Rolling Country 2006 Thread

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (2098 of them)

20 Easy Rules for Writing about Country the Way the Pros Do It!

I've been guilty of a few of these.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 02:07 (twenty years ago)

She's pretty funny, but it must be exhausting both making up and beating that strawman! She tips her hand by a) excusing all the "good ones" without saying who they are; b) playing the race card way the fuck before she should; c) making sure she is talking about "rock critics" who only like country people who hew to a rock aesthetic, as if country critics don't dismiss all other musics as a reflex action.

That having been said, I want to go to this forum she talks about to get some real examples.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 29 May 2006 02:18 (twenty years ago)

"strawman" matt? - she's talking about at least half the people on this thread!

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 29 May 2006 02:32 (twenty years ago)

as if country critics don't dismiss all other musics as a reflex action

Her strawman vs. your strawman vs. mine.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 03:19 (twenty years ago)

i think the comments about demographics are true

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 29 May 2006 03:28 (twenty years ago)

>Laud the country artists who display character traits most cherished in rock, and whose lyrical concerns hew closest to a rock sensibility.<

I wish I knew what she meant by a "rock sensibility," or why she thinks it's wrong to judge different genres by the one another's yardsticks. (Personally, I wish more people judged country by a disco sensibility, or a Latin sensibility, or a hip-hop sensibility, or a teen-pop sensibility. And visa-versa, for that matter.)

Entertaining list, though. I'm sure most writers are "guilty" of most of those transgressions, now and then, inasmuch as some/most of them actually qualify as transgressions. Maybe even a few writers are guilty of all of them. ("Strawman"-ness would be hard to avoid.)

Matt is right about the Grupo Exterminador CD (which I've mentioned on a couple other threads, somewhere). Haven't heard the live Jenni Rivera, though - Matt, is that on Fonovisa, or what label?

Roy, I should give your Bottle Rockets arguments more thought. They still strike me as a watery soft-rock band with vague melodies, and guitar raveups stucks at the ends of occasional songs to signify a wild-and-wooliness that the rest of the music (from the rhythm on up to the singing) gives no evidence to support. But yeah, I agree, the guitar climax of "Zoysia" has real beauty in it; just wish I didn't have to wait until the tail end of the album to get to it. And Hanneman's vocals never follow suit beauty-wise, and the melodies in general just aren't pretty or *ominous* enough for your *Tonight's The Night* comparison to make any sense to me. And if his writing is as nuanced as you say, his singing clearly doesn't grab me enough for me to pick up on the nuances. But I'm glad you have use for them.

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 11:29 (twenty years ago)

Also, who does this?

>Declare that country music deals in “nostalgia” for a “past that never was.”<

She puts it in quotes, and says it twice, so she must have actually seen instances of it. Off hand, I'm not sure I have. (Though I've probably said myself that, say, certain country music doesn't sound much like earlier forms of country music it seems to be aiming for. Is that the same thing? And if so, how I am wrong? If not, what is she referring to? I'm guessing she means some critics claim country music frequently romanticizes America's past, right? Well, doesn't it? That's something American songs often do: Carry me back to my old Virginny home. But either way, who are these critics who dwell on that issue?) (Okay, maybe she's just saying this is a truism and platitude, taken for granted and better left unsaid. So do you just close your ears when Tim McGraw yearns for those wonderful days back when a coke was a coke and a ho was a ho and the wind was all that blew and when you said I'm down with that it meant you had the flu?)

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 11:48 (twenty years ago)

ive seen it in lots of revivews of alt country, and when ever an old timer comes out of retirement, it was a meme that came together with the american recordings, merles last album and a couple of other things.

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 29 May 2006 13:52 (twenty years ago)

Cline's point isn't that you can never criticize indivdiual instances of bogus nostalgia, but that aligning country music in general with nostalgia for a past that never was is sloppy, glib and wrong. I've seen more than a few rock critics do that.

In another piece on Living In Stereo, "The Children Of Detroit City" (http://livinginstereo.com/?page_id=40), David Cantwell (the site's author and good pal o' mine) writes of the alt-country class of the '90s:

"So it bugs the shit out of me when critics, who apparently don’t know this context, dismiss these bands with glib pronouncements. (Bugged but unsurprised: most critics, truth be told, just don’t much care for anything that sounds remotely like country; it’s not as hip as traditional/alternative guitar rock and it surely isn’t as exotic as R&B and rap.) Critic Will Hermes, excerpted in this year’s Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll, offers an example that could easily stand for the rest: '(This music is) purposefully vague, nostalgic for times that even it realizes probably never were, and tending toward depression.'"

