Hyden does that a lot, putting his favourite music later down in the list in favour of an objective "best" at number 1. I think the distinction between the two is bunk, but...
― vexingvexillologist, Friday, 23 June 2023 11:17 (ten months ago) link
The writing is literally fucked. Like it went through a bad autocorrect.
― Alito Bit of Soap (President Keyes), Friday, 23 June 2023 11:39 (ten months ago) link
ranking stuff or giving it star ratings or even percentages is fine, taking the scores very seriously indeed and writing at length about your rationale is almost always boring and shit
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 23 June 2023 11:53 (ten months ago) link
lists have killed writing basically
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 23 June 2023 14:58 (ten months ago) link
and here's why.
― Alito Bit of Soap (President Keyes), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:00 (ten months ago) link
rankings really are lame because people don't bother to dig deeper. but i think we're conditioned to want them now.
we have an evaluation form we use at work where we give feedback to our instructors and there's of course a numerical rating alongside the feedback and almost everybody focuses on that instead of the feedback.
likewise, "such and such got 85% on Rotten Tomatoes" without bothering to understand what that means in terms of data aggregation and reading a few reviews.
― sad Mings of dynasty (Neanderthal), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:01 (ten months ago) link
The emphasis on scores and year-end-lists and chart placements and televised award wins gets heavier every year. If a great record slowly generates a good amount of steam between 2013 and the present, well too bad. They didn't get people's attention right away, so what good are they?
It feels strange how desperately certain types need to revise the canon of the 80s and 90s but rigidly worship the canon of 2007 to present.
― billstevejim, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:03 (ten months ago) link
what's the music equivalent of oscar bait?
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:08 (ten months ago) link
how so? xpost
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:08 (ten months ago) link
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:08 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
jessie ware
― imago, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:10 (ten months ago) link
nah
― rob, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:11 (ten months ago) link
nu-slowdive
― imago, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:13 (ten months ago) link
if you're talking grammy bait, it's stuff like silk sonic, jon batiste, jacob collier
― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:13 (ten months ago) link
Simple, you just need to be [artist x who had a hot album 2-8 years ago] and release literally anything.
― billstevejim, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:14 (ten months ago) link
(That's "Artist X" meaning "full in the blank", not "artist multiplied by")
― billstevejim, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:16 (ten months ago) link
lol President Keyes
― Bittern Storm Over My Hammy (morrisp), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:16 (ten months ago) link
― imago, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:13 (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
this wasn't entirely serious ftr sorry lol
― imago, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:20 (ten months ago) link
H.E.R.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:29 (ten months ago) link
yeah basically anything that sounds like thrice xeroxed versions of 70s stevie
― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili), Friday, 23 June 2023 15:33 (ten months ago) link
is there a music site even worth looking at in 2023? i can't remember the last time i looked at music reviews online. its been years. i figured they would just make me sad. seems like a bygone era. i'm not going on tiktok...
(there must be brainy cool young writers out there somewhere. does anyone do cool zines anymore?)
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 16:19 (ten months ago) link
I thought the Lumineers were something-bait, but I don't pretend to understand anything released earlier than 1978 or later than 1989.
― pomplamoose and circumstance (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 23 June 2023 16:27 (ten months ago) link
is there a music site even worth looking at in 2023? i can't remember the last time i looked at music reviews online. its been years. i figured they would just make me sad. seems like a bygone era. i'm not going on tiktok... (there must be brainy cool young writers out there somewhere. does anyone do cool zines anymore?)
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Friday, 23 June 2023 17:37 (ten months ago) link
i should make a zine. for real! i know smart people. who don't want to make lists. i feel like there is a serious lack of fun when it comes to music writing. its all so......not fun. what i see of it anyway.
i should check in with the quietus. they have always done good work. stereogum....i made the mistake of looking at a best of metal 2022 list and it was rough. to read. i stopped reading it.
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 17:43 (ten months ago) link
blogging 2.0 aka newsletters are all the rage these days, i prob have more fun writing mine than any other kind of writing i do, unfortunately i never have the time to write it
― ivy (BradNelson), Friday, 23 June 2023 17:44 (ten months ago) link
i'm too old to substack or whatever. i think i'll make a real zine. (i don't go to cities so i never see new zines but i know they exist.)
that thing that JBR is on. those are cool. i get e-mails about them. seems like an easy way for people to speak to people online.
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 17:48 (ten months ago) link
the stereogum article on the battle of the depeche tribute bands in la is the best thing ive read in a minute
― kurt schwitterz, Friday, 23 June 2023 17:48 (ten months ago) link
some friends of mine around the corner have an arts space and they have a risograph machine. it could make great covers for a mag.
x-post - will make a note of depeche tribute bands article.
