After Frank Ocean’s sophomore album, Blonde, redefined the structural limits of pop music, Bon Iver has released an album that equals it in both peculiarity as well as artistry. Before we begin, I’d like to just skip some of the suspense and say that 22, a Million is a gem of an album that doesn’t impose itself on the listener. The sparseness and grace with which this album was crafted creates a space of meditation for the listener. The front man and lead songwriter, Justin Vernon, understands the importance of space in the music and recognizes that sometimes silence is just as important as the music itself.
I had to remind myself occasionally that I was listening to Bon Iver while playing through this record. Heavy synths and screeching auto-tune are implemented by Vernon, who seldom used an electric guitar or percussion on his previous projects, but somehow his new-wave approach to songwriting still maintains the visceral, melancholy sound that made him so popular in the first place. With this new experimental sound, there are sonically reoccurring themes that carry through the album in a way that we rarely see today. Front-to-back I’ve listened to it five or six times, and each time, I latch onto certain themes, and build on them through exploration of his lyrics, which are extremely cryptic and strange yet beautiful-sort of like watching the sun set from a Wal-Mart parking lot.
I feel that picking a favorite song or key tracks would be difficult and unfair, because this is, in essence, a complete body of work that deserves a listen all the way through. For those struggling to understand this new sound, listen to “29 #Stratford APPTs” as a baseline. It serves as a nod to Bon Iver’s previous work and then slowly drifts off into experimental neo-folk bliss.
It’s hard to put a finger on what 22, a Million is. Folk, roots, r&b, hip hop, alternative and electronic are woven together seamlessly, but the effect it leaves on its listener is something unique. Think of a metropolis that has been reconstructed after a nuclear disaster that occurred hundreds of years prior. There is new infrastructure and new people inhabiting it, but at its core, it is the same city that supported generations of people before. The rail system may be more advanced-but it’s still a train. It is a new appliance, which can boil water in under a minute, but it’s still a stove. In that vein, 22, a Million is still very much a pop album. It is a cultural appropriation of music that transcends generational limitations.
http://boniver.org/audio/playlists
