing it as a
literal spoken question, Krell shifts the entire
dynamic. It's not a statement of fact anymore.
It demands an active internal response from you.
Oh, I see. It sets this tone of direct. unfiltered
intimacy before you even hit play. He isn't presenting
a polished collection of songs. He's initiating
a very difficult, very open -ended dialogue.
It's incredibly striking. For you listening,
think about the psychology of that formatting.
It's exactly like receiving a text message from
a close friend at 2am that just says, what is
this heart? Oh, that's a great analogy. Right.
You instantly know this isn't rhetorical musing.
It's not casual small talk. No, it's a deep unanswerable
late night plea. Yeah. You feel the physical
presence of the person asking it. Exactly. And
if you're going to demand that level of sudden
jarring intimacy with a title, the actual sonic
architecture of the album has to support it.
Which makes sense. You can't ask a desperate
2 a .m. existential question over like a pristine
four on the floor club beat. Right. You need
a sonic landscape that reflects that internal
messiness. Which brings us to the actual sound
and how Krell translates that existential crisis
into audio. The sources categorize this album
as bridging multiple very distinct musical landscapes.
Yeah, he's pulling from a lot of different spaces.
Alternative R &B, experimental, ambient, lo -fi,
and experimental pop. He's pulling from all of
these at once. And he's doing it by subverting
how those genres traditionally operate. Like
think about traditional R &B. Okay. It's historically
a genre rooted in vocal clarity, passion, rhythm,
and these front and center melodies. Right, you
want to hear the singer clearly. Exactly. But
Krell takes those driving R &B vocal runs and
he buries them under ambient and lo -fi textures.
Instead of the crisp highs and deep lows of a
traditional studio pop record, he pushes the
sound into the murky mid -ranges. So he's intentionally
degrading the audio quality to create atmosphere.
Precisely. By utilizing heavy reverb, tape hiss,
and this slightly unpolished, fuzzy production,
he removes the barrier of the studio. Wow. It
creates a claustrophobic, intimate space. It
sounds like you are sitting on the floor of a
small, dimly lit bedroom with the artist while
he's actively working through this trauma. That's
such a vivid picture. You know, Krell didn't
construct this entire sonic space in a vacuum.
Look, he did. The electronic artist C .F .C .F.
actually co -wrote and co -produced two pivotal
tracks on the album. Right, a power in what you
wanted. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up C .F
.C .F. because incorporating an external electronic
producer into such a hyper -personal lo -fi space
seems risky. It does seem counterintuitive. But
it makes sense when you listen to the texture
of those specific tracks. CFCF's electronic footprint
adds this rigid synthetic architecture, and Krell's
really fluid, vulnerable R &B falsetto can bounce
off of that. It creates an incredible sonic tension.
It really does. It's the tension of organic human
emotion trying to survive inside a cold digital
landscape. But I have to push back here for a
second, because blending all these elements isn't
a guaranteed formula for success. Like, NME gave
this album a lukewarm 5 out of 10 for a reason.
When you throw ambient drones, lo -fi fuzz, and
synthetic electronic beats into a blender with
R &B vocals, don't you risk muddying the emotional
core? That's the danger, yeah. Did Krell actually
succeed in synthesizing these, or did the dense
experimental production just act as a smokescreen?
Like, to mask the fact that some of these tracks
lacked a solid accessible melodic foundation.
Well, it's a highly valid critique, and it's
exactly why experimental music often struggles
commercially. The assumption is usually that
murky equals inaccessible. But the performance
metrics from the sources tell a very different
story regarding how the public received it. Oh,
really? Yeah. Far from alienating listeners with
this chaotic wall of sound. What is this heart
actually became how to address Wells highest
charting album? No way. Yes. It peaked at number
145 on the Billboard 200. Wait, peaking at 145
for a lo fi experimental record on a domino imprint
is wild. Very impressive. That implies this wasn't
just, you know, background study music that people
threw on a playlist and ignored. There was a
dedicated fan base actively buying this, streaming
it and deciphering this emotional puzzle. Absolutely.
What was the What was the mechanism driving that
kind of engagement? The mechanism was the universality
of the emotion cutting through the experimental
production. Yeah. Yes, the packaging is unconventional.
Yeah. And yes, the vocals are sometimes buried
in reverb. But the core rhythm, that alternative
R &B heartbeat, is so deeply recognizable. Ah.
The listener might not understand the complex
ambient textures, but they fundamentally understand
the sound of a heart in turmoil. the public latched
onto the authenticity of it. That makes a lot
of sense. The public was willing to do the work
to decode the production because the emotional
payoff felt real. Exactly. But while the Billboard
charting proves it resonated with everyday listeners,
the professional music critics were essentially
thrown into a civil war over it. Civil war is
the perfect term. The critical reaction to this
album is a master class in how subjective art
evaluation really is. Totally. Especially when
the art refuses to hand you easy answers. Well,
here's where it gets really interesting. If you
look at the aggregate scores, the album hold
a Metacritic score of 69 based on 32 distinct
reviews. Okay. Over on any decent music, it sits
at a 7 .1 out of 10. Now normally a 69 implies
a consensus of solid middle -of -the -road B
-minus grades. Right. Just a generally okay album.
