Sasha Frere-Jones: Really?????

i could be mistaken, natch, but that was my impression. maybe he commented on the Slate article page itself (it was Slate, right)? i dunno.

slate doesn't have a comments box, just a password-only discussion forum. i'm guessing if sfj responded it'd be easy to find, considering it was the highest profile response he received (and since it made the da capo 2008 best music writing book, wilson's piece arguably has a higher profile than the original)

according to professional music critic sasha-frere jones, dance music has killed hip hop through years of calculated infiltration by way of assimilation. the overthrow was first set in motion by electro pioneer afrikaa bambataa in the 1980s who introduced the white, soulless throb of the german-born genre "techno" to hip hop beats. although it took over twenty years, white dance music consumed hip hop once and for all in 2009-an event marked by a distinct shift in beat-selection on jay-z's eleventh studio album "the blueprint 3."

what wikipedia entry are you adding that to

i dont think that sfj is actually dumb enough to think that disco is soulless

Basically Sasha's argument boils down to: "I want some blues and some funky old soul"

Ha ha, I'll probably never get around to reading this thread, but see my review here:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=814

disco could get around this problem by just having 4 ten minute songs make up an album

So could hip-hop, almost! First (and maybe only?) Treacherous Three album has six songs, checking in at 7:29, 5:36, 7:34, 7:39, 6:58, and 5:46. It's great!

ysi?

I have never heard of Das Racist before, but those two have a publicist? Someone gets paid to run media interference for hipsters?

sigh

i dont think that sfj is actually dumb enough to think that disco is soulless

― Bobby Wo (max), Monday, October 26, 2009 3:32 PM (3 days ago)

Neither do I, I think he's being facetious. I think he's dumbing down his opinions for his market.

I don't think much of the New Yorker's readership when it comes to their appreciation of Pop.

I'm sure they're very picky when it comes to chamber music.

its true because i read the new yorker and im very picky re: chamber music

I read the NYer and am also picky about chamber music. Pickier than the NYer, really.

i read the NEW POOPER and im picky about CHAMBER POTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I write critiques of the NEW POOPER's chamber pot criticism in my monthly column in SHIT FANCY.

The tempos and sonics of disco’s various children—techno, rave, whatever your particular neighborhood made of a four-on-the-floor thump—are slowly replacing hip-hop’s blues-based swing. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the rudimentary digital sound of New Orleans bounce or the crusty samples of New York hip-hop: this music wants to swing and syncopate. On major commercial releases, this impulse is giving way to a European pulse

Four-on-the-floor thump is European??!!??

That darned evil Moroder.

Hello?

http://funkmusic.co.cc/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/hamilton-bohannon-bohannon-1.jpg

He was doing four-on-the-floor thump when Moroder was doing Chicory Tip

you could make a lot of interesting points about the gradual loss of swing in hip hop production over the years and the move toward more rigidly quantized drums, but SFJ shoots straight past any of them to some really bizarre whole other imaginary argument

Correct me if I'm wrong here but 4X4 thump in 2009 really seems like more of an R&B trend which hip hop is exposed to by association (hence Black Eyed Peas, Timbaland etc). I haven't noticed a terribly large amount of recent rap on a 4X4 beat, but maybe I just haven't heard what Sasha's thinking of?

Certainly it's not the first time R&B has gone 4X4 before.

new orleans bounce drums are pretty fucking rigid.

ha yeah i raised an eyebrow at that

SFJ trying to rewrite his article? Or at least one sentence of it?

SFJ-October 26 from "“Wrapping Up – A genre ages out”
“If I had to pick a year for hip-hop’s demise, though, I would choose 2009, not 2006.”

SFJ -November 25-from "End Times" blog post
“Some people thought that my recent column about hip-hop was actually an assertion that hip-hop was dead. In fact, my argument was that hip-hop is not ending but rather going through a transitional moment and atomizing.” http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2009/11/end-times.html

Does "demise" mean "atomizing"? Not sure why he had the "demise" sentence if he meant that club beats and Freddie Gibbs were a sign of hiphop "atomizing"

this fucking guy

Conversely. the whole Pill/Freddie Gibbs/Juiceman axis is basically just the rap version of nitpicking over chillwave and glo-fi and, again, has little to no bearing on hip-hop at large.

― eatin' spaghett' (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 27 November 2009 21:04 (Yesterday) Permalink

juiceman is nothing like pill/freddie gibbs and is yes "actually popular"

lol oops rong thread

What's weird is that of the probable hundreds of legit responses/critiques/counterblogs to the his article that he's gotten, he addresses a single vague response in his blog and asks for clarification, nothing more. This guy's the king of critical dialogue.

My uh, source, reports he's going to address part of this again "after the holidays"('somebody' e-mailed him his "demise" sentence from October and his "atomizing" sentence from November and asked him to explain)

Or maybe not.

December 15, 2009
I Cannot Stop Until I Get Enough
Posted by Sasha Frere-JonesI won’t be back in this space until May of 2010. I need to focus on writing a book, and the Internet is awfully distracting. You will see my byline in the magazine made of paper, and in relevant links placed here.

The New Yorker LCD Soundsystem piece has some pretty bad moments, but is not fully online for mockage. It's actually not so much that it's overall a bad piece as that he tends to be clumsy and ignorant at a number of moments.

bought the NYer just for this article. which parts did you find clumsy?

What is this thread about? Shockah? I have no idea.

― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones)

Why is the New Yorker so popular? The writing?

the pictures

the HTML code on their internet site?

Sasha's got the album at the top his 2010 list. He's got a tumblr now

http://sashafrerejones.tumblr.com/

SFJ's 2010 list: http://www.sashafrerejones.com/2009/11/best_of_2010_1.html

There are posts in this thread that I do not remember writing.

Also, SFJ's Tumblr is pretty great. Real Enjoyable Prose + images with Real Enjoyable Captions.

Why is the New Yorker so popular? The writing?

i think the new yorker's writing is v. good.

hahaha, yeah. i had a subscription for a year or two in high school. i was just referring to the following exchange from the Awl thread:

Why is Gawker so popular? The writing?

― kshighway (ksh), Monday, January 11, 2010 11:02 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no, the pictures

― max, Monday, January 11, 2010 11:03 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think it's the HTML coding actually

― fella, cutie (s1ocki), Monday, January 11, 2010 11:13 AM (3 months ago)

wkiw sfj

article was great, needed a little more funk in it though

why is nicki minaj his ninth favorite album of the year?

i was thinking the same thing

Are you wondering why it's so high or so low?

Wikipedia says she doesn't have an album of her own out yet

so, probably the fact that she's just listed there?

well, unless he's talking about barbie world or has got secret new yorker privileges, it isn't out or leaked yet, and no concrete info about is has been released or anything. assuming he just means nicki minaj disparate output of 2010 so far.