― The Actual Mr. Jones, Saturday, 13 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
The argument that the people he influenced have surpassed him isn't the strongest, I admit. Although a musician wouldn't get too far today just by copying Drake's formulas. If you've been following this thread, you'll see that most of my criticisms are based on the patterns I perceive in Drake, rather than similarities to those of his peers.
Oh, and read my recent post. It sounds like you're letting your emotional attachments get in the way of addressing the various points made.
― , Saturday, 13 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
A musician wouldn't get too far today just by copying J Martyn's formulas either. This is another measure of absolute zero.
It so happens I'm not particularly attached to Drake at all (although the idea of Five Leaves/MMM REALLY eloping sounds pretty great to me). Still, I'm infinitely more convinced by the various eloquent attempts to answer your question above than by your continued refusal to even accept them as possibly legitimate. Re-read the thread yourself. The subjectivity on your end burns disastrously bright, I'm afraid. As well it should. Unless taking art into the vacuum-realm of perfect mathematics is really your idea of a good time.
(in which case at least three cases of logical acrobatics up-thread demand your attention immediately and urgently)
(p.s. vacuums are very incredibly lonely though. If you let yourself you might pick up a thing or two of interest here among the problematic sentient folk. I have.) xo,
As well it should. Unless taking art into the vacuum-realm of perfect mathematics is really your idea of a good time.
If you expect me to attend to those 3+ cases, kindly point them out. (I'll be gone for a bit, but I'll resolve them all in due course.)
Hint 1: Your response to me alone (infering "emotional attachments" from the statement "By this logic Bach is overrated because of Mendelssohn, etc.") = ad hominem, a fallacy of opposition, and jumping to conclusions. It gets worse from there up.
Hint 2: Plato, for a start. "Aesthetic evaluation" my sweet aunt Edna.
Hint 3: The answer to the thread-question = "Because".
― The Actual Mr. Jones, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
I suspected that (note "it sounds like") because of the post that followed. But failing to turn off italics was probably the reason you wrote it.
This doesn't imply a universal aesthetic, but any at all. The point of criticism is to discover what aesthetics inform our standards, what our basic assumptions are, and what information we may be missing. It helps us to see why evaluations of a given artist can differ. Unless you either love or hate the music you hear (i.e., have a universally warm or cold response to it), I don't see what's wrong with this pursuit.
Stop me if I've misunderstood this one, but I clarified the "why" several posts up, in case it was unclear (look for it in boldface). Many answers--fingering style, voice, early death, sense of wasted promise--have been valid, although they don't change my own estimation of Drake for reasons I have tried (maybe unsuccessfully) to explain.
― , Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― alex in mainhattan, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tom, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― sundar subramanian, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
I think in the end it all boils down to if you like or don't like an artist. The sameness argument concerning Nick Drake is completely relative and subjective.
I have to disagree. First, it's possible to like something and hold it in no great esteem (I gather several people have this relationship to the Strokes). One can also be impressed--I dare say bowled over-- by music one doesn't care to hear that often, if ever (my feelings toward Loveless, many others' toward "noise"-based music). The conflation of admiration and taste for something is common, but fallacious as a principle.
Second, as I said, once the parameters have been established, repetition is one of the few features that can be objectively agreed on. I'm confused by people's disagreement here: if a musical piece consists of a rhythmically-sounded tuning fork, is its uniformity "subjective"? My contention about Drake will be flat-out wrong if, in the songs and passages I find similar, Drake's playing varies in a good number of ways that I've failed to notice.
Drake's three studio albums are totally different. Pink Moon is bleak as bleak can be, Five Leaves Left is wistfully beautiful, Bryter Later a little overproduced and almost poppy. If you don't hear any differences in the songs, amal25 it just means that you didn't get into them, you were put off before. I think to hear the nuances in Drake's music you have to like it.
See above. This need never be true in music or any other art form. It's not encouraging that those who like, and have presumably lent attention to Drake's work, haven't pointed out the differences between the songs I compared earlier (aside from the production).
The limitations of the voice can not be used as an argument I think. Why should someone with a more versatile voice like Jeff Buckley be a more accomplished artist? All right Buckley would probably have been a better opera singer with all his mannerisms but that is totally irrelevant. Do you also use Ian Curtis and Lou Reed's limited voices as arguments against JD and VU?
I don't think Reed's vocal styles--or Curtis', from the little I know- -are so limited, at least compared to those of Drake. And I'm basing the claim of versatility on what I've heard these artists do, not on what they seem capable of.
― , Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
I don't recall saying this, but my search for subtle differences within Drake's songs has turned up very little. Yes, it may be that I need to look harder.
but nuance is exactly what I find in his songs: "Parasite", "Northern Sky", "Chime Of A City Clock" may be very similar musically and even thematically but perhaps the value in them is in contemplating the small differences that there are (and the differences in mood in these songs strike me as not so small - now it may be that you dismiss 'mood' as an appropriate subject for critical consideration, but I don't agree).