Yeah, but that is absolutely not the story here.
Not at all. That 69 is entirely deceptive. It
is the mathematical result of extreme glowing
highs and brutal lows violently canceling each
other out. There was no consensus. None. Let's
juxtapose these reactions because the whiplash
is incredible. On one end of the spectrum you
have Ian Cohen writing for Pitchfork. He gave
the album a massive 8 .8 out of 10. Yeah, huge
score. He praised its eternal transparency and
framed it as a profound artistic achievement.
Right. And on the other end? Well, the AV Club
gave it a C +, claiming the music was fundamentally
broken because it was torn between pop escapism
and emotional torment. Interesting framing. Spin
Magazine gave it a 7 out of 10, visibly stating
that the album opens a vein bleeds turbulent
R &B. Wow. And Ami, as we mentioned, gave it
a completely indifferent 5 out of 10. And then
there's The Guardian. Ah, yes. The Guardian's
review is legendary for how bluntly it dismissed
the entire project. They literally called it
a soundtrack to Heartbreak and General Misery.
It's just... Ouch. Imagine pouring your absolute
soul into an hour of music and a major publication
calls it General Misery. It's rough. So I have
to ask you listening. When you put your headphones
on, what are you actually looking for? Are you
looking for the emotional scaffolding of pure
pop escapism? Like a song with a kitschy chorus
that makes you forget your day. Exactly. Or are
you willing to wade into an album of emotional
torment, knowing it might ruin your afternoon?
It's the ultimate question for any music consumer.
And it's the exact dividing line that split these
critics. So why were the reactions so opposed?
To understand that, we really need to unpack
that glowing review from Pitchfork's Ian Cohen,
because he hit on a profound cultural observation
about how we consume media. What did he say?
Cohen noted that modern discourse, especially
in the age of digital personas and social media,
seeks what he called metaphorical blood. Metaphorical
blood? That is a heavy phrase. It is. He elaborated
by saying that modern culture allows people to
disclose more than ever without actually revealing
anything. Wait. Disclose more without revealing
anything. That is a staggering observation. Isn't
it? It perfectly dissects the modern internet
era. Like, we post a million highly curated photos
of our bad days, we write lengthy performative
captions about our struggles, but we aren't actually
being vulnerable. Exactly. It's safe. Right.
It's performative vulnerability. Right. We're
giving the audience the metaphorical blood they
crave, but keeping our actual messy reality hidden
behind a filter. Precisely. And critics and audiences
have become very comfortable evaluating that
kind of curated sadness. Because it's easy to
digest. But Cohen points out that in an era of
constant shallow oversharing, when an artist
like Krell comes along and demands that you look
right into his actual uncurated heart, it shatters
that comfortable dynamic. Wow. It makes true
transparency feel incredibly risky. Because it
demands the listener actually carries some of
that emotional weight. If the artist isn't faking
it, then your reaction to it can't be fake either.
Exactly. It makes the listener and the critic
profoundly uncomfortable. So. The Guardian calling
it a soundtrack to General Misery might not actually
be a critique of the musical composition at all.
It might be a defensive reaction. They were looking
for the metaphorical blood, like a catchy sad
song with a traditional pop structure that could
easily grade. And instead, Krell handed them
the real thing and they simply didn't want to
hold it. That is the exact crux of the divide.
Pitchfork saw that intense discomfort, recognized
the bravery it took to create it, and called
it a masterpiece of transparency. The Guardian
saw that exact same discomfort, resented being
made to feel it, and called it misery. The sonic
architecture didn't change. Right, the music
was the same. What changed was the critic's willingness
to sit in a room with raw, unfiltered trauma.
But, you know, how do you actually sustain that
level of intense reality over... nearly an hour
of music without completely exhausting the listener.
It's a challenge. Because to truly understand
this critical tug of war between escapism and
torment, we have to look at how Krell sequences
this experience. Right. If you look at the runtime,
he actually builds the friction directly into
the track list. Yeah, the pacing of the album
is incredibly deliberate. The source material
notes that the album is exactly 55 minutes and
one second long. Okay. And it comprises 12 tracks.
That is a massive amount of time to sustain the
murky lo -fi R &B atmosphere we've been discussing.
specific sustained emotional arc. And the titles
of these 12 tracks are evocative to the point
of being overwhelming. They really are. Let's
just look at the narrative progression of a few
of them. Track one opens the record with two
years on, in parentheses, shame dream. Heavy
start. Yeah. Then by track five, the mood violently
shifts to repeat pleasure. Track seven is called
Poor Cyril. Track nine hits you with this massive
unwieldy title. This one is a lot. Childhood
faith and love, and then in parentheses, everything
must change, everything must stay the same. Yep.
