and the lyrics are well observed. For months I thought the song was merely good because her perfunctory voice bothered me; now the perfunctory quality helps the song: the kind of horror observed/done to average high school girls.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 December 2014 19:59 (nine years ago) link
I like everything about it except her voice. Which is a bit of a problem when it comes to me loving the song.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:00 (nine years ago) link
also i think classic country had more of an appreciation for really really good pedal steel players, and i like that. it's just not a part of modern country to the extent that it used to be. pedal steel players weren't the major stars obviously but the songs really showcased their playing, apart from the vocals the pedal steel is usually the emotional heart of a classic country song imo
dunno how you're defining "classic" but Rosanne Cash, Dwight Yoakam, Garth, etc eschewed pedal steel for a buncha songs
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:02 (nine years ago) link
Instruments don't define genres.
polka tho
― salthigh, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:07 (nine years ago) link
Well there's the lyrical details, the narrative pacing, the controlled outrage, the avoidance of melodrama or closure, the chorus melody, the relief of the middle eight, the way the ominous cello comes in just as the car door swings open, the way her voice growls a little on "internet"… It's just great storytelling.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:07 (nine years ago) link
the way her voice growls a little on "internet"
new world description
― example (crüt), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:10 (nine years ago) link
it's pretty powerful how if you're casually listening it might seem like it's telling a hackneyed high school fairytale à la early taylor swift and then reveals itself to be about something completely different at the exact point the listener starts suspecting something might not be right
― lex pretend, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:12 (nine years ago) link
I am distracted by this sounding like I heard it on Nashville sometime this year
― the farakhan of gg (DJP), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:16 (nine years ago) link
the lyrics are good, the melody is decent. her voice is not great, and the production and arrangement is typical of country in that it remains the biggest stumbling block for me w/that genre.
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:17 (nine years ago) link
iirc the video cops out by exposing and shaming the rapist at the end. The song is brutal about the high-school caste system, hence the emphasis of the title and chorus. The real horror isn't the rape but the way the whole school is complicit in letting him get away with it. And I like that her voice is unremarkable. It gives it an underplayed, plainspoken quality instead of rage or melodrama.
Was just about to post before Lex did that it's like a nightmare version of a Taylor Swift scenario.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:19 (nine years ago) link
Obv the song gets a lot of its power from playing with Taylor's formula and standing it on end
― black metal for black people (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:26 (nine years ago) link
there is an alternative video without the "happy" ending (not sure which came first and can't find it now). the ending of this one makes for a weird and bitter lurch into fantasy, in that it underlines how this would never happen (as the lyrics make clear)
― lex pretend, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:27 (nine years ago) link
I dont try to hear the best in everything and I dont try to hear something just because its being talked about, in fact just the opposite, I find it stressful. Ive no idea if Lex was or wasnt being proud about not having heard something or other, but why should he have to hear it? The idea of listening to a bunch of talked about records so you can have your own opinion on something you wouldnt otherwise even think about just gives me a headache
― saer, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:28 (nine years ago) link
The song is brutal about the high-school caste system, hence the emphasis of the title and chorus. The real horror isn't the rape but the way the whole school is complicit in letting him get away with it.
yes, and her performance being so plain and uncathartic casts her - and therefore the listener - into this role of the bystander. listening to her narrate the events is like watching it happen and being unable (unwilling?) to stop it.