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 17:50 (ten months ago) link
there is a ton of stuff on here that is probably really good as long as you don't mind searching through it all. i remember reading some outstanding disco writing on one of the RBA sites. they even had a newspaper that i never saw. anyway, i should just shut up and read some of this. there is a long meredith monk piece that looks good.
https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/
https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/03/meredith-monk-feature
https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/pioneering-women
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 17:57 (ten months ago) link
hell yeah! i could probably get you "distribution" in a few spaces out here in the Bay if you made one ... i put that in quotes because it would be like, storefront record stores and art galleries that no one really cares about except a few hundred people lol
― sarahell, Friday, 23 June 2023 17:57 (ten months ago) link
haha, that's good inspiration, cheers! and its a reminder that i could ask my pal raub roy to write something. and you too! we shall see. sometimes i blab a lot and nothing happens. but sometimes things happen too! you never know. i definitely need a summer hobby. i'm going a little stir crazy, creatively. and if those texas winds start hitting massachusetts, i'll be inside for awhile. its been getting pretty brutal here in summer. we get some unlivable weeks.
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 18:20 (ten months ago) link
On the topic of lists, there's this week's "70 Best Alt-Country Albums" over at Paste:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/alt-country/the-50-best-alt-country-albums-of-all-time
Apparently it's repackaged from 2016, but they managed to leave in a sentence about how, if Justin Townes Earle can "manage his demons," he just might be one of the all-time greats.
― jon_oh, Friday, 23 June 2023 18:46 (ten months ago) link
― Crabber B. Munson (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 23 June 2023 18:53 (ten months ago) link
i've heard three of those! ingenue is alt-country? in what world? ingenue is tied with meantime for my fave album of 1992. i wore that knitters album OUT in high school. and obviously that mekons record is top ten of 1985 material. the rest i don't listen to. maybe by accident.
x-post
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 18:56 (ten months ago) link
i like to think that i listen to almost everything but i guess i've met my match with alt-country. i picked up about 50 CDrs of hillbilly and rockabilly and country swing comps and i've been playing them for weeks at the store. someone burned a ton of bear family and euro-reissue label discs of that stuff and they sound great. and they made photocopied inserts of the covers which i always appreciate.
― scott seward, Friday, 23 June 2023 18:59 (ten months ago) link
There are definitely still zines and zine shops.
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Friday, 23 June 2023 21:53 (ten months ago) link
it's so weird because listen I've worked in the content mines and do have sympathy for everyone who's gotta pull up their pants and, say, shit out Taylor Swift article to do numbers when the tour is going on but like who asked for this?
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)
please don't pull _up_ your pants to shit
― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 23 June 2023 22:02 (ten months ago) link
writers shit through their fingers
― ivy (BradNelson), Friday, 23 June 2023 22:04 (ten months ago) link
have sympathy for everyone who's gotta pull up their pants and, say, shit out Taylor Swift article
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 23 June 2023 22:05 (ten months ago) link
― ivy (BradNelson)
fine but why you gotta wear pants to do it
― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 23 June 2023 22:09 (ten months ago) link
first rule of content mine club is shit your pants
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 23 June 2023 22:15 (ten months ago) link
I’ve said this many times but Neil McCormick is the *worst* music writer in the British media by a cunt-ry mile. For a start, every one of the Arctic Monkeys is a millennial. pic.twitter.com/ObVQ7pCwtE— Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) June 24, 2023
― the pinefox, Saturday, 24 June 2023 08:57 (ten months ago) link
I'd say it isn't inaccurate to state that Gen X sometimes adopts bands from younger generations, especially ones that play real music with real instruments. Wet Leg are the newest Gen X house band, for example
― imago, Saturday, 24 June 2023 09:05 (ten months ago) link
or older, even.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Saturday, 24 June 2023 09:09 (ten months ago) link
I have never used "utter" or "utterly" in any piece of published or unpublished writing.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 24 June 2023 09:43 (ten months ago) link
I do teach my students to not use absolutes if they can avoid it, true
― imago, Saturday, 24 June 2023 09:58 (ten months ago) link
markedly compelling Glastonbury performance
― imago, Saturday, 24 June 2023 09:59 (ten months ago) link
omg Kate I stole your joke and didn’t even realise, maximum apologies
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 24 June 2023 10:19 (ten months ago) link
Neil McCormick, however, reinforced past complaints about the album, ranking it as the band's worst album in a 2014 retrospective on the band in The Daily Telegraph: "Muddy production, perky synths, jaunty pop rhythms and an orchestral ballad make these songs barely recognisable as the heaviest band in history."[21]
Perhaps muddy production aside (and I disagree), McCormick's 1/5 of In Through the Out Door reads closer to a 5/5 to me :)
This is the first thing that I always think of when he's mentioned. Not even U2.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Saturday, 24 June 2023 10:24 (ten months ago) link
"house band for a generation" is a very bad notion in general which will tend to lead to false and badly written statements.
― the pinefox, Saturday, 24 June 2023 12:13 (ten months ago) link
My future's so bright I gotta wear pants
― pomplamoose and circumstance (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 24 June 2023 14:20 (ten months ago) link