The GB Album Club 054 - String Quartet No. 8 by Dmitri Shostakovich

Duders! Welcome to the 54th edition of the Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! We took last week off. The pool is larger than usual this time around and some of us needed time to catch up. But we're back this week with some bad vibes classical music! Specifically, String Quartet No. 8 by Dmitri Shostakovich! This album was selected by our good friend @zombiepie, and you can listen and get some relevant context with the links ZP provided below:

Recording with sheet music: https://youtu.be/-0nKJoZY64A?si=TwbhQJWovaSBYX_b

Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41HIXtBElH4

Short documentary ZP put in our submission sheet that provides some historical context, re: being forced to work under/for Stalin and so forth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=827zsCiQ_YY

Another short documentary ZP provided that not only fills in some info gaps for the first one, but also does a good job articulating what made Shostakovich unique and subversive as a composter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCxzMYVvHBg

I did a little research on classical music forums and subreddits and this seems to be the one people agree on the most as far as "best" recording. Specifically, it's tracks 5-9:https://open.spotify.com/album/7yJkK4ixPMR58VrBpjV2Dl?si=12S3qrE1TSGVc5uBlA1wyg

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The Unofficial Giant Bomb Album Club! You know what we do? I'll tell you what the fuck we do. We gather in a Discord and made a pool of albums, from which we pick one at random every week to listen to and discuss. If that sounds like a good time, come on down!

First and foremost, I just want to be publically on record as being in favor of @zombiepie's bit of only submitting semi-grotesque and/or villainous classical music haha. We can all sit back and take potshots at classical music all day long, what with all the stuffiness and pomp we tend to read into it. However, like all forms of art, we must remind ourselves that classical music brims with weirdos and freaks, many of whom live under shit circumstances (particularly in Shostakovich's case), and ZP's submissions are a fun little reminder of that.

I know that sounds like I'm making fun of ZP and classical music, but I'm not. After all I had a great time with Bartók and I had a great time with this.

In fact, what I like about No. 8 the most is that it's as intentionally off-putting as The Miraculous Mandarin, but in the exact opposite way. While there are certainly quieter moments in The Miraculous Mandarin, I mainly remember how it tapped into horror with loud bombast, whereas No. 8 is quieter and more insidious. (Granted it is a quartet as opposed to a full orchestra.) It doesn't blast you with sound, but rather these more intricate compositions that just feel icky to me. But in a good way.

Or put it another way: If any of you have seen The Lobster, you've heard the fourth movement as it's used a lot. Imagine that creative process. You're making a movie with dark sinister overtones, and you decide that that fourth movement of No. 8 would match perfectly with what you're making. And you'd be right because it does. (I also swear I've heard that movement, and the third one, elsewhere as well.) That's the kind of vibe being offered here. You're on the train or you're not, and I very much am.

So yeah, it's dark sinister Soviet shit. What's not to love? Other than the rather dire circumstances in which it was made? (ALS, Stalin, etc.) Also I'm on 4 hours of sleep, so I hope anything I said made sense.