Yo P&J, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but ILX had the greatest 2009 poll of all time! All time! (2009 ILX Trax Poll Results: TOP TEN TODAY)

I know. It's my own problem, really. And now, an hour removed from the center of the debate, I've relaxed my stance on this. Like what you like, people.

i'm trying to figure out what is "more deep" in whatever genre girls is, but i suppose it doesn't really matter.

The kiddie pool is deeper than Girls

I just went back and skimmed the album to refresh my memory, and yeah... pretty much anything from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to Thee Oh Sees to Sic Alps to Spiritualized all do what Girls do better, and before they did it.

I just checked out Girls - Lust for Life for the first time and at least its short. But I can understand the hate.

'

i dunno, Johnny...personally, I could give J0rdan a hard time for, say, bumping Major Lazer but not seeking out dancehall that doesn't have a Downtown Records promo budget and Hollertronix connections, but he's upfront about the fact that he's being dilettantish about that (which a lot of people are way too defensive to even). and at least for me personally I don't hear anything specific enough in the Girls song to think "go to the source," it's all such common shared history basic rock song template stuff that no fan of it is going to hear some song from 20-40 years ago and think "now I see the light, this is where it all started!"

J0rdan's being a champ about this all, it's true. I'm probably just projecting all over this thread, though, because of my own need to know everything about everything.

i'm trying to figure out what is "more deep" in whatever genre girls is, but i suppose it doesn't really matter.

That Girls song sounded like an Ariel Pink song to me with all the charm sucked out.

e.g. compare that terrible song with this great one

not to warp this thread anymore but the major lazer thing was unique i thought because dudes worked with genuine dancehall artists, from what i could tell. it wasn't like how diplo gets some random girls to rap over his version of bmore club or whatever. and also i dig diplo + switch as producers generally, just not as remixers/tastemakers. i dig some post- t-pain dancehall like busy signal or demarco but it's not something i especially care about, so i'll listen to whatever comes down the chute. i listened to the mavado album after whiney gave it an 8 on twitter. thought it was alright-- major lazer is poppier from an american standpoint & plus i was just kinda playing devil's advocate in that 77 thread.

and anyway i think everyone has to be a dilettante about some things -- last year i listened to a lot of critically acclaimed albums that came out in the beginning of the decade when i was 12/13 and never really was aware of. i listened to a lot of swag music, more than 98% of the world i'd imagine. didn't really enrich me as a music listener anyway but it's what i did. only so much time in the world. i watch a lot of tv.

i imagine that the major lazer thing was like, the first DJ khaled album or something. not exactly the best thing you could get if you wanted southern rap, but it had like 5 bangers and was a decent enough round up of what is happening in that scene at the time for those who are relatively uninitiated. i just thought ppl were being overly harsh & reactionary in that 77 thread (minstrelsy stuff aside)

another thing about girls/major lazer-- and this might get me in trouble, idk -- only so many albums a year hit me emotionally, where i could be on the proverbial desert island and feel like i need that album in my life. otherwise music very much is a function in my life for me to interact intellectually with people whom i respect & like, which is why i spend way too much time on ilm, and i have nowhere to really express myself when it comes to something like real-ass dancehall or girls-like rock that is better/more unknown than girls. otoh, i had friends irl that dug major lazer & were talking about it, so i checked it out, liked it & defended it on 77. girls had a massive ilm thread. i can pretty much bullshit about anything in the autogoon thread (whatever the dancehall equivalent of oj da juiceman is) & it feels like an important thing in my life. same for funky house & being able to follow the good convo on that thread.

girls are pretty damn bad. just sounds like bad britpop - whoever compared them to dodgy upthread otm - with an adenoidal singer. they don't anger me as much as VW or AC though, prob cuz i've seen less otherwise-sane people go on about them. i really hated britpop at the time though, apart from a couple of trax.

taylor - i love that she changes the R&J ending, it's actually kinda arrogant when you think about it; she believes in happy endings, and she's gonna rewrite shakespeare to get hers. it actually adds to the rush of optimism in the song for me.