― lex pretend, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:29 (nine years ago) link
fwiw, quarterback improves on multiple listens
― a stupid red mute juggalo (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:38 (nine years ago) link
lex describing a pop song like being unwilling to stop a rape is posts vmic
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:39 (nine years ago) link
what you mean now I have to listen to something more than once? I don't have time for that, there's something else that just came out I have to listen to right now
xp
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:40 (nine years ago) link
lol whiney
Totally with forksclovetofu on the goal of becoming steadily more open-minded. The radio-frequency that was once WFNX, in Boston, turned into a Clear-Channel EDM station a while ago, and I decided NOT to take it off my car preset, and indeed ended up hearing a lot of stuff I liked (and plenty I didn't, and way too much repetition). And then some time later it switched again, to Modern Country, and I still kept it for a while. I didn't last quite as long with Modern Country as with EDM, as the repetition seemed even worse, and the songs I hated I really hated (I have a personal antipathy for songs that act coy about drinking). But still, I heard a bunch of songs I thought were great. Miranda Lambert's "Automatic" is likely in my top 10, and Eric Church's "Give Me Back My Hometown" might make my top 20. And I voted for "Cop Car" in the P&J last year, for that matter. And digging deeper into current country music outside of the meager radio rotation, I found lots of other great stuff. I mean, stuff I personally enjoyed in the same way, and with the same intensity, that I enjoy pop or metal or anything else.
And yet, I hated "Happy" as much as I've hated anything since "The Whistle Song". Open-minded doesn't mean indiscriminate.
― glenn mcdonald, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:40 (nine years ago) link
FYI it was actually incredibly easy to ignore The War On Drugs until the point at which they started appearing in every list, and I say that as someone who likes them. American indie music is not exactly culturally prominent over here unless it's the Arcade Fire or someone.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:49 (nine years ago) link
Fuck open mindedness, music is supposed to be fun, not work. It's ok to not have an opinion about music. Saer otm.
― brimstead, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:50 (nine years ago) link
"Happy" genuinely makes me happy.
― the farakhan of gg (DJP), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:53 (nine years ago) link
i'm team "Not Happy" personally; there's a weird subsection of music (Drake, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry) that I simply can't connect with no matter how much I listen.
― a stupid red mute juggalo (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:56 (nine years ago) link
This whole "open minded" attitude is just anathema to me. What do you even value anymore? "It's all good!". smh
― brimstead, Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:57 (nine years ago) link
im team pissed off with happy
― VOTE in metal poll. Voting ends TOMORROW (Cosmic Slop), Thursday, 11 December 2014 20:59 (nine years ago) link
Not trying out new sounds also gets boring - I might be happy enough just listening to the 5000 shoegazy synth/balearic revival/psychedelic rock albums that come out every year but after a while the virtues of monotony tend to fade. There's definitely a bunch of stuff that I'll never really be into (no success so far with modern country) but every so often I'll just open a random ILM thread and check out whatever people are talking about there.
― death in Skegness (seandalai), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:00 (nine years ago) link
lol this is not how it works
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:01 (nine years ago) link
Having an open mind != "it's all good"
Having an open mind = "even though I will probably hate this, I will listen to it anyway because it might be good" and even that has its limits
― the farakhan of gg (DJP), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:02 (nine years ago) link
yeah only after you have accepted that all music is atrocious can you find enlightenment xp
― death in Skegness (seandalai), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:02 (nine years ago) link
I'll listen to anything at least once and am careful not to make blanket judgments about genres or artists with which I am unfamiliar. At the same time, I have pretty clear aesthetic preferences, a lot of which comes down to basic sonic characteristics tbh, and I'm comfortable defending those.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:03 (nine years ago) link
for me it's more that i try to engage with everything on its own terms instead of whatever assumptions i'm bringing to it
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:04 (nine years ago) link
it's a little strange/mysterious as to why certain sounds just don't resonate with me - or just seem downright unpleasaant - but what can I say that's how my ears work
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:05 (nine years ago) link
which definitely requires some kind of critical faculty imo
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:05 (nine years ago) link
The idea of listening to a bunch of talked about records so you can have your own opinion on something you wouldnt otherwise even think about just gives me a headache
Especially if/when you already think most of the people doing the bulk of the talking are idiots with terrible taste.
― Humorist (horse) (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:12 (nine years ago) link
it's just a lot of this "open minded" stuff sounds more like disabling one's critical faculty. I'm not talking about actually being open minded about music, which I think most posters here are.
