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

Fatboy Slim

John Maclean

Don Henley

Bruce Willis

Christopher Guest

hey guys, didn't mean to stir up confusion...

i was asking about

"artists who go from being widely known as the instrument x player of a band to being widely known as the instrument/role y guy of a different band"

...because as someone pointed out, just playing more than one instrument is not that uncommon.....

probably could have worded it better, but just a quick post spurred by idle curiosity....

also, great shot of lemmy.....

this thread made me go back and listen to Big Me, which i regret

grant hart would be relevant point of comparison for grohl, except sounding a bit like husker du never really brought him any great success
― john wahey (NickB), Wednesday, November 19, 2014 4:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Except Grant was a main songwriter and sang in Husker Du

so... are we all pretending that deej's Chief Keef review never happened or did no one else see it

for reference: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20027-chief-keef-gucci-mane-back-from-the-dead-2big-gucci-sosa/

idk if anyone thought it was bad???

I find Deej's tireless efforts to cast Keef as anything more than a nihilistic moron p baffling but it's not like the piece is badly written/constructed. Deej is a good writer who knows what he's doing

I don't see how anyone could read the sentence He plays his own narrative close to the vest, letting his story loom below his elliptical rhymes like ice cubes in a glass and not notice that it is saying the exact opposite of what it's supposed to say, for starters.

people who like keef are v dedicated to defending him on what are occasionally shaky grounds, but that particular review is overall solidly written minus the overcooked sentence here and there (and who, among people who professionally or as amateurs write about music, hasn't written one of those?)

I must be missing something cuz that sentence parses correctly to me - close-to-the-vest and keeping things below the surface are related metaphors.

idk why I'm defending this, I find Keef unlistenable

xp

see now im trying to again after ignoring it for like...well over a year

i can see the appeal better now (by far) than i could then - it's one of the closest things rap has to punk sensibilities that isn't, like, fucking ill bill or odd future (barf)...but in a universe where gunplay and waka flocka fill that void & are also capable of nuanced/emotional stuff amid the chaos, why bother?

*trying it again

I must be missing something cuz that sentence parses correctly to me - close-to-the-vest and keeping things below the surface are related metaphors.

Ice cubes float and most glasses are transparent. He's trying to suggest hidden depths by using imagery that is all surface and visibility.

ah it's a fun review, i love deej's writing about keef just because it's so adorbs to me, or i wish i could hear the keef that deej hears

this also made me lol

Like King Louie, he will lock into a particular pattern for several lines, using extreme slant rhymes ("I just hit a stain, finagle/ I just hit a stain, finito"), as if trying to demolish the distance between words themselves, or to camouflage his thoughts. He’s made rhyming a word with itself into an art form of its own—he likes to complete the circuit early, or to let words stay static while the meaning shifts ("Nigga don’t slip, you lose it, then you lose it").

Ice cubes float and most glasses are transparent.

ok well he should have gone for the iceberg metaphor but obviously the part of the image he was trying to emphasize was the beneath the surface part

He’s made rhyming a word with itself into an art form of its own

yeah this was lolz

let words stay static while the meaning shifts ("Nigga don’t slip, you lose it, then you lose it").

i really like this about keef. it reminds me of mallarmé in a way -- the same word (or sound) deployed in different contexts can mean ten different things. of course, keef's rhymes are pretty limpid compared to the density of the poetry i'm thinking of, but still.

basically i dont just know why one doesnt just transfer this enthusiasm to like...3 other, better, less blatantly sociopathic rappers from the same scene

because yeah...you dont have to have complex rhymes to make powerful statements but his are almost always neither, just rage & there are rappers who do rage better from his scene and various others

the same word (or sound) deployed in different contexts can mean ten different things.....like a basketball, player

i want to go on the record though i think deej is a great hip hop writer for real & i liked reading that review

agreed

thought of a sidebar stemming off this but will post in goon thread

using extreme slant rhymes ("I just hit a stain, finagle/ I just hit a stain, finito")

technically "two three-syllable words that begin with f" rather than a "slant rhyme," but hey, who gives a shit about terminology

I'm gonna assume he pronounces it fin-ay-go

Deej's opinions and theories about Keef are generally batshit insane, but certainly well-argued and well-written.

Ideally they would be published in a place like the Chuck Eddy-era Village Voice instead of a place so rooted in "editorial voice" but w/e

im not going to defend my review on ilx bc i think thats prob bad form / bad precedent but i dont think keef is either nihlistic or a sociopath, at least any more so than boosie or spice 1 or any other gangster rapper throughout history, w/ age & experience artists evolve & early boosie is all "the one who rap bout killin, shootin, marijuana distribution"—def feel like those ideas have been foisted on keef due to the discussion around chicago violence that blew up around him, people blame him in a way they wouldnt do to idk c-bo or someone...its very strange

actually, i will defend the ice cube thing bc wtf that totally makes sense, when you drop ice cubes in a glass a tiny piece of them pokes above the water and the rest *looms* below

http://www.ginnytonkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Do-not-think-it-means.jpeg

Not music, but if there's ever been anything worse, it would drive the insane maaad:

http://www.examiner.com/article/robert-de-niro-book-darkest-secrets-shawn-levy-book-alleges-drugs-bad-temper

xp ffs its exaggerated for scale obv

it was an obv reference to iceberg theory but i wanted to shift to a less cliche'd image

xxpost

"While some may only recognize him in more recent movies like “American Hustler,” [De Niro]’s talents go way back to earlier films in the 1970s and then into the 1980s."

That De Niro piece reads like it was written by a computer.

people who like keef are v dedicated to defending him on what are occasionally shaky grounds, but that particular review is overall solidly written minus the overcooked sentence here and there (and who, among people who professionally or as amateurs write about music, hasn't written one of those?)

― hanley ramirez ordering a pizza (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:10 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I often read back my own reviews and realise I'm as guilty of this as anything. Do any more experienced writers have a particular way of avoiding these kinds of sentences, or is it just down to practice and knowing when to reel oneself in?

low-hanging fruit I know but

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmessitte/2014/12/03/on-hozier-why-is-take-me-to-church-so-popular/

page 1 is relatively unremarkable throat-clearing, page 2 is the same old horseshit (cherry-picked lyrics? griping about Swedes? misspelled pop artists' names? yup yup yup), but page 3 is a horseshit tour de force

That De Niro piece reads like it was written by a computer.

― rising stones cross (anagram), Monday, December 1, 2014 3:40 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's examiner, it probably was (or by an article-spinning app)

are there good three-page (web) reviews?

In terms of lyrical subject—and deftness of imagery—“Take Me To Church” has much more in common with James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (or Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes) than with the preposterously sexualized transformation of Nic Jonas or Ariana Grande

!!!

http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-artists-cant-survive-as-saints-and-martyrs

haven't actually read it but it's a think piece on pomplamoose so ... shruggy emoticon

It's actually good. It's not about Pomplamoose really, it's about the way American society treats its artists.

yeah p good piece

the forbes piece is like.......ever time i think we've reached a cellar for wites writing sanctimoniously about the triumphs (or lack of attention paid to) "real" music, we fall even lower

also i had never heard of pomplamoose (i know rite total ILX party foul, i have been led to believe) and...um wut

not like "this prob sucks" necessarily, i haven't tried it, but the overall explanation of what they are....i think "um wut" will remain a fair reaction regardless of how they sound

wait, were people really criticizing Pomplamoose for over-paying their band? Given all of their annoying traits, this seems like one of the least objectionable things they could do. Or am I missing some crucial detail?

but for real though, why is that Hozier song so popular