Why do people like James Blake?

[hackman]

Justin Bieber is not a good singer

he's a better singer than blake, even if the musical content is crap

[magma]

He was the first person to go big emo'ing over bassweight... massively overrated, but satisfying in a sort of "I feel shit, I want a big musical duvet" sort of way.

[Soiree]

It wasn't easy, but after I let all my judgements go, I understood those songs much better.

[particle-jim]

@ OP, have you actually heard any of his older "dubstep" stuff?

cmyk
air and lack thereof
the bells sketch
buzzard and kestrel
postpone
sparring the horses
footnotes
maybes (james blake rmx)

i much prefer that stuff to the new stuff off the album... that said, when i saw him live the album material made a lot more sense

[Mr Hyde]

Yeah the older EPs are a lot better than the album I reckon, CMYK, Klavierwerke, Air & Lack thereof are the ones.

[pulkpull]

He's multitalented, produces and composes several different types of music, and is young and british. He's the perfect crossover artist.

-his piano stuff appeals to the broadsheet crew (and pure indie fans) who like that kind of stuff anyway, and he's edgy compared to say, Coldplay, so they feel like they are being progressive and such by also listening to his more beat orientated bits.
-his beat stuff appeals to EDM fans and (as someone else mentioned) the fact he is a classically trained musician who also writes "proper songs" and the like gives weight to the notion that EDM is "real music". Which it is of course anyway.

He has the potential to appeal to girls, boys, indie fans, ravers, guardian readers, nme readers, radio 1 listeners, xfm listeners, pop fans, whatever. They're aren't many artists that can cover so many bases like that. So it was no surprise when the hype machine gobbled him up.

Given that all of that is kind of irrelevant though since this is music and opinions rule, I feel the main thing is he's pretty darn talented and I'd be surprised if most people couldn't find something in his catalogue to enjoy. Obviously people aren't going to like all the music in the world and his is pretty varied. Personally I think his high points are CMYK, I Never Learnt To Share, Lindisfarne, the remix of Stop What You're Doing and all of the Klavierwerke EP (which for my money does the whole piano thing a lot better than most of the stuff on the album). Each to their own though - I don't think much of Enough Thunder just yet, but I should probably listen more.

[bigfootspartan]

I'm not missing the point though. No one gets defensive when skrillex gets bashed. Yet plenty of people come out of the woodwork's in defense of James. I want to understand why that is. I don't give a shit about either, I just want to understand their appeal to various peoples.

Naw man. If you bash Skrillex on UKF plenty of people will get heated. He has tons of fns there so they'll defend him. There's more Blake fans here, so of course they'll defend him when he gets bashed. Don't see why people still rag on this. It's like going to a forum for jazz music and then asking why people get heated when you talk shit about Miles Davis or Ella Fitzgerald.

[Siderealdb]

If someone talked shit about Miles Davis or Ella Fitzgerald I'd shoot them myself.

[O Tumma Tum Ladin]

I was gonna write you off as knowing nothing about music but then I saw you'd been in 'bands' and I'm reassessing my entire perspective.

[Kodachrome]

If someone talked shit about Miles Davis or Ella Fitzgerald I'd shoot them myself.

I just tried to troll bash and couldn't even bring myself to do it.

[Siderealdb]

I was gonna write you off as knowing nothing about music but then I saw you'd been in 'bands' and I'm reassessing my entire perspective.

That's where his fans typically go. "You must not understand music if you don't like James Blake, blah blah, di blah blah."

[Pedro Sánchez]

I like James, but theres a limit to me loving him.

[mIrReN]

If someone talked shit about Miles Davis or Ella Fitzgerald I'd shoot them myself.

[Pedro Sánchez]

I was gonna write you off as knowing nothing about music but then I saw you'd been in 'bands' and I'm reassessing my entire perspective.

That's where his fans typically go. "You must not understand music if you don't like James Blake, blah blah, di blah blah."

To which I reply, maybe it's the same as your middle-class upbringing that makes you fearful of grime.

[Siderealdb]

I was gonna write you off as knowing nothing about music but then I saw you'd been in 'bands' and I'm reassessing my entire perspective.

That's where his fans typically go. "You must not understand music if you don't like James Blake, blah blah, di blah blah."

To which I reply, maybe it's the same as your middle-class upbringing that makes you fearful of grime.

You're absolutely right. If I was upper class I'd be able to make sense of it all. Grime especially.

[Pedro Sánchez]

I was gonna write you off as knowing nothing about music but then I saw you'd been in 'bands' and I'm reassessing my entire perspective.

That's where his fans typically go. "You must not understand music if you don't like James Blake, blah blah, di blah blah."

To which I reply, maybe it's the same as your middle-class upbringing that makes you fearful of grime.

You're absolutely right. If I was upper class I'd be able to make sense of it all. Grime especially.

If you was upper class your exposure to modern music would probably be minimal.

*I wasn't directing my generalisation at you mate, just playing devils advocate with the cliches.

[Kodachrome]

I like James, but theres a limit to me loving him.

Laughed harder than I should have...

[Siderealdb]

I was gonna write you off as knowing nothing about music but then I saw you'd been in 'bands' and I'm reassessing my entire perspective.

That's where his fans typically go. "You must not understand music if you don't like James Blake, blah blah, di blah blah."

To which I reply, maybe it's the same as your middle-class upbringing that makes you fearful of grime.

You're absolutely right. If I was upper class I'd be able to make sense of it all. Grime especially.

If you was upper class your exposure to modern music would probably be minimal.

*I wasn't directing my generalisation at you mate, just playing devils advocate with the cliches.

I know man, just having fun with it.

[fractal]

why do people make these threads once a week?

[Siderealdb]

Why do you click it?