― brimstead, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:12 (nine years ago) link
idiots with terrible taste
i.e. most of humanity
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:14 (nine years ago) link
Like, is forkclovestofu still just not being "open minded" enough wrt drake or katy perry? When do we stop trying to like things, when we die? When can we say "it's not for me" and move on? I don't even know what I'm talking about, sorry, lol
― brimstead, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:16 (nine years ago) link
my two most visited sites are discogs and soundcloud, but i like to find things new things myself in a meandering way. Playing a record that lots of people have lots of opinions on, just so i can have an opinion too is just dutiful anathema to me. I dont dislike anything in these polls, I just dont have any interest in any of it
― saer, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:19 (nine years ago) link
― the farakhan of gg (DJP
...when it makes others miserable
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:23 (nine years ago) link
I am curious insofar as it's interesting to see what I've heard that actually pops up on lists. that's about it though.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:24 (nine years ago) link
― Humorist (horse) (誤訳侮辱), T
Just to add in here - I dont think anyone is an idiot and i dont think anyone has terrible taste, its more that it feels like being taken to the Louvre to look at the great works of art when you were a child, and really you just wanted to play in the garden and look at the trees and it didnt matter which tree was the important one
― saer, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:26 (nine years ago) link
Yes, when I die I will stop listening to new things because I might like them. I'd say that's pretty much what "dying" means to me.
― glenn mcdonald, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:28 (nine years ago) link
Oh forget it, I'm obviously not against "listening to new things because I might like them", sheesh
― brimstead, Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:38 (nine years ago) link
that's part of my raison d'etre, yes
― the farakhan of gg (DJP), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:47 (nine years ago) link
http://media.giphy.com/media/yQskUomixQk00/giphy.gif
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:54 (nine years ago) link
Like, is forkclovestofu still just not being "open minded" enough wrt drake or katy perry? When do we stop trying to like things, when we die? When can we say "it's not for me" and move on?― brimstead
― a stupid red mute juggalo (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:59 (nine years ago) link
in any case, every time i have this discussion with people IRL, we all understand each other clearly and every time i have this discussion on the internets, I always end up going back and forth fruitlessly for hours so maybe the fault is with the way I'm phrasing myself in print.
― a stupid red mute juggalo (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 11 December 2014 22:01 (nine years ago) link
And I'm "obviously" not in favor of "disabling one's critical faculties", nor of making music less fun. For me some of the most fun I have in music is wandering into some kind of thing I've never heard of or neglected or assumed I wouldn't like, and discovering that it has something to which I respond.
But I totally agree that nobody "has" to engage with anything, songs or artists or genres or anything else, whether they're being "talked about" or not. There's a lot of music, and not that much time. If you have something you'd rather explore than country music, for example, I think that's very totally fine. Nobody should try to make you feel bad for it. They're allowed, in my opinion, to try to entice you into giving it a chance. But it's also way too easy, especially online, to aim for "enticing" and actually hit "condescending" or "judgmental"...
And also, I hate jazz. Which is a blanket statement, as forks says, and not quite accurate (I like giant old-school jazz orchestras), but I guess to me that kind of inward personal generalization is merely sad, whereas the outward version ("jazz if crap, why are you idiots wasting time talking about it?") is offensive.
― glenn mcdonald, Thursday, 11 December 2014 22:09 (nine years ago) link
I think I've told this story before, but this convo reminds me of a good friend, who was working one of his first "real" construction jobs in the 80's. his boss was like a mentor, my friend looked up to him and learned a ton of stuff. said friend was a big industrial music fan, TG, SPK, Neubauten, the usual. one day the subject of country music came up and my friend went on at great length about how awful it was. at the end of his tirade, his boss looked at him and said, with great scorn, "why don't you just say the only thing you CAN say - that YOU don't like it?"
― some kind of terrible IDM with guitars (sleeve), Thursday, 11 December 2014 22:11 (nine years ago) link