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

Does seem to discount Ellington's influence on Mingus and George Russell, for example. The above is kinda what makes Teachout so frustrating--on the one hand, he has a point there, because Ellington's manner and his ability to integrate his players into his vehicles for their idiosyncratic abilities is really important. But Teachout is being so reductive. Neo-con jazz writer who's convinced that no one who doesn't actually play music, as he did before he began writing full-time, has anything worthwhile to say.

Most surprising of all is the long list of rock and contemporary pop singers, including Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Linda Ronstadt, and Rod Stewart, who have recorded golden-age pop songs to profitable effect and (in some cases) with passable artistic success.

Cole's Unforgettable was 25 years ago, and Ronstadt's What's New was over 30 years ago (and Ronstadt retired five years ago). You're really stretching the definition of "contemporary" there, Terry.

(also, I love how the photo of the Beatles they chose was one from the week or so when Jimmy Nicol replaced Ringo on tour.)

The Jimmy Nicol version of The Beatles will be the one to be celebrated by future generations of aging contrarians and blowhards.

"by such younger artists as Diana Krall and John Pizzarelli"

...

if you're going to go this route just go full-on snob and say that popular music lacks the depth and sophistication of the 19th century classical masters. at least beethoven's music is worth being snobby over.

Pfft, no one has ever equalled the majesty and brilliance of Og, Son of Magog
That man could hit a stone against a stone in a way that no one has equalled yet.

I know Nate P is an ILM bro (and is imo generally a strong writer) but that De La review on Pitchfork today was some condescending ageist garbage

nobody knows how to _really_ play a flute made out of a human femur anymore

was this already on here? it's kinda old but it brightened my day.

"How pertinent is music from this album? “Starman” is used in the 2016 Academy Award Best Picture Nominee, The Martian."

"If there is one album that serves as a definitive example of the era, this is it. Alice In Chains, Soundgarden and Nirvana almost fit the bill, but something about Pearl Jam, and specifically this album, crossed from alternative to mainstream and boldly proclaimed that the best music being made during the 1990s was outside the box."

"Do you know this album from 1994? Portishead is an English band, named after an English town, consisting of three fellas and a sullen female. Okay, she’s not actually sullen. Beth Gibbons is pretty damn cool, but everything about this album is soaked in sullen song. And it’s perfect for…well…doing the things adults do. It’s also a good one for single gents to have, as any liberated, independent chick will flip through your collection and pause for this cause."

"Do you like to get crunk? Before that word became a thing, it was a thing, and Outkast did it. They did it well."

"Every year, someone discovers Grace for the first time, looks at the album cover, listens to it, thinks it was probably recorded in 2012, and look to see if Jeff is playing anywhere nearby. Jeff has been dead for almost 20 years. It’s quite remarkable."

http://www.goliath.com/music/12-albums-every-dude-should-own/6/

just dude albums

I was going to not click since the concept of 12 dude albums is a great "worst music writing" concept

it seems they went the "ok, we need at least one album from each of these different segments, but be 'offbeat' and pick something less obvious"

(they're all still pretty obvious)

Ted Gioia: Bob Lefsetz with more jazz albums in his collection.

Saw some stupid BBC podcast header about how Steve Reich's "experiments in rhythm" paved the way for Daft Punk. No article text to post, but, what?

American minimalism paved the way for practically all electronic dance music

Reich though?

they probably mean that in reich, riley, cage etc etc paved the way for silver apples, kraftwerk etc thereby spawning all electronic and dance music

i mean it's kinda the same way you could say that chuck berry "paved the way" for uh...metallica or something like there's not much direct correlation but in the macro he kind of invented the rock band format and the basis of rock music

Nate P is an ILM bro (and is imo generally a strong writer) but that De La review on Pitchfork today was some condescending ageist garbage

― Wimmels, Sunday, September 4, 2016 12:31 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not someone who always agrees w Nate but I thought that was a pretty fair review

I guess I've seen the claim before but I'm a little suspicious of it, like I have a feeling it might be like that record that set ragas to a disco beat and people pretend like it's proto-acid-house or some shit when it's totally just superficially coincidental use of the same technology. But hype gonna hype.

from an old interview I found online with Carl Craig

TN: You yourself have explored the classical-electronic mix pretty
extensively, mixing those two genres live with Francesco Tristano
and on record with Moritz von Oswald. What’s so fascinating about
the combination of human and machine?

