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

Vinyl is back. And with the best year in terms of sales since 1988, it doesn’t seem like vinyl is going anywhere.

It's true. Astonishing numbers.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgJuCq5XEAA3hoG.jpg

I didn't know vinyl sales were on the decline a good three-to-four years before CDs came out in 1984. What were people buying in the early 80s? Cassettes?

Yes. The Walkman changed everything.

I was. And like lots of people I didn't start buying CDs until well after 1984 -- 1992, maybe?

They didn't fit in the Walkman, was the thing.

I switched in '92 as well. Went from walkman to discman.

What is the source of that graphic above?

Home taping is killing the music industry.

We got a CD player in... 1985? 1986? I know I did the Columbia House thing in 1987 to jumpstart my collection and taped them to play in my Walkman (one perk of my dad working for 3M was piles and piles and piles of cheap blank cassettes basically any time I wanted them)

never would have guessed that 45 single sales outstripped LPs consistently like that

xp

i think that graph was first published on digitalmusicnews.com, which claims the figures are from the riaa

taped them to play in my Walkman

Me, too. That was the first time I started being interested in sound quality as a thing, was when I noticed how much better tapes recorded from CDs sounded than tapes recorded from vinyl.

Maybe I'm being picky. because it's not the content that's bad here, but the writing is...ugh.

http://flavorwire.com/571669/grimes-reveals-that-numerous-male-producers-have-demanded-sex-from-her?utm_campaign=FlavorwireSocial&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

That second paragraph is a killer.

"So it’s no surprise that Grimes, who, as a completely autonomous artist — Claire Boucher writes, records, produces, mixes, and masters everything that she attaches the “Grimes” label to — has routinely criticized both the music industry and the media at large for misrepresenting her as simply a muse, a singer that attaches her voice to other people’s (note: male’s) productions, would eventually have to speak on the subject."

or is it just me? Maybe I'm having a morning.

"So apparently Dr. Luke isn’t the only male producer in the industry who might be awful."

never would have guessed that 45 single sales outstripped LPs consistently like that

xp

― Οὖτις, Monday, April 18, 2016 11:44 AM (2 hours ago)

hard to tell if the light green + dark green are supposed to be = total vinyl sales, in which case LPs outsold 45s except for like a 10-year stretch in the 90s. not sure what the explanation of that would be

yeah, when compared to this chart, also produced by the riaa, it becomes clear that the amounts sold are stacked. so, LPs were outselling singles for most of the period in question here. makes sense, aor heyday.

^ shows that vinyl sales are still a tiny portion of the total, with CDs and downloads making up the bulk. also, perhaps suggests that CD sales and downloads are both establishing a plateau?

Grimes’ outspokenness is an important step to guaranteeing that accusations such as Kesha’s are treated with the respect they deserve, rather than as the complaints of someone who is simply unhappy in a recording contract.

jesus christ

So apparently Dr. Luke isn’t the only male producer in the industry who might be awful.

you don't say

"You know what I really want? I want to watch the Beyonce videos." (googles)

"Long Live Queen Bey, for she has graced us with an unparalleled release event combining music, video, and everything that we already love about Beyoncé. Building on everything that she promised when she debuted the video for "Formation" the weekend of the Super Bowl, Beyoncé's Lemonade HBO premiere event took an equally important television slot (the Game of Thrones premiere weekend), and made it entirely her own. Now that everyone has taken the time to fully absorb all of Beyoncé's new music that has just been unleashed onto the world (although if you need more time, that's understandable), the first step is to figure out how to watch all of that goodness again. So where can you stream the Lemonade music videos?

Like a real glass of lemonade, Beyonce's Lemonade special was a sweet, refreshing treat and I would like more of it ASAP. With the HBO special also comes a new album of Beyoncé material ready to be listened to over and over again. And much like how Beyoncé's last release Beyoncé featured a video for every single song, it seems as though Lemonade is doing something similar. Beyonce's latest visual album has set the internet on absolute fire, spawning analysis of the images and lyrics that comprise Lemonade. Beyoncé fans hoping to revisit the dense project can find the project available for streaming on HBOGo, as well as on Tidal alongside the album itself.

The film lends a power to the words that is lost when listening only to the album, so be sure to revisit Lemonade as it was intended to be consumed, as a visual album."

Like a real glass of lemonade, Beyonce's Lemonade special was a sweet, refreshing treat and I would like more of it ASAP.

wow

popular drink iirc

the best part is how half the time it says Beyoncé and half the time it just says Beyonce

(also, I promised myself I'd spend less time criticizing other people's writing, but this is so cynical and empty and blatant an attempt to waste readers' time and divert them away from good artistry that it's infuriating. at least What Time Is The Super Bowl told you what time the goddamn Super Bowl was!)

