Your Blues

2004 studio album by Destroyer

Your Blues

Studio album by

Destroyer

Released

March 8, 2004

Recorded

late summer/early fall 2003

Studio

JC/DC

Genre

Indie rock, European blues

Length

46:11

Label

Merge
Trifekta
Scratch
Talitres
Acuarela Discos

Producer

John Collins
David Carswell
Dan Bejar

Destroyer chronology

This Night
(2002)

Your Blues
(2004)

Notorious Lightning & Other Works (EP)
(2005)

Your Blues is the sixth studio album by Destroyer, released on March 8, 2004^[1] by Merge Records, Trifekta Records, Scratch Records, Talitres Records, and Acuarela Discos.^[2]

It is a notable departure from the full-band format of Destroyer's previous few albums, largely featuring MIDI-simulated orchestration as its backing music.

The album was reissued in 2014 by Merge Records.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	79/100^[3]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[4]
The A.V. Club	C+^[5]
Pitchfork	8.6/10^[6]
PopMatters	^[7]
Spin	B+^[8]
Uncut	^[9]

Your Blues received positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79, based on 14 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".^[10]

Matt LeMay of Pitchfork Media gave the album a very favorable review stating, "Like Bejar's 2002 release This Night, Your Blues constitutes a fundamental challenge to deeply ingrained conventions of sincerity and emotional honesty. The record's conceptual brilliance lies largely in Bejar's ability to craft deeply moving passages out of ostensibly artificial and contrived elements, subtly suggesting that all music, if not all human expression, is in effect some sort of artifice. Bejar's critical engagement with codified aesthetic techniques certainly renders Your Blues a less immediately "accessible" record, and can at first come off as kitschy or detached. But the album's unique and defiant expression makes this the most holistically accomplished album Bejar has released to date."^[6]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Dan Bejar

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Notorious Lightning"	5:57
2.	"It's Gonna Take an Airplane"	3:41
3.	"An Actor's Revenge"	2:57
4.	"The Music Lovers"	4:22
5.	"From Oakland to Warsaw"	3:11
6.	"Your Blues"	2:57
7.	"New Ways of Living"	4:23
8.	"Don't Become the Thing You Hated"	2:13
9.	"Mad Foxes"	4:45
10.	"The Fox and the Hound"	3:23
11.	"What Road"	3:57
12.	"Certain Things You Ought to Know"	4:25
Total length:		46:11

Personnel

Destroyer

Dan Bejar - vocals, acoustic guitar, Roland XV-3080, Kurzweil K2600, percussion, production
John Collins - Roland XV-3080, Kurzweil K2600, production, recording
David Carswell - Roland XV-3080, Kurzweil K2600, production, recording

Additional personnel

Jamie Sitar - mastering at Suite Sound Labs, Vancouver
Sydney Vermont - drawing
Marya Spenton - layout

References and notes

^ "Release group "Your Blues" by Destroyer - MusicBrainz".
^ "Destroyer (4) - Your Blues". Discogs.
^ "Reviews for Your Blues by Destroyer". Metacritic. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
^ Luerssen, John D. (January 2, 2015). "Your Blues – Destroyer". AllMusic. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
^ "Destroyer – Your Blues". The A.V. Club.
^ ^a ^b LeMay, Matt (March 14, 2004). "Destroyer: Your Blues". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
^ Korenkiewicz, Jason. Destroyer: Your Blues. PopMatters. 18 March 2004. Retrieved 2 January 2016.
^ "SPIN Breakdown". Spin. April 2004. Retrieved January 2, 2016.
^ "Destroyer: Your Blues". Uncut. January 2005. p. 124.
^ "Your Blues – Destroyer". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved January 2, 2016.