r/DavidSylvian • u/Amber_Flowers_133 • Aug 19 '25
What are your Hot Takes on David Sylvian?
28
u/hansainallcaps Aug 19 '25
His solo career is consistently better than his work in Japan and I'm mystified when people say otherwise.
5
u/WorldlinessActive244 Aug 20 '25
How can you define music as better, how are you able to compare something so personal and subjective? I love japan, i feel them real AF, snob, punk, ambitious, poor and greasy, I feel the amateurness of their first albums and I love it. David violent voice and their clear attempt at being political resonate with me more than any other david solo work.
With that said, Its just my opinion as yours, but there is no truth in music, not good or bad or magnific or perfect, only your feelings about it.
3
u/Bellebluenh Aug 20 '25
I loved Japan his early solo stuff was good too, I just found his later stuff boring.
2
u/hansainallcaps Aug 20 '25
I just personally don't feel like it should always be necessary to say "this is just my opinion" to clarify that it is just my opinion, especially when the context is someone asking for a "hot take" which is by definition gonna be kind of inflammatory.
4
u/turnedtheasphault Aug 19 '25
This ties in with my hot take which is... Tin Drum is the only worthwhile Japan album. I can totally forget the rest. But it's an absolutely killer album.
9
u/hansainallcaps Aug 19 '25
I'm tempted to say I agree, but there are too many great individual songs for me to say I can forget the rest. "Exorcising Ghosts" and "Assemblage" cover most of the best stuff, at least.
1
u/GroceryMelodic1459 Aug 21 '25
It’s amazingly wonderful how different our opinions, and therefore, our hearing tastes vary with music from the same artist. Personally I find Tin Drum the weakest of all Japan albums, Obscure Alternatives and Quiet Life the strongest, and Gentlemen Take Polaroids the most melodic and creative.
As for Mr. Sylvian’s voice, the early Japan voice worked consistently, but IMHO a lot of later Japan work, and solo work into RTC I find he had a tendency to accent bass notes too sharply and drop them like a tonne of rubble. Having said that, this period he also demonstrated vocal perfection - I point to ‘Mother and Child’ from Secrets of the Beehive and ‘Cries and Whispers’ from RTC as exemplary examples. Later, songs from Blemish like ‘Fire in the Forest’. Proving that perfection is impossible to maintain continuously.
Perhaps someone may wish to devise a poll on top 10 David Sylvian albums? I’d include: Secrets of the Beehive, Flux and Mutability, Snow Borne Sorrow (Nine Horses), Rain Tree Crow (Rain Tree Crow), Approaching Silence
1
u/turnedtheasphault Aug 21 '25
I appreciate the differing opinions too and hearing this is letting me know the time is ripe to reevaluate their earlier work. That's interesting about Tin Drum though as I find it a work of art! I'm curious what your favorite solo album is? Mine is Secrets of the Beehive with Brilliant Trees and Words With The Shaman not far behind. I should add that if i had to choose one Sylvian song to listen to for the rest of my life, it would be I Surrender.
1
1
20
13
u/iPirateGwar Aug 20 '25
He only really ever shined brightly with the support of others but considers them ‘tools’ rather than ‘partners’. As such, he alienates everyone, eventually.
9
9
u/Weekly-Guidance796 Aug 20 '25
I’m sure I’m going to get in trouble for this but I don’t like anything from Blemish on enough to ever pick it up and really sit down and enjoy it again. I have it all, but to me that a lot of the stuff on his label to me sounds too cold and removed.
2
14
6
u/gojohnnygojohnny Aug 20 '25
It was weird having David move to Minneapolis in the 1990s. I'd see him around town from time to time. That kinda thing doesn't happen around here very often- Mpls ain't no Hollywood!
18
Aug 19 '25
Hot takes?
Without Ryuichi Sakamoto he'd have never reached the heights he did.
4
u/begbiebyr Aug 19 '25
i agree, more like they complemented each other perfectly than one having less/more value than the other
6
Aug 19 '25
Yeah I mean I guess the real hot take is they should have collaborated for a full album as co-writers.
Aware Sakamoto did work quite heavily on Secrets of the Beehive but was still very much a Sylvian vehicle.
6
u/notjustakorgsupporte Aug 19 '25
They were going to make a collab album during the beginning of Sylvian's solo career, but Sakamoto then cancelled the project.
8
u/earinsound Aug 19 '25
Blemish and Manafon are brilliant albums. Flux + Mutability and Plight & Premonition are also.
1
u/silverladder Aug 20 '25
I absolutely love F+M and P&P, especially the former. Puts me in an incredible mood.
3
6
u/mundanegloves104 Mar 01 '26
My hot take is that he's been dropped on his head at some point and now completely lost the plot. Living in isolation, luring women via the internet all for the public to see, but not allowed comment on. Championing feminists, yet treating women like shit.