Some of David's points are a little dated--I think rock critics have started to get over their country-phobias--but I still run in to Hermes-esque glibness more than I'd like to.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:23 (twenty years ago)

xp: Ha ha, note the first two results:

Results 1 - 6 of about 7 for "country music" nostalgia "past that never was". (0.16 seconds)

Living In Stereo » Blog Archive » 20 Easy Rules for Writing about ...Declare that country music deals in “nostalgia” for a “past that never was.” Fail to recognize that this “past” not only *was* but *is* for many people. ...
livinginstereo.com/?p=163 - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

The Way the Pros Do It!Declare that country music deals in "nostalgia" for a "past that never was." Fail to recognize that this "past" not only *was* but *is* for many people. ...
www.steamiron.com/twangin/essay-rockcrit.html - 6k - Cached - Similar pages

The Smirking Chimp - AP: Bush Urges Motorists to Conserve GasCyberLemon - Wine Country Music Collector There is no way to Peace. ... Yes, they are but conservatives live in nostalgia for a past that never was, ...
www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic. php?topic=59679&forum=16 - 104k - Cached - Similar pages

FT - Do You See?and the acrobats and the mimes and the country music sequence and the tiger-print ... Stop the planet of the instant nostalgia-obssessed list fetishists, ...
www.freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2004_09_01_dys_archive.html - 175k - Cached - Similar pages

[PDF] IMS Catalog 1File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
... old time music and dancing, and Nashville and country music. ... nostalgia for a past that never was - and the myth of West was born. ...
www.bubblers.k12.pa.us/ faculty%20pages/der/S%20to%20Z.pdf - Similar pages

PREVIEWS VOL. 8 #10 THE PREVIEWS HOME PAGE PREVIEWS PRIMO FLYER ...In this tale of a past that never was, set in the Age of Steam, masked dandies, ... DC COMICS SUPERMAN NOSTALGIC RADIO Before the animated series, ...

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 14:26 (twenty years ago)

Still, I'm not denying that it might be a meme or platitude or excuse to dislike country; it's probably all of the above. (Not sure to what extent that Hermes P&J comment deserves Cantwell's wrath, though; who was Will writing about? Voice site searches have been proving unfruitful, and I don't remember it off the top of my head.)

Also, David Cantwell strangely believes I'm a nihilist (just saying):

http://www.zoilus.com/documents//2006/000746.php

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 14:40 (twenty years ago)

"Heavy on the ass and light on the smart": Yeah, he's read me a lot.

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 14:42 (twenty years ago)

And right, people don't like the Bottle Rockets or Jayhawks or Wilco because they "don’t much care for anything that sounds remotely like country." I get it, Dave, and I've heard this sort of leap of faith before -- Just like, if somebody has anything negative to say about skits or crack-dealer cliches or the length of hip-hop albums, they obviously "hate rap." What horseshit. (And I've spent time in Missouri too, by the way. And even more time in Michigan and Ohio.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 14:56 (twenty years ago)

xhuxk, that's not at all what David's saying; it's just a false analogy.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 15:13 (twenty years ago)

How is he not saying that?

Anyway I'm not trying to pick a fight with David, who I respect and I honestly have nothing personally against; I'm more amused than anything else, just like I always am by critics who think a critic having different tastes than them is evidence of a moral failing, rather than just different ears or nervous systems. I mean, it's kind of silly to think that everybody who loves country music should by definition also love alt-country; one of the reasons those acts don't get played on commercial country stations is that they don't sound the same as the acts who do--which suggests that the fans of the ones who do, some of whom I'd assumed have listened to plenty of Bobby Bare during their lives, might *define* country differently. (And guess what? Not everybody equates indie-rock with rock, either.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 15:23 (twenty years ago)

I mean, does he really believe that Will Hermes doesn't like country music? If not, why use him as an example? Sorry, I don't get that.

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 15:28 (twenty years ago)

Of course it's silly to think that someone who loves The Dixie Chicks should love the Brox, but it seems like a stretch to say that's what David's implying.

