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Bon Iver (album)

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Untitled

Bon Iver, Bon Iver /boʊn iːˈvɛər/ is the second studio album from American indie folk band Bon Iver, released on June 17, 2011.[1] The album is composed of 10 songs and was seen as a new musical direction for the band.

The album was commercially successful, debuting at number one on the Norwegian Albums Chart and the Danish Albums Chart, and number two on the US Billboard 200 chart. It sold 104,000 copies in its first week in the United States. As of September 2016, the album has sold a total of 629,000 copies in the United States.[2] It received very positive reviews from critics, some of whom named it one of the best albums of 2011. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album at the 2012 ceremony, while the song "Holocene" was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

History

Bon Iver's second album was rumored to be titled Letters for Marvin but was later confirmed to be Bon Iver, Bon Iver. "I brought in a lot of people to change my voice – not my singing voice, but my role as the author of this band, this project," said Justin Vernon, band leader and founder, who hired well-known players like bass saxophonist Colin Stetson and pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz. "I built the record myself, but I allowed those people to come in and change the scene."[3] The second album is described as an "ambitious musical departure" from the first.[4]

The band announced the release through various media and from the official Jagjaguwar and 4AD websites, on April 20, 2011. The album was recorded in a remodeled veterinarian clinic in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, which was bought by Vernon and his brother in 2008. It was converted into April Base Studios, built mainly over the defunct swimming pool attached to the clinic. Vernon's reason for recording in the location was that "[it's] been a wonderful freedom, working in a place we built. It's also only three miles from the house I grew up in, and just ten minutes from the bar where my parents met."[5]

The album's first song "Perth", was the first song that Vernon recorded for the album; "The first thing I worked on, the riff and the beginning melodies, was the first song on the record, ‘Perth,’“ said Vernon "That was back in early 2008. The reason I called it that right away, is because I was with a guy that I didn't know very well, but basically, it’s a long story, but in the three days we were supposed to spend together — he’s a music video maker — in those three days, his best friend (Heath Ledger) died and he was from Perth. It just sort of became the beginning of the record. And Perth has such a feeling of isolation, and also it rhymes with birth, and every song I ended up making after that just sort of drifted towards that theme, tying themselves to places and trying to explain what places are and what places aren't. We were down at my parents' house shooting the video for 'Wolves,'" the director of the video, Matt Amato, happened to be close friends with Heath Ledger. "It was January," Vernon said, "fucking 25 below. We're out shooting, and we come back in, and his phone had been going off." Ledger, it turned out, was dead. "So I've got this guy in my house whose best friend just passed away. He's sobbing in my arms. He can't go back to L.A. because the house is under siege. Michelle Williams is calling my parents' phone. All this stuff." For the next two days, Amato drank brandy, cried and reminisced about Ledger riding horses back home in Perth. The morning he left, Vernon wrote the song's first draft.[6]

The album's third song and second single was described by Vernon as being: "'Holocene' is a bar in Portland, Oregon, but it’s also the name of a geologic era, an epoch if you will. It’s a good example of how all the songs are all meant to come together as this idea that places are times and people are places and times are… people? They can all be different and the same at the same time. Most of our lives feel like these epochs. That’s kind of what that song’s about. “Once I knew I was not magnificent.” Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind. But I think there’s a significance in that insignificance that I was trying to look at in that song."[7]

On May 17, 2011, a month prior to its scheduled release, the entire album was briefly and accidentally made available for sale on iTunes, resulting in customers buying and leaking the album over torrents and file sharing services.[8] The album entered the UK charts at number 4 in the first week of release.[9]

On November 2011, the album was re-released on iTunes with short films by visual artists Dan Huiting, Isaac Gale, David Jensen, JoLynn Garnes and Justin Vernon himself accompanying each track.[10]

Composition

Vernon has stated that each song on the new album represents a place. The song "Perth" was described as a "Civil War-sounding heavy metal song," while the song "Minnesota, WI" was described as featuring "finger-picked guitars, double bass drums and distorted bass saxophone". The closing song "Beth/Rest" is "horn heavy", and Vernon stated he was most proud of it.[3]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic86/100[11]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[12]
The A.V. ClubA−[13]
The Daily Telegraph[14]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[15]
The Guardian[16]
NME7/10[17]
Pitchfork Media9.5/10[18]
Q[19]
Rolling Stone[20]
Spin8/10[21]

The album received acclaim from most music critics upon its release.[11] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 86, based on 42 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim."[11] Paste and Pitchfork Media named the album their top album of 2011,[22][23] while Stereogum, Q, Uncut, Spin, and Mojo placed it at number 3, 4, 9, 14, and 16 respectively, on their "Top 50 Albums of 2011" lists.[24][25][26][27][28]

Tim Sendra, of Allmusic, however, gave the album a mostly mixed review. The criticism stems mainly from the album's departure in sound from Bon Iver's previous work. He accuses the album of being too overblown due to the additional instruments and not as intimate as For Emma, saying, "He was doing just fine on his own and didn't need all those people and instruments cluttering up the air."[12]

Bon Iver, Bon Iver won Best Alternative Music Album at the 2012 Grammy Awards, while the band won Best New Artist for their work on it.[29] Bon Iver was also nominated for Best International Male and Best International Newcomer at the 2012 Brit Awards.[30]

The album was selected as one of The 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far by Pitchfork Media in August 2014.[31]