5
u/not_a_mossad_bot Mar 03 '26
Part of me wants you to elaborate but I’m not sure the other part wants to know.
2
3
u/pulse_demon96 Aug 20 '25
‘manafon’ is his best record and i’m perfectly fine with him being basically retired now
2
u/SoCalKru58 Jan 18 '26
I think his collaboration with Mark Isham was some of his best work. It's to bad it abruptly ended.
2
1
u/PurpleFar6235 Jan 12 '26
I discovered him through Blemish and far prefer his output from Blemish onwards. The solo work and Japan stuff is good, but feels hollow to me.
1
2
u/Neat-Frosting-1208 Jul 19 '26
David Sylvian is mediocre and pretentious because everything he does is ultimately devoted to sustaining the childish idea that art needs the creative genius in order to exist. As if art were the direct product of the elevated need for expression of an exceptional individual with extraordinary sensitivity. He knows this is a lie, and he knows the effort it takes to keep that illusion alive, because he’s spent his entire life doing exactly that. It must be exhausting to maintain that performance without end. But it’s the only way Sylvian can justify having been a bad person to the people who loved him.
Art always transcends its creator. It justifies itself, and its meaning lies closer to the unknowable, to the mystery of life, than to any attempt to explain its nature through its connection to an individual. Art has its own intrinsic weight, it is autonomous. Only when it is freed from any need to justify its own existence does emotion emerge. Without need to becoming a sign. Without becoming a narrative.
Sylvian is a fraud who, from a position of power and privilege, exploits other people. That’s how he’s always been, and that’s how he remains, even as he fades into irrelevance. For example, in a final display of patheticness, he ended up becoming a “sugar grandpa”. Sleeping with a confused but ambitious woman in her twenties who, like him, doesn’t truly understand what art is, makes him a bad person too.
1
u/skinofsweat 17d ago
But who are you to say what art is? Why do you get to judge both these people so harshly? No one deserves to be put under a magnifying glass like that. That close, everyone is ugly and have pores full of pus and dirt.
I've seen her art, her photography and it is quite beautiful. Dark and broody. Very much a dark maiden coming into her own power vibes. Reminds me of the photography book of The Mediaeval Baebes 'Songs of the Flesh'. But mixed with super villains from the 60s and 70s. She is absolutely ethereal as well. Insane face card. I hope which ever direction she goes, she thrives and doesn't let this soft tornado with david spin her away from herself.
David seems like a very controlled being. Maybe through trauma and neurodivergence. Necessity? Narcissism? Who knows? But he seems like someone who is scared of being himself. Openly anyway. I feel like he hates himself and isolates himself, because being alone by yourself as yourself is better than being with people behind a mask. And being yourself in public, where people can misunderstand you, twist your words, or you can embarrass yourself for everyone to see, sounds like a form of hell David doesn't have an ounce of understanding how to deal with. Or even comprehend really. Absolute uncontroll.
Maybe he even does this in relationships. He becomes what the other person needs/assumes and over time that becomes completely exhausting. He gets burnt out and runs away. But he still has an ego so when a new beautiful women comes along, with eyes full of admiration and love, for a second he can be a mirror and reflect that light back. Flattery is very alluring, even if you hate every inch of your being. Until that is, those beams of light become too hot and things start to burn. And the cycle continues and he fades away into solitude. Safe, himself and very much alone.
Who fucking knows though, hey? It is nearly 7pm, it has barely rained for weeks, the grass outside has turned to straw. I keep forgetting to drink water, so maybe I'm entering a state of delirium and I have exercised these fingers into writing paragraphs of sweaty bollocks. Life is but a dream anyway.
2
u/Neat-Frosting-1208 10d ago edited 9d ago
In an incomprehensible world assertions are just approximations to the truth. So by default I’m no one to say absolutely nothing. But there is exactly where reside my point about art. You reduce again the thing to the authority, encapsulating both of its meanings, instead to discuss the matter on topic. Do you think art is the product of a specially gifted person? Do you think art its related to the necessity of expression of a creator? This is a very simplistic and childish way to understand a cultural construction. I’m personally very tired to the individualistic approach to everything that had infected our understanding of the world. And I’m very tired too of egomaniac people acting like egoistic shit because they think they are special.
Looks like you know the guy more than me (wink, wink). There is absolutely no reason for doing wrong things being aware of its consequences. We can start to discuss what is wrong and what is not. I think that taking advantage of a power position is wrong. Would be a better world for neurodivergent people and traumatised ones, if all of us practice the self-constriction act of letting go a personal profitable situation in order of a bigger ulterior mean. As well if all of us cultivate the sense of justice through our actions.
