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Sharon Van Etten — Darkness Fades
Album: We've Been Going About This All Wrong
Avg rating:
5.7

Your rating:
Total ratings: 597









Released: 2022
Length: 4:29
Plays (last 30 days): 0
Rain
Sleep tonight
Sunrise
Hold hands all night

It's been a while since I held you close
Been a while since we've touched
All the doors close
I've seen the fall
I've seen you undone
Been writing on the dust
I'm hearing stars fall
Keeping what at bay?

Here I'm standing
Partly here
Here I stare around the room
Pray home they

I'm looking at our grass
I'm struggling for words
I'm dreaming of a place
I held close in a state
Darkness fades

The nights are now
Better stay, light
I'm looking for a way
Darkness fades
Comments (53)add comment
Not sure why this is so mediocre... some of her other songs like "Mistakes" are pretty damn good.
This is fantastic - her voice wanders off in this track like the last shadows of dawn
Six studio albums?
More awful with every play.
This is too painful
Horrible. 
 cosmiclint wrote:

This is very Sigur Rósish




That's an insult to Sigur Ros, who I'm not particularly fond of either.
 MassivRuss wrote:

Did Thom Yorke change his name to Sharon?




No. Sharon tried to copy him and failed - miserably.
Did Thom Yorke change his name to Sharon?
The Allmusic review says the album "We've Been Going About This All Wrong" was "recorded  in her own in her home studio, and... has a bit of an insular feel, as if it depicts the tension within her own psyche."  I would add that people in basements around the world are churning this kind of crud out at a dizzying rate which doesn't mean it should be played on RP.

My feelings precisely: 1.) Her extremely weak guitar and unskilled synthesizer work in her basement severely limit what her computer can deliver musically. The same 3 licks repeated endlessly... it's maddening; it gives it a nauseous feel- like listening to an LP skip the same groove over and over and being too stoned to get up and put a penny on the tonearm.   2.) Her vapid vocals about her psychotically disconnected life convey an insular feel depicting the tension in her own psyche, alrighty. One problem- it's unlistenable.

 DrLex wrote:
Please, no auto-tune. I am sick of it. It was novel when Cher used it 24 years ago, now it is just trite and a surefire way to make a song bland and uninteresting
 
Agreed, I would rather listen to this song 50 times than the awful autotuned stuff dumped out of studios by the truckload every day.
 Signwrtr61 wrote:


Perhaps it's YOUR ears! IMO, her voice is beautiful! But, to each their own, I suppose. I've got a few SR songs in my library, and they don't even compare. 



IDK. I agree with YOU!  I LIKE HER VOICE!  Everybody has different tastes!  Thanx RP   
 Edweirdo wrote:

I quite like the song - it has a nice dynamic, and pleasantly played. But her voice is atrocious, and does nothing save to detract from the performance.  But that's just my opinion - those with less sensitive ears are welcome to disagree.



Perhaps it's YOUR ears! IMO, her voice is beautiful! But, to each their own, I suppose. I've got a few SR songs in my library, and they don't even compare. 
 cosmiclint wrote:

This is very Sigur Rósish



Only if you say. 
I quite like the song - it has a nice dynamic, and pleasantly played. But her voice is atrocious, and does nothing save to detract from the performance.  But that's just my opinion - those with less sensitive ears are welcome to disagree.
 Alastair wrote:

Gets worse every time I hear it.  



Sooo the opposite...
 flatop wrote:

Auto-tune is one of the problems in music today do you think Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan  should have used Auto-tune? Good part of  what I like about both these artists and Sharon Van Etten  for that matter  is the fact they sing out of tune   sometimes...it's called colour.


from one ph/f-lattop to another, I approve.
I;m rather drawn to this new to me artist. 
Will have to listen on my big rig to get an honest opinion.
Bill must like this for the lyrics.
Nice to read all those different comments about the quality of the singing in this song. I think I can relate to almost all. When I heard this song for the first time I thought: "Is this for real? How could this ever end up on a record, seriously?!" Having heard it a couple of times more, I think the way of singing on this song tremendously adds to the ambiance of it. It sounds so fragile, almost broken. In a beautiful way. Having heard other songs from SvE I'm convinced that she CAN sing flawlessly. Somehow that makes Darkness Fades even better. But in the end it doesn't matter whether the singing is flawless or not. If it's a good song, it's a good song.
 Red_Dragon wrote:

That was epically bad.



I think people throw around the word "epic" too much. Case in point right here.

I was going to give this song a 7 but since we are exaggerating here, I will give it a 10 just for you Dragon :)
interesting tune, enjoy it more with each listen. out of tune? i appreciate that she doesn't "sound like" everyone else out there...unique vocals
Good grief, this lady sounds like she's overdosed on NyQuil then went straight to the recording studio.

