Love This Giant

St. Vincent & David Byrne - Love This Giant
Critic Score
Based on 39 reviews
2012 Ratings: #233 / 1118
User Score
Based on 351 ratings
2012 Rank: #320
Liked by 29 people
September 11, 2012 / Release Date
LP / Format
4AD / Label
Art Pop / Genre
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CRITIC REVIEWS

90
AllMusic
It's a remarkably catchy and concise set of songs featuring some of the most vibrant work that either one of them has produced.
90
NME

The arrangements are exquisite from top to bottom, and producer Congleton – who worked with Clark on ‘Strange Mercy’ – helps make it easy for us all to love this giant of a record.

85
The Line of Best Fit

Love This Giant may have started life as a one-off experiment, but we can only hope that it is one that the two main protaganists choose to develop further in the future.

85
Prefix
The duo successfully crosses Clark's talent of romanticizing morbidity through melody and Byrne's knack for eccentric pop by using a prominent horn section both as a bridge between the two and an unfamiliar element that distinguishes this as a partnered effort.
83
Pretty Much Amazing

Love This Giant poses a challenge to our music sensibilities, and listening to it feels like a learning experience rather than entertainment.

83
A.V. Club

The two musicians’ styles fit neatly over each other, sounding mutually rhythmic, arty, and full of hermetic insight.

80
FasterLouder

The rich orchestration that underlies each track gives a sense of warmth that counterpoints the often cold, disconnected lyrics. It’s these contrasts that make Love This Giant one of the most original and thoroughly surprising releases of the year.

80
Time Out London
Explosions of brass ring out between frenetic Talking Heads-esque rhythms, while Clark’s delicate vocals keep things from jarring. Brilliantly quirky and full of groove, this doesn’t sit still for a moment.
80
Clash
This is quirky, jazzy, smart and sassy, a sophisticated album without an inch of fat. Taut and lean it may be but it has bags of swagger and more than a dash of hot sauce. A peculiar but pitch perfect partnership.
80
The Guardian
The couple they most resemble is Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, for he is eternally youthful in his restless invention, and while she seems soft and wispy, up close she glints like a razor blade.
80
NOW Magazine
The alien textures of St. Vincent’s guitar heroics and the crunchy electronic rhythms lurching behind the trombones and sax stabs keep things just on the right side of gleefully weird.
80
Crack Magazine
A lovely collection of songs delivered with skill and wit.
80
The Observer
Every song bursts with the interplay of these two eccentrics' ideas.
80
Gigwise

Eclectic and bold as it may be, Love This Giant is far from the bravest thing that either party has attempted. Still, it’s just the right side of crazy, and it’s never hip to be sane.

80
The Arts Desk
As fresh as any younger generations' art pop, it's a joyful, modern, barking mad, but instantly lovable album, one to live with and treasure as it gradually gives up more hints to its hidden secrets.
80
Record Collector
An album full of surprises: a weird, witty collection of pop songs to confound anybody tempted to call it a vanity project.
80
Q Magazine
The songs, driven by their charismatic duets, mix inventive brass grooves with playfully indelible melodies.
80
Consequence of Sound

In turn, it’s less a collaboration and more a tutoring session on how new tricks can sharpen old perfection.

80
Drowned in Sound

Distinctive enough to be a new entity, smart enough to fall back on a few familiar charms. 

80
PopMatters

Although you wouldn’t expect anything less from artists of this high a caliber, it still comes as a pleasant surprise how cohesive, complete, and thought through Love This Giant is for a one-off all-star collab.

80
No Ripcord

These are, quite simply, great songs. They are fun, they are emotional, and no two sound alike. 

80
The Fly
‘Love This Giant’’s too big and clever, and Byrne-Vincent too perfect a pairing, to be a once-in-a-lifetime affair.
75
Paste

It is, in other words, a deeply weird and deeply lovely record, albeit one that listeners should do their best to listen to with as few preconceptions as possible.

70
The Needle Drop
This new David Byrne & St. Vincent collaboration is quite horny.
70
Spectrum Culture

Love this Giant is worth the climb up the beanstalk if you don’t mind maneuvering around a few thorns.