Like I said, David's parenthetical about most rock critics not liking twang is kinda dated, and a distraction from his point. If critics like Hermes are dismissing the key alt-country bands of the mid '90s (and I can't find his original quote either, but that seems to be the context) because they are nostalgic for the past, then Hermes, whether or not he likes the sound of country, really doesn't understand their relationship to the present context. He's just regurgitating what a lot of rock critics have always said about country, especially in the context of its supposed inferiority to forward-looking, more inventive blah dee blah rock music.

Anyways, I thought David's nihilism comment was uncharacteristically flip and wrong.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 16:00 (twenty years ago)

Hmmm...maybe you're right. I'd have to see the original context of the Hermes quote. But to me, as is, from my perspective, and at least slightly knowing Will's tastes, "vague, nostalgic for times that even it realizes probably never were, and tending toward depression" sounds more like he's setting alt-country up against pop country, more than setting country up against rock. (Or maybe I'm just reading my own prejudices into it? That's possible.) And the quote also sounds more or less on-target, to be honest; I'd say that alt-country's folkie purity obsession, its implicit belief that country music somehow "went wrong" with the Eagles or *Urban Cowboy* or Mutt Lange or whoever, the timidness of its sound, its eschewing (in general: these are all generalities!) of influences it deems "not country enough" (like, say, a dance beat, when in many times in its history, country *has* served as dance music) *are* signs of a certain mis-directed nostalgia. (So, in a different way, is how alt-country so often seems to want to sound so melancholy and downcast, which I assume is what Will meant by "tending toward depression.") And right, Cantwell can go the old Dave Marsh route and say, nope, those familiar rootsy Americana sounds aren't nostlgia at all, but I'm not buying it, and not because I'm not familiar with the geographical or social context those bands are singing from, either. (My hip-hop analogy totally had Cantwell's you-just-don't-get-the-context argument in mind, by the way; 79-minute crack-rap CD apologists say that all the time: You've got to take crack-rappers on their *own terms*; you've got to know where they're coming from. And if you don't, you're not being fair to the music.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 16:22 (twenty years ago)

I think you could make that argument if Will was talking about purist sonic tendencies, but that's not in the quote. I know David's no fan of that kind of purist nonsense, so it's hard for me to imagine he'd take Will to task for pointing out something he'd agree with.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 18:23 (twenty years ago)

And on the Marsh tip, he's one of those rock critics who has written stuff that inspired Cline's ire to begin with. From the blue Rolling Stone Record Guide: "[Hank] Williams never found a way out of the social dead end of country, but in his songs are the seeds of rock & roll, which in the hands of Elvis Presley, Holly and others became the exit for thousands."

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 18:30 (twenty years ago)

im giving cantrell a lot of slack these days cause he wrote one of the more tender, reflective and knowing peices on the sexual ambiguity of stand by yr man, a song that i keep going back to and writing an erasing, and writing about again. i think i have had a throw away reference to the song published at least twice, and i can t position it, and cantrell did, so yeah lots and lots of slack

― anthony easton, Monday, 29 May 2006 19:35 (twenty years ago)

Cantwell not Cantrell....Anyone else really annoyed by this Mason Jennings album? It's really pretty, but he makes spiritualist ego supression into supreme egotism like nobody's bizness.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 21:04 (twenty years ago)

sorry roy, havent heard it, and sorry about the name

can we also talk about the dixies and the country charts, including singles, radio play and video, its got some views, and i love the new video, so the fuck country, fuck hix view ofthe band, and of the text seem to be failing, interestingly enough...

but i might be wrong?

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 29 May 2006 21:44 (twenty years ago)

Haven't seen the vid; too lazy to look on-line; maybe I will now. "Not Read to Make Nice" debuted real strong but the single and the album seem to have fallen off--and hard. I know that WIL, St. Louis's biggest country station, isn't playing the single at all. I heard it once back in March I think, but they've deleted it from rotation. The station said negative response was too high to spin. Maybe that's true, and maybe that's happened at other country stations, I don't know. But I do know that the Chicks played a stunning, sold-out show here shortly after "the incident" and nobody booed or burned records. They're coming back in August, but WIL isn't on-board, even though they have an "Accidents and Accusations Tour" (that's what they're calling it; do they really think this is a shrewd marketing strategy?) date at a Clear Channel venue here in August. Psyche.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 22:16 (twenty years ago)

Not Ready to Make Nice has to be read outside the text, and its a really fercious song, because its so constrained, there are three country stations here, one plays it semi regullary(sp), one doesnt play it much at all, and the other i dont listen to.

its getting played 3 times a day, and i think is charting on canadian cmt, but 3 times a day is actually fairly low. the video is better then the song.

