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

Oh hey, we have finally reached the point where "I don't even own a copy of Infinite Jest" is the new "I don't even watch TV".

lol at whiney being outraged at them owning books, drinking coffee, but totally down w/ the sweatpants

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4q2h9wWsU1qc6hm5o1_500.jpg

sicko renee zellwegger holds four coffees while reading infinite jest on her iphone kindle app.

if this is some kind of nascent blog-to-book deal that's one thing but most of the posts here have like 9 notes, some of them from her best friend

God, reading that blog is like eating (not chewing, eating) that obnoxious soft pink gum that starts out hard but ends up floury and you can't ever take it out of your mouth because it just winds up sticking to everything.

what

Just a suggestion but what if the alltherecords woman actually is that naive? And like "buying into cliches" cos they apply to her? It ws boring so I didn't read much, bt she seemed nice enough.

so this is the end result of compulsory college education. thanks, obama!

There isn't anything inherently wrong w someone (male/female/whatever) not knowing anything abt music, is there?

yes i think you nailed why people might not enjoy this blog, it is because they judge the author for not knowing about music. that is clearly what is happening in this thread.

http://www.stereogum.com/962491/deconstructing-grimes/news/

Don't know if this has been posted yet but I think it is totally the worst piece of music writing ever. Everything about it is infuriating, but nothing more so than the writer's never really qualified assertion that Grimes' "disembodied" singing is "infantilized" and means she isn't a strong female agent. Fuck ascribing literal political content to aesthetic choices. Grimes is great. She can sing like an elven robot if she wants to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DE1EfSZVIA

OK what is going on then?

Of course, Grimes’ cyborg unicorn stance is an updated ideal on the continuum of the asexuality that a certain strain of indie rock values, up to and including twee

So?

wait so is that like an updated buffalo stance

(sorry i started talking abt a new topic.)

Fine by me, that blog wasn't "music writing" in the first place anyway

Seen this being passed about pretty much with this accompanying line every time "shit band but even shittier review"

http://www.nme.com/reviews/the-twang/15140

I just hate that article so much. The writer wants Grimes to be a totally different kind of musician and doesn't even once engage with the album on its own terms.

that twang review is good in an nme eating their own sort of way

the old build em up knock em down?

the twang were awful so i doubt anyone will have much sympathy

uh I don't know what is crossposting with what anymore but julianne is a really great writer who's explained that piece before and imo doesn't deserve to be mentioned with the stuff in this thread

Idk anything abt the writer. It's definitely a competently written piece i just fiercely disagree with it.

Like, i don't want to disparage this writer as a whole and god knows i appreciate the difficulty of writing criticism without overreaching in one's claims, but this particular article struck me as extremely off the mark to the point where i found myself thinking about it tonight, two years after reading it.

Julianne is a good writer sure but this piece is grossly conflating "what I'm hearing and typing" with "the axis of the author's abilities/intentions". Any discussion of Grimes sounding "infantile" has got to acknowledge that her choices on this record come from the fact that it's The Third Record That She Has (Self-)Produced. Ascribing notions of negating-self and erasing-womanness because she is a junior-producer (compared to Carey's male crew of hirelings) is, to me, exploring the extant reaches of divergence between "what you think it is, as a writer-listener" and "what it actually is, as a musician"

On a baseline level, early crit of Grimes' "I made this on Garageband" statements (equal parts disclaimer and statement of fact) led some to believe that she was deliberately pursuing a twee, thin, amateur standpoint; she had nothing but a computer and a keyboard when making this record so save these discussions for your major-label drop-screens, I guess?

I don't think this Grimes piece doesn't belong in a "worst music writing ever" thread but definitely could start its own "Poptimism proved its point many years ago, we all love Aaliyah now, please stop this myopic exclusion of homemade/DIY/reactionary/feminist/transgressive music based on the fact that it sounds 'unprofessional'" thread

*belongs, not "doesn't belong".

julianne is a really great writer who's explained that piece before

Hmm. I don't know what this means exactly, but if you've had to "explain" something you've written then the original piece has surely failed in its intent.

nme twang review is fine, i really don't see what is "bad music journalism" about it, unless you are a member of the twang.

A 150-word Twang review is stretching the definition of writing anyway - what would be a good one? - but I hate stuff like "trundling about aimlessly like a doddery tortoise who can’t remember if it even wants another bit of lettuce but is ambling on regardless". Just meaningless and unfunny. Why do you need "trundling", "aimlessly", "doddery" and "ambling" in the same sentence anyway? We know how tortoises move.

it means she's addressed this criticism before, forget where

I don't think this Grimes piece doesn't belong in a "worst music writing ever" thread but definitely could start its own "Poptimism proved its point many years ago, we all love Aaliyah now, please stop this myopic exclusion of homemade/DIY/reactionary/feminist/transgressive music based on the fact that it sounds 'unprofessional'" thread

Pretty OTM here.

Re: that Grimes piece, I wish critics would at least think twice before calling music "asexual" or "sexless" or whatever, and think about if there's maybe more precise verbiage they could use. When I read shit like that, more than anything it makes the critic sound like a dopey college kid who just read Freud in a literary theory class.

