Author Topic: A.F.I.  (Read 13902 times)

PIBby

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AFI
« Reply #30 on: May 01, 2004, 08:37:36 pm »
Quote from: "Nagyovafan"
I saw them on the Hard Rock Cafe Live most requested. They were like #4. I couldn't figure out whether the lead singer was a boy or girl.  :oops:  He scared me.  8O


Oh my God, Davey Havok is SO hot, in that odd, Johnny Depp/David Bowie way. Hot, regardless.

Secondly, The Leaving Song Part II caught my attention, but I didn't pay any because they were my brother's type of band, but Silver and Cold is SO FUCKING GOOD. You guys don't even know. I got Sing the Sorrow (along with Ben Jelen's Give It All Away, different? lol) a couple days ago. It's okay; it's not really like WOW. I mean, when I heard Full Collapse all the way through, I swear to Bonjangles that I said WOW outloud (and who does that?), but I didn't with Sing the Sorrow.

And like I say, AFI is the demented, uneducated (in other words West-Coast :P) version of Thursday. I'm not kidding, either.

Please excuse my comparison.

Nightmare Nikki

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« Reply #31 on: May 02, 2004, 08:05:38 pm »
Quote from: "PIBby"
Quote from: "Nagyovafan"
I saw them on the Hard Rock Cafe Live most requested. They were like #4. I couldn't figure out whether the lead singer was a boy or girl.  :oops:  He scared me.  8O


Oh my God, Davey Havok is SO hot, in that odd, Johnny Depp/David Bowie way. Hot, regardless.

Secondly, The Leaving Song Part II caught my attention, but I didn't pay any because they were my brother's type of band, but Silver and Cold is SO FUCKING GOOD. You guys don't even know. I got Sing the Sorrow (along with Ben Jelen's Give It All Away, different? lol) a couple days ago. It's okay; it's not really like WOW. I mean, when I heard Full Collapse all the way through, I swear to Bonjangles that I said WOW outloud (and who does that?), but I didn't with Sing the Sorrow.

And like I say, AFI is the demented, uneducated (in other words West-Coast :P) version of Thursday. I'm not kidding, either.

Please excuse my comparison.


Wait, what does that mean demented and uneducated?  What does being West-Coast have to do with it?  

Thursday is different from AFI.  Thursday constantly sings about Love and emoness and AFI sings about though provoking and dark topics.  How that makes them uneducated, I don't know, they use a far more extensive vocabulary than Thursday, for one thing.  Sing the Sorrow is only their LATEST album.  If you think its undereducated, try Black Sails in the Sunset or listen to the words of the poem in "...But Home is Nowhere" and the song "This Time Imperfect" again.  If that ain't thought provoking and educated, I'm not sure what is.  Besides, Davey was a fucking English major before he decided music was his passon.

Eh, I should calm down ^^;;  I just get very defensive over this band, hahah.

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« Reply #32 on: May 03, 2004, 04:41:55 am »
Quote from: "Nightmare Nikki"
Quote from: "PIBby"
Quote from: "Nagyovafan"
I saw them on the Hard Rock Cafe Live most requested. They were like #4. I couldn't figure out whether the lead singer was a boy or girl.  :oops:  He scared me.  8O


Oh my God, Davey Havok is SO hot, in that odd, Johnny Depp/David Bowie way. Hot, regardless.

Secondly, The Leaving Song Part II caught my attention, but I didn't pay any because they were my brother's type of band, but Silver and Cold is SO FUCKING GOOD. You guys don't even know. I got Sing the Sorrow (along with Ben Jelen's Give It All Away, different? lol) a couple days ago. It's okay; it's not really like WOW. I mean, when I heard Full Collapse all the way through, I swear to Bonjangles that I said WOW outloud (and who does that?), but I didn't with Sing the Sorrow.

And like I say, AFI is the demented, uneducated (in other words West-Coast :P) version of Thursday. I'm not kidding, either.

Please excuse my comparison.


Wait, what does that mean demented and uneducated?  What does being West-Coast have to do with it?  

Thursday is different from AFI.  Thursday constantly sings about Love and emoness and AFI sings about though provoking and dark topics.  How that makes them uneducated, I don't know, they use a far more extensive vocabulary than Thursday, for one thing.  Sing the Sorrow is only their LATEST album.  If you think its undereducated, try Black Sails in the Sunset or listen to the words of the poem in "...But Home is Nowhere" and the song "This Time Imperfect" again.  If that ain't thought provoking and educated, I'm not sure what is.  Besides, Davey was a fucking English major before he decided music was his passon.

