Kurt Vile
Followers
3,256,987
Listeners
1,443,687
Popularity
88
Ravenously creative songwriter Kurt Vile broke through to mainstream success after years of steadily working on his craft. His laidback and drifting guitar rock took notes from masters like Neil Young, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr., exploring inventive guitar tones on meditative and often self-reflective songs. He co-founded the War on Drugs with friend Adam Granduciel in 2005, but quit shortly after the band got off the ground to focus more on his own music. After several albums on various indie labels, Vile signed with Matador in 2009 and would find increasing success with each new album. His 2013 album, Walkin' on a Pretty Daze, broke through bigger than anything before it, taking Vile's blurry-eyed musings and signature songwriting style to a worldwide audience.
Amazing start at DSPs including 28x New Music Friday playlists on Spotify + NMF Billboard in Time Square; 52x Apple Music’s Best of the Week and 7 YouTube Music playlists. Additional YouTube Digital out of home billboards in NY Times Square and downtown LA Staples Center.
Amazing start at DSPs including 28x New Music Friday playlists on Spotify + NMF Billboard in Time Square; 52x Apple Music’s Best of the Week and 7 YouTube Music playlists. Additional YouTube Digital out of home billboards in NY Times Square and downtown LA Staples Center.
Amazing start at DSPs including 28x New Music Friday playlists on Spotify + NMF Billboard in Time Square; 52x Apple Music’s Best of the Week and 7 YouTube Music playlists. Additional YouTube Digital out of home billboards in NY Times Square and downtown LA Staples Center.
Songs evaporate on Blonde, too: they’re hazed, minimalist, capricious. The sweet, airy strum of “Pink + White” is hardened by its last few seconds, as we hear birds swarm. So, too, in “Ivy,” which starts off a masterpiece of cinematic lovesickness and then warps at its tail-end, ceding to a clang of instruments.”
“The impressionistic lyrics mirror the feeling of wanting to disappear, for a spell: “Breathe till I evaporated/My whole body see through.”
“Frank Ocean is the hinge artist of our time, the true voice of a generation because he takes long silences. With Blonde and its attendant works, his Boys Don’t Cry zine and Endless, he took his time building his staircase to somewhere.”
“We wanted the blurred, the softened, the existential. “Inhale, in hell, there’s heaven,” Ocean sings on “Solo,” capturing the whiplash experience of being young in this country in one line. Blonde is one synonym for American. –Doreen St. Félix”