CC: The experimental works of John Cage and Steve Reich are a big
influence, using tape loops and things like that, it’s within the same
realm of using a CR-78 or an echo drum machine, something that
sounds very percussive and synthetic at the same time. It wasn’t ever
like, ‘Okay this is what you’ve got to listen to’, we’ve been very good
at spreading our horizons in listening to things that are different and
diverse

from 75 Rolling Stone feature on Kraftwerk:

"Autobahn" describes a journey on the German expressway leading in and out of Berlin, and underscores the group's concern with pulse and wave over note and rhythm. A Beach Boys record it is not, even though a line from the piece – "Wir fahr'n, fahr'n, fahr'n auf der Autobahn" ("We're driving, driving, driving on the autobahn") – sounds uncannily reminiscent of the line from America's premier car group: "And she'll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes her T-Bird away." Hütter and Schneider, in fact, claim no U.S. groups as influences. Their favorites include such space-rock outfits as Pink Floyd, Yes and Tangerine Dream, as well as avant-garde classicists John Cage, Terry Riley and, particularly, countryman Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose pioneering electronic work provides a "spiritual" tie to their own.

Electronic music came from continental Europe because Jean Michael Jarre said so.

*Michel

That’s one of the things that I enjoyed the most with the Electronica project: remembering that electronic music has nothing to do with the United States. It’s not related to jazz, blues, rock, it comes from continental Europe.

It has nothing to do with English-speaking countries, it was born in Germany with Stockhausen and in France with Pierre Schaefer, then with the Germans on one side, or me. We each come with our own particularities and we have held this legacy: these long instrumentals are the legacy of music tied with technology.

http://www.konbini.com/en/entertainment-2/jean-michel-jarre-interview

people pretend like it's proto-acid-house or some shit when it's totally just superficially coincidental use of the same technology

feel like the element of coincidence is what appeals to ppl the most about this if anything

yeah, "pave the way", "influenced", "inspired", they're narrative choices. i don't have a lot of time for that kind of Whig cultural history but i'm not sure when writers use them they are always claiming literal lineal descent, just structuring their observations.

every new thing rewrites every old thing that came before it anyway.

some people obviously are literally claiming lines of descent but like who cares what idiots think?

is this a narrative people are using or just one we're annoyed about but isn't what is actually being said?

feel like it's second-generation thinkpieces and critical thought that tend to make bad generalizations like that and assume lineage and not the original reviews

always enjoy white Germano-premicists being deaf to e.g. the latin rhythms in House music or the call and response running thru Disco etc

xp yeah largely but god there are a lot of second-generation makes you thinkpieces out there now

i guess quotes from the artists don't cut it?

man, fucking everybody in the '70s said they were influenced by stockhausen. i think it was one of those "you had to be there" things.

i wouldn't treat them like gospel, artists are just as capable of retconning their own process as anybody else. but i'm not arguing with "i was listening to this" or "i wanted to sound like that" so much as "Artist X led to Artist Y" or "without Piece A there would be no Piece B"

"influenced by" and "sounds like" can be very different things

i mean i'm barely arguing, more musing out loud: i would be cool with narrative histories of culture that start in the now and go backwards - Carl Craig begat Steve Reich etc etc

Ok Dr Who

the Beach Boys are in "Autobahn" and it doesn't really matter what Ralf or Florian say about it

alls i'm saying is that i don't find it particularly hard to believe that ppl who got involved in early electronic music or sequencer stuff would be influenced by nerdy composers who made music like rainbow in curved air or music for 18 musicians that basically sound like sequencers

no i can believe that too, i just think influence is more nebulous and difficult to delineate than a simple "X becomes Y" argument. and it's just as possible that musicians discover things that are reminiscent of what they're doing after they've started doing it. so in the Carl Craig quote above sure he's interested in Cage and Reich but it doesn't say when or how, he could just as easily have come to them after he'd noticed affinities with sounds and ideas he was already producing

and that's still influence but it works both ways, we hear and understand the stuff that's gone before us through the filter of our own already formed or half-formed ideas - again, like "Ragas to a Disco Beat", we hear it now in a different way to how it would sound in 1982 or whenever

Imagine wondering what Elysia Crampton's music sounded like and then opening this

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22103-elysia-crampton-elysia-crampton-presents-demon-city/

The Crampton review reads like an especially pretentious press release. She is an interesting artist who may actually combine Justin Bieber and Steve Reich, but the breathless prose here...whew. "It is victorious in so many ways."

The early Reich tape pieces are surely not insignificant in the development of electronic loop-based music?

pretty sure the invention of synthesizers had the biggest effect.. It's not like rock music where it was so easy to imitate other players etc...

Idk I'm dumb

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/books/review/bruce-springsteen-born-to-run-richard-ford.html?_r=0

this is very bad

you'd think a novelist might spend a little more time analyzing the actual book rather than proving his "i love rock and roll" bona fides in but NO

can't believe he did rob sheffield's patented lyric-appropriation sentence riff