Eh, I should calm down ^^;;  I just get very defensive over this band, hahah.


...

Well, first of all.  I think she is getting the "uneducated" part of the comparison from the fact that Thursday spends a lot of time talking about politics and world news etc.  To somepeople "topical" = "educated".

Second of all, I think you are both out of your mind if you think EITHER band has a particularly extensive vocabularly.  No more so than any other band out there.  So stop that.

Third of all, AFI is just as full of love songs and "emoness" (as you put it) as Thursday.

And finally, they sound nothing alike, so stop comparing them.
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Nightmare Nikki

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« Reply #33 on: June 09, 2006, 12:50:03 am »


...Is a beautiful album that half the world seems to be ignoring!

Go for it :)  Itunes knows what's up (I believe it's held top spot for the past few days), but I feel they are still underexposed.

Best songs of the album:
Summer Shudder
The Interview
Love Like Winter
Affliction
The Missing Frame
37mm

Yes....It is really incredible, and I highly reccomend it.  AFI always outdo themselves, and really took their sound in a beautiful and innovative direction.  The transition from punk/hardcore to a sound they are the sole owners of was, like the addition of more synth elements and experimentation with new tempos, clear, yet seamlessly incorporated throughout the past few years, and is especially evident in this album.  Gorgeous.

I most especially would like to point out Summer Shudder to the Nessa fans because of its wonderful little pure synth/string and vocal breakdown near the end.  It has the feel of one of her songs, I think, and I know ya'll would enjoy it.

And before you say it, even with those huge eyelashes, Davey is incredibly fabulous :P  The boys all look very fine with this new light and monochromatic aesthetic, shifting from black to white.  Fall to Winter.

Now, go forth and flee to Decemberunderground!

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« Reply #34 on: June 10, 2006, 08:25:18 pm »
No one?

Ryou-Neko

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« Reply #35 on: June 13, 2006, 04:57:35 pm »
I really don't like AFI at all. Their lyrics are childish, stupid, and random:

"Hey Miss Murder can I
make beauty stay if I
take my life?"

Hey, Miss Murder, can you explain to me what the hell suicide and beauty have to do with each other?

When they first started making their overly-prolific music, they were OK, but I think their recent badness is partially due to their record label and partially due to not being great writers in the first place.

Quote
The transition from punk/hardcore to a sound they are the sole owners of was, like the addition of more synth elements and experimentation with new tempos, clear, yet seamlessly incorporated throughout the past few years, and is especially evident in this album.


As far as I'm concerned, they are there are as many people who sound like AFI as people who have a General Electric stock.

It's lovely that AFI talk about dark topics (may I point out that almost all punk/rock bands do) but it would also be lovely if they wrote about something else. What's wrong with love and happiness?
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Nightmare Nikki

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« Reply #36 on: June 13, 2006, 09:40:58 pm »
"Love Like Winter" is happy :\

Warn you warmth to turn away.
Here it's December everyday.
Press your lips to the sculptures
And, surely you'll stay.
For of sugar and ice
*clap clap clap*
I am made!

It's in the blood
Its in the blood
I met my love
Before I was born.
He/She wanted love.
I taste of blood.
He/She bit my lip
And drank my war
From years before

She exhales vanilla lace.
I barely dreamt her
Yesterday
Read the lines on the mirror
Through the lipstick trace
(Por Siempre)
She said "It seems you're somewhere
Far away"
To his face

*chorus*


While that may be melancholy, the melody is beautiful and happy.  Sure, its the first since maybe "Days of the Phoenix," but I would like to point out some of the more mature lyrics written.  I agree that the lyrics to "Miss Murder" may not seem his best, but they really are thought provoking when one disects the whole of them.

Many have deduced that Miss Murder can be about a fallen idol, or a person of vanity who wants his beauty to be remembered forever ("Make beauty stay if I take my life?").  Miss Murder is the personification of Death, and in this case suicide.  Its not really sad, more vain.  Havok as noted that in this album, not every song is sung from his perspective, so that must also be considered.

Another song from this era to be noted of with far better lyrics can be found in "The Missing Frame."  What I love about this song is how the term "Death" seems to be a play on words.  Rather than meaning literal death, I think it is a double entondre for an orgasm.  I can't really think of another context where the "little deaths" mentioned can be.


