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

though*

I can't ever imagine the drum loops on 'All I Really Want' or 'You Learn' sounding contemporary to anyone in 2017.

what i'm saying is that we live in this kind eternal post-modern echo chamber and it's really hard for me to imagine something sounding utterly new (isn't there a thread about this somewhere?) anyway,

i just went and listened to those songs, i've never heard alanis morissette before, i guess i'm on the fence specifically with her production. the big compressed drum loops yeah, wasn't beck doing the same thing around the same time? is '90s beck really '90s sounding? my feeling is that you could salvage many elements of this sound and put it on the radio and re-contextualize it and people wouldn't immediately be like "woah time-warp to the nineties right here" but maybe i'm wrong

How could a Guardian article about music be inflammatory enough to inspire a petition with over 600 signatures, I wondered. Then I read and marvelled: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/27/music-lessons-children-white-wealthy#comment-95607277

lol that is incredible

That is seriously like the Monty Python architect sketch come to life

Ha. I meant to link the article, not a comment by a teenager: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/27/music-lessons-children-white-wealthy

I'm actually completely in favour of teaching music without notation in certain contexts but this article (and headline) still seem pretty wrongheaded to me.

My advice would be to go into science, medicine, technology, languages etc. Anything but music. There's no money in it and it gets you nowhere - study something useful instead.

ok this isn't "bad" per se https://theoutline.com/post/1368/pop-collabs-are-boring

but i feel like taking issue with the fact that features don't always synthesize artists into the song assumes that a hip-hop feature on pop song has to be a synthesis. the fact that ty$ and fifth harmony sound distinct from each other on Work From Home doesn't make the feature "disposable". also, equating "disposable" with "boring" is (semantically, i know, but still) kinda shortsighted, especially when most pop is knowingly "disposable" already.

maybe it's just that this feels pretty under-researched and "pop ruins everything"-y, overall—i'd love to look at a thing about how exactly the feature (are we talking about hip-hop verse in place of bridge or disco-diva style EDM vocalist, though? another glossed over distinction) became a staple of the pop hit structure, but this is so fixed on putting down its subject any good points feel totally lost.

i think that's pretty bad per se

lol wasn't sure if everything had to be as glaringly bad as that Flume review from the independent

would be more interesting to talk about how guest raps have become the equivalent of the guitar solo

or how men have to horn in on ladies' songs for reasons that probably boil down to "millennial male" appeal, to sometimes disastrous effect (shudders at memory of soulja boy clomping around the opening of vistoso bosses' otherwise lovely "delirious")

anyway the outline's writing on music is p poor across the board. lifeless and whiny and completely lacking in descriptions of sound - you know. the important part

yeah they should stick to their lane of lefty politics and whatever this was

lol i didn't think soulja boy on "delirious" was that bad but yeah it was def unnecessary :X

but otm re: that kind of pairing

Not writing, but on his podcast the great Wesley Morris went on a riff about how we're in a musical period as great as the 70s with Kendrick as Stevie Wonder and Drake as Fleetwood Mac, with Views as his Tusk that just made my head explode.

barf

Finally, a TUSK we can call our own

I don't remember Fleetwood Mac sucking all to be damned

a drake is a male duck

I don't remember Fleetwood Mac sucking all to be damned

I do.

http://carriewintour.tumblr.com/post/143556693100/drake-is-the-modern-lindsey-buckingham

drake is rap's phil collins only i still don't like him

he's the phil collins era of genesis but only the song "illegal alien"

ok, not really, but that's the worst collins-related thing that came to mind

the article itself is not really noteworthy but the title made me want to crawl into the crypt:

"Shawn Mendes' 10 Best Deep Cuts"

there's only one shawn mendes deep cut I'd care to hear about tbh

going to show *some* restraint and not post about this on Twitter, but this is seriously one of the biggest self-inflated music-related clickbait abortions I've ever seen

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7768061/100-greatest-choruses-21st-century

Like, bear with me and ignore that the company that literally uses MATH to decide what America enjoys saying that some Sufjan Stevens song is somehow a more important/indelible chorus than Flo Rida. Also, ignore that it completely ignores "Uptown Funk" which carried TWO DIFFERENT HITS. Also, ignore whatever insane millennial retcon job where world-changing, wedding standards songs like like "Hey Ya" and "Crazy" and "Hips Don't Lie" and "Single Ladies" and "I Gotta Feeling" and "Happy" are all not "good" enough choruses to make this list because the staff at America's chart-pop music authority actually(?) somehow thinks that Mika and The Knife need those slots.

Ignore all that.

What makes this bad, irresponsible, deceptive and outright factually incorrect is that the list makes no effort to actually say where the melodies and music come from. Its gross, lazy, and def of a piece with the Donald Trump era where facts are worthless

To wit:
--The "Get Low" entry makes no mention of the fact that "To the windows, to the walls" was actually from a black fraternity chant
--The "Paper Planes" entry makes no mention of the fact that the hook is actually a repurposed line from Wrecks N Effect's mega-hit "Rumpshaker"
--The "Drop It Like It's Hot" entry makes no mention of the fact that the phrase was born out of New Orleans rap music and, although I am no expert and would have to check, likely has an deeper history in New Orleans bounce music

At it's best the whole endeavor is millennial laziness cynically exploited by a company wealthy enough to buy Spin and Vibe, at worst it's a gaggle of white writers actively erasing black voices.

we felt it was time that to start figuring out the new canon

^ their first mistake

we felt it was time that

to start figuring out

i read through that whole list and i feel that much more cretinous now

beating canons into shares

blessed are the canonmakers, for they shall be really short on irl friends

can't really say anything about this

first time for everything i guess

whiney

whiney

this list is obviously a load of nonsense but you've literally reached the point where you're gunning for the black eyed peas over the knife

karin andersson came BARRELLING down the hill yelling "NO!" at the black eyed peas, who were forced to jump into the east river

drake is rap's phil collins only i still don't like him

― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Thursday, April 20, 2017 12:14 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm contractually obligated to point out he's def a top 20 rock drummer of all time easy

nah man Drake's top 30 AT BEST!

amazing how the most anodyne fucking comment possible still gets me insulted for no reason

Aw, it was an open goal, k, nothing but love

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

that's the first time i've ever heard those trivia, they are interesting and I'm glad I know em but I wouldn't begrudge someone for not knowing them and not writing about them.

I dont think "trivia" is the right word though? I think these things are all absolutely integral in understanding the main conceit of the story!

Like Diplo eventually collaborating with an actual member of the Clash on a Converse ad is "trivia." M.I.A. detourning the melody and lyrics of 90s butt-shaking song to be about globalism is 100% integral to what makes is a good chorus

trivia or not, i've been able to enjoy all those choruses without knowing those facts. also, i googled for like 2 mins and couldn't find ANY piece of writing (aside from your ilx post and whosampled.com) that mentions them

I hate to encourage the circular entropic flow of information between people writing chart articles and fucking genius.com, but genius does have the rumpshaker ref re:MIA

the "get low" annotations are worthless

less than five google searches and I get from "to the windows, to the walls" to this article, which at least cites a 1994 track

asking people writing articles on pop culture to do more than two google searches is nearly impossible afaict

forgot article link:
https://www.redbullradio.com/shows/united-states-of-bass/episodes/mr-collipark