MIA

yeah the "mad at the ceiling" line had very little to do with the author and more to do with mia/diplo -- there was just a bit of irony in him taking potshots at contemporary rap and then praising a line on the album that happened to be stolen from a contemporary rapper -- i wouldn't expect him (or even anyone on ilx outside of deej tbh) to even remember that line

part of the problem with the piece from my perspective is that since its in GQ it's not really aimed for me ie someone who has read tens of MIA profiles, and even more articles by white guys talking about rap music -- it was insufferable to me but i guess it would just code as inoffensive to most GQ readers or maybe even relateable/novel -- i'm sure his novels are fantastic

"insufferable" meaning the first few (online) pages -- the rest of it was fine, sometimes good

i wouldnt expect it but thats sorta my issue w/ the whole thing ... the level of invisibility for the actual creative artist vs. the overrated rip-off artist right??

i also dont really see what being old has to do w/ having taste

i mean pretty much my presence on this board in the past year has been reduced for most ilxors to being all 'you should pay attention to this rapper' & so when the #1 star child of music writers comes out w/ a song biting one of those rappers, which is then praised specifically for that line in a major publication by a noted writer, u gotta admit it makes sense i would find it lol

xpost one quibble, the difference between a fiction writer who slips on the music writing cloak, and a music writer who casually dismisses a lot of contemporary fiction is quite large. It's not like a music writer on ILM stretches into more foreign topics with this faux-conviction, the way a fiction writer might vice versa, although I do agree that people here can be flippant and reactionary to the world of modern-lit in a ways that belie their open mindedness to music.

you guys are also reading way too much into a shakey mo post as if it represents some secret thoughts of j0rdans

don't worry, this is being talked over with Shaky on ILE, so my reaction to it is not super-relevant to this thread anymore

i didn't dismiss this guy's fiction at all! in fact, i said he must be pretty good to get an assignment like this -- i don't spend a lot of time (outside of assigned readings) with fiction writing, this is true, but i don't endorse the opinions of shakey mo collier either

and then turn around and say something eighty billion times more clueless/embarrassing about the nuances or inside view of literature

Or sometimes even about the nuances or inside view of music.

Like I say and think stupid, superficial shit about music every day, even though I also think I know something about some parts of it.

Meanwhile I would also like to buy nabisco a drink. Between the "'artistic' use" thread and this, maybe several.

Shteyngart vs. this: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/kill-me-now/Content?oid=4319529

― Mexico, camp, horns, Zappa, Mr. Bungle (Matos W.K.), Friday, June 25, 2010 9:24 AM Suggest Ban Permalink
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God damn. Hating Dan Savage all over again. I mean, obviously this isn't as serious a deal as his whole "blame black people for Prop 8" thing, but dude has some race issues.

"I have never listened to this music before. Watch me to condescend to it, and despair."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunt_casting

I didn't get the feeling that Shteyngart was criticizing commercial rap as a music critic would, ie., by trying to judge it on its own merits - rather that, as a novelist (or memoirist), he was giving an unvarnished appraisal of the way he had personally related to the music in college (on admittedly a somewhat puerile and self-centered level) and how he had personally stopped caring about it as he grew older (for reasons probably having to do with his shallow engagement with it in the first place). But he doesn't seem to imply that his personal journey should be taken as universal, or that it reflects on the intrinsic artistic worth of the form. At least that's how I read it.

Any idiot could find rhymes for anything using the pronounce-it-however-you-want approach.

he reeeeeeally should listen to gucci mane

kinda wish i hadn't read this, since i dig dan savage

this didnt bother me that much, it just seemed like some dude going 'lalala' with fingers in ears for an entire article which, weird

that's racist!

Seriously though, Dan Savage has revealed himself to be an ass over the past 2 years. His column has suffered because of it and his take on modern pop solidifies his increasing irrelevance. Girlfriend is very much an old school gay.

garey g. shteyngarten

I agree w Dan Savage on the Katy Perry & Ke$ha hate. That those are hit songs is reason enough to be happy that the music industry is dying.

you know you're all posting under a thread for the wrong mia.

Please respect the work of michaela grobelny by not further polluting her name by associations with m.i.a.

actually both spell their names with periods, you get the point though.

what a horribly formed "j.o.k.e."

was it really a joke or just earnest pedantry?

It's just geir's I LIKE THE ORIGINAL NIRVANA ;) joke plus a whole bunch of shit I don't care about

lol @ the one song from that list he ended up liking being travie mccoy + bruno mars

^^^ there are some other bad songs on that lis, but "Billionaire" is just another level of shite. but still, his taste doesn't bother me nearly as much as his racial angst

The comments in that savage column are this OMG BRAGGIN 2010 faux-naïveté bullshit like "Ive never heard ANY of these songs" and "WHO IS THIS 'Katie Perry'" which is like cool Internet post-millenial white-boy version of "I don't even OWN a tv" v. 2.0

^^^ there are some other bad songs on that lis, but "Billionaire" is just another level of shite. but still, his taste doesn't bother me nearly as much as his racial angst

― suge ♞ (The Reverend), Saturday, June 26, 2010 6:26 PM (2 hours ago)

???

I guess that's a briticism? I picked it up from my (distinctly non-british) dad.

The savage column was a pretty entertaining troll, I thought. And its not like he was without smart things to say about eminem and gaga in particular.

there are some other bad songs on that lis

All of those songs are bad.

I f/w a good 50% of them to various extents. I'm very surprised you don't like at least "Alejandro".

i fuck with a good four songs out of that 10

alejandro is top 10 of the year for me

dan savage is retarded

Isn't that rap now? All of these monotonous rap songs are playing in Panera Bread cafes and suburban basements all over the country. Usher, B.o.B.—they're today's Pat Boones, boring and safe—so... brown-bread.

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2009/11/if-hes-black-he-must-rap.html

god, what a fucking unbelievable idiot

he writes like a racist seventeen year old

did he mention he was a theater queen?

Um...so having it in HQ makes a big difference, as opposed to whatever the shitty webrip we had before was. It's not as stellar as the first two albums, but it's far more impressive (and risky in some ways) than I initially thought.

Gotta spend more time with it to figure out what she's on about half the time, but the sonics are clicking with me...something about the oppressive and abrasive noise combined with the disgusting oppressive humid weather this week are a lethal combination.

connected to the google, connected to the government

I'm a big fan of the noisy shit on this one. Not sure how I feel about the more pleasant moments, though!

I listened to the tracks she has posted right now on her myspace page this morning. I think it has all or most of the tracks from the new album. I gotta say, I'm liking it. Definitely a pretty big departure in terms of sound from the previous two. The noisiness suits her well. It sounds modern, not just like some post-punk stuff getting recycled.

sounds like a hot mess imo

the first part of teqkilla always makes me think of that mr show sketch where the dalai lama is battle rapping at the fat kid's summar camp

I guess I kinda like the hot mess aspect of it on first listen. The tracks that sound like actual songs are the weakest part to me.

I need to spend more time with this though before I can really make any semi-intelligent comments about it.