My Husband's Stupid Record Collection just published her take on Albert Ayler's Spirits Rejoice. I really don't know if it belongs in this thread but I am fascinated and deeply disturbed by this blog. I can't decide if it's the ultimate troll or there's something more there...

http://alltherecords.tumblr.com/post/79768774507/albert-ayler-spirits-rejoice

I wish critics would at least think twice before calling music "asexual" or "sexless" or whatever, and think about if there's maybe more precise verbiage they could use.

i don't think it's about verbiage, i think it's more about that fact that demanding artists be "sexual" -- or in this case, tap into the "dark arts of womanness" (sic) -- is a weird thing to do.

xp

that is how like 99% of the living human population would respond?

it's one of my favorite records ever (actually the only ayler album i've heard entirely) but i find her review less annoying than his bit

i don't care what most people would say. it's not cool to use the expression "the emperor has no clothes" ever, really, but especially in regard to albert ayler.

xp I didn't word it well, but that's what I was trying to get across. It's demanding artists express a very specific version of "sexuality," whether or not it's aligned to the artists' goals.

I feel like in the post-poptimism age, "asexual," "sexless," or similar terms have become as stale as old rockist dudes saying something isn't "dangerous" or "rebellious" or whatever.

It did however, lead to this exchange after that WaPo Arcade Fire review:

https://twitter.com/Chris__Richards/status/395251870622425088

intheblanks onthemoney

lol it's made it to fact http://www.factmag.com/2014/03/16/a-librarian-rates-her-husbands-stupid-record-collection-one-at-a-time-on-this-ace-blog/

not sure someone's perfectly genuine thoughts about their husband's record collection should be lumped in with examples of terrible music criticism, but feel free to snark away everyone.

No idea why people're being such dicks abt this blog tbh, it's exactly like zachlyon said, vast majority of ppl wld respond like this to Ayler etc

Otoh I'm beginning to enjoy her blog quite a bit so

the copy of INFINITE JEST and the iPhone and the coffee all in the frame is just too much

"Before I started listening to this, I was waiting for my tea to be ready, so I sat down and looked at the cover."

OK, every time I try to read that blog, it crashes my browser (it must have some autoembedded player in it) but from what I've read, it is very, very different from what I was expecting, due to the comments in this thread.

What raises *my* feminist hackles is when a woman does a thing, and then everyone goes on to criticise her for the thing being ~too stereotypically feminine~ or ~not stereotypically feminine enough~ ergo whatever the woman has done, it is RONG and use "~feminism~" as a justification for it.

I was expecting her to make a big deal of her gender, and she doesn't. What she makes a big deal over, is that she is a Non Music-Fan, and describes how a Non Music-Fan listens to and processes unfamiliar music. At some point (and I'm not sure where, because I don't read it in her writing, but I sure read it all over this thread) the responses of "Non Music-Fan" has been gendered into "clueless girl". Combine that with pictures of an attractive hipster-ish young woman: ILX OUTRAGE.

I dunno; I don't *gender* her responses. It happens to be a woman writing about her husband's record collection. I have several confused and confounded ex boyfriends who could have written *that exact blog* of wrestling with my record collection and going "WTF is this Experimental Audio Research record, I think there are maybe synths on it?" But I doubt that would have attracted anything like the attention, because: gender. People are reading this blog, not as "non music fanatic listens to records" but either as "ISN'T IT SO CUTE WHEN (CLUELESS) GURLS LISTEN TO MUSIC" or as "OMG ISN'T IT AWFUL WHEN PEOPLE CALL GIRLS CLUELESS ABOUT MUSIC, I DON'T LISTEN TO MUSIC LIKE THIS!!!"

When the thing is, at no point does *she* ever seem to conflate "clueless" and "girl" and "non music fan". She admits to being "non music fan" and yes, it's sexist to conflate "girl" and "clueless" and "non music fan" but it's the people reading that blog and bringing their preconceptions and doing the heavy lifting of generating the sexism here.

But, like I said, there is nothing ILX likes to do more than hate on attractive young women Doing Things in public, and extra double ILX points if you can somehow position your hatred as "feminist".

- usually enjoy writing about music from an outsider perspective and BB otm that there's not necessarily anything wrong with the project per se but that woman's writing voice is really annoying BUT what are we doing going in on amateurs without a significant audience when this world is full of terrible professional writing

- julianne e.s. is one of the best writers in the game right now and while i wouldn't criticise grimes on those terms i don't see anything that bad about that piece

npr yuppie /= clueless girl

the annoyance and focus on this obscure little blog is bizarre though. someone somewhere on the internet is a moron, what else is new. at least w/ ott you have the angle of someone who was a tiny part of something huge now when it was also tiny and you get to watch and wonder when he's finally going to kill himself and how many other ppl he's going to take w/ him. this is just daniel stern's character from diner crossed w/ some denis leary mtv spot.

julianne e.s. is one of the best writers in the game right now nine years ago

have long thought most pop cult crits should have short shelf lifes anyway and then move on to something potentially productive (actual journalism maybe, like john leland, or, if all other options have been exhausted, become an actual musician, create something, test yr theory), and shepherd's just another example of why.

Criticism is creating something though.