70
musicOMH

For all of the missteps, it’s the moments of dizzying brass playing from the backing musicians, the otherworldly pomp of Byrne and the stellar chops of Clark that saves the day. 

70
Tiny Mix Tapes
The album is more of a workshop for two of pop music’s more creative minds to work with a toolkit (brass instrumentation) that is, for the most part, ignored.
65
Beats Per Minute

The obtuse intellectualism of the lyrics and big band backing don’t cut it for a record that should have been less illusory and way more adventurous. 

60
American Songwriter
It sounds less like a collaboration among equals and more like a Byrne record with an extended cameo.
60
Under the Radar

The mixture here leans heavily on Byrne, which is certainly not a bad thing, but Love This Giant doesn't take full advantage of Clark's guitar prowess or hypnotic voice.

60
Uncut
A collection that feels more art project than album.
60
Mojo
This is cerebral yet genial fare.
60
The Skinny

Love This Giant isn't career-best material from either artist, sometimes lacking the kind of wilful experimentation we've come to expect from both.

60
SPIN
Byrne and Clark rarely interact vocally, sometimes suggesting two solo outings spliced together; and the grooves have an anonymous vibe — indicating, perhaps, the need for less programming and more actual drums.
60
Rolling Stone
This LP is like a special-mention science-fair project: two brainy kids speaking in tongues that are fascinating even when they're hard to follow.
60
The Sydney Morning Herald

On Love This Giant, the deft, delightful collaboration between the pair, the former Talking Heads frontman and the rising star of baroque alternative rock, proves to be that rare studio hook-up where the outcome is genuinely transformative.

59
Pitchfork

It seems Giant will function less as a career highpoint for either artist, and more as a historical marker of the career trajectories of each participant.

50
Slant Magazine

Love This Giant has its share of promising elements, but as a collaborative project, it's far less than the sum of its two parts.

knewnie
NR

god why is her face fucked up i dont want to listen to this album because her face is so bulgy and it makes me so uncomfortable god

apotofstu
80

An endlessly fun listen, Love This Giant is a meeting of great creative minds, David Byrne of Talking Heads going head-to-head with indie darling St. Vincent to present a flashy series of quirky art pop tunes.

In its forty-minute runtime, Love This Giant packs a jazzy punch that still leaves me with plenty of giddy excitement with every relisten. By far, the album's mightiest moment is the album's beginning three-track-run of 'Who,' 'Weekend in the Dust,' and 'Dinner for Two,' serving as one ... read more

SnowyFighter
69

Ngl they look like they wanna kill me

Continuing my St Vincent dive, this one is a littttttttle bit of a let down. I still enjoyed it overall but the reason why I feel that way is because look who we are talking about here, fucking David Byrne and Anne Clark. Two artists that have made some of the most incredible music I’ve heard in my life. So idk maybe I shouldn’t have gone in with high expectations but I did a little bit. Either way, yeah I still didn’t dislike it. I ... read more

SnowyFighter
69

Ngl they look like they wanna kill me

Continuing my St Vincent dive, this one is a littttttttle bit of a let down. I still enjoyed it overall but the reason why I feel that way is because look who we are talking about here, fucking David Byrne and Anne Clark. Two artists that have made some of the most incredible music I’ve heard in my life. So idk maybe I shouldn’t have gone in with high expectations but I did a little bit. Either way, yeah I still didn’t dislike it. I ... read more

ridofme1993_
48

I probably would have enjoyed this more if it was just St. Vincent on vocals. Having said that, there were some pretty banal moments on here, such as I Am an Ape - wtf was that? Perhaps this is going to show that I don't like Byrne's writing, because I love Annie on her own.

Kiwo
46

There's something about this album that makes me SICK, David Byrne you cursed my life

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Track List

1Who
3:49
87
2Weekend in the Dust
3:07
77
3Dinner for Two
3:42
77
4Ice Age
3:13
80
5I Am an Ape
3:05
78
6The Forest Awakes
4:52
85
7I Should Watch TV
3:08
82
8Lazarus
3:13
81
9Optimist
3:49
81
10Lightning
4:15
74
11The One Who Broke Your Heart
3:46
71
12Outside of Space & Time
4:18
76
Total Length: 44 minutes
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4mo


Added on: June 14, 2012