WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.980 So in June of 2014, The Guardian reviewed this 00:00:03.980 --> 00:00:07.160 highly anticipated indie album and just brutally 00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:09.439 dismissed it. They literally called it a soundtrack 00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:11.800 to heartbreak and general misery. Yeah, which 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:14.900 is quite a statement. Just totally savage. Right. 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:18.449 But then, that exact same week, Pitchfork reviews 00:00:18.449 --> 00:00:21.230 the exact same album, gives it an 8 .8 out of 00:00:21.230 --> 00:00:24.910 10, and hails it as this modern masterpiece of 00:00:24.910 --> 00:00:27.230 eternal transparency. It's wild. You don't usually 00:00:27.230 --> 00:00:29.690 see that kind of whiplash between two major outlets. 00:00:29.989 --> 00:00:32.530 Exactly. And, you know, welcome to another Deep 00:00:32.530 --> 00:00:34.969 Dive. Because today isn't just about a record. 00:00:35.030 --> 00:00:37.729 It's about what happens when an artist just rips 00:00:37.729 --> 00:00:40.590 away the performative gloss and the, like, structural 00:00:40.590 --> 00:00:43.270 scaffolding of pop music. And forces you to look 00:00:43.270 --> 00:00:45.789 at this really uncomfortable, bleeding reality. 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:48.570 Yeah. Today we're looking at a Wikipedia article 00:00:48.570 --> 00:00:51.270 detailing a highly specific, very polarizing 00:00:51.270 --> 00:00:53.789 piece of modern music history. We're talking 00:00:53.789 --> 00:00:56.689 about the 2014 album, What Is This Heart? by 00:00:56.689 --> 00:00:58.969 the American musician, Tom Krell. Right, who 00:00:58.969 --> 00:01:00.969 you probably know better by his moniker, How 00:01:00.969 --> 00:01:03.509 to Dress Well. And it's the perfect subject for 00:01:03.509 --> 00:01:05.790 a deep dive because it operates entirely on friction. 00:01:05.909 --> 00:01:08.109 Friction, yeah. Like, it perfectly illustrates 00:01:08.109 --> 00:01:10.730 that tension between the polished emotional escapism 00:01:10.730 --> 00:01:14.469 we usually demand from our art and the raw uncurated 00:01:14.469 --> 00:01:17.109 vulnerability that an artist is actually willing 00:01:17.109 --> 00:01:20.450 to subject us to. And our mission today is to 00:01:20.450 --> 00:01:22.569 explore exactly that friction. We want to see 00:01:22.569 --> 00:01:25.870 how this single album used extreme transparency, 00:01:26.629 --> 00:01:29.109 aggressive genre blending, and just raw emotion 00:01:29.109 --> 00:01:31.750 to challenge the modern music landscape. And 00:01:31.750 --> 00:01:33.790 completely polarized music critics right down 00:01:33.790 --> 00:01:35.290 the middle in the process. Okay, let's unpack 00:01:35.290 --> 00:01:38.549 this. So to understand the critical civil war 00:01:38.549 --> 00:01:40.510 this album started, we actually have to look 00:01:40.510 --> 00:01:42.469 at the genesis of the project, like starting 00:01:42.469 --> 00:01:45.030 with how Krell framed it for the world before 00:01:45.030 --> 00:01:46.890 anyone even heard a single note. Right, setting 00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:49.500 the stage. Exactly. So the album was released 00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:53.739 on June 23, 2014 on Weird World. Which is an 00:01:53.739 --> 00:01:55.640 imprint of Domino, right? The indie label. Yeah, 00:01:55.719 --> 00:01:57.840 the prominent indie label Domino. But the title 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:00.019 itself is really the first piece of the puzzle 00:02:00.019 --> 00:02:03.239 here. It is incredibly specific grammatically. 00:02:03.519 --> 00:02:06.140 The title is What Is This Heart? But you have 00:02:06.140 --> 00:02:08.539 to include the quotation marks and the question 00:02:08.539 --> 00:02:11.719 mark. Which is so unusual. And Krell was actually 00:02:11.719 --> 00:02:14.319 militant about this formatting. Oh, absolutely. 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:16.259 In a Twitter message leading up to the release, 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:19.080 he explicitly told his audience, he said, my 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:21.979 new album is called What Is This Heart? Just 00:02:21.979 --> 00:02:24.439 Like That, in quotes, like a spoken question. 