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

if this was c.jan '13 there'd be a joke about tescos and turduckens in there

I feel kind of blessed that Britpop was just never a significant or noteworthy force in my life. It just kind of passed over me like a cloud. Small good things.

Girls & Boys by Blur is a jam. Good job England

Girls & Boys the only blur i really need. love it so much. still probably my fave 80's homage of the last 25 years.

when "Girls & Boys" was briefly Blur's big song in America i thought "they're huge in England, they must have good songs that are hits over there and then they just sent something uncharacteristically dumb over to break America." not only was i totally wrong but basically predicting "Song 2."

When Song 2 came out I remember thinking "this is weird, it seems like it should rock really, really hard, and yet somehow it doesn't quite"

http://observer.com/2014/04/robert-mccormicks-daughter-responds-to-nyt-magazine-cover-story/

this is why we can't have nice things

I'm confused as to whose side I'm on.

“You’re not allowed to sit on these things for half a century, not when the culture has decided they matter,” Mr. Sullivan writes in the article, referring to the transcript.

~~someone~~ is gunning for a job w/ the salinger estate

This part is kinda unsettling:

Mr. Sullivan, for his part, defended his actions to the Observer in a telephone conversation shortly after the article was published.

“I won’t try to make it sound like I didn’t struggle with it,” he said of the ethical blurriness of the situation. “It’s not the kind of thing you want to do with every story.”

He added, however, that he was legally in the clear, as one cannot own somebody else’s speech, and Mr. McCormick’s transcript features the words of Elvie Thomas. (“You’re not allowed to sit on these things for half a century, not when the culture has decided they matter,” Mr. Sullivan writes in the article, referring to the transcript.)

Ms. McCormick called Mr. Sullivan’s comments “glib.”

“There is reason to believe this theft of my father’s research was their intention all along,” she said, “and that they have stolen far more from him than just the items Sullivan has publicly admitted.”

i feel like nobody comes out of this well, which might be a cop-out but hey

i guess it's hard for me to feel too much for either party, it's just two people from the same culture of eggheads that have made a cottage industry of fetishizing and collecting and hoarding precious facts and recordings about old blues singers. i guess if geechie or elvie were alive or if their families were complaining about how they never wanted to be found out or revealed i would have a problem, but honestly i feel for mccormick who seems like a real character and obviously is going through a lot of stuff, and who knows? maybe the sullivan is shady, but i kind of feel like none of this stuff really BELONGS to either of them

it was a hell of an article i will say that

He added, however, that he was legally in the clear, as one cannot own somebody else’s speech

But Sullivan published someone else's research without consent or (presumably) compensation. As a journalist, he should fucking understand that.

i think the phrase "legally in the clear" draws an obvious distinction from "behaved ethically"

Yeah seems like a dick move

i'm glad he did it. who knows, that old coot could burn his house down in the middle of the night. i support this theft. it was iphone pictures of documentation, right? i don't know the rules of consent when someone invites you into their home. can you get sued if you take a picture of someone's cat without their knowledge and post it on the internet?

i am also in favor of frivolous lawsuits against the new york times for reasons of mental anguish though. i've wanted to sue them for this many times over the years.

i mean i definitely did think about what that old coot was gonna think when he read the thing or if he was gonna have a heart attack or possibly burn his collection out of anger. but i think overall the thing was worth it. it's love and theft. that's the blues, baby. truman capote isn't really your friend. and neither are the hell's angels.

'every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. he is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.' - janet malcolm

fair points

i don't think that family is comparable to a biker gang or a convicted murderer?

truman capote didn't just write about murderers. mentioned the hell's angels merely to point out that if you write stuff like the NYT piece you are gonna get heat. not beat up, probably, but heat nonetheless.

A guy told me one time, "Don't let yourself get attached to any blues memorabilia you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10744192/10-ways-Britpop-changed-modern-manhood.html

scott, it felt like a fair assumption you were doing an in cold blood / hst comparison there

answered prayers is where capote drew the charges of betrayal and was ostracized by his friends

Not terrible but sexist:

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade/2014/04/haim_review_photos_miami_2014.php

Throughout their hour-plus set, the three sisters shook their luxurious manes and showed emotion by running fingers through their perfectly conditioned hair. If the music thing does not work out, they can count on a lucrative contract endorsing Neutrogena or Herbal Essences.

Remember when they said this about the Screaming Trees?

and they can play!

what a fucking douche. Just when I start to think rockism is an irrelevant concept now.

look at those bitches with their hair

https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-prn1/t1.0-1/c40.0.160.160/p160x160/1969162_10203528575675858_44142269950046880_n.jpg
Christopher Lopez from Facebook
1 day ago

My thoughts in print lol

Because, at the moment, not only do their lyrics and stage presence not only lack sophistication, but none of their songs contain the timeless stupidity of a catchy hook like "MMMbop" had, though their "Wire" comes the closest.

lol at hurting going HAIM in the comments

yeah didn't mean to triple post that, hope that's fixed now

girls aren't sophisticated see

If you scroll back far enough in his reviews you find out he like Cat Power though so

fortunately every Bryan Ferry review I've ever written mentions his hair

A poll on that telegraph article up thread
Worst Thing In This Daily Telegraph "10 ways Britpop changed modern manhood" Article

Possibly the most notes I ever got on a Tumblr post was that time I went to an Interpol gig and reviewed their haircuts!

(granted, it may have been semi-parodic)

Pretty sure most reviews of Hanson mentioned their hair too.

and Nelson, remember them? "The Timotei Twins"

And the Beatles.

Yeah but that was because they looked like girls with girl hair and as such were unworthy of anything more complex in terms of criticism than "lol ur hair"

to be fair who didn't lol at Nelson's hair?

not damaged/depressed = "not sophisticated" is an annoying trope in its own right, and one that probably overlaps with the gender stuff at issue here but is not exclusive to it

vmg's overall music-bloggage quality was pretty awful with a few exceptions (hi reed, thanks for being awesome) but miami's was always the most consistently embarrassing. good to see they're keeping it up

I've thought about pitching stories but