(speaking of which, the world video by brad paisley, with the kids, does it creep any one out at all?)

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 29 May 2006 22:41 (twenty years ago)

Can you explain what you mean "read outside the text"? Do you just mean you have to hear it in its context, or in some other context?

Anyways, I just watched the video: five times in a row. Wow. If that isn't oil Natalie is smearing all over her bandmates it may as well be. I really liked the single to start with, but seeing the visual climax--an explosion of inky oil like a Gulf War nightmare revisited--with the sonic climax and the "write me a letter saying I better shut up and sing or my life will be over" verse gave me freakin chills. Plus the chalkboard message: "To talk without thinking is to shoot without aiming," a not so veiled dig at the Veep.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 23:02 (twenty years ago)

Opening chords of that Dixie Chicks joint (like, the first four or five seconds) do indeed recall (early '90s) Metallica, just like Pareles said in the Times a week or two ago. The other sort of goth part, I guess, is when the music kicks into higher gear with the fiddle I mean violin part toward the end. The video reminds me of, uh, Tool. Or Metallica. Except there's no old guy walking around in the dark and no creepy gumby characters rolling around in a cave. The oil reminds me of *Carrie.* Politically poignant, sure; ditto the words on the chalkboard, though I don't know the extent to which I'd have picked up on them if smart people here hadn't already clued me in. Not sure how much I like the song. Sounds like '90s alt-rock with a better singer; video *looks* like '90s alt-rock with a better singer. I sort of wish it sounded even more goth. At least right now; maybe if I hear it several more times, I'll learn to love it.

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 23:46 (twenty years ago)

meaning that the song isnt about what is being sung, but about history that we have to know about (ie its about toby keith not some anon lover)

― anthony easton, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 01:01 (twenty years ago)

I just did a reported piece on the Dixie Chicks where I interviewed a programmer for a country station in northwest Arkansas. He essentially said that the Chicks wouldn't be back on his station until there was demand for them, of which he claims there isn't at the moment. But I also got the sense that he felt that Maines went out of her way to insult country radio in general.

That said, the album works for me and not because of the politics or even the anger but just because it seems to have unleashed Maines. She sounds terrific, supernatural really. Who else sings like this?

― werner T., Tuesday, 30 May 2006 15:50 (twenty years ago)

I think she made that leap on their last album, actually; what was "Landslide" but a coming-out party for Natalie's white-witchery?

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 16:06 (twenty years ago)

Home had a brooding on the past present future, overall (rise of the term "Homeland," etc.; "Travelin' Soldier" the only war song per se, but in retrospect was an early example of the New Unease I tagged when ol rah-rah Darryl "Have You Forgotten?" Worley, of all people, came out with a very autumnal scoping of die Homeland, recorded even before the election and general morning-after Red State blues so soon audible in so many country albums). Just as Natalie said what a lot of country listeners basically came to agree with, re distrust-to-disgust with Bush, but like certain Southern politicans were challenged for having been prematurely Anti-Nixon...And the Time piece, which xpost George mentioned in passing ("In The Line Of Fire" by Josh Tyrangal) is pretty good, and speculates about the family feud (and, I'd say, identity crisis: "If you/if I say this about our Texas President, then who the fuck are you/am I????" Not really a rhetorical question, though many wish it were.) An ongoing thing in country; for inst, in Malone's Country Music USA (1968), the controversy over The Nashville Sound, and is Eddy Arnold a Judas goat/traitor, or is he only reflecting/the voice of the changes of the audience itself? This was a big deal! xpost I described my first viewing of the Chicks vid (and yeah George, the press is jumping on this shit, but what else on there is gonna possibly be exciting enough to sell some mags or some ads, ascigar-chomping editors might agree?)(xpost my quote of Sasha's early New Yorker review) Posted a reply to Cheryl on Livingstereo; Your Comments Awaiting Moderation.

― don, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 21:15 (twenty years ago)

But I also got the sense that he felt that Maines went out of her way to insult country radio in general.

