@@chadking5988 Oh please. Millenials had no better out of all the myspace emo/screamo bands filled with falsetto-sounding men in tight pants and black nail polish who were all secretly in it to sleep with 14 year olds.
Two years ago I've had a surgery. I was lying in a hospital bad tripping balls after anaesthetics listening to Soundtracks for the Blind for the very first time. I think hearing the instrumental part of Helpless Child that day made me go through a near-religious experience as if some devine power transcended into the hospital room. Love this song to death now.
Listening to the entire song would be enough to induce the necessity of surgery on any previously healthy person. This "music" should carry a health warning: "may inflict damage to the brain cells." But I approve of it: it confirms four fundamental laws of nature and one important fundamental law of Rousseau's social contract ; 1.That nature and the natural world has a time and place for everything, even crap like this. 2.That even the talentless may be successful in some shape or form. 3.While some people see only shit, others see edible shit to be enjoyed and eat lots of it repeatedly. 4.The relationship between different forms of psychological manipulation (brainwashing): both the fact that if most people like something, others will simply like it too, as opposed to when hardly anybody likes something there will always be a small reactionary group of people who like it - simply because others don't. 1. from Rousseau's social contract: giving everybody and anybody the right to vote democratically was a huge mistake.
I had listened to this album before, but the first time i really *heard* it was when I was really depressed and sick in my dorm room, trying to get some sleep. The section played in this video was the moment it felt like my soul left my body. Just an out of this world, delirious experience. God bless Gira and his cowboy hat.
Fell asleep once to this song and had a dream about climbing a mountain of corpses using only a sword. Was ascending towards this heavenly white light while this angel choir kept getting louder and louder in my head. Some real shit
I used to love listening to this album blissed out on the couch in a twilight sleep state that the music would induce. Then the live version of "Yum yab" would snap me back to reality.
Once every year or so, I go to bed listening to this album, and I'll usually be drowsy by The Beautiful Days, half asleep for the next couple of songs until All Lined Up completely obliterates my peaceful rest. Then I'll power through until the first disc is done (Animus is especially powerful in that last waking moment), go to sleep and then wake myself up to Jarboe singing about some gift...
I don't wanna sound pretentious or anything but it's so beautiful. After how depressing the song is the beautiful synth comes on and it feels like everything is going to be okay
That was the best show I ever saw from them before they split up. Their music had a a blend of beauty, horror, and madness They really delivered it well that night. Wish I saw more of that tour.
@@jack_rabbit Most of that night was new material that I don’t think ever got to the studio. The live album was superb, still… The direct they were heading with soundtracks, I was so looking for more studio output from them.
this album is so full of dread to me, it dredges up all these locked away memories and makes me feel grossly alive, it’s honestly such an effective work of art imo
i totally agree. ive listened to this album at least 100x since it came out. it takes me to a place that i have trouble describing, but you did it well. thanks
Saw the Swans way back in 1989 when the band started playing in this more mellow ethereal style instead of the pummeling and harsh dirges of the previous records. I loved that show and it was still really loud and made an impression on me. “Raping a Slave “ and Holy Money were the songs I was familiar with at the time only later did I realize that Godflesh was kinda emulating the early Swans sound only with drum machines. Anyway it’s interesting that these young people are giving this band a listen because the Swans music across the board is gonna clear the room of most casual music lovers. Whether it’s the abrasive and transgressive early albums to the more textured and beautiful sounds of later post 1980s works the Swans are a challenge to listen to.
Yeah, we love all of it. Their newer material from the past decade is just as good if not better than the old stuff. Helpless Child might be fav song of all time, it’s beautiful.
Mike, this isn't the original video. In the original, the girls are listening to BTS, the Korean boy band depicted on their shirts. It's become a meme, a self-replicating idea. Whoever made this video has made it look like they (the girls) are reacting to Swans.
I would’ve never thought that a single song could trigger an existential crisis in me and make my entire past flash before eyes for an entire 15 minutes straight…. CHRIST, I WAS DEAD WRONG!
@@youtubeuserdan4017 what would you put above SFTB? I think as a whole the album isn't their strongest, but Helpless Child and The Sound are like their best songs in my opinion. I still haven't really listened to the Hanged Man, but I've done every other album.
@@garrettmartin5081 Every studio album of theirs except Greed, Holy Money, and The Burning World is above STFTB. It's the album I find myself returning to the least due to its length and the fact that I find it a bit of a mess (one of the worst combinations in music). The album is simply too disjointed, bloated, and inconsistent for it to be a 10 in my opinion. YRP 2 and Yum-Yab Killers sound like they were recorded through a potato (the latter also disrupts the flow of the album); Blood Section and Fan's Lament sound like outtakes from other albums so they don't fit the STFTB in an aesthetic sense; The Final Sacrifice sounds worse than its Swans Are Dead counterpart (this is also true for Yum-Yab and both YRPs) and doesn't do a good job of justifying its length; Jarboe's delivery on Hypogirl sounds cartoonish. Of course Helpless Child and The Sound are absolutely amazing but they are 2 out of 26 songs. STFTB is a good album but it good have been great.
@@nicknickson3650Dunno. Yum-Yab has grown on me a lot after a while and live version of Hypogirl is amazing (although I miss a scream in the beginning)
SInce where all telling stories about our experience with this dru- I mean song. this entire album felt like a psychedelic experience even while stone sober. then I listened to it on weed lsd and dmt..... i have not before and have yet to have a psychedelic experience that can match it in how incredible it was.
listen to this song on 220ug. I’m a puppeteer in a puppet’s skin and bones playing actor director and producer of my universe it’s so ruthlessly beautiful. I’m joker in the mirror and christ on the cross it all lives through me i bare the pain with love. Thank Swans for reminding me of this experience of being. I’m being played by god but it’s alright.
I suppose it was about 1990 when I first heard the Swans… then it was Skinny puppy and all the rest after that. Angels of light is also highly recommended.
another searing lampoon from the 'burbs...I am glad that's still how it is there, frivolous social critique without the tension of the urban interface!
