Women as Lovers

Xiu Xiu | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 29, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Kill Rock Stars
• ASIN: B000ZOSMYM
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,061 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

It's a beautiful thing when a band goes out on a limb to make its most personal and strangest work. But when that work is also greatly accessible (and we mustn't forget that the two aren't incompatible), when you'd bet even money that this is also going to make them big stars, that's cause for celebration. Jamie Stewart has been making fragile and super-intense music for years. He's gained a strong cult following based on his provocative lyrics, frayed rhythms, and beyond-emo vocalizings. There's nothing precious about Women as Lovers, which is named after a work by the Austrian feminist author Elfriede Jelinek. Righteous and necessary political statements ("Gauntanamo Canto") edge into party songs (a brilliant cover of the Freddie Mercury/David Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure," with guest vocals from Michael Gira) in a way that gives both more weight. You might say that this is Xiu Xiu's Dub Housing, or that it sounds like the Arcade Fire scoring a David Lynch film. Either way, it's amazing. --Mike McGonigal

Product Description

Xiu Xiu has long been known as prolific, bordering on crazed, but with this new album, each song is so different from the next and so fully realized, the group's creative ferocity is simply astonishing and rapidly taking on new dimensions. No other Xiu Xiu album has ever been more approachable or communicative on a basic human level.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great Xiu Xiu album, January 30, 2008

By 

sdoyon (CAMBRIDGE, Morocco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Women as Lovers (Audio CD)

A very good follow-up to The Air Force. The expanded lineup works heavily in the band's favor. Xiu Xiu's early albums suffered a little by relying too heavily on MIDI sequencers. Women as Lovers has a much richer sound. "I do what I want, when I want" is a wonderful single, but I love "No friend oh!" and "You are pregnant you, you are dead".

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still great, but not the greatest from Xiu Xiu., February 9, 2008

By 

T. Parks (Long Beach, MS) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Women as Lovers (Audio CD)

For those who fell in love with Jamie's older songs such as "I Broke Up" and "Sad Pony Guerrilla Girl," you're quite aware of the "weird noises" in Xiu Xiu's music. "Women As Lovers" changes pace following the album "The Air Force" with adding MORE of the noises and obscurity. Despite the fact that I personally think of "The Air Force" to be more amicable than this album, I am like any other Xiu Xiu follower with the fact that I can certainly find it in me to love this album just as I have all the rest, particularly songs such as "F.T.W." and "I Do What I Want When I Want." There is definitely a classic style of Xiu Xiu that any Xiu Xiu fan will appreciate and love.

17 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I'm Jamie Stewart, and I'm a GENIUS! LOVE ME, March 16, 2008

By 

P. Lundquist (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Women as Lovers (Audio CD)

I've had a love-hate thing going with Xiu Xiu for a while now. When they actually play music, it's pretty cool, and I like a lot of their out-on-a-limb noisy experiments. The one thing I hate is Jamie Stewart's complete egomania. The guy basically thinks he can go up on stage and take a dump and people will worship him for it, and, to be honest, he's more or less right. This album is proof.

I saw these guys last night, performing most of this album, and it was an unmitigated disaster. Stewart's so full of himself that he insists on his gang of unfortunately misguided followers to listen to all of the boring dreck he churns out, thinking that adding a noise freakout or some wacky instrumentation can cover the fact that his songwriting talents are extremely uneven. Everyone left the show with a bitter taste in their mouth as Stewart and co. didn't speak a word on stage, spent forty-five minutes setting up without so much as a "Hello Chicago," refused to play favorites or an encore, and forced us to listen to some weird old guy reciting awful poetry. Even as most people filed out uncomfortably at the end (interestingly, swarming around the openers instead), there were still a few indie kids drunk on Xiu Xiu Kool-Aid, insisting that they just witnessed "art."

The problem with this album is that it's marketed exclusively to people who already think Xiu Xiu is brilliant and makes no attempt at outreach to anyone who doesn't already hold them in cultlike reverence. It's more of the same here: empty, repetitive nonsense, blending together over fourteen tracks so repellent and forgettable that they demand you to never listen to them again. I'm giving it two stars because, as always, there are a few good moments, and I can see how someone would like it. If this is your first experience with Xiu Xiu, or you're giving them a second try after not being completely bowled over: avoid like the plague. If you're a rabid fan: well, you already stopped reading and clicked "Not Helpful," didn't you?