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Comment by ajkjk | Hacker News Reader

I basically agree. Collier is a harmonic genius, but mostly his music doesn't do much emotionally. I don't think it's necessarily that he needs to write more dance-able music to improve -- just, something with more meaning and emotion (which might just come naturally by growing up).

That said his cover of Danny Boy shows that he does have it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXIApugIuqk

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> his music doesn't do much emotionally.

Guh...thank you for articulating this so perfectly! I've been struggling to understand why I could tell some of Collier's music sounds good from a technical perspective, but couldn't understand why those pieces didn't leave me 'feeling' (e.g. moved, touched, in awe, etc). I agree that I hope he is able to incorporate more emotion into his work as he matures.

As a semi-professional jazz nerd, he's absolutely "got it" in the majority of tracks he records. "Right now", his appeal is to folks who understand all of the tricks in modern contemporary harmony, and his payoff is that he subverts it in "the Jacob Collier style". His burden is how/when is he going to figure out how to invoke that frisson in the average (non jazz-nerd) listener. See: Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Herbie Hancock, and others.

I am reasonably confident people are going to be dissecting Jacob Collier harmonic choices in the 2100s and beyond, similar to how we dissect John Williams, Charlie Parker, Jaco Pastorius, and other modern composers today.

I guess I am the most unimpressed with his covers. To me, his harmonic choices and reharmonizations are always on the side of complexity rather than aural pleasure. I just want him to do more original stuff.

FWIW, I find the Adam Neely/Sungazer work more listenable, so its not a dislike of covers, but I also don’t enjoy taking the melody out of things just to substitute functional harmonies.

That's the "Jacob Collier Thing" though. Consider that he's doing 'complicated' reharms, but with significantly more emphasis on microtonality.

For the average listener, it's not so much that he's "putting the harm in reharmonization", but that he's tastefully (to the western ear) being _specifically_ sharp or flat (depending on the original key - hence 'microtonality') in a way that he is gambling is more appealing to the western ear trained/developed in western music.

People said literally the same things about bebop in the 40s. Complex reharmonizations with wild new ideas over well known pop songs. But now that Charlie Parker's ideas have become integrated into the norm it doesn't seem adventurous or sacrificing soul for complexity.

Collier will be the same in 50 years.

I appreciate your perspective, but I'm not sure whether you're deeming me unqualified to pass an opinion or what? (Sorry. lol) I'm a lifelong musician, so I absolutely appreciate and respect Collier's technique. But I don't think it's beyond reason to say that I yearn for emotional substance in his work. I have always considered frisson to be invoked from both a technical and emotional balance in music. It is not just mechanical. That said, emotion is a subjective experience. Collier certainly has the technical prowess and he uses it heavily, but he seems to lack a mature emotional component. Paraphrasing the original commenter, it's not that Jacob can't get there but I am looking forward to when he does reach that point.

> people are going to be dissecting Jacob Collier harmonic choices in the 2100s

I hope so! He's nothing short of prodigy.

I find his music repugnant and cringy. The only thing I've learned from this guy is that music is such a wide, vast universe, that is okay for people to have their own little corner in it - because its a wide open vista.

Technical skill and emotional relatability are entirely based on a relative cultural background. I'm sure there are going to be downvotes from people who really like his music and his whole persona, but this just proves the point that music is an extremely powerful cultural force. You can't keep it in a box.

Have an up vote because, although I disagree with you, people are free to like or dislike art as they choose, and you address this in your comment.

While I do agree that Collier is a musician's musician, I don't agree with the remark he should look for people who are "cooler" and the "hip-hop and dance" bullshit. That is so denigrating. Music's purpose is not trying being cool. It sells, surely, but so does Helene Fischer.

I found In My Room to be an incredibly moving album. Djesse left me feeling far less after a first listen, but when I returned a few days later I started to notice things I had missed and now I really enjoy that album as well.

I am very moved by his music, in large part because of its cleverness. At the same time, I completely understand why many people are left unmoved. Different strokes, I guess.

> mostly his music doesn't do much emotionally

Couldn't agree less. I am so moved by at least half of his stuff. Try "Lua" or "Feel" from Djesse vol2 or even "In the real early morning" from his first album. The OP article is talking about "lack of collaborating with other people" - but it is opposite to reality. Most of his later work is collaborations with a lot of brilliant musicians.

I listened to Lua, and I like it better than some of the others, but it still doesn't resonate. The lyrics are.. mundane and superficial, to me. But, I don't know, I might warm up to it with some more listens.

I completely agree. The other thing that's a bit of a shame (for me) is that I don't like his voice. He's insanely talented (and probably a savant), and of course has all the voice techniques down, but the timbre of his voice (which the singer sadly can do nothing about) ends up not being my cup of tea. It has a particular pubertal property. Every time I hear his music, I wish he had written it for someone else to sing.

He's only 25. There's already lots more feeling and emotion in his latest Djesse project than his first album. He needs time to actually live life and have things to be emotional about before he can put them into music.

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