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:27.120 What's fascinating here is how that grammatical 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:30.479 choice fundamentally changes the artist's relationship 00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:33.439 with you, the audience. Oh, so. Well, usually 00:02:33.439 --> 00:02:37.039 an album title functions as this definitive thematic 00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:39.259 umbrella, right? It's a declaration. Yeah, like 00:02:39.259 --> 00:02:42.740 a statement. Exactly. But by framing it as a 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:46.259 literal spoken question, Krell shifts the entire 00:02:46.259 --> 00:02:48.879 dynamic. It's not a statement of fact anymore. 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:51.860 It demands an active internal response from you. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.659 Oh, I see. It sets this tone of direct. unfiltered 00:02:55.659 --> 00:02:58.699 intimacy before you even hit play. He isn't presenting 00:02:58.699 --> 00:03:01.300 a polished collection of songs. He's initiating 00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:03.460 a very difficult, very open -ended dialogue. 00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:05.460 It's incredibly striking. For you listening, 00:03:05.580 --> 00:03:07.219 think about the psychology of that formatting. 00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:09.919 It's exactly like receiving a text message from 00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:12.740 a close friend at 2am that just says, what is 00:03:12.740 --> 00:03:15.099 this heart? Oh, that's a great analogy. Right. 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:17.979 You instantly know this isn't rhetorical musing. 00:03:18.099 --> 00:03:21.280 It's not casual small talk. No, it's a deep unanswerable 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:23.900 late night plea. Yeah. You feel the physical 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:26.340 presence of the person asking it. Exactly. And 00:03:26.340 --> 00:03:28.439 if you're going to demand that level of sudden 00:03:28.439 --> 00:03:31.960 jarring intimacy with a title, the actual sonic 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:34.340 architecture of the album has to support it. 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:36.340 Which makes sense. You can't ask a desperate 00:03:36.340 --> 00:03:40.979 2 a .m. existential question over like a pristine 00:03:40.979 --> 00:03:43.439 four on the floor club beat. Right. You need 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:45.919 a sonic landscape that reflects that internal 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:48.340 messiness. Which brings us to the actual sound 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:51.159 and how Krell translates that existential crisis 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:54.520 into audio. The sources categorize this album 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:57.840 as bridging multiple very distinct musical landscapes. 00:03:57.879 --> 00:03:59.560 Yeah, he's pulling from a lot of different spaces. 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:02.719 Alternative R &B, experimental, ambient, lo -fi, 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:05.139 and experimental pop. He's pulling from all of 00:04:05.139 --> 00:04:07.340 these at once. And he's doing it by subverting 00:04:07.340 --> 00:04:09.580 how those genres traditionally operate. Like 00:04:09.580 --> 00:04:12.500 think about traditional R &B. Okay. It's historically 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:16.439 a genre rooted in vocal clarity, passion, rhythm, 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:18.459 and these front and center melodies. Right, you 00:04:18.459 --> 00:04:21.740 want to hear the singer clearly. Exactly. But 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:24.600 Krell takes those driving R &B vocal runs and 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:27.040 he buries them under ambient and lo -fi textures. 