One at a time I watched them all forget.
One at a time I'm lost in little deaths.
It's the place that I, I forget my life, like tonight.

I'll let you tear it up
if you don't wake me up.
But if you tear it
we can't repair it
so please don't wake me
till someone cares.
Now no one cares.
.



More cleverness is the allusions to previous albums.  Musically, they haunted "Fall Children" from All Hallows EP into "Miss Murder," but lyrically they link to albums in "The Interview"

Forever waiting for disaster.
What David calls servant and master,
will you play it too?
As this displacement begs for water,
swimming, bathing,
[the art of]drowning in [sing the] sorrow....

Calm down.
Come down, cold resides with me.

I flee to, I flee to decemberunderground. As you exhale
I breathe in and sink into the waterunderground
and I'll grow pale without you.


Just some insteresting stuff....Previous lyrics are ALSO alluded to (reminds me of the links between Bowie's "Space Oddity" and "Ashes to Ashes") in "37mm".  Allusions to "Morning Star," "Silver and Cold," and "Miseria Cantera."

If you believe in me, how can I be dissolving?
If you'd believe me
, I’d tell you everything.

Do you fall too? (Every time that I)
Yes, I fall. (Every time that I)
Do you want to (try to pacify)
fall into me? (fall into me, fall into me)
Into me

....

If you keep killing me, how can I keep absolving?
Your sins into me, begin the poisoning.

...
Weare no one. We are no one.



As far as childish lyrics...I can't see how if one actually takes the time to stop and listen to them.  At least "Miss Murder" is not only the story of a falling idol, but the story of an idol's betrayal.  "He left them all behind."  Hardly random, now, if you think about it?  An idol so desperate to engrave his name in history, nothing would hold him back, not even "his children".

And if you want to debate with me about how all the lyrics are about death and all, I do not feel that albums prior have been completely delved in this subject, but I will allow you to say this one is.  However, Death is presented throughout the album with different connotations and used as different forms of allegory, or other phrases are used to explain literal deaths.  Example for something other than an orgasm can be found in "The Killing Lights"

It's killing time again
Put on your face
And let's pretend
These killing lights
Won't kill us all
again


These lyrics are rather uncharacteristic for Davey's usual style, but I believe this is one of the songs sung from a different perspective.  When they say "Kill" here, I do believe it is more of a "Let's knock 'em dead" sort of thing, you know, before a show.  Not exactly to go out and murder people.  It even somewhat reminds me of paparazzi or something, those "killing LIGHTS".  

"Prelude 12/21" is a lovely way to represent death without even saying the words.  It is a short anthem from one who's been betrayed (It vaguely reminds me of the whole "What I gave is yours to keep" from "White Houses" and leads me to think of virginity heh)

This is what I brought you, this you can keep
This is what I brought, you may forget me
I promise to depart, just promise one thing
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep

This is what I brought you, this you can keep
This is what I brought, you may forget me
I promise you my heart, just promise to sing
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep

This is what I thought, I thought you'd need me
This is what I thought, so think me naive
I'd promise you a heart, you'd promise to keep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to... sleep.


The often repeated line begs in desperation for one last kiss before being left, even though they found out about the other's betrayal.

Now, please point out to me why it is all childish and random?  There is so much more to the surface and face value of a lyric.  Havok, an English major before dropping out to do the band full time, is clever enough to create lyrics that contain many layers and possible meanings always open to interpretation.  He is far from ignorant enough to just mash random words together.

And as far as their PRIOR stuff being childish and meaningles, I ask you to say that of the following:

"Death of Seasons"
Of late, it's harder just to go outside
To leave this deadspace with hatred, so alive
Writhing with sickness, thrown into banality, I decay
Killed by the weakness, but forced to return, turn it off

I watch the stars as they fall from the sky
I held a fallen star and it wept for me, dying
I feel the fallen stars encircle me now, as they cry

Out there so quickly grows malignant tribes
Posthuman extinction excels unrecognized

Feeling surrounded, so bored with mortality, I decay
All of this hatred is fucking real, turn it on... yeah

It won't be all right despite what they say
Just watch the stars tonight as they, as they disappear, disintegrate
And I disintegrate 'cause this hate is fucking real
And I hope to shade the world as stars go out and I disintegrate


"Smile"

Overwhelmed with a deep repulsion for sights seen so commonly,
now I have come to be the walking enmity.
Assimilate into a culture of post morality, from what I've seen, I hate humanity.
Rot with repulsion. I'll write the world a brand new song.
Look upon your bleak creation,
but is it truly me that's to be the human blasphemy?
I'll set the world on fire and,
in burning light I'll write my first love song and I will feel warmth.

