OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

drake is rap's phil collins only i still don't like him

― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Thursday, April 20, 2017 12:14 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm contractually obligated to point out he's def a top 20 rock drummer of all time easy

nah man Drake's top 30 AT BEST!

amazing how the most anodyne fucking comment possible still gets me insulted for no reason

Aw, it was an open goal, k, nothing but love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEXMJfvuQcQ

that's the first time i've ever heard those trivia, they are interesting and I'm glad I know em but I wouldn't begrudge someone for not knowing them and not writing about them.

I dont think "trivia" is the right word though? I think these things are all absolutely integral in understanding the main conceit of the story!

Like Diplo eventually collaborating with an actual member of the Clash on a Converse ad is "trivia." M.I.A. detourning the melody and lyrics of 90s butt-shaking song to be about globalism is 100% integral to what makes is a good chorus

trivia or not, i've been able to enjoy all those choruses without knowing those facts. also, i googled for like 2 mins and couldn't find ANY piece of writing (aside from your ilx post and whosampled.com) that mentions them

I hate to encourage the circular entropic flow of information between people writing chart articles and fucking genius.com, but genius does have the rumpshaker ref re:MIA

the "get low" annotations are worthless

less than five google searches and I get from "to the windows, to the walls" to this article, which at least cites a 1994 track

asking people writing articles on pop culture to do more than two google searches is nearly impossible afaict

forgot article link:
https://www.redbullradio.com/shows/united-states-of-bass/episodes/mr-collipark

I mean it's not really a lack of googling, more just the whole regurgitated received wisdom with a chyme gloss of celebrity gossip and fun blog voice thing, but

I guess writing doesn't necessarily imply anyone did research

I mean, honestly, on one level there's the skill of digging into some material, which used to be paging through Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and hoping nothing really recent was relevant, and hopefully being able to have a couple sources that weren't just churn off the same article. (middle school library nerd here)

Now the actual digging is much easier with google, but the critical skills to find original sources to determine if you've found a traceable fact or just the same half-dozen people regurgitating one questionable source gets tricky.

I guess if you're churning out stuff in the ol' billboard post mill it might not matter

http://www.sfweekly.com/music/hearthis/colleen-green-is-the-queen-of-blase/

that owns

San Francisco's on the Trump Train, baby

That openness reverberates through “Want You Back”’s verses, which have a Don Henley glimmer and a Christine McVie yearning

can't see what's particularly bad about that

they forgot to work in a Twin Peaks reference too

i hate to give mr. thenardlebop any attention at all, but this is so egregious how is he this uninformed

And here we have one of the ugliest attempts at capitalizing on the Caribbean craze: pic.twitter.com/U4ZtKtUkFy

— Thee Anthony Fantano (@theneedledrop) May 3, 2017

@theneedledrop Wow man .. ugly attempt at Caribbean ? Man that's Afro beat that's my naija culture . I was born into this sound . This is OUR sound

— Wale (@Wale) May 3, 2017

they forgot to work in a Twin Peaks reference too

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, May 3, 2017 4:56 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haim make pop-rock full of deliberate callbacks to '70s los angeles pop-rock i.e. what are you talking about

make it a Mulholland Drive reference then

my point was, yes they make that style of music so obviously that one could have written that sentence without hearing a second of music.

Jesus fuck fantano scolding wale unreal lack of awareness

*billy ocean voice* caribbean craze

looks like "know how to diss diplo, i'll run with it" without recognizing wale whatsoever

What's a Don Henley glimmer

The gleam of the LAPD badge as they search his partment?

the reflection the lights off his coke mirror.

The fact that Wale responded to Fantano at all is an amazing self-ether

i get that ATDI is important but this is the most hagiographic, labored-over, critically uninteresting thing i've ever seen

http://thequietus.com/articles/22339-at-the-drive-in-inter-alia-album-review

I got halfway through that before thinking "is this is a review of a new record or a fucking history lesson?" ... a couple of paragraphs later and I was like "is this a review of a new record or is this just the writer telling us how much he likes the previous one?"

The review didn't really click for me until paragraph seven:

Peers in my Devon sixth form college didn’t know what to make of them when I brought Relationship of Command into the common room

which is where I stopped reading. Especially once I noticed there were like 17 paragraphs to go. Pull your pants back up, buddy, it's just an album.

I like At the Drive In quite a bit but I don't really know how "important" they are, they were solidly part of an emo-influence/mathy post-fugazi scene of underground rock

holy crap it's almost 6,000 words. that's like Wright Thompson or Spencer Hall longform strokejob length.

Is there a Caribbean craze?

Pfft

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/three-days-at-stagecoach-californias-pro-trump-honkytonk/

Sitting on another set of lawn chairs was Craig, a civil engineer who’d spent the morning perfecting a spill-proof beer bong. The only thing more sculpted than its arrangement of PVC pipes and valves was his body.

Amazingly, this was not written by Bob Lefsetz.

Closing paragraph:

The hippie movement is actually a great case study in the intersection of pop music and activism. Listen to Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock.” (Yes, she famously missed performing at the festival she wrote the definitive song about.) “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Listen to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young calling out police in the wake of the Kent State shooting in “Ohio.” Listen to Bob Dylan skewering government warmongering on “Masters of War.” 2017’s ambitious pop crop could wield this same power if they wanted. But do they?

hey Katy Perry pricked her finger on a rose thorn in that one video. that's about as deep as you're gonna get these days

Before I heard you, I didn’t think it was possible for someone to front three separate bands over their career, and on top of that, release several albums as a solo artist. How could someone be that universal?

Your voice sends chills to the spine. Your words stir the wheels of thought. Your melodies invent emotions most of us never even knew existed.

Your songs have gotten me, as well as many other people, through some of the darkest, as well as some of the best times in our lives. You touched more people than you can imagine. And now you’ve hurt us.

http://www.alternativenation.net/say-hello-2-heaven-open-letter-chris-cornell/

nah

i wrote worse than that in my journal in college. she's 21 ffs

Yeah, post denied

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2017/05/donald-glover-pop-culture-streak-is-unprecedented

https://media4.giphy.com/media/xT1XH3nKVJMCvzAc8M/giphy.gif

donald glover's pop culture streak is unprecedented....if you woke of from a coma in 2016 and have total amnesia

if you woke from a coma in 2016 and have total amnesia

Primary qualifications for being a pop culture journalist in 2017

I don't like the Beatles at all, but even bands I hate don't deserve to be the subject of an Amanda Marcotte piece.