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:30.199 Instead of the crisp highs and deep lows of a 00:04:30.199 --> 00:04:32.899 traditional studio pop record, he pushes the 00:04:32.899 --> 00:04:36.180 sound into the murky mid -ranges. So he's intentionally 00:04:36.180 --> 00:04:39.420 degrading the audio quality to create atmosphere. 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:43.220 Precisely. By utilizing heavy reverb, tape hiss, 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:45.920 and this slightly unpolished, fuzzy production, 00:04:46.220 --> 00:04:48.899 he removes the barrier of the studio. Wow. It 00:04:48.899 --> 00:04:51.899 creates a claustrophobic, intimate space. It 00:04:51.899 --> 00:04:53.639 sounds like you are sitting on the floor of a 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:56.639 small, dimly lit bedroom with the artist while 00:04:56.639 --> 00:04:59.079 he's actively working through this trauma. That's 00:04:59.079 --> 00:05:01.839 such a vivid picture. You know, Krell didn't 00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:04.180 construct this entire sonic space in a vacuum. 00:05:04.379 --> 00:05:06.579 Look, he did. The electronic artist C .F .C .F. 00:05:06.779 --> 00:05:09.220 actually co -wrote and co -produced two pivotal 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:11.500 tracks on the album. Right, a power in what you 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:13.680 wanted. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up C .F 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:16.199 .C .F. because incorporating an external electronic 00:05:16.199 --> 00:05:18.899 producer into such a hyper -personal lo -fi space 00:05:18.899 --> 00:05:22.089 seems risky. It does seem counterintuitive. But 00:05:22.089 --> 00:05:24.209 it makes sense when you listen to the texture 00:05:24.209 --> 00:05:28.050 of those specific tracks. CFCF's electronic footprint 00:05:28.050 --> 00:05:32.209 adds this rigid synthetic architecture, and Krell's 00:05:32.209 --> 00:05:35.170 really fluid, vulnerable R &B falsetto can bounce 00:05:35.170 --> 00:05:37.670 off of that. It creates an incredible sonic tension. 00:05:37.850 --> 00:05:40.490 It really does. It's the tension of organic human 00:05:40.490 --> 00:05:44.209 emotion trying to survive inside a cold digital 00:05:44.209 --> 00:05:46.600 landscape. But I have to push back here for a 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:49.300 second, because blending all these elements isn't 00:05:49.300 --> 00:05:52.860 a guaranteed formula for success. Like, NME gave 00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:56.220 this album a lukewarm 5 out of 10 for a reason. 00:05:56.579 --> 00:05:59.360 When you throw ambient drones, lo -fi fuzz, and 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:01.779 synthetic electronic beats into a blender with 00:06:01.779 --> 00:06:05.319 R &B vocals, don't you risk muddying the emotional 00:06:05.319 --> 00:06:07.939 core? That's the danger, yeah. Did Krell actually 00:06:07.939 --> 00:06:10.720 succeed in synthesizing these, or did the dense 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:13.199 experimental production just act as a smokescreen? 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:15.689 Like, to mask the fact that some of these tracks 00:06:15.689 --> 00:06:18.350 lacked a solid accessible melodic foundation. 00:06:18.689 --> 00:06:20.370 Well, it's a highly valid critique, and it's 00:06:20.370 --> 00:06:22.550 exactly why experimental music often struggles 00:06:22.550 --> 00:06:25.009 commercially. The assumption is usually that 00:06:25.009 --> 00:06:27.529 murky equals inaccessible. But the performance 00:06:27.529 --> 00:06:30.430 metrics from the sources tell a very different 00:06:30.430 --> 00:06:32.550 story regarding how the public received it. Oh, 00:06:32.550 --> 00:06:35.649 really? Yeah. Far from alienating listeners with 00:06:35.649 --> 00:06:39.329 this chaotic wall of sound. What is this heart 00:06:39.329 --> 00:06:41.829 actually became how to address Wells highest 00:06:41.829 --> 00:06:45.509 charting album? No way. Yes. It peaked at number 00:06:45.509 --> 00:06:49.889 145 on the Billboard 200. Wait, peaking at 145 00:06:49.889 --> 00:06:52.790 for a lo fi experimental record on a domino imprint 00:06:52.790 --> 00:06:55.949 is wild. Very impressive. That implies this wasn't 00:06:55.949 --> 00:06:58.269 just, you know, background study music that people 00:06:58.269 --> 00:07:00.629 threw on a playlist and ignored. There was a 00:07:00.629 --> 00:07:03.470 dedicated fan base actively buying this, streaming 00:07:03.470 --> 00:07:06.410 it and deciphering this emotional puzzle. Absolutely. 