Figure 8 | ||||
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File:Elliott smith figure 8 cover.jpg | ||||
Studio album by Elliott Smith | ||||
Released | April 18, 2000 | |||
Recorded | 1999-2000 at Abbey Road Studios, London Capitol Studios, Hollywood Sonora Studios, LA Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood |
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Genre | Indie rock | |||
Length | 52:06 | |||
Label | DreamWorks Records | |||
Producer | Tom Rothrock Rob Schnapf Elliott Smith |
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Elliott Smith chronology | ||||
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Figure 8 is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. Released by DreamWorks Records on April 18, 2000, it became Smith's second release on a major label and the last album he would complete before his death. It was recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, Sonora Studios in Los Angeles, Capitol Studios in Hollywood, and Abbey Road Studios in London ("Stupidity Tries", "In the Lost and Found (Honky Bach)" and "Pretty Mary K"). The album was also released on double vinyl 12" on Bong Load Custom Records, and later re-released by Plain Records in 2008. It is also available as a digital download.
The title is thought to be taken from a song by Schoolhouse Rock!;[1] Smith covered this song, but it did not make the final track listing.
Regarding the album's title, Smith said this in a May 11, 2000 article in The Boston Herald:
"I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection. But I have a problem with perfection. I don't think perfection is very artful. But there's something I liked about the image of a skater going in this endless twisted circle that doesn't have any real endpoint. So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it's just to make this thing as beautiful as they can."
Compared to Smith's earlier work, Figure 8 is more instrumentally ornate, and the lyrics are more impressionistic. Smith described the songs on the album as "more...fragmented and dreamlike".[2]
Contents |
Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Metacritic | (universal acclaim)[3] |
Mojo | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
NME | (8/10) [4] |
Pitchfork Media | (6.9/10) 4/1/2000 |
Q Magazine | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Rolling Stone | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Metacritic gave "Figure 8" a score of 81 (universal acclaim). The music review online magazine Pitchfork Media placed Figure 8 at number 190 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s (decade).[6] Rolling Stone had similar praises for the album, placing it at #42 on the "100 Best Albums of the Decade" list:[7]
Elliott Smith's remarkable melodic sense had its perfect yin-yang match in the bottomless darkness of his lyrics. Figure 8, the last album Smith completed before committing suicide in 2003, was his most ornamented work. Yet there is joy in even the busiest arrangements: Dazzling music-hall piano drives the Beatlesque "In the Lost and Found (Honky Bach)/The Roost"; a guitar curlicues like wild ivy on the morbid power-pop number "L.A." It's hard to imagine the wave of rustic, gorgeous music coming out of Smith's adopted home, the Pacific Northwest (Fleet Foxes, the Decemberists), without this haunted high-water mark.
(All songs written by Elliott Smith)
Available on CD, cassette and LP. A DreamWorks Records release.
Produced by Tom Rothrock, Rob Schnapf and Elliott Smith.
Recorded and mixed at Abbey Road, Capitol, Sunset Sound, and Sonora Studios.
Songs and all strings arranged by Elliott Smith. Strings orchestrated by Suzie Katayama.
Photos by Autumn deWilde. Art direction and design by Autumn deWilde and Dale Smith.
The Japanese release of this album included Smith's cover of The Beatles' song "Because" and "Figure 8", an abridged cover of a Schoolhouse Rock! song.
The promotional CD for Figure 8 featured cover artwork by Mike Mills, director of Thumbsucker. Smith contributed songs to the Thumbsucker soundtrack.
The wall Smith stands in front of in Autumn de Wilde's photograph on the cover of the album exists in Los Angeles, and since his death it has become a memorial to him. It is covered with graffiti and written messages containing lyrics and personal messages to Smith. It is located at 4334 W. Sunset Boulevard, which is a store by the name of Solutions Audio-Video Repair, just south of the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Fountain Avenue.
In 2007, the painting was returned to its original state after being vandalized. Since then, it has again been painted over with unrelated graffiti.
In May 2010, the wall was covered by marketing material for Roger Waters' The Wall Live. After finding out what had happened, Waters ordered for it to be removed.[8] In 2011, the wall was restored in celebration of the artist's birthday, including a stencil of Smith in order to mimic the photo on the album cover.[9]
The indie rock band BOAT parodied the album's cover art, among several others, on its 2011 release Dress Like Your Idols.
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Making Mirrors is the third studio album by Belgian-Australian artist Gotye. The album was released in Australia on 19 August 2011. In December 2011 it was announced that Making Mirrors was voted Triple J listeners' number-one album of 2011, making Gotye the first artist to win the Triple J album poll twice. It included the hit "Somebody That I Used to Know", which reached and topped charts worldwide. In Poland, after one day of release, the album was certified platinum. The album won the 2013 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
The album was largely recorded at a converted studio at Gotye's parents' farm in the Mornington Peninsula.
"Eyes Wide Open" saw Gotye explore new musical territory, with the main bass line from the song recorded on a fence: "I was out there with my old band called The Basics—and Winton is home to this phenomenal thing called the Winton Musical Fence, which is a large fence made out of metal strings stretched between posts and you can pluck it and play it with all sorts of different materials - it makes these amazing bass sounds so I sampled some bits there in 08 and they made it into the first single I put out off the new record called Eyes Wide Open."
Vice is a practice, behavior, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhealthy habit (such as an addiction to smoking). Vices are usually associated with a transgression in a person's character or temperament rather than their morality. Synonyms for vice include fault, sin, depravity, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption.
The opposite of vice is virtue.
The modern English term that best captures its original meaning is the word vicious, which means "full of vice". In this sense, the word vice comes from the Latin word vitium, meaning "failing or defect".
(This meaning is completely separate from the word vice when used as an official title to indicate a deputy, substitute or subordinate, as in vice president, vice-chancellor or viceroy. The etymology of this usage derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of".)
Vice Squad is a 1982 action/crime drama film, starring Wings Hauser, Season Hubley, and Gary Swanson, directed by Gary Sherman. The original music score was composed by Joe Renzetti and Keith Rubenstein. Wings Hauser sang the vocal track on the film's opening and closing theme song "Neon Slime".
When Los Angeles' police force down-on-her-luck businesswoman-turned-prostitute "Princess" (Season Hubley) to help capture a murderous pimp named Ramrod (Wings Hauser), it's Princess's life that is put on the line. Soon, the escaped killer is after her, and vice squad detective Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) and his team are hard pressed to keep the woman safe.
A vice squad is a police division whose focus is stopping moral crimes like gambling, narcotics, prostitution and illegal sales of alcohol.
Vice squad may also refer to:
No more fourth rate cut price crap
No poor sap to take the rap
Shut your mouths no nag nag nag
No more scumbag talking back
Don't be the sacrifice
No never say die
Don't be the suicide
Get out,Get a life
Get out,Get a life
Get out,Get a life
Paying for the privilege
One more shit hole cancelled gig
Took away my will to live
Too ground down to make it big
No admission still refused
Twisted truth is no excuse
Tell me why i was accused