"blame it" is the second greatest drinking song of the year after electrik red's "drink in my cup". it captures really precisely that blind drunk feeling of stumbling around a club completely wasted. actually expected it to place higher but then it does seem weirdly polarising - i just find it so irresistibly infectious. a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

gaga - didn't love either of these when they came out, and indeed was sort of repulsed by "poker face", but it was "poker face" that earwormed me so much over the summer that i just gave in and downloaded the stupid thing, and i've been jamming it ever since. the tipping point was probably dancing to it at a friend's wedding. still hate the whole "bluffing with my muffin" bit though aargh, so cheesy!

the most amazing "paparazzi" performance i've seen is the one at the vmas, with the fake blood and hanging and such. plus the oedipal papa-paparazzi thing is amusing.

it strikes me that all the dubstep-not-dubstep stuff like guido and darkstar seems to be hitting the same spot this year that kompakt techno records did about 7 years ago for music fans who aren't necessarily into the scene: pretty melodies, a real strong emotional sense, interesting beats, as good for headphone/bedroom listening as hearing in a club.

"blame it on the goose" is also a hilarious chorus line.

http://the-reviewer.net/wp-content/uploads/goose450.JPG

What the hell do people think they're doing listening to that Taylor Swift person? Jesus wept. Jesus fucking wept.

you're gonna have to do better than that

@j0rdan: in all the GAPDY discussion i don't think anyone had yet made that connection between consensus and music as a communal experience and a soundtrack for a set of friends in a particular year, for a particular set of lives in time, basically. those connotations can make it an emotional thing in itself leaving aside those inherent in the music. but versions of these go on in the swag thread too, not just that consensus but reactions against wider consensus, like Shine Blockas is A+ and everyone likes it but look at where is it in this poll, has it been penalized because it makes Gucci palatable to reactionary rap fans and indie yanks? deej lols at indie kids digging Gibbs and pretty soon whiney and surfboard are treating him like some kind of joke figure, when everybody knows he's a damn good rapper with solid to beautiful production, though like shine blockas not doing anything amazingly new besides skipping a record deal and giving music away, or putting gucci over a dope old loop.

sup lex, wb

well, in the context of modern rock, both are identifiable & unique. it's not like phoenix isn't distilling lessons taught by "12:51"
― Goon's Anatomy (J0rdan S.), Saturday, January 30, 2010 3:39 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh?

sup zvookster

If Girls weren't in this poll, no one would bother hating them. Love that goose, by the way.

If Girls weren't in this poll, no one would bother hating them.

^ truer than true.

the jukebox did "laura" by girls a while back, and was mostly unimpressed - http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1506

Kind of bemused by these lol britpop reactions to those Girls tracks.

clearly did not intend it this way, but I think Love Story is really depressing. xposts.

also ya'll can bitch and moan about Girls all you want, but you're not going to ruin the thread that introduced me to Guido. I don't care if I come off as a Field fan for liking it.

it strikes me that all the dubstep-not-dubstep stuff like guido and darkstar seems to be hitting the same spot this year that kompakt techno records did about 7 years ago for music fans who aren't necessarily into the scene: pretty melodies, a real strong emotional sense, interesting beats, as good for headphone/bedroom listening as hearing in a club.

this rings true - hence the dance partisans thread being so much busier than the straight-up house & techno thread. still can't help but feeling that the dubstep-not-dubstep stuff, as much as i like lots of it, is a dead end in a way that early 00s minimal dance wasn't. maybe it's just the lower BPMs. i need to listen to more funky i guess :-/

the girls song works for me mostly because of its sort of tongue-in-cheek facade. when i saw the song title my first thought was obviously that its cover, then you hear the opening chords and realize it isnt but still expect "liquor and drugs and the flesh machine," then he delivers this part-earnest part-sarcastic part-pathetic opening line and really fucks with where you thought the song was going. so you have to decide right away if youre going to accept the song on their weird terms.

the best thing i can think of to compare the lines like "oh i wish i had a suntan" is how in high school i used to make fun of the stuff cooler kids even though i probably would have been the first to join in given the chance. like the singer doesnt really care about suntans but kind of does wish he had one. maybe this obvious and i just exposed my inner nerd, but i do think its a good song. and funnier than anyones giving it credit for.