00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:09.129 What was the What was the mechanism driving that 00:07:09.129 --> 00:07:12.209 kind of engagement? The mechanism was the universality 00:07:12.209 --> 00:07:14.250 of the emotion cutting through the experimental 00:07:14.250 --> 00:07:16.850 production. Yeah. Yes, the packaging is unconventional. 00:07:17.029 --> 00:07:19.170 Yeah. And yes, the vocals are sometimes buried 00:07:19.170 --> 00:07:22.250 in reverb. But the core rhythm, that alternative 00:07:22.250 --> 00:07:25.829 R &B heartbeat, is so deeply recognizable. Ah. 00:07:26.129 --> 00:07:28.670 The listener might not understand the complex 00:07:28.670 --> 00:07:31.829 ambient textures, but they fundamentally understand 00:07:31.829 --> 00:07:35.819 the sound of a heart in turmoil. the public latched 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:38.019 onto the authenticity of it. That makes a lot 00:07:38.019 --> 00:07:40.639 of sense. The public was willing to do the work 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:42.860 to decode the production because the emotional 00:07:42.860 --> 00:07:45.639 payoff felt real. Exactly. But while the Billboard 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:47.920 charting proves it resonated with everyday listeners, 00:07:48.300 --> 00:07:50.120 the professional music critics were essentially 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:52.819 thrown into a civil war over it. Civil war is 00:07:52.819 --> 00:07:55.399 the perfect term. The critical reaction to this 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:58.699 album is a master class in how subjective art 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:01.120 evaluation really is. Totally. Especially when 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:03.459 the art refuses to hand you easy answers. Well, 00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:05.800 here's where it gets really interesting. If you 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:08.040 look at the aggregate scores, the album hold 00:08:08.040 --> 00:08:11.819 a Metacritic score of 69 based on 32 distinct 00:08:11.819 --> 00:08:14.699 reviews. Okay. Over on any decent music, it sits 00:08:14.699 --> 00:08:18.759 at a 7 .1 out of 10. Now normally a 69 implies 00:08:18.759 --> 00:08:21.480 a consensus of solid middle -of -the -road B 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:24.379 -minus grades. Right. Just a generally okay album. 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:26.540 Yeah, but that is absolutely not the story here. 00:08:26.879 --> 00:08:30.639 Not at all. That 69 is entirely deceptive. It 00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:33.840 is the mathematical result of extreme glowing 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:37.120 highs and brutal lows violently canceling each 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:40.309 other out. There was no consensus. None. Let's 00:08:40.309 --> 00:08:42.470 juxtapose these reactions because the whiplash 00:08:42.470 --> 00:08:44.590 is incredible. On one end of the spectrum you 00:08:44.590 --> 00:08:47.809 have Ian Cohen writing for Pitchfork. He gave 00:08:47.809 --> 00:08:51.230 the album a massive 8 .8 out of 10. Yeah, huge 00:08:51.230 --> 00:08:55.029 score. He praised its eternal transparency and 00:08:55.029 --> 00:08:57.690 framed it as a profound artistic achievement. 00:08:57.970 --> 00:09:00.230 Right. And on the other end? Well, the AV Club 00:09:00.230 --> 00:09:02.789 gave it a C +, claiming the music was fundamentally 00:09:02.789 --> 00:09:05.409 broken because it was torn between pop escapism 00:09:05.409 --> 00:09:07.870 and emotional torment. Interesting framing. Spin 00:09:07.870 --> 00:09:10.370 Magazine gave it a 7 out of 10, visibly stating 00:09:10.370 --> 00:09:12.769 that the album opens a vein bleeds turbulent 00:09:12.769 --> 00:09:15.570 R &B. Wow. And Ami, as we mentioned, gave it 00:09:15.570 --> 00:09:17.909 a completely indifferent 5 out of 10. And then 00:09:17.909 --> 00:09:20.669 there's The Guardian. Ah, yes. The Guardian's 00:09:20.669 --> 00:09:23.610 review is legendary for how bluntly it dismissed 00:09:23.610 --> 00:09:25.429 the entire project. They literally called it 00:09:25.429 --> 00:09:27.669 a soundtrack to Heartbreak and General Misery. 