The lyrical mood does differ (I assume you weren't implying differences in production). McDonald's article, which I read on one poster's recommendation, has made me respect Drake more as a lyricist, but hasn't dispelled the feeling that he wanted for musical ideas.
This misses the point again, amal25. What is being called into question is your continued insistence that repetition (or "uniform tone, uniform rhythm and vocal dynamics" for that matter) is "objectively" a fault.
My contention about Drake will be flat-out wrong if, in the songs and passages I find similar, Drake's playing varies in a good number of ways that I've failed to notice.
No. Your contention was flat-out wrong the second someone said they liked repetition.
― The Actual Mr. Jones, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
(In the last three days, have concluded N Drake is the most terrific genius of all time ever, just to spite objectivity)
― The Actual Mr. Jones, Thursday, 18 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
At no point have I "insisted" that it should be seen as a fault. I have presented this standard as my own and supposed that it will be shared to some degree by some of the people reading. And so it seems to be; many responses have offered evidence contrary to my claims of sameness or simply dismissed them, but two at most have attacked the values inherent in them. Alex was doing the former (as was Tom, despite his initial wavering), and so I fail to see how my response misses the point.
Subjective approval doesn't counter subjective opposition. You have to ignore or shine on a lot of what I've written, including responses to your posts, to say that I have been forcing my standards on people who don't share them. Only the "sameness is damning" comment, which should have been introduced by "for me" (but which was appropriate in context), suggests this.
― , Thursday, 18 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Pulpo, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco%%, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:36 (twenty years ago) link
fwiw I love all of Five Leaves Left but onyl sporadic tracks from his other two LPs and the TONR set.
― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:18 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:34 (twenty years ago) link
― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 27 June 2003 17:20 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 27 June 2003 17:21 (twenty years ago) link
So forget this cruel world Where I belong I'll just sit and wait And sing my song. And if one day you should see me in the crowd Lend a hand and lift me To your place in the cloud.
beautiful song.
― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 1 June 2007 02:27 (sixteen years ago) link
Drake is lovely and his production is so suprisingly clear, a friend of mine was quite suprised when I told him it was 60s music I was playing. I wish I had more of his stuff. Or hell, any.
― Trayce, Friday, 1 June 2007 02:53 (sixteen years ago) link
quite a bit of hatred on this thread.
I like him. I liked him more about 5 years ago when I knew less about music.
― Drooone, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:01 (sixteen years ago) link
Pink Moon is one of those albums that I can't stop listening to once I've started. Whenever I play a track it's like "if you give a mouse a cookie..."
― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:10 (sixteen years ago) link
I agree, Pink Moon is mind blowing.
― Drooone, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:13 (sixteen years ago) link
I can't play Which Will without playing Horn, and I can't play Horn without playing Things Behind The Sun, and I can't play Things Behind The Sun without playing Know...
― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:15 (sixteen years ago) link
I've always had a lot of love for Things Behind The Sun.
― Drooone, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Have you heard Sebadoh's cover of Pink Moon? It blows me away in a similar way that Dinosaur Jr doing "Just Like Heaven" does, its like "haha omg", they totally MURDER the "pink, pink, pink, pink" bit with screaming, somehow it kind of works.
― Trayce, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:19 (sixteen years ago) link
Anyway, his lyrics are just awesome, I have to say that much. "Northern Sky" is beautiful.
― Trayce, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Few singers can get away with doing that excessively tender and exposed thing all the time, but he's one of them. It's unfortunate that he's inspired so many others to attempt the same thing.
― Hurting 2, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:37 (sixteen years ago) link
lol
― Drooone, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:39 (sixteen years ago) link
I'd never really heard of him until a month or so ago, when I went to hear Joe Boyd read. Just today, I listened to Bryter Layter. Tomorrow, Pink Moon.
― Jaq, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:44 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm jealous! have fun
― tremendoid, Friday, 1 June 2007 03:59 (sixteen years ago) link
I lurve Pink Moon.
― St3ve Go1db3rg, Friday, 1 June 2007 05:04 (sixteen years ago) link
sebadoh > nick drake
― stephen, Friday, 1 June 2007 05:15 (sixteen years ago) link
sebadoh is shit. anyway this thread is for nick drake lo-- oh right.
― tremendoid, Friday, 1 June 2007 05:28 (sixteen years ago) link
Few singers can get away with doing that excessively tender and exposed thing all the time, but he's one of them.
And so is Mark Kozelek.
― Trayce, Friday, 1 June 2007 05:33 (sixteen years ago) link