Mark Richardson is former Editor in Chief at Pitchfork and current Rock and Pop Critic at the Wall Street Journal. We talk about the 2011 album Bon Iver, Bon Iver, for which Mark wrote the Pitchfork review (9.5). We talk about the anticipation around this record, fusing adult-contemporary and the avant-garde, Animal Collective, Bonnie Raitt, 80s R&B, sincerity vs. irony, is this “sad” music?, a careful use of arrangement and dynamics, Heath Ledger, Shakespearian verse, “Holocene,” the albums’ sequencing, the midwestern-ness of it all, Kanye West, commas in the album titles, Rubber Soul/Revolver, we bow down to “Beth/Rest,” a bit of SABLE, fABLE, and Mark tells a story about how this record could have gotten a 10.

Me:

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Mark:

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https://markrichardson.org/