00:09:27.750 --> 00:09:31.490 It's just... Ouch. Imagine pouring your absolute 00:09:31.490 --> 00:09:34.730 soul into an hour of music and a major publication 00:09:34.730 --> 00:09:38.389 calls it General Misery. It's rough. So I have 00:09:38.389 --> 00:09:40.590 to ask you listening. When you put your headphones 00:09:40.590 --> 00:09:42.870 on, what are you actually looking for? Are you 00:09:42.870 --> 00:09:45.590 looking for the emotional scaffolding of pure 00:09:45.590 --> 00:09:48.129 pop escapism? Like a song with a kitschy chorus 00:09:48.129 --> 00:09:50.950 that makes you forget your day. Exactly. Or are 00:09:50.950 --> 00:09:53.509 you willing to wade into an album of emotional 00:09:53.509 --> 00:09:55.950 torment, knowing it might ruin your afternoon? 00:09:56.610 --> 00:09:58.870 It's the ultimate question for any music consumer. 00:09:59.289 --> 00:10:02.409 And it's the exact dividing line that split these 00:10:02.409 --> 00:10:05.070 critics. So why were the reactions so opposed? 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:07.659 To understand that, we really need to unpack 00:10:07.659 --> 00:10:10.220 that glowing review from Pitchfork's Ian Cohen, 00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:13.860 because he hit on a profound cultural observation 00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:16.460 about how we consume media. What did he say? 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:18.799 Cohen noted that modern discourse, especially 00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:21.100 in the age of digital personas and social media, 00:10:21.539 --> 00:10:24.519 seeks what he called metaphorical blood. Metaphorical 00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:27.559 blood? That is a heavy phrase. It is. He elaborated 00:10:27.559 --> 00:10:29.759 by saying that modern culture allows people to 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:32.279 disclose more than ever without actually revealing 00:10:32.279 --> 00:10:34.700 anything. Wait. Disclose more without revealing 00:10:34.700 --> 00:10:38.419 anything. That is a staggering observation. Isn't 00:10:38.419 --> 00:10:40.840 it? It perfectly dissects the modern internet 00:10:40.840 --> 00:10:44.039 era. Like, we post a million highly curated photos 00:10:44.039 --> 00:10:46.480 of our bad days, we write lengthy performative 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:49.519 captions about our struggles, but we aren't actually 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:52.080 being vulnerable. Exactly. It's safe. Right. 00:10:52.179 --> 00:10:54.740 It's performative vulnerability. Right. We're 00:10:54.740 --> 00:10:56.980 giving the audience the metaphorical blood they 00:10:56.980 --> 00:11:00.980 crave, but keeping our actual messy reality hidden 00:11:00.980 --> 00:11:04.299 behind a filter. Precisely. And critics and audiences 00:11:04.299 --> 00:11:06.779 have become very comfortable evaluating that 00:11:06.779 --> 00:11:09.299 kind of curated sadness. Because it's easy to 00:11:09.299 --> 00:11:13.240 digest. But Cohen points out that in an era of 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:16.100 constant shallow oversharing, when an artist 00:11:16.100 --> 00:11:17.879 like Krell comes along and demands that you look 00:11:17.879 --> 00:11:21.320 right into his actual uncurated heart, it shatters 00:11:21.320 --> 00:11:23.940 that comfortable dynamic. Wow. It makes true 00:11:23.940 --> 00:11:26.379 transparency feel incredibly risky. Because it 00:11:26.379 --> 00:11:28.340 demands the listener actually carries some of 00:11:28.340 --> 00:11:30.659 that emotional weight. If the artist isn't faking 00:11:30.659 --> 00:11:32.980 it, then your reaction to it can't be fake either. 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:35.000 Exactly. It makes the listener and the critic 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:38.669 profoundly uncomfortable. So. The Guardian calling 00:11:38.669 --> 00:11:42.289 it a soundtrack to General Misery might not actually 00:11:42.289 --> 00:11:44.730 be a critique of the musical composition at all. 00:11:45.210 --> 00:11:47.769 It might be a defensive reaction. They were looking 00:11:47.769 --> 00:11:51.009 for the metaphorical blood, like a catchy sad 00:11:51.009 --> 00:11:53.370 song with a traditional pop structure that could 00:11:53.370 --> 00:11:57.029 easily grade. And instead, Krell handed them 00:11:57.029 --> 00:11:59.090 the real thing and they simply didn't want to 00:11:59.090 --> 00:12:01.809 hold it. That is the exact crux of the divide. 