This'd be like Kool Moe Dee complaining that LL Cool J went out of his way to insult him.

Think the song lyrics are way too restrained (was hoping Natalie would sing "How do ya like me now, punk"); also that they don't engage the real issue, which isn't that the Dixies got a death threat (the poor things) but that they got blackballed, and if it happened to them it could happen to anyone.

But the death threat itself - shut up and sing or your life will be over - contains ambivalence. The guy wants her to sing, after all. And I wonder how much of the Dixie Chicks' popularity owes something to this basic ambivalence. I really don't know the country audience, which is hardly a monolith anyway, but I'd guess that some of the Dixies' appeal was that they came across as fresh and modern and not tied to the more pious and "traditional" tendencies in country; this could be attractive even (or especially) to someone who basically did feel himself aligned on the conservative side. The Dixies would represent potential freedom; but then when the Dixies act on this freedom, this same fan might be ready to throw them over (because he envies their freedom and is ready for them to go so far that he'll have to reject them). (But I'm not saying that this would be someone's main reason for liking the Dixies, if indeed it was ever anyone's partial reason.) I'd expect that some of you would have a better sense of the mainstream country audience than I do.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 06:00 (twenty years ago)

I remember reading that Natalie Maines had been a Metallica fan back in middle school.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 06:02 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I really don't buy the "It's about Toby Keith" thing. I also don't buy that the video is "about" the war, really; it makes some muddled visual allusions to it, but videos do that all the time, and if anything, this artsy video style (reminds me of supposedly great but actually irritating old '90s ones by Pearl Jam and R.E.M. as well) usually tends to strike me as beating around the bush without actually coming out and naming the bush (or Bush), and I'm not sure what good that does. (Not that the video or song would necessarily be *better* if Bush or Toby or the war was named; I never much liked those old Rage Against the Machine ones that PUT EVERYTHING ON THE TABLE AND BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH IT, either. I'm just saying I wonder if the video as brave as people are claiming, beyond merely not looking like a country video anymore. But Nickel Creek made an alt-rock-ish video last year too,right? Hell, Pam Tillis used to make R.E.M. videos.) Both the lyrics and the imagery in the video are extremely vague, when you get down to it -- more vague than they could be, anyway. So neither strike me as as gutsy as they're being given credit for, and I'm not convinced (not yet at least) that this is Natalie at her most unhinged, either. Is her delivery really such a huge leap? She's never actually been a wallflower, you know (at least not since *Wide Open Spaces,* when I started paying attention.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 10:39 (twenty years ago)

(I still haven't heard the album. Am considering buying it, but that usually means I'll procrastinate for a while first. Hell, I didn't get around to buying the Akon CD til the month before last.) (If somebody has publicist contact info, emailing it to me'd be swell.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 10:59 (twenty years ago)

which isn't that the Dixies got a death threat (the poor things) but that they got blackballed

I think "shut up and sing or your life will be over" also applies to being blacklisted, and, surely the whole song does too. You don't have to read very far outside the text to get that it's also about not kissing and making up with country radio--at least not ready yet.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:15 (twenty years ago)

I also don't get how this is remotely vague:

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:23 (twenty years ago)

Right, one line, Roy.

xp: Or, to put it another way, if you're going to take the autobiographical angle, which everybody seems to be doing, probably because it's sort of inevitable at this point (though, I swear, it won't be inevitable to somebody seeing or hearing the song 10 or 20 years from now), does the song or video tell us anything about the Dixie Chicks or Natalie that we didn't already know? I'm skeptical that is shocks people's systems; to me, it's more or less what I would've expected. The video style tells the Triple A audience (many of whom probably had Dixie Chicks CDs on their shelves anyway) "It's okay to like us now, we're not hicks." Okay, okay, we get it already.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:30 (twenty years ago)

But I mean, yeah, I guess Roy has a point, and maybe that verse will kick in as I hear the song more -- it IS less vague if you know the backstory, or at least the last couple lines of it are. But so far, for me anyway, it gets lost in the song, and the video's muddle.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:36 (twenty years ago)

And I guess I should point out that my opinions expressed here (even more than usual) are *works in progress.* I WANT to love what the Dixie Chicks are doing. I'm a fan. But maybe I'm asking for more than I'll ever get (and not even being clear about what I'm asking for, admittedly) and hence setting myself up to be disappointed. As of now, I'd say the song is LESS direct than the Dixie Chicks' norm. I'm just not sure I'm right, or can put my finger on why I think so.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Also, I should note that I *always* have a tendency to distrust songs where people say "you have to know the backstory to get it." (Which is right up in my book there with publicists telling me "the album won't seem so lame when you see the band live.") When the song will kick in for me, if it does, is when I *separate* it from the backstory. But I'm still not saying I was hoping that I was hoping Natalie'd come up with a "Positively Fourth Street." Or maybe I was (and maybe this is one, and I just haven't figured that out yet).