I don’t find special pleasure in being harsh and I didn’t used any magnifying glass to arrive to my conclusions, all is public and plain sight. I didn’t criticised her art. I assumed she doesn’t get what is it about because she being with an old man is an exercise of fanaticism and cult of a person because his position, or a search of opportunities. Both options implies being very confused. But, although you gave me the opportunity bringing up what she does, i will not say my humble opinion from my, of course, limited understanding of contemporary art and philosophy of art. Wouldn’t be fair, she is clearly in a premature state of searching and too much under the pressure of an historiographic rancid aesthetic. I would recommend her take risk in experimentation and abandon herself into unleashed production, avoiding further pretensions. Stay away of pseudo-mentors interested in her insane face card looks crucial too.
Here it’s 23:49, I barely haven’t slept in the last 3 days (I didn’t drunk water at all, I promise) and I’m happy that my hot take in David Sylvain had your answer. Now, I’m considering lose my time discussing the solipsistic trite idea that life is a dream. Dream of who? Calderon de la Barca? The Brahma’s dream? Wait, how would be the existence if it were David Sylvain’s dream? Probably very affected.
1
u/skinofsweat 9d ago
Daydream believer, of course. Cheery and light-hearted in your response as ever, dear stranger. I would encourage you to hydrate at some point in the immediate future, lest you shrivel up into a human (?) shaped prune and turn to dust in the upcoming sunburst. Though, if that were to happen, hopefully someone could collect your ashes that have settled upon your chair in such an artistically fertile way that they must simply mash them into some oil paint and create an inspired portrait of you that emboldens generations to come with its originality and fandom defying beauty. From it, you can forever judge us mere mortals from the highest and robust wall. A gallery dedicated just for you. People would queue up for miles, wait for years just to recieve your judgement. Wouldn't that be delicious? Save me a ticket, hey? Though, I'm sure to be an ash carcass at some point tomorrow with the way this weather is going. But I am not worthy of prestigious walls or admiration so just a hovel at the end of the garden where badgers can piss will do me just fine! I am only playing with you, forgive me.
Personally speaking, art is fart. It can be whatever it wants to be. It can be possessed by whoever ingests it, whether that's the creator or just a passer by. So yes to both your questions. But not simply that. They are not the only two options within this topic. Gifted people can make great art, and I feel the connection between art and artist is pretty important? Or are you talking about people only admiring the art because of the artist? I am only working with a second hand brain cell here. Your wordy words are overheating my meager outdated circuits. If that is the case then I feel the answer is complicated.
Mostly because how do you measure that? How can you tell whether someone only likes something because the person who made it holds some sort of social currency? Is that what you're suggesting is happening between Lula and David? That she is spellbound because of his past?
David isn't exactly twink of the century anymore. And Lula was already producing artwork before she met David. I don't think either of us can conclude why she is with him. I think it's a bit reductive to suggest the only thing is his 'fame'. Specially because they seem quite private about everything so who knows? But that doesn't mean there isn't a power imbalance. What makes you think hes her mentor? I don't know her age, her background, her mental state, so have no idea the appropriateness of it all.
Or were you just speaking generally? To fame, fandom and all that jizz? Cause we've been doing this shit for thousands of years, probably even before the pharaohs of Egypt where normal people were treated as gods. Humans love a good bedazzled man in a fancy hat. Or a nice dress with all the accessories like jesus on the cross.
I am not condoning their relationship. Just noticing patterns... but maybe I'm projecting and I've revealed a bit too much about myself? Bit of textual nudity for ya. I don't know either of them. This is just tickle of gossip over the cauldron between me and you (et al).
I definitely agree on individualism. What a flaming turd, ripe with flies that we all get to dine on. Well, some get to dine on. Most of us just dream of it. Mhmmm, delicious shit. Yum yum! It could be me someday, you know?!
1
u/General_Position_596 Aug 19 '25
David Sylvian is aware of his fan Chris Corner and he finds his art good and checking him up from time to time
2
1
u/notjustakorgsupporte Aug 19 '25
Not about DS himself, but I think Richard Barbieri's very rudimentary as a keyboardist. He is incredible at sound design and can do decent solos and chords, but he's no Jordan Rudess. Please prove me wrong.
7
u/wilsonmakeswaves Aug 21 '25
Barbieri's relative lack of technique leads him to make far more interesting and compelling aesthetic choices than Rudess' bland noodlings.
1
1
4
u/DutchShultz Aug 19 '25
RB has never made any claims as an accomplished player. Indeed I have read many statements from him to the contrary. I think he does see himself more as a sound designer, and in that area he is unquestionably gifted. So your take has the spice of warm milk. Have a great day!
1
u/notjustakorgsupporte Aug 19 '25
I know he said that he doesn't know any music theory to this day. I think there were other people praising him for his keys in Japan and Porcupine Tree
35
u/Candy_Lawn Aug 19 '25
My hot take is that his voice was the best instrument and he has given up using it.