I Love You, Honeybear

Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear
Critic Score
Based on 42 reviews
2015 Ratings: #9 / 1021
Year End Rank: #3
User Score
2015 Rank: #21
Liked by 276 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
NOW Magazine

He's equally talented at writing heartfelt acoustic guitar riffs or quiet piano tunes, adding the ideal dose of strings and lush backing vocals.

100
AllMusic

I Love You, Honeybear, despite the occasional double entendre, is as powerful a statement about love in the vacuous, social media-obsessed early 21st century as it is a denouement of the detached hipster charlatan.

100
The Guardian

For all the layers of irony on I Love You, Honeybear, the biggest irony of all might be that such an ostensibly knotty and confusing album’s real strength lies in something as prosaic and transparent as its author’s ability to write a beautiful melody.

100
Loud and Quiet

Perhaps it’s Father John Misty as an antidote to the American dream that makes ‘I Love You, Honeybear’ such a compelling and addictive listen. That underneath this beautiful sounding record things are pointed toward a seedier truth.

100
Exclaim!
The themes are universal, yet its subject matter and ways in which the album executed are deeply personal, making this a truly resonant record.
95
The Line of Best Fit

A messy, extravagant, astonishing, beguiling and honest experience: that’s love, and that’s also what I Love You, Honeybear is. Just magnificent.

91
A.V. Club

Fortunately, the masterful I Love You, Honeybear proves that Misty the character doesn’t overpower Tillman the musician.

91
Consequence of Sound

Over its 45 beautiful but tortured minutes, I Love You, Honeybear weaves a complicated narrative of love gained at the expense of the individual.

90
Slant Magazine
Tillman's narrator is a self-destructive train wreck, but he's so masterfully sketched that he feels more than deserving of sympathy.
90
FLOOD Magazine

From the soulful gospel of “When You’re Smiling and Astride Me” to the cherubic synth-pop of “True Affection,” this kaleidoscope of a release is brimming with ideas both batty and inspired.

90
FasterLouder

An intimately close-to-the-bone emotional exploration that not only fulfills his potential that was glimpsed three years ago, but trumps the folk masterpieces of his old outfit through sheer conviction.

90
Drowned in Sound

I Love You, Honeybear pinwheels between an honest, bruised tenderness and worldweary cynicism, but never in that yawnsomely earnest way you all too often find when singer-songwriters use their material to present and fillet their own relationships.

90
musicOMH

It’s the sort of album that even repeated listenings can throw up a myriad of surprises: you never really get to know who the character of Father John Misty is ... but it’s clear that Josh Tillman has slowly turned into one of the most talented songwriters of our age.

90
No Ripcord

Tillman becomes one of the great diarists of our generation in Honeybear, possessing a keen, merciless intelligence within a sophisticated melodic sensibility.

90
NME
It's a hugely ambitious, caustically funny album about the redemptive possibilities of love, and being heartily sick of your own bullshit.
90
SPIN

I Love You, Honeybear, is littered with carefully wired bombs meant to blow up in the face of those seeking straightforward love songs.

88
Pitchfork

Fans of the Beatles and Sufjan Stevens will find that songs from Honeybear sit comfortably in their Spotify "Mountain Drive" playlists; fans of stand-up comedy will find the album as thorough, sad and bitterly cathartic as any good hour-long special.

86
Sputnikmusic
Tillman takes his musical cues from his confessional forebears, ‘70s singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and James Taylor, his soulful tenor a warm and inviting presence that makes his refreshingly modern lyrics and transparent sensibilities all the more affecting.
85
Spectrum Culture

Anyone who values the ability of folk artists to pull back the curtain on the human spirit will appreciate the genius of this album. It’s a record that needs to be listened to rather than heard.

83
Northern Transmissions

He says “My ambition… was to address the sensuality of fear, the terrifying force of love, the unutterable pleasures of intimacy, and the destruction of emotional and intellectual prisons in my own voice.” And he does so, with some intelligent and honest song writing and passion in his voice.

