I Am a Bird Now

🥚🐣🐥/ 5

Art house bollocks sung by a Bryan Ferry wannabe.
1½

This beat employment and silent alarm for the Mercury prize? This?

i thought i recognised the name, i know one song
love

There are some really nice parts to this album. The vibrato in the voice takes a little getting used to, especially in the more fragile songs, but it grows on me particularly in the stronger songs. Emotional and heartfelt album, Fistfull of Love was a great track.

I heard an interview where they explained "For today I am a boy" became a popular drinking song in Italy. The interviewer asked some Italians if they understood what the lyrics of the song meant. They said, "yes, it's about longing."

how beautiful to appreciate the sentiment.

When I go to the Wiki summary and the main factor is that an album won the Mercury prize, my heart sinks. I’m almost through with this list and those have tended to be bland British albums. This is an exception. Beautiful instrumentation, moving vocals, lyrics that bring you into the artist’s world. I never would have found this on my own, and I do think I’m better for having heard it. Exactly what this oat is for! Win! Ironically, I read somewhere that this album is not in the most recent edition of the book. That’s truly a shame.

I Am a Bird Now by Antony and the Johnsons is a difficult one for me. There’s no doubting how deeply personal this album is, and the lyrics are incredibly powerful at times, but I just really struggle with the vocals. The voice is so distinctive and dramatic, but unfortunately it does absolutely nothing for me.

I can remember this album coming out and how much the music press loved it. I didn’t really understand the fuss then and, more than 20 years later, I’m afraid not much has changed. For long periods I simply found it boring.

That sounds harsh, because there are definitely things I can appreciate. It’s completely original, full of emotion and drama, and the bare arrangements work really well in places. There’s a vulnerability to the whole album that makes it feel different from almost anything else.

I can understand why this means so much to some people, but enjoying an album and appreciating what it’s trying to do are two different things. I can appreciate I Am a Bird Now, but I don’t particularly want to listen to it again.

Favourite track: “My Lady Story” was quite nice and probably the track I enjoyed most.

Least favourite track: Nothing was particularly horrible, but too much of the album was just too slow and dull for me.

Album artwork: Cool album cover. Simple, striking and memorable.

For me, the real centre of 𝘐 𝘈𝘮 𝘢 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘥 𝘕𝘰𝘸 is Anohni’s voice rather than the band around her. The arrangements are tasteful and often beautiful, but they can also feel a little too cautious. I sometimes wish the musicians would take more chances instead of staying so firmly in the background.

Anohni, on the other hand, is impossible to ignore. That trembling, fragile delivery gives even the simplest line enormous emotional weight, and I find myself listening closely to every small shift in her voice.

The band could give me more, but Anohni gives me more than enough reason to keep listening.

I thought it was very pretty.

Bij de eerste zin was ik eigenlijk al klaar. Maar eigenlijk valt de klank van de zang na dit nummer ook wel mee. Of ik raakte er aan gewend. Waar ik niet aan gewend raak is de trilling in de stem. Bijvoorbeeld in het woke (avant la lettre) For today I am a boy en het opvolgende Man is the baby.

Uiteindelijk kan ik er niet omheen dat dit goed in elkaar zit. Maar poeh, wat is dit saai.

Gorgeous. I had not really gotten into ANOHNI until her solo records, but I wish I had heard this in 2005. She really is in a class of her own, and I think this album stands as one of the great queer singer-songwriter records.

What a very mopey sounding album, for a lot of it anyways. I can't really bring myself to dislike it all that much though. It had a bit of variety at times and almost managed to sound not sad at some points. The album doesn't really overstay its welcome with the short runtime either. Antony has a very interesting voice, beautiful and melancholic but also hard to listen to for more than a song. Just a weird listen, but I guess the uniqueness gives it some merit.

This is essentially a piano-driven album of ballads. The lyrics are sung with an exaggerated passion and there's orchestral backing. The songs all blended together for me, and I've never been much into this genre when it's popped up on here before. Luckily this was relatively short, unlike those others.

Ugh, what a whiny mess. I couldn't wait for the first song to end. After that, I gave a few more songs a listen. I don't like the voice or that whiny vibrato. I wouldn't listen to this again on my own. 1/5

Orchestral pop is not for me. Their voice was good on the slower songs but anything louder and it was hitting quite the odd pitch to my ear.

I don’t get it. Boring chamber pop?

Anhoni released better albums

One of the most unique sounding voices

Please, what’s going on here? Seriously, whoever got this project off the ground here—I’m absolutely grateful to you, from the bottom of my heart!
This site, this web app, and everything about it is absolutely wonderful—5 stars.

But whoever wrote the book and put together this list: WTF?!?!?! What’s going on, man? What kind of idea went through your head to put this kind of album on a “songs to listen to before you die” list! Seriously? Listen to this before I die? Ugh! I think I died while listening to this :-(

Damn