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

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Flagrantly ceremonious!
Premature death clock ticking!
Matured lost boys!
Genuine purity!

They read like bad Titus Andronicus lyrics.

Unsettled defender (ithappens), Sunday, 21 June 2015 19:28 (eight years ago) link

shades of eye of argon

difficult listening hour, Monday, 22 June 2015 06:46 (eight years ago) link

"Abraham raves doubtlessly"

I'm glad the AI that wrote the fake newspaper articles in Sim City 2000 is still around and has moved on to music criticism, really missed that guy

undergraduate dance (a passing spacecadet), Monday, 22 June 2015 09:08 (eight years ago) link

in fact, thank you stranger for my new display name

Abraham raves doubtlessly (a passing spacecadet), Monday, 22 June 2015 09:09 (eight years ago) link

Dammit, you beat me to it

Continue your brooding monologue (Re-Make/Re-Model), Monday, 22 June 2015 09:14 (eight years ago) link

Monday morning treat for the real headz:

http://thequietus.com/users/7759

http://thequietus.com/articles/10111-quicksand-slip-reissue-review

Hardcore’s Youth Crews were suffering from a spot of biological decline and required something slightly decelerated to get angry to. Amongst punk’s wilting complacency and Seattle’s slow-broiling illegitimacy, missing links began to occur. Bands had too many influences and not enough coherent fluidity between them.

2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Monday, 22 June 2015 10:06 (eight years ago) link

"It was 1993 - one year before Kurt Cobain swallowed a mouthful of Remington."

The new Jim Thompson is born.

Unsettled defender (ithappens), Monday, 22 June 2015 11:07 (eight years ago) link

I changed my coherent fluidity this morning.

The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 June 2015 11:20 (eight years ago) link

(have sneaking suspicion i am guilty of a number of this guy's sins myself tbh)

appropriation and whatnot (stevie), Monday, 22 June 2015 11:20 (eight years ago) link

hey fashioned abrasive intelligence, enmeshed with instrumental chaos. It was absolute pandemonium. Yet all the mess and disharmony seemed professionally maintained. The irrefutable severity of tracks like 'Head To Wall' and 'Lie And Wait', elevate beyond anarchy. As snares penetrate incessant hi-hat slaps, sludgy riffs travel like aggressive circle pits. They permeate an authentic dissonance, accentuated by Shreifels’s husked, tonal wails.

Stop. Using. Words.

Continue your brooding monologue (Re-Make/Re-Model), Monday, 22 June 2015 12:01 (eight years ago) link

"The soulful whines of John Legend".

Dorian, I'm spiking your Nina Simone piece and getting Tom Watson to rewrite it.

Unsettled defender (ithappens), Monday, 22 June 2015 12:30 (eight years ago) link

why would you capitalize "Youth Crews"? like they were the Whig Party or something. maybe the capital Y is okay. it's a sub-genre...but even those don't get capitalized...hmmm....

scott seward, Monday, 22 June 2015 14:54 (eight years ago) link

grammar rules not my strong suit...

scott seward, Monday, 22 June 2015 14:55 (eight years ago) link

Dictionary.com has never heard of the word "consilient."

the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 22 June 2015 14:57 (eight years ago) link

this is a certain kind of earnest solipsistic dude writing: the boy who thinks he can build style while retaining his authenticity by using a thesaurus, rather than reading good prose written by other humans....

Swag Heathen (theStalePrince), Monday, 22 June 2015 15:14 (eight years ago) link

http://www.cine-vue.com/search/label/Tom%20Watson?max-results=30

During the making of Metropolis (1927) Germany was caught in a tundra of political restructure and cinematic prosperity. Beneath the cindered waste cast aside by the First World War was a fatherland set for reform by the Weimar Republic and a film industry set to take the world stage. The so-called 'ethic of change' was in the air and the country's cultural isolation was dwindling. With the realities of war being all too real, the Expressionist movement was en vogue and German auteurs were at the forefront of an artistic uprising. The likes of Robert Weine and Fritz Lang were paving a macabre, fantastical path that would reshape the forms of storytelling. Deep in metaphor, heaped in rhetoric.