Hide your eyes in heaven, in the lies.
Believe. Relieve. I'll end the world tonight.
Overwhelmed with a deep repulsion for sights seen so commonly,
now I have come
to be a walking enmity, for humanity,
the human blasphemy,
I'll end the world tonight.


"Totalimortal"
Hope unknown. Sometimes just waking is surreal.
I walk right through the nameless ones.
I know that hope's unknown.
Sometimes the water feels so real.
As I walk through it fills my lungs, my god, I'm drowning.
This day never seems to end.
This pain, never.
The rage I can not let go.

I hear them calling my name.
I feel them gnawing out holes through flawless souls.

So alone. Sometimes I swear that I can hear the taunting of the voiceless ones.
I fear that I alone fear those who finally ceased to feel that they're alone
inside this place.

I am the misplaced.
Now every face, it looks familiar...
then every face would melt away until...
now everyone, do you know, I know your deception?


Even with "The Last Kiss"

Hung in your room, swaying, hoping only that you'll see.
All by myself, I'm alone in such poor company.
The deeper I think, the deeper I seem to sink,
I can't stop the insects that are feeding,
pull the needles from beneath my skin.
I broke myself, shattered, tied a bow around every piece.
You'll love the eyes.
Have they always shown so vacantly?
The more I show the less you'll want to know.

I can't stop the insects that are feeding,
pull the needles from beneath my skin.
Now I'm on display.
I am becoming.
Hurt myself today.
It's all for you.
Do you like, do you like, what I'm becoming?
Cut myself today.
It's all for you.
I part the night, flashing, approaching as I watch you flee.
Pushed through your panes.
Seems I've landed quite uncomfortably.
But as I pass through souls of broken glass
I can't stop the insects that are feeding.
Pull the needles from beneath my skin.
Please don't ask me just what I think, trust me,
you don't want to know.
Please don't ask me to open up, trust me, trust me,
'cause I can't.


But I think a bit of my favorite clever lyrics are found in "...But Home is Nowhere"

Twenty-six years and seems like I've just begun
To understand my, my intimate is no one
When the director sold the show, who bought its last rites?
They cut the cast, the music, and the lights

This is my line, this is eternal
How did I ever end up here?
Discarnate, preternatural
My prayers to disappear
Absent of grace, marked as infernal
Ungranted in dead time left me disowned
To this nature, so unnatural
I remain alone

Twenty-six years end, still speaking in these tongues
Such revelations while understood by no one

When the new actor stole the show, who questioned his grace?
Please clear the house of ill-aquired taste


Give me something, give me something real

I lay strewn across the floor, can't solve this puzzle
Everyday another small piece can't be found
I lay strewn across the floor, pieced up in sorrow
The pieces are lost, these pieces don't fit
Pieced together incomplete and empty



Or the lovely irony created for the comp Short Music for Short People, "earts Frozen Solid, Thawed Once More By The Spring Of Rage, Despair And Hopelessness""

Whoa!
I will die screaming
whoa!

Scream my last breath in useless anguish
Tear the sun from the sky


Heh, I don't know about great lyrics, but it is great irony.

Perhaps I'm getting carried away, but I think you should realize that your opinions seem very shallow and uneducated for you didn't seem to actually read in between the lines with your criticism, and I felt I had to defend the people I feel are great geniuses ^_^

Plus, would a group of idiots realy think of something as elaborate as this?(which is actually a bit more in depth than that report gives credit for).

AFI are far from fools.  Not only that, but they are genuine down to earth nice guys who have grown so much in their time and continue to evolve elegantly at a graceful pace.  How I love them ^_^  Maybe you will you're open your eyes, too.

Ryou-Neko

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« Reply #37 on: June 14, 2006, 07:07:19 am »
Not meant to sound egotistic:
I consider myself one of the most openminded out of most of the people I've met. What I think is the most annoying about Miss Murder, though, is the whole "Miss Murder" thing. Why Miss Murder?! It just sounds really poser-goth-ish.

I don't think that the lyrics are all about death, I'm not that closed-minded, but much of them are.