I think defenders of Girls lyrics are overanalyzing them. Does anybody do this to Buddy Holly lyrics?

every day

can we reroute this into a "Defend Taylor Swift" direction? Cause I can do that and beating up Girls when no one is defending them beyond "well _I_ like them" is boring.
Also Lex, I disTINCTly heard him say "blame it on the jews"

girls suxx ass

yeah he most probably does if you pay him enough

'lust for life' is really relatable and beautiful and has a gr8 aesthetic

This is the kind of thing that makes me think people are lazy about looking for music to like.

― Johnny Fever, Friday, January 29, 2010 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sorry for unearthing this, but it's lazy to like beautiful music?

re. all the girls hate. i think people are missing the point. for me it's not music to sit and think and pick apart the lyrics or marvel at the artistry. it's just fun, immediate music for sunny days. now that it's winter i don't want to listen to girls or any of the lo-fi LA type bands because they seem so out of sync with my environment.

Only it's not fun, immediate music for sunny days.

oh god

that girls song is just OK, haters should try listening to the album which is 100x worse

yeah it is. it's a huge summer record.
i can concede that it's not fun, but chilling chatting in the sun is when lyrics matter least, and it is pretty immediate and the music is such the product of summer.
i guess maybe that's why i don't listen to it right now, because on headphones i would have to hear the words and i know often their not so lighthearted.

glibly parsing the appeal of Girls' song: guy who has had really weird life moves to San Fran, falls in with hipsters and has a great time, with the aid of simple jangly-pop tunes reminds hipsters that its not so complicated being a hipster, its actually really fun.

idk, i'm not much interested in it, but i think i see why people get such feel-good vibes from it.

i personally prefer the feel-good vibes of Azari & III

i'm curious as to what people mean when they say a singer is a bad singer. as in, the guy from phoenix is a good singer and the guy from girls is a bad singer. does girls dude not hit the right notes, or does he have less range? i'm pretty sure he's as technically skilled as he needs to be in order do be doing what he wants to do. i think he sings exactly the way he wants to.

can we reroute this into a "Defend Taylor Swift" direction?

first time i heard love story on the radio back in 08 coincided w/ me falling hard for fleetwood mac. there was a second during the opening instrumental part where i was sure it was some FM song i'd never heard. that guitar part sounds so lindsey buckingham to me. been noticing their influence all over female pop-country recently.

with the aid of simple jangly-pop tunes reminds hipsters that its not so complicated being a hipster, its actually really fun

Aah, no wonder so many ilmers do not like it!

I'm just kidding. When I think of summer music I think of the Zombies, the Jacuzzi Boys, The Cramps, Kurt Vile, Gene Vincent, early Cure... that sort of sounds so it's actually the sort of music I believe is just ripe for the summertime. I do find Girls a bit annoying tho, but I'm not sure why. Probably the vocals.

also, re love story, best part of the song is the end of the 2nd verse "escape this town for a little while, UH OH!" part. gets me every time. really one of my favorite albums in a while

i feel bad about voting for "love story" now that it's been ruled out as so 2008. it's just my favourite song on the album by far and although i'm not british i only heard it this year, and i figured well since it was nom'd... i like it most because of how explosive the final chorus is. it's teen pop reaching post-rock levels of intensity through itty bitty pop-punk tricks i've heard a thousand times and it floors me every time i hear it. also i love the way she sings "this love is difficult, but it's re-eal."

I swear bookmarks aren't working for me on this thread

Someone mentioned that they didn't think Taylor was an acquired taste, but it took LOTS of exposure for her to grow on me. She's a great craftsman, really knows how to build a solid song. But yeah, she does need to expand her songs' meaning and topic base and that's why I'm excited to see what she does over this decade.