2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Monday, 22 June 2015 16:27 (eight years ago) link

It's fortune telling and chaos as death that riddles Wiene's fantastical landscape. At the time, Caligari was said to have unsettled its audiences. Critics applauded its ability to "squeeze and turn and adjust the eye". It was also said to be a criterion for the slowly emerging intentions of Nazism. This is by and large a warped overstatement of a film that was impossible not to influence generations of artists, thinkers and, ultimately governing societies. Wiene's film was an inspiring footnote to the ever-increasing ascendancy of twenties Dada and Surrealism.

2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Monday, 22 June 2015 16:29 (eight years ago) link

Approximately a year ago today, a swarm of antipathy left London in a choke-hold as a series of riots engulfed the capital. What began as a peaceful protest against police brutality mutated into a beast more brutal than anyone could have envisaged. Described as 'copycat violence' by the media, thousands upon thousands took to the streets in a tirade of hateful ignorance. And from this ignorance stemmed an easy target - youth culture. Thankfully, Tarun Thind's 2010 assured short English aims to bring vital balance to the debate.

2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Monday, 22 June 2015 16:31 (eight years ago) link

his writing is a tundra of magisterial clichés and fantastical imagery, a swarm of antipathetic words embracing the reader in a choke-hold of helpless delight

drash, Monday, 22 June 2015 17:10 (eight years ago) link

Approximately a year ago today, a swarm of antipathy left London in a choke-hold

pfah, they shoulda took the train

"As snares penetrate incessant hi-hat slaps, sludgy riffs travel like aggressive circle pits. They permeate an authentic dissonance, accentuated by Shreifels’s husked, tonal wails."

Nothing beats that feeling when your authentic dissonance gets fully permeated by.... I have no idea...snares maybe? Sludgy riffs? what is a husked wail, let alone a husked tonal wail?

Fatalist AmandaPalmistry (irrational), Monday, 22 June 2015 21:29 (eight years ago) link

"The Shreifel's Husked Tonal Whale, a rarity in these sludgy riffs, permeates the authentic dissonance only to be attacked by a roaming gang of aggressive Circlepits, whose snares penetrate the beast's incessant hi-hat slaps."

like a giraffe of nah (forksclovetofu), Monday, 22 June 2015 21:36 (eight years ago) link

That reads better tbh

Fatalist AmandaPalmistry (irrational), Monday, 22 June 2015 21:47 (eight years ago) link

I have a BS in copy

like a giraffe of nah (forksclovetofu), Monday, 22 June 2015 22:19 (eight years ago) link

'Permeate', tbh, has needed a couple decades in the penalty box for... at least a couple decades

demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Monday, 22 June 2015 23:50 (eight years ago) link

It was a revolution of the solar cycle ago when Dylan Carlson and this writer exchanged passionate thrusts of verbosity. No rheumy eruptions could be detected from where I resided, like all hominid creation, in a prison of flesh.

I'm getting this needlepointed.

wronger than 100 geir posts (MacDara), Tuesday, 23 June 2015 11:54 (eight years ago) link

Dylan Carlson and this writer exchanged passionate thrusts of verbosity.

can believe this

2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Tuesday, 23 June 2015 11:56 (eight years ago) link

Is everyone taking Tom Watson inspired user names now?

Flagrantly ceremonious whines of John Legend (ithappens), Tuesday, 23 June 2015 12:20 (eight years ago) link

Just changed mine again so we don't get too many people being flagrantly ceremonious.

Roaming gang of aggressive circlepits (ithappens), Tuesday, 23 June 2015 12:21 (eight years ago) link

how do we go about inviting tom watson to ilm btw

bizarro gazzara, Tuesday, 23 June 2015 12:24 (eight years ago) link

"Swarm of Antipathy" sounds like a Suffocation song (or album title).

the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, 23 June 2015 12:35 (eight years ago) link

speaking of antipathy

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840233/art-metal

j., Thursday, 25 June 2015 13:54 (eight years ago) link

"what value is there in saying that I like Rihanna and Tegan and Sara? Everybody likes Rihanna and Tegan and Sara."

Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB), Friday, 26 June 2015 04:04 (eight years ago) link

that's the kind of thing that makes me want to stop talking about music in any medium in case there's even a sliver of a chance I come off like that

from what I understand of this dude though that isn't the kind of emotion he wrestles with right

there was a lot of beer and people doing sit ups, (laughs) (DJ Mencap), Friday, 26 June 2015 09:04 (eight years ago) link

I thought that piece was overall quite good. Are you saying that one part ruined the whole thing for you?

the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Friday, 26 June 2015 10:24 (eight years ago) link

are any of those bands particularly arty? they're all pretty accessible through the medium of weed.

deboer way too self-impressed shocker

Think about the audience, though. This piece is on Vox - therefore it's aimed at, and being read by, half-aspie Poli Sci nerds who think listening to Sleater-Kinney means they're still hardcore, even though they spend all day fellating members of Congress in print. Introducing those people to metal is tough work, and even though to the half-aspie music nerds of ILM all these bands are gonna be the usual suspects and last decade's news, there are still plenty of people who've never heard them. Also, I like this part; it's a sentiment that needs emphasizing more often:

"If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. This is music, not church. 'It’s not for me' is one of the most freeing, most useful statements you can make."

Honestly, it's not perfect or anything, the High On Fire blurb in particular is kinda lazy (though I like the fact that he rides for Snakes for the Divine, 'cause I like that album a lot too - a clean production job really benefited them). But overall, the writing is much better - in terms of quality of prose, clarity of thinking, and absence of glaring spelling errors and grammatical fuck-ups - than 90 percent of Pitchfork, never mind the shit that usually lands in this thread. And frankly, that Tom Watson guy has set way too fucking high a bar for someone who can come up with something as funny as "The last time I tried to play a Sunn 0))) album I caught my dog writing a suicide note" to clear.

Based on this evidence, I would much rather read DeBoer on music than on politics.

the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Friday, 26 June 2015 12:14 (eight years ago) link

the thought is sophomoric

j., Friday, 26 June 2015 14:38 (eight years ago) link

half-aspie Poli Sci nerds who think listening to Sleater-Kinney means they're still hardcore

yawn at ever thinking of an audience in this way

yeah I mean doing a piece like this with a plan to appeal to your hypothetical audience's worst hypothetical nature just seems sad and self-defeating

there was a lot of beer and people doing sit ups, (laughs) (DJ Mencap), Friday, 26 June 2015 16:09 (eight years ago) link

point ...................................................... you

for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Friday, 26 June 2015 16:49 (eight years ago) link

^ permeating slow-broiling illegitimacy imo

2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Friday, 26 June 2015 17:10 (eight years ago) link

If Tom Watson never makes it here I could try to post more like him, if you like

rahrah avis (imago), Friday, 26 June 2015 17:33 (eight years ago) link

should I have any idea what that means

for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Friday, 26 June 2015 17:56 (eight years ago) link

lmao freddie deboer's debut dive into the DC media spawning tank and it's THIS

i can't type lololololololol enough

goole, Friday, 26 June 2015 18:53 (eight years ago) link

Man "half-aspie" is gross & mean

kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 3 July 2015 22:31 (eight years ago) link

are you surprised

for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Friday, 3 July 2015 22:32 (eight years ago) link

a 9/10 review of a deserving album but horrifying on pretty much every other level:
http://www.spin.com/2015/06/review-vince-staples-summertime-06/

some dude, Monday, 6 July 2015 00:16 (eight years ago) link

writer seems like a real charmer too
http://defamer.gawker.com/read-the-insanely-weird-emails-this-music-journalist-se-1413243759

some dude, Monday, 6 July 2015 00:16 (eight years ago) link


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