The answer to that question is a little difficult for many fans to answer because, well, neither Jay Z or Beyoncé seem to know a Becky. Neither of them have mentioned one in a song before, nor have they ever been connected to a person named Becky. The only celebrity who has been connected with a Becky in any big way in the news would be Taylor Swift, i.e. in 2014 when she wore that no its Becky shirt in response to that famous internet meme in which someone purposefully confused a picture of her with that of their friend Becky. Of course, the chances of Taylor Swift being "Becky with the good hair" is pretty slim to none. She does have good hair, but she doesn't spend much time hanging out with Beyoncé or Jay Z.

obligatory youtube here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcKG4EJ6rsQ

Brad that quote made my brain bleed.

classic becky

this just seems like someone straight up trolling certain ilm posters

http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/24/people-think-james-blake-is-the-true-star-of-beyonces-lemonade-5837280/

Not a piece of writing, but I thought this exchange was worth preserving:

@leahfinnegan: nyt really needs a female music critic
@alexrossmusic: Is classical music "music"? If so, meet @CorinnadFW and @VivSchweitzer
@leahfinnegan: @alexrossmusic @CorinnadFW @VivSchweitzer point missed but thanks
@alexrossmusic: @leahfinnegan @CorinnadFW @VivSchweitzer I see your point, and am making another.

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/25/475288644/songs-we-love-nite-jewel-kiss-the-screen

there's some OK stuff in this piece, but there are also a bunch of sentences that make me think the author does not know what words mean.

e.g.

...performed her Nite Jewel alias as an equalizer between herself and the listener rather than a salable object of desire....

They're fascinating, headspace-oriented compositions with poptimist touch tones for hooks, and the freedom Gonzalez found to mix and record as she saw fit permeates the songs' breezy production....

The liberty to move and work comfortably gave Gonzalez a way to construct a dubious, vaporous record that sits outside of the facile labels that circulate the music industry....

The final graf doesn't have any obvious howlers but advances an argument that doesn't really make any sense to me.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/merle-haggard-country-music-reagan/

Haggard always sang with a furrowed brow and lolling eyes. As a young man this habit seemed flirtatious, but as he aged it made him look paranoid and sad, perpetually puppy-dogging at every camera he encountered. For some, he seemed an end-times prophet of the waning era of American prosperity, talking straight and offering potent warnings of decline.

But in reality, he was just a run-of-the-mill conservative — for Merle, the keepers of the status quo were under constant attack, and he was a fierce defender of their privilege.

He was also a hypocrite, or maybe just confused.

fuck u commie rag

a fairly lengthy takedown of that: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/04/jacobin-walking-on-the-fighting-side-of-me

Looks like Haggard's death has spawned quite a bit of poorly-composed vitriol. The response to the Jacobin piece is pretty spectacular, though.

Meanwhile, here's this one, which is indefensible from the get-go...

Jacobin is a joke.

it's nice when jacobin hands me another reason to ignore them

NIce to see Haggard used as a pivot point for completely opposed ideological factions.

"Long before “Netflix & Chill” was synonymous with sloppy Tinder finger-banging on a loveseat gifted from a family friend, Netflix was actually a different frontier altogether."

A DIFFERENT ONE ALTOGETHER!

https://medium.com/swlh/choice-the-new-democracy-of-music-c2b9fa83f72e#.2jolch89p

going by that quoted line I was surprised that wasn't av club tbh

it's true, though, netflix was indeed a different frontier. for instance, it was once a weed-smoking elmo avatar named qwikster

Do we have a thread for awful interviews?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/post/idsa.88faafb5-1c3a-11e6-8352-477931e7a37d

Who needs to do research when you have that Apple cash I guess.

awful interviews have been Ebro's niche for a long time

I mean its Interview magazine so maybe it doesn't count but

TINA WEYMOUTH: Yeah, there is a very mature approach in Dreamland, where Natalie sings, "there's no use crying." I thought, "Wow, if only our Middle Eastern brethren knew that," that the wailing and the smashing of teeth is not the way to go, but rather dreaming, and out of dreams comes a much better reality.

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/wild-belle-dreamland#_

hmm http://www.alternativenation.net/the-importance-of-music-in-entertainment/

We are all the NPR intern now:
www.mtv.com/news/2888213/de-la-soul-listening/

http://www.mtv.com/news/2888213/de-la-soul-listening/

oh man whiney i totally made myself stop and not post that...

it just seemed like a shooting fish in an internet barrel kinda thing. like with those old pitch things on pitchfork. and then people would tell me that the person who wrote it is only 15 and has started a non-profit meals on wheels group and isn't a real music writer or something and that i'm mean.

but it does totally suck.