FACT's 20 albums for 2011

that is like academic or beard-stroking intellectual analysis

fwiw I like splazsh and to a lesser extent the first actress record and my greatest enjoyment of them comes from the times I think as little as possible and crank up the volume

God forbid anyone try to explain why they like a record...?

― Sonny Chevrotain (dog latin), Wednesday, August 31

i dunno i think if anyone tried to explain to me how to listen to a record i would think this record perhaps isn't for the likes of me

Might be different if i had asked them for their opinion though

I wonder what happened to the UNTOLD album.

i don't think i've ever heard anyone talk about actress in irl and would never presume to tell anyone how to listen to it, i just love his sound. it's very...tactile.

God forbid anyone try to explain why they like a record...?

if you have to mention deleuze & guattari to explain why, god should indeed forbid it

sub in any critical theorists really

^^ I am a philosophy/D&G stan and I think music fails a little, unless it's a conceptual art music, if you can't explain why you like it without delving into such talk

thread for random crit theory bloggers discussing pop music

fwiw I think most of the tracks on splazsh could go on for at least ten minutes but they're all so short

still kicking myself for missing a live actress set at a festival last year where I assume this happened

I've still never heard Actress! Will remedy shortly. I'm excited for the Oneohtrix record for sure, ditto Theo Parrish. Don't know a good pile of stuff on that list. I feel like I'm over The Weeknd already; the American Apparel cover art and font put me over the edge finally. It's just too obvious.

I don't think there's anything wrong with crit theory engaging with pop music, and I enjoy reading some crit theory sometimes and really digging into things, but anyone who lets crit theory override their own intuitive aesthetic responses is pretty misguided, I'd say, and I feel sorry for them and their vast chasm of intellectualized distance between themselves and their music.

Not to say that the intellectualization of a piece of music can't be a huge part of its appeal and enjoyment, nor to say that there's really any such things as "unmediated pure aesthetic experience" or whatever, but you can tell when someone's really reaching.

btw, going back to the top of the thread:
BURIAL vs MASSIVE ATTACK - TBA [HELIGOLAND REMIXED]

still worth lols

Crit Theory just makes me go "okay... wha?" - is that the idea? It may as well be in Russian for all I can understand it.

i'm still looking forward to the next forest swords record

So do you guys have a problem with people saying "this album's best heard on big speakers" or "this is dark-room headphone music"? Just asking. I agree if someone started using crit-theory to deconstruct an album, they'd need extremely good grounds to pass the bullshitometer.

no, those are perfectly acceptable

I don't resent Actress any more than I resent a sit-up fwiw

So do you guys have a problem with people saying "this album's best heard on big speakers" or "this is dark-room headphone music"?

I'd hope anyone would have some idea of how to talk to me about something, and can tell difference between talking to me and talking at me.

ie

f someone started using crit-theory to deconstruct an album, they'd need extremely good grounds to pass the bullshitometer.

it doesnt matter how good or bad their grounds are - if someone started down this track when talking to me about a record, then they're talking at me not to me

I think it's mostly "know your audience." Some of the best speakers/conversationalists I know are great at packing in information by giving a quick summary of salient points to the point where even if you're familiar, it's not annoying to hear again.

If you're immediately referencing a philosophical concept I may or may not know and are attempting to engage with me about an album on that standpoint, it's kind of a failure of communication, or you're a dick for implying I need to know these concepts to enjoy music.

ahh well no, you seem quite understanding xxp

thing is I picked up the Actress album less as a result of nakh's thread (although it was interesting), or anything else I read, but on the merch table after seeing him play live

which was just one unsmiley dude w/ his hood up doing raw semi-generative on-the-fly techno on a small table of kit - the more I think about that the more bringing crit theory on board seems like abject madness

this is where I reiterate for the 50th time that I want kodwo eshun to write more on music

Am I wrong in thinking that it misses the entire thrust and point of critical theory to employ it in the service of explaining *why* one enjoys a piece of art?

haha yeah, it seems like you are more explaining why you like critical theory than why you like music

Am I wrong in thinking that it misses the entire thrust and point of critical theory to employ it in the service of explaining *why* one enjoys a piece of art?

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 31 August 2011 16:46 (1 minute ago)

sure

actress is just particularly amenable to that post-grime theory blog tendency

'wack'

this rustie clip is pretty exciting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8C1RmVJ1xE