Album cover

This album cover was created by Gregory Euclide.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Justin Vernon, except where noted

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Perth" 4:22
2."Minnesota, WI" 3:52
3."Holocene" 5:36
4."Towers" 3:08
5."Michicant" 3:45
6."Hinnom, TX" 2:45
7."Wash." 4:58
8."Calgary"Vernon, Matt McCaughan4:10
9."Lisbon, OH" 1:33
10."Beth/Rest" 5:16
Total length:39:25

B-sides

Personnel

The people involved in the making of Bon Iver, Bon Iver were:[32]

Charts

Release history

Region Date Format Label
Ireland[1] June 17, 2011 CD, LP, digital download 4AD
United Kingdom[45] June 20, 2011
United States[46] June 21, 2011 Jagjaguwar

References

  1. ^ a b "Bon Iver Announce Irish Date, Release Free Download Single, Ireland". Ireland.com.[dead link‍]
  2. ^ "Upcoming Releases: Hits Daily Double". Hits Daily Double. Archived from the original on September 20, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b Evan Serpick (March 23, 2011). "Why Bon Iver Had to Relearn Everything He Knows". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
  4. ^ "Good Winter, Great Summer - A Review of Bon Iver - Frontier Psychiatrist". Frontier Psychiatrist.
  5. ^ "Jagjaguwar - JAG135".
  6. ^ "The Solitary Fame of Bon Iver's Justin Vernon". Rolling Stone.
  7. ^ "Bon Iver – Holocene". Genius.
  8. ^ Perpetua, Matthew (May 20, 2011). "iTunes Accidentally Leaks New Bon Iver Album". Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  9. ^ Murray, Robin (May 27, 2011). "Bon Iver Break Into Top Ten". Clash. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  10. ^ Bon Iver to release deluxe digital album CMU, November 21, 2011
  11. ^ a b c "Reviews for Bon Iver by Bon Iver". Metacritic. Retrieved June 23, 2011.
  12. ^ a b Sendra, Tim. "Bon Iver – Bon Iver". AllMusic. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  13. ^ Hyden, Steven (June 21, 2011). "Bon Iver: Bon Iver". The A.V. Club. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  14. ^ McCormick, Neil (June 16, 2011). "Bon Iver, Bon Iver, CD review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  15. ^ Greenwald, Andy (June 15, 2011). "Bon Iver". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  16. ^ Costa, Maddy (June 16, 2011). "Bon Iver: Bon Iver – review". The Guardian. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  17. ^ Denney, Alex (June 14, 2011). "Album Review: Bon Iver – 'Bon Iver'". NME. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  18. ^ Richardson, Mark (June 20, 2011). "Bon Iver: Bon Iver". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  19. ^ "Bon Iver: Bon Iver". Q (298): 108. July 2011.
  20. ^ Hermes, Will (May 26, 2011). "Bon Iver". Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  21. ^ Wood, Mikael (June 1, 2011). "Bon Iver, Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)". Spin. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  22. ^ "The 50 Best Albums of 2011". pastemagazine.com.
  23. ^ Amanda Petrusich. "Staff Lists: The Top 50 Albums of 2011". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  24. ^ "Stereogum's Top 50 Albums of 2011". Pitchfork Media. December 5, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  25. ^ Uncut's Top 50 Albums Of 2011 Uncut. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  26. ^ Q's 50 Best Albums Of 2011 Q. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  27. ^ SPIN's 50 Best Albums of 2011 Spin. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  28. ^ "MOJO's Top 50 Albums Of 2011". Stereogum. December 2, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  29. ^ Jean Pelly (February 12, 2012). "Bon Iver Wins Grammys for Best New Artist, Best Alternative Music Album". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
  30. ^ "Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, PJ Harvey nominated for Brit Awards". Uncut. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
  31. ^ "The 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far (2010-2014)".
  32. ^ Bon Iver, Bon Iver (CD booklet). Bon Iver. Jagjaguwar. 2011.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  33. ^ a b c "Bon Iver – Hung Medien". Hung Medien. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved June 24, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  34. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Bon Iver Album & Song Chart History – Danish Charts". DanishCharts. Archived from the original on November 2, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  35. ^ "Bon Iver Album & Song Chart History – Canadian Albums". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  36. ^ "GfK Entertainment - Tim Bendzko führt Download-Charts an".
  37. ^ "irishcharts.com – Discography Bon Iver". Hung Medien. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012. Retrieved May 25, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  38. ^ "Bon Iver Album & Song Chart History – United Kingdom Album". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  39. ^ "Bon Iver Album & Song Chart History – Billboard 200". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  40. ^ "Bon Iver Album & Song Chart History – Alternative Albums". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  41. ^ "Bon Iver Album & Song Chart History – Independent Albums". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  42. ^ "Bon Iver Album & Song Chart History – Rock Albums". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  43. ^ "Adele's "21" crowned ARIA's highest selling album of 2011 LMFAO takes single honours with "Party Rock Anthem"" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 14, 2012. Retrieved 2012-01-01. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  44. ^ "Album-Top 100". Hitlisten. IFPI Danmark& Nielsen Music Control. Archived from the original on January 23, 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  45. ^ "Bon Iver: Bon Iver". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  46. ^ "Bon Iver, Bon Iver". Target. Retrieved June 24, 2011.

Further reading

Template:PitchforkAlbum

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