Simon Reynolds' top albums are UP

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One of my best friends from high school told me that Avril fired her bass player by giving him a cake that said "So Long, Motherfucker!" across the top of it. This (and her new single) has done more to rehabilitate her in my eyes than hours and hours of ILX debate ever could.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

Heh heh heh. Give in, give in.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 6 January 2003 17:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

Writing about rap always makes Simon read like Jane Goodall. But I love his electro stuff cuz it gives me something to look forward to when I hit the dollar bins in 5 years.

― Scott Seward, Monday, 6 January 2003 18:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

I always enjoy him...it seems those "on the fence" records reflect a kind of problem a lot of people who've been listening for a long time encounter(and is worse for him, as he's writing about it)
ie while you desparately crave to be involved, to engage with music which is "on the ground" (buying 12"s the week they come out) you can't escape a kind of "meta" listening or a kind of nostalgia.

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 6 January 2003 22:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

Nice article.

There's a pre-release version of Original Pirate Material?

― Evan (Evan), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 01:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, it's got "New York City Cops" on it

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 04:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

I might like the Streets more if he cut down on the sloganeering, did more novelty songs, less songs about how good he is and had more than just a loop going over and over and over and over and over underneath his voice. But he didn't, so I don't get all the stinkin' praise.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

my praise smells of Calvin Klein's Obssession For Mike Skinner

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

less songs about how good he is

well he's actually quite modest/humble but given this is pretty much the dominant theme in 95% of hip hop lyrics i think you should cut him some slack

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Choosing to rip apart Common by quoting the lyrics I like the most off of his single is not going to convince me any, I must say.
That kind of bugged me - I think Reynolds is totally misinterpreting the line here.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

I also think that, Minor Threat tribute aside, that Roots album fits pretty seamlessly into the thread started by _Things Fall Apart_. I don't see The Roots as being determined to transcend genre as much as I see them as trescending the way SR has defined hip-hop. I need to hear the Common album to fully judge, but based on the single it seems that the "smugly tries to transcend genre" criticism is also off the mark.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

i like this top ten. i retract my previous comment about simon reynolds' music taste being "patronizing and insulting" or something.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 20:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

His only comment about the two Dalek records is really irritating:

"Shouldn’t we all be over 'noise' by now?"

That's right, because ALL NOISE IS THE SAME.

― charlie va (charlie va), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 21:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

hmm, yeh, by that logic you could say the same thing about bootlegs or whatever

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 21:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

Shouldn't we all be over pop music by now?

― Nick A. (Nick A.), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 21:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

and had more than just a loop going over and over and over and over and over underneath his voice.

And that's why the remixes (Jameson, Royksopp, etc) are so much better than the album tracks.

― Siegbran (eofor), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 23:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Shouldn’t we all be over 'noise' by now?"

Someone take down the internet. We don't need it anymore.

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 00:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

Damnit, aren't we all just hideously bored of music? If not, we ought to be. Right?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 09:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

Wrong.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 10:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

yes well in theory noise and bootlegs and whatever are as varied and limitless and clockless and whatever as pop but the reality is...no. you reactionary brain-in-a-jars you. anyway much of the simon's schtick is shrugging off the obvious canonical and being hypersubjective, tracking trends and fashions etc

― zemko (bob), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 11:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

(i dunno if stevem was cracking a joke there, and if it was i'm reckoning a bitter pro-boot one. if not then soz)

― zemko (bob), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 11:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

zemko LURVES simon!

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 11:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

sorry, that was infantile...and no, no joke intended about the bootlegs really - but you're right about the 'in theory' thing

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 11:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

no we need more kneejerk slurs around here! :)

i do like him a lot but actually i have taken a coupla mumbled pops at him lately on ilx. sometimes i wonder about his eagerness to find a new trend and cram it into a continuum, however useful and provocative a tool it undeniably and esp enjoyably is

― zemko (bob), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 12:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

yes well in theory noise and bootlegs and whatever are as varied and limitless and clockless and whatever as pop but the reality is...no.

Well what is the reality, then? Do you really hear more similarities than differences between Dalek and Black Dice and Blectum from Blechdom, other than that they're all "noisy"?

― charlie va (charlie va), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 16:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

noisyness isn't Noise. "noise and bootlegs" this makes sense to you in yr world?

― zemko (bob), Thursday, 9 January 2003 13:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

(in the context of my sentence of course)

― zemko (bob), Thursday, 9 January 2003 13:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

Not to get super technical or anything, but Reynolds didn't capitalize it. And what does "noisiness" mean, really, but "the presence of noise"? Also, the Dalek record isn't a "Noise" record in any sort of capitalized sense. There are beats and rhymes all over the place.

― charlie va (charlie va), Thursday, 9 January 2003 17:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

Pls ignore the second sentence of my last post for the time being.

― charlie va (charlie va), Thursday, 9 January 2003 17:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've read the comments on the 'lips. interesting argument (haven't heard yoshimi to agree or not).

must check whether he mentions rave punk or not?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 9 January 2003 18:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

"overall this shows how things that are ghastly defects in rock- quirkiness, eccentricity, whimsy - are actually positive attributes in electronic music, lending personality, warmth and wetness to what seems clinical, disembodied and dry"

i think my brain must've inserted 'seen as by rockists' re ghastly defects when i first read this in the talon slalom review; is this a badly constructed bit of sarcasm (it's not like ppl don't find the same quirkiness etc still ghastly in blectum's music) or can he be sincere?

― zemko (bob), Friday, 17 January 2003 12:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

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