00:12:03.050 --> 00:12:06.610 Pitchfork saw that intense discomfort, recognized 00:12:06.610 --> 00:12:09.250 the bravery it took to create it, and called 00:12:09.250 --> 00:12:12.289 it a masterpiece of transparency. The Guardian 00:12:12.289 --> 00:12:14.409 saw that exact same discomfort, resented being 00:12:14.409 --> 00:12:17.490 made to feel it, and called it misery. The sonic 00:12:17.490 --> 00:12:19.389 architecture didn't change. Right, the music 00:12:19.389 --> 00:12:21.669 was the same. What changed was the critic's willingness 00:12:21.669 --> 00:12:24.090 to sit in a room with raw, unfiltered trauma. 00:12:24.509 --> 00:12:27.769 But, you know, how do you actually sustain that 00:12:27.769 --> 00:12:30.759 level of intense reality over... nearly an hour 00:12:30.759 --> 00:12:32.919 of music without completely exhausting the listener. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.080 It's a challenge. Because to truly understand 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:37.340 this critical tug of war between escapism and 00:12:37.340 --> 00:12:39.700 torment, we have to look at how Krell sequences 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:42.039 this experience. Right. If you look at the runtime, 00:12:42.220 --> 00:12:44.539 he actually builds the friction directly into 00:12:44.539 --> 00:12:46.600 the track list. Yeah, the pacing of the album 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:49.100 is incredibly deliberate. The source material 00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:52.360 notes that the album is exactly 55 minutes and 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:55.330 one second long. Okay. And it comprises 12 tracks. 00:12:55.889 --> 00:12:59.190 That is a massive amount of time to sustain the 00:12:59.190 --> 00:13:02.090 murky lo -fi R &B atmosphere we've been discussing. 00:13:05.099 --> 00:13:08.340 specific sustained emotional arc. And the titles 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:11.120 of these 12 tracks are evocative to the point 00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:13.440 of being overwhelming. They really are. Let's 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:15.139 just look at the narrative progression of a few 00:13:15.139 --> 00:13:17.659 of them. Track one opens the record with two 00:13:17.659 --> 00:13:20.419 years on, in parentheses, shame dream. Heavy 00:13:20.419 --> 00:13:23.899 start. Yeah. Then by track five, the mood violently 00:13:23.899 --> 00:13:27.029 shifts to repeat pleasure. Track seven is called 00:13:27.029 --> 00:13:29.850 Poor Cyril. Track nine hits you with this massive 00:13:29.850 --> 00:13:32.029 unwieldy title. This one is a lot. Childhood 00:13:32.029 --> 00:13:34.049 faith and love, and then in parentheses, everything 00:13:34.049 --> 00:13:36.389 must change, everything must stay the same. Yep. 00:13:36.830 --> 00:13:38.529 And finally, the album closes out with track 00:13:38.529 --> 00:13:42.529 12. House Inside, in parentheses, future is older 00:13:42.529 --> 00:13:45.129 than the past. Just hearing those titles riddle 00:13:45.129 --> 00:13:47.330 out, you can feel the thematic weight Krell is 00:13:47.330 --> 00:13:49.809 wrestling with. It's heavy. It's heavy, but it's 00:13:49.809 --> 00:13:53.750 also incredibly paradoxical. Look at the whiplash 00:13:53.750 --> 00:13:55.690 build right into the sequencing. What do you 00:13:55.690 --> 00:13:58.769 mean? You go from a song called Shame Dream directly 00:13:58.769 --> 00:14:01.029 into the orbit of a song called Repeat Pleasure. 00:14:01.149 --> 00:14:04.649 Ah, right. That sequencing perfectly encapsulates 00:14:04.649 --> 00:14:07.029 what the AV club was complaining about. when 00:14:07.029 --> 00:14:09.909 they said the album was torn between pop escapism 00:14:09.909 --> 00:14:12.850 and emotional torment. Oh, wow. It's literally 00:14:12.850 --> 00:14:15.750 right there in the track titles. Krell is pulling 00:14:15.750 --> 00:14:18.649 the listener back and forth between the torment 00:14:18.649 --> 00:14:22.009 of a shame dream and the escapism of repeat pleasure. 