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

it's fun to imagine this putatively horrible article you are all talking about from the comments you're making.

DL: I disagree completely I'm afraid. Even if you're only taking commercial factors into consideration, I still make you completely wrong. For example, I've commissioned features on both bands in the last 12 months and they were both read by a very substantial amount of people. And presumably if a lot more credence was given to where this 'movement' actually came from then perhaps there wouldn't be loads of people shaking their heads at the idea of this book before it's even appeared. And we're looking at potential customers here - I've got to say that finding space to mention 'really awesome yummy pickles' but not The Pastels (a fairly well known band when it comes down to it) then they've lost me as a reader and presumably a lot of other people as well.

But yeah, if it's just some crass cash in on beige Hyundai couple and interesting pickles lifestyle shit designed to rake in cash - then fair play to them for not being idiots.

Given a few moments to catch my breath, I'd like to downgrade my completely to slightly.

Doran's points make a lot more sense to me than the usual ILX static about "NPR and artisanal pickles" or whatever. Like setting out to write a book about a genre and not actually mentioning the originators of the genre is a completely valid complaint. I do understand it's a populist book aimed at an American audience, but it does advertise a fundamental lack of depth not to mention where the thing comes from and what it was invented for.

I agree with s1ocki.

In fairness to the people bringing up NPR, the blurb does mention This American Life.

this american life is not on npr

it was on PRI, but they have parted ways, and have not announced their new distributor.

It's not distributed by NPR, but certainly is played by a rather large proportion of NPR affiliates.

npr is a feeling, slocki

I mean technically it's a product of Chicago Public Media, which is Chicago's NPR member organization, but this is getting down into the weeds of public radio production/distribution.

♫ Non-profits your new boyfriend's too stupid to know about ♫

Yeah, c'mon, This American Life is absolutely played on NPR stations.

For non-US folks, NPR indie is definitely a thing here. Growing up in the US, NPR was the radio station my grandparents would listen to for lite classical and soothing talk radio. In other words, it was the middlebrow radio station. So for most US folks on here, I think the fact that they've shifted toward bland indie pop is quite notable as it is a glaring indicator of where US middlebrow culture is today.

Don't know if that helps explain some of the comments above, but suffice it to say that NPR is widely broadcast across the country and is not the invention of ilxor fever dreams.

I don't know, Moodles, you say NPR, but you might mean PRI or American Public Media, which are obviously super-distinct and full of their own unique cultural signifiers.

yeah shift of a lot of npr stations from classical to kcrw indie is some tragic shit

NPR is absolutely symbolic of a certain upper-middle-class aesthetic and weaksauce political liberalism.

I think most media-savvy Americans would get that NPR is associated with a sort of "effete latte liberal" stereotype.

npr is just shorthand for public sponsored radio right? like, i don't know if WHYY = NPR but i call it npr when talking to ppl about what i heard during my commute

I don't know, Moodles, you say NPR, but you might mean PRI or American Public Media, which are obviously super-distinct and full of their own unique cultural signifiers.

^ i'm replying to this. like if u listen to terry gross, ira glass, the bbc, morning edition, all things considered, car talk, whatever - you're listening to npr i don't care what your station calls itself

xxp: how about just "liberal" without all the qualifiers?

like, what other liberals are left after NPR listeners?

Xpost

I have never heard of PRI until right now and have no idea what the distinction is between it and NPR. Maybe This American Life is broadcast on radio stations that also broadcast NPR?!?

like, what other liberals are left after NPR listeners?

teamsters???

like, what other liberals are left after NPR listeners?

― how's life, Wednesday, March 26, 2014 9:28 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sad but true question

I think there's a spectrum of left people who do at least some NPR listening, but the archetype is sort of the social-issues-only liberal. You know, for gay rights, "against racism," thinks charter schools are pretty alright, doesn't consider class politics much.

I think PRI and the like are content makers who sell programs to individual NPR stations.

@Mordy and Moodles xpost, Sorry, my post was an unsuccessful attempt to be funny after the assertion upthread that "this american life is not on npr." Looking back, what I posted looked sincere and ridiculous.

groups that are obviously democrat-aligned? seriously? local public radio listeners are a drop in a bucket compared to the majority of the party.

Growing up in the US, NPR was the radio station my grandparents would listen to for lite classical and soothing talk radio. In other words, it was the middlebrow radio station. So for most US folks on here, I think the fact that they've shifted toward bland indie pop is quite notable as it is a glaring indicator of where US middlebrow culture is today.

Yes exactly. This is what I honestly find interesting about the Spitz book. It is not an exploration of twee as an 80s/90s musical genre (though it sounds like he'll get into that). It is about a whole swath of cultural products of the past decade or two that are defined by descriptors like safe, tasteful, nostalgic, sincere, handcrafted, etc. That's absolutely a thing, and "twee" is the word I most often see applied to the broad aesthetic, even if you could argue about whether it adequately describes all of the examples thereof. If your primary connotation of "twee" is the Pastels, then it probably doesn't.

alternate title: limpdick

jaymc otm, although when I first learned the word "twee" I thought of it more narrowly -- Pomplemousse would fit, Zooey Deschanel, the "put a bird on it" sketch on Portlandia (but not EVERYTHING parodied by Portlandia). But I guess he's using it more broadly to describe a kind of warm fuzzy middlebrow.

jaymc v otm

like "farm-to-table brunch" is not something I think of as "twee" although it definitely fits this broader thing being described

is he just rewriting bobos in paradise?

If only there were a David Brooks penned book of music crit....

I think PRI and the like are content makers who sell programs to individual NPR stations.

hey guys I don't even live in the northern hemisphere but PRI is a distributor/syndicator of radio programming AFAIU

hemispherist

the hazards of using r*p g*n**s for hard statistical analysis: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-fastest-rapper-in-the-game/

(less for the writing, per se, than the dilettantism -- joey bada$$ has a release with sony and shawn chrystopher was on an owl city song, but they're "amateurs" I guess; linking that "cash"/"girls" thing with only the vaguest "this is probably not a serious indicator of anything" handwave, etc)

agreed on all points kat but beat you to it - OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Neither of you're even suggesting it's the worst ever music piece tho right?

"The seriously flawed and poorly considered music writing thread s THATAWAY pal"

xp I'm old-fashioned Doran. I don't believe in slamming a book for omissions until I've read the book and know what's actually in there.

NPR ILX is absolutely symbolic of a certain upper-middle-class aesthetic and weaksauce political liberalism.

― james franco tur(oll)ing test (Hurting 2), Wednesday, March 26, 2014 9:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I only know about the semiotics of "NPR listener" because of ILX but it seems to fit an analogy to UK shorthand use of "Guardian reader".

sounds about right

npr listeners are probably the reason the guardian has an auto-selecting 'us edition' now on their website

be the change you want to see in the world! - http://slate.me/1jYHqR7

Owen's good at this

wrong thread for owen's piece