Let me state again: I do not think that it is *all* about death. By random I think I went a bit far, so can I take that back? Let's say that a lot of their songs sound like they were trying to make them rhyme, which resulted in the lyrics sounding a bit random. I really don't like "Death of Seasons", not because I think it's bad, I just don't like that many adjectives in one poem. I do not think that AFI is a bunch of fools. I still hold my opinion that decemberunderground is not that great of an album (and I have heard the whole thing). I think that their newer music is a lot worse than their older music, which I actually did like. I respect your opinions, and these are mine. I do not think that they're shallow; they may be rushed, because to me there are a lot of bands that seem like this - childish lyrics, etc - , and AFI, just looking at them, to me would seem that sort of band. I do agree that several of my opinions are shallow but I also think that still, looking at their lyrics, I didn't see very many that were blatantly happy or about love, leaving the death and sadness part out. Even in the songs that they did talk about love, the song altogether usually had something to do with the darker side of life. I have no problem with the quality, but with the quantity; there is just so much music that is shallow and boring and not unique today that AFI sort of portrayed that. I agree that many of their songs mean something more, but I still don't like them that much and probably never will. I still think that there are many more bands worthy of my attention. Part of the lyric thing came from the fact that I write lyrics, and I'm either awed by them or really annoyed by them (mostly because that's how my writing is, and I just sort of think of everyone else's as 2 extremes). I still don't like their music, but I respect your opinion, but that does not mean that I will not continue to believe mine.
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Nightmare Nikki

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« Reply #38 on: June 14, 2006, 03:41:16 pm »
Well, as a fellow lyricists/songwriter, I just had to jump in there and refute :P

I understand your opinion, I'm just trying to help you realize why they would use Miss Murder.  Unlike what most bands would portray death with (in a very literal "I'm going to kill myself" sort of way), Havok decides to personify this action into a character.  Not unlike other great songwriters have done before (I can't think of one specific one now, but I'm damn sure emotions have been personafied before.), he takes an abstract feeling or action and creates a character that the protagonist has a dialogue with.  Peraps it seems simple at first, but I would like you to take a second look at it, because you say you are so open minded and I want you to try an see it from a fan's perspective.


Hey Miss Murder, can I
Hey Miss Murder, can I
Make beauty stay if I
take my life?

With just a look they shook
And heavens bowed before him.
Simply a look can break your heart.

The stars that pierce the sky;
He left them all behind.
We're left to wonder why
He left us all behind.

Dreams of his crash won’t pass
Oh, how they all adored him.
Beauty will last when spiraled down.

The stars that mystify
He left them all behind.
And how his children cry
He left us all behind.

What's the hook, the twist
within this verbose mystery?
I would gladly bet my life upon it.
That the ghost you love, your ray of light
Will fizzle
out without hope.

We're the empty set just floating wrapped in skin,
Ever searching for what we were promised.
Reaching for the golden ring we'd never let go,
Who would ever let us put our filthy hands upon it?



Some people have said it could be about Jesus, but I don't agree with that, yet other strange Christ related themes occur in other songs off DU, too :P  I'm no Christian, just love to throw out theories.

So yeah.  I respect your opinion, as well, but with your first post I just got offended because to me AFI are so much more than what you were saying, so I wanted to defend them ^^;;  I'm open for healthy debate, though, and as long as we respect each other, this won't get too ugly :P

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« Reply #39 on: June 15, 2006, 07:10:47 am »
I've had enough experience with debating to know when it goes too far. =)

Yes, I realize why they were using "Miss Murder" now, but to somebody who really doesn't care or to somebody who really hasn't taken the time to look, it would seem like they were trying to be goth, like various other bands that I won't mention. Sort of about first impressions. I'm impressed that AFI would go into such detail to make their writing have all of those hidden meanings (most music now is meaningless) but first impressions can't be ignored either.
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« Reply #40 on: July 05, 2006, 07:40:10 pm »
i like their song called miss murder

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« Reply #41 on: July 24, 2006, 11:02:28 am »
i'm thinking about buying DECEMBERUNDERGROUND

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« Reply #42 on: July 25, 2006, 06:27:30 pm »
I have their "The Art of Drowning" and "Sing The Sorrow" CDs.

I like Sing the Sorrow a lot better.

my favorite song by them is 'Girls Not Grey'


they're pretty good.

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« Reply #43 on: July 26, 2006, 06:23:45 pm »
DU is totally worth it, kids.  Go forth and purchase/download/pirate :)