pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

NWA is the only group I have actually heard at a party that wasn't explicitly old school hip hop

old school hip hop is great at parties though

I don't really agree with the above quote I posted. There's hip hop for parties which is the kind of hip hop kids cut a rugs to these days and there's conscious, political hip hop which really should be avoided like the plague at social gatherings. NWA is the latter.

There's the middle ground of course. Grandmaster Flash's The Message per example is a great party song that still sounds fresh in 2015 and it's also a great sociopolitical song, that has a... well, message that still sounds relevant.

itt chickenshit points out that excessively calling out NWA for sexism is exasperating
― Meta Forksclove-Liebeskind (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, August 26, 2015 10:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is not at all what happened.

Something 2 Dance 2: https://youtu.be/kcI_rUWHSmo

That is actually a good, yet an incredibly stupid and unremarkable party song. Not their usual style though, it's clearly filler.

old school hip hop is great at parties though

I don't really agree with the above quote I posted. There's hip hop for parties which is the kind of hip hop kids cut a rugs to these days and there's conscious, political hip hop which really should be avoided like the plague at social gatherings. NWA is the latter.

Right, like last Thursday when I was playing out in a bar and mixed Fetty Wap into "Boyz-n-the-Hood" and people lost it.

"Something 2 Dance 2" is more hedgebetting than filler. Straight Outta Compton is as full of trap doors and get out of jail free cards as any album ever.

if it's a half assed effort that sounds like it was just for fun is filler. It doesn't sound like a serious hedgefunding effort that would have saved them if anything else failed.

Salon weighs in:

"But was it really so urgent to put George Benson’s “Give Me the Night” (just about all of his jazz guitar songs are better and less overplayed), Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin (Every Time You’re Near),” Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels,” Hall and Oates “I Can’t Go For That,” or Phil Collins’ drum machine nightmare “In the Air Tonight”?"

http://www.salon.com/2015/08/27/are_these_really_the_best_songs_of_the_80s_picking_apart_pitchforks_fascinating_frustrating_list/

atrociously proofread too

All great, stuff

Thank you, stuff said

xpost

isn't something 2 dance 2 Arabian Prince's sole contribution to that record? not sure about hedgebetting, but he, Dre and Yella all had electro roots prior to NWA, so this just seems like their (token?) acknowledgement of them.

Man, the '80s were so long ago, and there were just soooo many songs. So many. I can barely remember them all. Like, remember "Bette Davis Eyes?" I think it was the first hit song with a Synare in it. How about Donnie Iris' "Ah Leah"? What happened to that guy!?

itt chickenshit points out that excessively calling out NWA for sexism is exasperating
― Meta Forksclove-Liebeskind (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, August 26, 2015 10:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is not at all what happened.
― mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Thursday, August 27, 2015 6:58 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's too bad that in that one piece of blurb real estate no one directly tackled NWA's sexism, because then it could more accurately reflect every other piece being written about NWA in 2015
― mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Thursday, August 27, 2015 1

give me a different reading of this sentence

isn't something 2 dance 2 Arabian Prince's sole contribution to that record? not sure about hedgebetting, but he, Dre and Yella all had electro roots prior to NWA, so this just seems like their (token?) acknowledgement of them.

― Dominique, Thursday, August 27, 2015 2:35 PM Bookmark

Yeah, it's the only track AP was involved with. I always kinda looked at the track as those three going "well if this new gangsta thing doesn't work out..." we still have something for the clubs. Like OF COURSE they slapped it on the b-side of "Gangsta, Gangsta". And then there's "Express Yourself" as another trap door, just leading to a different room.

I think I've read twenty or so of the blurbs, just kind of going through it and reading ones I was interested in. I'm interested in the extent to which these blurbs (and, in a wider sense, modern pop criticism in general) ends up staying within a formula. The things I see as possibly being formulaic would be:

1) Possibly talk about the narrative of the song or sociological aspects of the lyrics.

2) Maybe talk a little about the performances. (I say a little because I don't know if I'm seeing a lot of this.)

3) Talk about production and technology, reflecting a certain small -in my opinion - pool of interests (who used gated drums, who used a Fairlight, who used certain drum machines, etc.)

I realize that number one on there can mean a lot of things, so maybe I'm questioning the extent to which it's become formulaic in practice, in execution.

4) talk about how the song functioned in a film which may or may not have actually been made in the 80s, or talk about the MTV video.

5) display results of whosampled.com search.

That Salon article is so useless.

there are really only so many ways to write a blurb like this for something other than your personal blog

I don't agree. I'm not sure why that's any different from saying that there are only so many ways to write a song or do some other creative act. And why writing for Pitchfork, in particular, necessitates these things is something I'm also unclear about.

(or some other venue that's something other than a blog)

I just realized they snubbed Peter Schilling - Major Tom it would have been a better addition than those two Bowie songs. It's kind of the unofficial sequel to Ashes to Ashes and Space Oddity.

Or if you're going to have a Bowie single from the 80's Ashes to Ashes is the right one.

re: Salon; there are a lot of things to say about how weird some of the list choices are, but "WHERE IS UNCLE TUPELO?" is definitely not something that would come to mind

Damn, the 80s were great. You could totally make a Top 10,000 Songs of the 80s list and it would all be great stuff. I don't think you could do that for any other decade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3MXiTeH_Pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p00Cf1-tABo

1982 version superior for inclusion of the word "hobo" in the chorus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

HOW IS THIS NOT ON THE LIST?

srsly!

ha I'm skimming through their 90s list and found the answer to "Where's George Michael?"

still discussing the '80s list...

Another two notable "re-writing of canon" omissions that would have been included 10-20 years ago are "Take On Me" and "Don't You Forget About Me."

seems like a lot of big well respected MTV staples missed out. i mean, "Come On Eileen," shit.

Yeah, that was the other one that surprised me earlier along with "Don't Stop Believing."

They probably could've dumped something in favor of one of the singles from Pyromania or Hysteria. Even one of the GNR placements.

as someone who wasn't around for "Come On Eileen" the fact that anyone thinks it's anything but utter and complete shit is mind-boggling

like, I'm half-convinced everyone is collectively trolling, that's how bad it is

as someone who wasn't around for "Come On Eileen" the fact that anyone thinks it's anything but utter and complete shit is mind-boggling
--for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine)

I like "Come on Eileen," but it's a real dumb pole to hang your "but white people made music too flag on"

Dexys were a fine band, and Come on Eileen was a pretty good single, but the way some people ride or die for them doesn't make any sense to me.

Like at least start with the lack of Police and Devo before working your way down to DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS TURALORLALALAY

overreacting to the supposed overreaction nobody actually had is so fun

is the veneration of Dexys/Kevin Rowland as a godlike genius mostly a UK thing? I get the impression that they are largely seen a one hit wonder in North America?

I'd venture a guess that most people in the US who know Come on Eileen don't even know the name of the band who recorded it.

the veneration of Dexys hasn't got much to do with "Come On Eileen"

Fuck The Police

Save Ferris, duh

Tom Ewing gave "Come On Eileen" a rare perfect ten in that review-every-number-one-single-ever blog.