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:49 (twenty years ago)

i dont think its as hard or as obvious as the last one, but i dont think its pulling punches either, i think that the shut up and sing is very explicit, not only dealing with the maines mess, but in the sense of a general belief that musicians are organ monkies and the audience is the grinder--its a fuck you not to country radio (alot of which in the south banned them, and some of which hired a steam roller, like it was porn or made a bonfire of the vanities as a stunt) but as a fuck you to the audience who expects somgs that are apolitical, that are about something.

travelling soilder is about the gulf, but its coded in veitnam, the video for this one, with oil making white dresses and clean water filthy beyond repair, is uncoded, it reminds me of macbeth, you know out out damn spot...

it is a refutation of the violence done to them, the whole album is a refutation of the violence done to them, and also as their status as thinking femminists, like loretta ca the pill or rated x (though its less polemic even then those two songs)

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 13:47 (twenty years ago)

Well, people are still arguing over what/who Dylan is singing about in Positively 4th St. and that's hardly a bad thing. I mean I'm glad the song isn't any more direct than it is, and I think it's plenty direct. OK, it's not "Goodbye Earl," but still...And the backstory isn't a backstory at all. It was gigantic front page news.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 14:45 (twenty years ago)

I swear I never knew there was a death threat until last week, when I read Pareles's Times profile. If that part of the story had been front page news, I hadn't noticed. But then I tend not to devour news about celebrities, which might well make me a weirdo, somehow. (Also, isn't "Positively Fourth Street" about some guy at *Sing Out!*? I had no idea there was still disagreement about that. My point I guess, or part of it, is that the song sounded ferocious to me long before I knew it had anything specific to do with Dylan's career.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 14:58 (twenty years ago)

'cover of time magazine' is a bit too far outside the rockcrit tailchase echo chamber for frank and xhuxkx maybe. one thing i'm surprised somewhat by considering they knew (obv) about country radio resistance ('not ready to make up' is clearly a 'you can't fire me/i quit' preemptive - rimshot - move), and that this was their rock move (after their last album decried rock moves) to the extent that they 'do you see' hired rick rubin and the early word that it had an 'eagles feel' is that the album feels the least crossover potential of any of them, probably a result of the biggest 'rock move' on it - they write their own songs (the worst rock move of all!), ergo the hooks ain't as sharp (ie. yeah there's no 'goodbye earl' which delivers it's punch harder with more humour - duh - but more venom too than). in any case number one album in the country, this week at least.

― j blount (papa la bas), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 15:07 (twenty years ago)

Oh, i saw the Time cover, duh. It was probably the thinnest issue of Time i've ever seen in my life -- how come nobody's talked about that? Didn't read the article, though; waiting for it to hit the dentist's or allergist's office, like I always do with newsmagazines.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 15:16 (twenty years ago)

the death threat was mentioned in the ew article, and i think a ny times story, and had extensive coverage in rednex/bluenex

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 15:40 (twenty years ago)

I swear I never knew there was a death threat until last week

It was on 60 Minutes. It was in the LA Times. It was in the NY Times. It was in TIME. Enough, already. They cannily used it as part of their promotional operation and it wound up being overdone, as usual. You could use Lex-Nex and I'm betting you'd find it in every feature on them in the western press.

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 16:03 (twenty years ago)

there were several actually, why is this kind of violent silencing not important, shouldnt it be discussed all over the place?

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 17:10 (twenty years ago)

Roy K: ""Not Read to Make Nice" debuted real strong but the single and the album seem to have fallen off--and hard."

.....

AP: "Taking The Long Way debuts at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 best-selling albums chart this week, with first week's sales of 525,829."

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 31 May 2006 20:27 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 1998 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.