To quote Jimmy Pop of the Bloodhound Gang; Sings like an amputee; Can't hold a note - can't carry a tune.
 zwaengo wrote:

uhh... I do not comment very often, but Miss Van Etten sings so heavily out of tune that there is no way for me to give the song a chance... I´m wondering why - in times of Auto-Tune - nobody (the producer) corrected it just a little so that it does not hurt our (my) ears that much, or let her try it on and on until there is a vocal track with a little better intonation.... 


Please, no auto-tune. I am sick of it. It was novel when Cher used it 24 years ago, now it is just trite and a surefire way to make a song bland and uninteresting. I would probably not have liked this particular song 10 years ago, but now it is actually refreshing to hear something like this amidst all the run-off-the-mill hit chart junk that has gone through the same standardized pipeline of supposed perfection.
Hard no.
I started this off with a 3 and every time I hear it I find myself resisting the urge to drop it to 1.
Quite rare to see a song played 19x in the last month on RP.  
Love RP you ger the good, bad and ugly. 
Its a lovely song but she sings about as well as I do, and that's not a compliment.
Well, she sings it better than I could.  Will be fun to hear something else of hers down the road.
about 4:00 too long....
Gets worse every time I hear it.  
 zwaengo wrote:

uhh... I do not comment very often, but Miss Van Etten sings so heavily out of tune that there is no way for me to give the song a chance... I´m wondering why - in times of Auto-Tune - nobody (the producer) corrected it just a little so that it does not hurt our (my) ears that much, or let her try it on and on until there is a vocal track with a little better intonation.... 
It reminds me a little of listening to someone doing the first steps on a violin... Not that much fun :-(  ... and disturbing any emotional access to her song and work.


Auto-tune is one of the problems in music today do you think Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan  should have used Auto-tune? Good part of  what I like about both these artists and Sharon Van Etten  for that matter  is the fact they sing out of tune   sometimes...it's called colour.
That was epically bad.
Well, I think she sounds great! Twenty two plays? She must be doing something right!
 tompoll wrote:

I like the song, but she's a bit pitchy to me.



Way pitchy.  Very distracting and unfortunate. 
 bam23 wrote:


I think that my sense of pitch is pretty refined and I do not hear flatness or her being out of tune. Folks on RP criticize Beth Orton for being out of tune, as well as Sandy Denny. I see (hear) this as bending notes, as jazz musicians are wont to do. Also this is the first hearing for me, so I have no preconceptions.


You nailed it. I've never heard her music before this song. It's stunning. 
 tompoll wrote:

I like the song, but she's a bit pitchy to me.



Perhaps you prefer...a bit bitchy...
 tompoll wrote:

I like the song, but she's a bit pitchy to me.



Perhaps you prefer...a bit bitchy...
The rain just started coming down here exactly as she sang the opening "Rain".
Clearly Bill has upped his game another level.
 zwaengo wrote:

uhh... I do not comment very often, but Miss Van Etten sings so heavily out of tune that there is no way for me to give the song a chance... I´m wondering why - in times of Auto-Tune - nobody (the producer) corrected it just a little so that it does not hurt our (my) ears that much, or let her try it on and on until there is a vocal track with a little better intonation.... 
It reminds me a little of listening to someone doing the first steps on a violin... Not that much fun :-(  ... and disturbing any emotional access to her song and work.



I think that my sense of pitch is pretty refined and I do not hear flatness or her being out of tune. Folks on RP criticize Beth Orton for being out of tune, as well as Sandy Denny. I see (hear) this as bending notes, as jazz musicians are wont to do. Also this is the first hearing for me, so I have no preconceptions.
uhh... I do not comment very often, but Miss Van Etten sings so heavily out of tune that there is no way for me to give the song a chance... I´m wondering why - in times of Auto-Tune - nobody (the producer) corrected it just a little so that it does not hurt our (my) ears that much, or let her try it on and on until there is a vocal track with a little better intonation.... 
It reminds me a little of listening to someone doing the first steps on a violin... Not that much fun :-(  ... and disturbing any emotional access to her song and work.
This is played every day at the moment, but it's so flat I can't listen.  Instant skip in this office.
 rolfpal wrote:

Awesome song! a ten

ON SECOND THOUGHT A NINE


This is the first time I've heard it, and on my first thought it's a 4 ... and I like Sigur Rós ! I think it's the singing that's a bit too off key for me. That said, I'll not rate it until I've heard it a few more times.
 bialia wrote:


Never thought I'd hear these two artists compared but it's not wrong!


just came on to say that!
has a nice subtle power to it.
 cosmiclint wrote:

This is very Sigur Rósish



Never thought I'd hear these two artists compared but it's not wrong!
This is very Sigur Rósish
 tompoll wrote:

I like the song, but she's a bit pitchy to me.

Yeah, I don't like using the term, but I'm with you here.
c.

I like the song, but she's a bit pitchy to me.
Grateful to hear more SvE - cheers! 🍻
Awesome song! a ten

ON SECOND THOUGHT A NINE
OK