And finally, the album closes out with track
12. House Inside, in parentheses, future is older
than the past. Just hearing those titles riddle
out, you can feel the thematic weight Krell is
wrestling with. It's heavy. It's heavy, but it's
also incredibly paradoxical. Look at the whiplash
build right into the sequencing. What do you
mean? You go from a song called Shame Dream directly
into the orbit of a song called Repeat Pleasure.
Ah, right. That sequencing perfectly encapsulates
what the AV club was complaining about. when
they said the album was torn between pop escapism
and emotional torment. Oh, wow. It's literally
right there in the track titles. Krell is pulling
the listener back and forth between the torment
of a shame dream and the escapism of repeat pleasure.
He refuses to let the listener settle into just
one mood. If we connect this to the bigger picture,
you have to look closely at Krell's heavy reliance
on those parenthetical titles. The long ones.
Yeah. We have everything must change, everything
must stay the same, and future is older than
the past. They sound less like song titles and
more like unresolvable philosophical riddles.
Because that is exactly what they are. They're
lengthy, inherently contradictory statements.
Conceptually, how can everything change while
simultaneously staying the exact same? It can't.
Right. And from a linear perspective, how can
the future possibly be older than the past? These
parentheticals are doing immense poetic heavy
lifting. They are mirroring the main title. Yes,
they mirror the unanswerable paradoxical nature
of the album's core question. What is this heart?
Krell is using the track list itself to communicate
that human emotion does not fit into need logical
structural boxes. We're too complicated for that.
Exactly. Our inner lives are full of conflicting
truths. By needing his tracks this way, he is
forcing the listener to confront those contradictions
head on, rather than neatly resolving them by
the end of the chorus. It's like he's telling
the listener, look, I don't have the answers
to these paradoxes, and neither do you, but we
are going to sit in this messy, confusing, ambient
space together and figure it out for exactly
55 minutes and one second. Which brings us right
back to why the critical landscape was so fractured.
Yeah. If you approach music, wanting it to resolve
your feelings. If you want a tidy pop structure
to make sense of the world for you, this album
will frustrate you to no end. It'll feel like
general misery. Exactly. But if you want art
to validate the confusing paradoxical reality
of your own emotional state, it functions beautifully.
So what does this all mean? Let's zoom out and
pull these threads together. OK. What is? This
heart is a 2014 genre -bending sonic experiment
that refused to play by the rules of the era.
It's a record that used the intimate degraded
textures of lo -fi and the driving passion of
alternative R &B to ask a deeply uncomfortable
spoken question. A very brave question. Yeah.
And in doing so, it's split the professional
music world right down the middle, forcing a
very public conversation about the value of raw
musical torment versus profound, risky transparency.
It proves that sometimes the most resonant art
isn't the art that gives you a catchy answer.
It's the art that forces you to sit with the
hardest questions. And that leads us to a really
fascinating final thought. Something for you
listening to mull over long after we wrap up
today. Well, if you look at the larger Wikipedia
chronology of Tom Krell's discography under How
to Dress Well, you'll see a distinct overarching
narrative arc across his album releases during
this era. Oh, the albums themselves tell a larger
sequential story. They absolutely do. This 2014
album, What Is This Heart, sits squarely between
two other major critically analyzed releases.
Immediately preceding it, in 2012, Krell released
an album titled Total Loss. Total Loss, okay.
And immediately following our deep dive subject,
in 2016 he released an album titled Care. Wait,
Total Loss, then What Is This Heart, and finally
Care. Yeah. That is an incredible progression.
It's a map of human recovery embedded right into
the discography. Think about the psychological
journey there. First, you experience a devastating
total loss. You are fundamentally broken. Right.
In the direct aftermath of that destruction,
you are left sifting through the wreckage of
your own life, asking the desperate, highly vulnerable
question, what is this heart? And finally, the
result of asking that brave, uncomfortable question,
the actual reward for sitting in that 55 minutes
of musical torment and transparency, is that
you eventually arrive at a place of care. that
completely recontextualizes the misery the critics
complained about. I want you listening to consider
how that arc applies to the difficult questions
we dare to ask in our own lives. We often view
emotional torment or the messy vulnerability
of a late night plea as a sign that something
is fundamentally wrong with us. Yeah, we want
to hide it behind metaphorical blood. But what
if the messy, contradictory questions we ask
ourselves in the dark aren't just misery for
the sake of misery? What if asking What is this
heart? Is the necessary, unavoidable stepping
stone required to reach our own genuine healing
and care? That rips the structural scaffolding
right off, doesn't it? It proves that real healing
isn't a tidy three -minute escapist anthem. Sometimes
healing is a messy, beautiful, 55 -minute question.