00:14:22.610 --> 00:14:25.629 He refuses to let the listener settle into just 00:14:25.629 --> 00:14:28.990 one mood. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:14:29.570 --> 00:14:31.809 you have to look closely at Krell's heavy reliance 00:14:31.809 --> 00:14:34.110 on those parenthetical titles. The long ones. 00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:36.480 Yeah. We have everything must change, everything 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:39.279 must stay the same, and future is older than 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:41.899 the past. They sound less like song titles and 00:14:41.899 --> 00:14:44.500 more like unresolvable philosophical riddles. 00:14:44.539 --> 00:14:46.960 Because that is exactly what they are. They're 00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:49.399 lengthy, inherently contradictory statements. 00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:52.220 Conceptually, how can everything change while 00:14:52.220 --> 00:14:54.679 simultaneously staying the exact same? It can't. 00:14:54.820 --> 00:14:57.220 Right. And from a linear perspective, how can 00:14:57.220 --> 00:15:00.360 the future possibly be older than the past? These 00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:03.539 parentheticals are doing immense poetic heavy 00:15:03.539 --> 00:15:06.259 lifting. They are mirroring the main title. Yes, 00:15:06.580 --> 00:15:08.899 they mirror the unanswerable paradoxical nature 00:15:08.899 --> 00:15:11.259 of the album's core question. What is this heart? 00:15:12.019 --> 00:15:14.460 Krell is using the track list itself to communicate 00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:17.779 that human emotion does not fit into need logical 00:15:17.779 --> 00:15:20.179 structural boxes. We're too complicated for that. 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:23.179 Exactly. Our inner lives are full of conflicting 00:15:23.179 --> 00:15:26.879 truths. By needing his tracks this way, he is 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:29.200 forcing the listener to confront those contradictions 00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:31.840 head on, rather than neatly resolving them by 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:33.500 the end of the chorus. It's like he's telling 00:15:33.500 --> 00:15:35.759 the listener, look, I don't have the answers 00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:38.440 to these paradoxes, and neither do you, but we 00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:41.840 are going to sit in this messy, confusing, ambient 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:44.340 space together and figure it out for exactly 00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:46.919 55 minutes and one second. Which brings us right 00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:49.259 back to why the critical landscape was so fractured. 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:52.120 Yeah. If you approach music, wanting it to resolve 00:15:52.120 --> 00:15:54.679 your feelings. If you want a tidy pop structure 00:15:54.679 --> 00:15:57.179 to make sense of the world for you, this album 00:15:57.179 --> 00:15:59.679 will frustrate you to no end. It'll feel like 00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:02.899 general misery. Exactly. But if you want art 00:16:02.899 --> 00:16:06.559 to validate the confusing paradoxical reality 00:16:06.559 --> 00:16:09.500 of your own emotional state, it functions beautifully. 00:16:09.740 --> 00:16:12.279 So what does this all mean? Let's zoom out and 00:16:12.279 --> 00:16:15.049 pull these threads together. OK. What is? This 00:16:15.049 --> 00:16:18.809 heart is a 2014 genre -bending sonic experiment 00:16:18.809 --> 00:16:22.169 that refused to play by the rules of the era. 00:16:23.169 --> 00:16:25.669 It's a record that used the intimate degraded 00:16:25.669 --> 00:16:28.269 textures of lo -fi and the driving passion of 00:16:28.269 --> 00:16:31.409 alternative R &B to ask a deeply uncomfortable 00:16:31.409 --> 00:16:34.129 spoken question. A very brave question. Yeah. 00:16:34.250 --> 00:16:36.470 And in doing so, it's split the professional 00:16:36.470 --> 00:16:38.909 music world right down the middle, forcing a 00:16:38.909 --> 00:16:41.350 very public conversation about the value of raw 00:16:41.350 --> 00:16:44.129 musical torment versus profound, risky transparency. 