83
Pretty Much Amazing
The majority of the album is rooted in the same vintage Californian folk-pop tradition – think the Eagles or Electric Prunes – but its reflections on globalization are decidedly contemporary.
82
Paste

Honeybear thrives on the knife’s edge of that enigmatic split personality, as he attempts to reconcile the love-swept optimist with the world-weary wise-ass.

80
The Needle Drop

J. Tillman, aka Father John Misty, comes through with a grand, funny, and gorgeous sophomore release under this recently embraced pseudonym of his.

80
The 405

Honeybear is rich with sarcasm, flagrant in some places and barely discernable in others. It is impossible to take seriously, but too damn compelling to be dismissed.

80
Q Magazine

For its black lyrical humour alone, I Love You, Honeybear would be a winner. The fact that it's matched to towering songwriting makes it masterful stuff.

80
Record Collector
The finest album of Tillman’s career to date, it should have the staying power to make the end-of-year lists.
80
The Sydney Morning Herald
"Love is just an economy based on resource scarcity," he sings, in Holy Shit, and, like the US, it's both horrifying and beautiful.
80
Spill Magazine

I Love You Honeybear isn’t your average indie album. The music sounds like that from Elton John or John Lennon post Beatles, however, when you listen to the lyrics, the album is actually a satirical and sarcastic collection of viewpoints and stories.

80
DIY
For all his determination to thumb his nose at convention, ‘I Love You, Honeybear’ finds Tillman falling face first into perhaps the most expected of musical tropes: the “mature” sophomore release. Thankfully, he’s on track to age with grace.
80
Under the Radar

I Love You, Honeybear, finds the character going through every cycle of life, from lust to love to fear to hopelessness to depression to loneliness, only interrupted by the occasional bout of happiness.

80
The Observer

I Love You, Honeybear is actually an album that reaffirms your faith in the transformative powers of love.

80
The Skinny
The production is grand and glorious, aping the spaciousness of dusty road Americana without sounding overwrought… Or, if it does, you know that it’s entirely intentional.
80
God Is in the TV

This is a more than worthy follow up to 2012’s ‘Fear Fun’, and while I’ve been well looked after at the Tillman Motel, it took me a while to get used to the furniture.

80
Mojo
There are grand arrangements and barbed bon mots in the style of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, but what's most striking are the more restrained moments.
80
Uncut

From such banal beginnings a new life – and a truly compelling new album – have bloomed.

80
Time Out London

Fans of sensitive woodburning-stove indie may be surprised to hear the one-time Fleet Foxes drummer skewering shortcomings close to home. 

80
Clash

In some ways it may have too many ideas, just falling short of Grant's 'Pale Green Ghosts' ... But '...Honeybear' is easily a masterpiece and already one of the best albums of 2015.

80
Billboard

Lyrically, Tillman has a penchant for enjambment that leaves punchlines and revelations momentarily suspended, so songs unfold with continual surprises.

80
Rolling Stone

Upping the spectacle from Fear Fun, his 2012 debut, I Love You, Honeybear is an autobiographical set about love, marriage and derangement that's both ironic and empathic.

70
PopMatters

I Love You, Honeybear is a big, ambitious statement that few artists can pull off for a sophomore follow-up to a beloved debut. But unlike Fear Fun, it does ask the listener to meet the artist at least halfway.

40
The Arts Desk

Arch, often meandering and stilted, I Love You, Honeybear is hard to warm to. Go for Fleet Foxes, Grant or Wilson instead.

AZIZ
100

"She says, "Like literally, music is the air she breathes"
And the malaprops make me want to fucking scream
I wonder if she even knows what that word means
Well, it's "literally" not that"

My boy FJM been #hardonthots since the jump!

ElectricMess
94

Cynicism has never sounded so nice

BradTasteMusic
81

Edit (68 -> 81): This project is way more engaging than I remember. I love how satire is integrated into these songs to make them stick out, while simultaneously delivering such a gorgeous sound.

QDOERTY
88

I felt this shit.

100

oh my gowrd new favourite

thatkubeczkokid
80

I feel like a lot of this record went right over my head, but it sounds great and from a creative point of view it's incredibly layered and textured. The songs sway in and out between these grand arrangements and gentle refrains, all backed by Tillman's enchanting vocals.

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Added on: November 4, 2014