00:16:44.730 --> 00:16:46.830 It proves that sometimes the most resonant art 00:16:46.830 --> 00:16:48.490 isn't the art that gives you a catchy answer. 00:16:48.919 --> 00:16:50.779 It's the art that forces you to sit with the 00:16:50.779 --> 00:16:53.080 hardest questions. And that leads us to a really 00:16:53.080 --> 00:16:55.720 fascinating final thought. Something for you 00:16:55.720 --> 00:16:57.860 listening to mull over long after we wrap up 00:16:57.860 --> 00:17:00.639 today. Well, if you look at the larger Wikipedia 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:03.500 chronology of Tom Krell's discography under How 00:17:03.500 --> 00:17:06.119 to Dress Well, you'll see a distinct overarching 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:09.640 narrative arc across his album releases during 00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:12.200 this era. Oh, the albums themselves tell a larger 00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:15.240 sequential story. They absolutely do. This 2014 00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:18.059 album, What Is This Heart, sits squarely between 00:17:18.059 --> 00:17:20.720 two other major critically analyzed releases. 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:24.700 Immediately preceding it, in 2012, Krell released 00:17:24.700 --> 00:17:27.980 an album titled Total Loss. Total Loss, okay. 00:17:28.059 --> 00:17:30.420 And immediately following our deep dive subject, 00:17:30.819 --> 00:17:34.359 in 2016 he released an album titled Care. Wait, 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:38.059 Total Loss, then What Is This Heart, and finally 00:17:38.059 --> 00:17:40.920 Care. Yeah. That is an incredible progression. 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:43.200 It's a map of human recovery embedded right into 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:45.279 the discography. Think about the psychological 00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:48.059 journey there. First, you experience a devastating 00:17:48.059 --> 00:17:50.839 total loss. You are fundamentally broken. Right. 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:52.880 In the direct aftermath of that destruction, 00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:55.079 you are left sifting through the wreckage of 00:17:55.079 --> 00:17:57.720 your own life, asking the desperate, highly vulnerable 00:17:57.720 --> 00:18:00.799 question, what is this heart? And finally, the 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:03.559 result of asking that brave, uncomfortable question, 00:18:04.180 --> 00:18:06.900 the actual reward for sitting in that 55 minutes 00:18:06.900 --> 00:18:09.500 of musical torment and transparency, is that 00:18:09.500 --> 00:18:12.579 you eventually arrive at a place of care. that 00:18:12.579 --> 00:18:15.720 completely recontextualizes the misery the critics 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:17.980 complained about. I want you listening to consider 00:18:17.980 --> 00:18:20.579 how that arc applies to the difficult questions 00:18:20.579 --> 00:18:23.740 we dare to ask in our own lives. We often view 00:18:23.740 --> 00:18:25.920 emotional torment or the messy vulnerability 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:28.180 of a late night plea as a sign that something 00:18:28.180 --> 00:18:30.339 is fundamentally wrong with us. Yeah, we want 00:18:30.339 --> 00:18:32.799 to hide it behind metaphorical blood. But what 00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:35.180 if the messy, contradictory questions we ask 00:18:35.180 --> 00:18:37.680 ourselves in the dark aren't just misery for 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:40.980 the sake of misery? What if asking What is this 00:18:40.980 --> 00:18:43.359 heart? Is the necessary, unavoidable stepping 00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:45.700 stone required to reach our own genuine healing 00:18:45.700 --> 00:18:48.400 and care? That rips the structural scaffolding 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:50.599 right off, doesn't it? It proves that real healing 00:18:50.599 --> 00:18:54.539 isn't a tidy three -minute escapist anthem. Sometimes 00:18:54.539 --> 00:18:58.059 healing is a messy, beautiful, 55 -minute question.