Salem - What kind of music genre is this ?

I'm embracing the overt ridiculousness of this band, I guess.

i don't even like the knife but i think it's an insult to karen dreijer to compare her to some dude mumbling lazy raps & then screwing his voice

oh there's the al jolson

hadn't seen that vid

http://i53.tinypic.com/209507p.jpg

But as many have also said upthread, this band is doing something special. They may not be meaning to, but I don't care. I love that there are already scores of imitators, and there's even that Witch Haus blog, and all these compilations of bands trying to jump on the Now That's What I Call Witch House bandwagon, and, true to form, Salem are nowhere to be found on any of these dumb comps. Totally cool.

this doesn't even make an argument for why the music is good

yeah ok dude deliberately lowering his voice to sound "black" while mumbling lazy fake southern accent swag rap

.......more than suspect.

whiney wins.

khaaaaaaaaaaaah!

xpost to Jordan - It doesn't attempt to. I just think it's cool that they're avoiding such trappings.

i don't even like the knife but i think it's an insult to karen dreijer to compare her to some dude mumbling lazy raps & then screwing his voice

Why? Because she's detached and creepy on purpose and these dudes are detached and creepy because that's how they are IRL?

in a sonic sense i still dig it, but conceptually it's indefensible afaic

XP to WW: Hang on, I thought we were all hipsters now?

They look like horrible fucking scrotes to me Salem, but so were, y'know, Joy Division, PiL, The Fall etc. They look like horrible bratty hipsters messing about with stuff they didn't fully understand to me but so were, y'know, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Velvet Underground etc.

Anyway, so one of my writers got back from spending a few days with them outside of Chicago and said, no, actually, I was dead wrong, they're pretty decent people. Dude with long hair started crying during the interview about the Butt magazine interview, said he really regrets it but was quite 'ill' at the time. He said they seem like very sensitive, very insular people who've got a very fixed vision of what they want to sound like. (Which for me is the main point, given that they do have a pretty unique sound - apart from people like oOoOOO who have just ripped them off mercilessly.)

I mean obviously, when you met them Whiney, your experience was quite different. How were they? Maybe you caught them on a bad day. I don't really get the Al Jolson thing either... don't you think hip hop as a 30 year old monolithic institution can withstand some arty, drug addled, middle class white kids messing about with some of it's minor offshoots on the periphery?

(This is all by the by... they live in some white picket fence neighbourhood with stars and bars over every door... if they'd been camped out on the river Styx nailing babies to crosses or reading off a script written for them by some guy at American Apparel... I dunno, I'm never going to meet them... why does it matter?)

http://i56.tinypic.com/f36iox.jpg

uh i don't think it's about whether or not hip hop can 'withstand' salem, it's whether the music is reprehensible or not

Why? Because she's detached and creepy on purpose and these dudes are detached and creepy because that's how they are IRL?

― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, September 23, 2010 12:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

this is about as reductive as you could possibly be an attempt to somehow level salem with the knife, congratulations

Define reprehensible in this context.

Dude with long hair started crying during the interview about the Butt magazine interview, said he really regrets it but was quite 'ill' at the time.

Good lord, everything IS emo.

All music is reprehensible to someone given that it means open to criticism.

everybody loves Tapes n Tapes

Define reprehensible in this context.

― Duran (Doran), Thursday, September 23, 2010 6:58 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

how about "an act that is clearly racially exploitative"

How is it clearly racially exploitative? I don't get what you're talking about.

well i think it's really boring music -- beats are aight but they're pretty dime a dozen, the raps are... i mean, i don't see what the salem dude brings with his screw rap that actual screwed music doesn't -- even w/o comparing salem to the shit that it's copping from, there's nothing really interesting aside from maybe 'mood' -- they lyrics aren't 'good' & neither are the hooks

reprehensible in the fact that the performance posted above makes it seem like they're pretty much doing blackface, altho it's not really all that offensive more just rolling my damn eyes

Markers: I'd say that Creedence are my exception to this rule.

lol

mood

ding ding

Jordan: Right, I get what you're saying and I appreciate it. I just don't get all this wailing and hysterical gnashing of the teeth that's going on elsewhere like we're dealing with Burzum fronting Skrewdriver.

How about a little perspective!?

like, i didn't realize dude was doing his own shitty rapping and had just assumed it was some hollertronix style theft which, while suspect in its own right, is nowhere near the level of dude appropriating southern rap slang and a fake accent and digitally creating ~A BLACK VOICE~ for his vague non-rapping

buncha xps

but like, if you dig the 'mood' of salem, actual screw music is soooo much more emotionally resonant & evocative of loneliness & sadness & all that then this stuf

big hoos big otm

actual screw music

artist name I could check out?

dude the difference is that sxsw and the fader and levi's and whoever are NOT PUSHING BURZUM FRONTING SKREWDRIVER

marketing opportunity

this is my fave screwed song ever, markers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvF8uqEum6s

i mean i'm sure they're nice guys & it seems like they have really good taste in music (side note: the BUTT interviewer doing an interview for a GAY MAGAZINE and then being all "WAIT YOU REALLY LIKE MARIAH CAREY????" was really retarded), but i don't think that their music is actually all that good

& it's NOT an authenticity thing -- their gucci mane remixes >>>>>>>> all original salem joints, becuase gucci mane >>>>>>> anyone in salem as an artist

ksh:

Which DJ Screw cd is worth buying?

like the other day a friend of mine asked for new music recs and like 5 people said "salem." if their first suggestion had been varg fronting skrewdriver i'd be pretty hand wringy too

i think they have a decent basic concept (mainstream-ish rap beats w/hazy synths), but i don't think they execute it particularly well

xps

cadillac on 22's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Burzum fronting Skrewdriver

Not to start a big thing, but this would probably rule mightily

XXXXP: I don't see the whole sound as racist or even exploitative though. On the album he does sound pretty fucking black on one of the three songs that he 'raps' on, on the album. So that's one track on the album where I did raise an eyebrow (go o_O, whatever) but this is just one strand in a music that's made up of industrial, juke, post punk, synth pop, ambient... for it to be exploitative, it would ahve to be a straight rip, no?

It might be a bit gauche or a bit upsetting to PC sensibilities but that's something else entirely.

That Levis thing is fucking appalling. I'm talking about the album. There are loads of great artists (including hip hop dudes who are great on record but fucking suck live).

And I do listen to other chop and screw things including a load of chopped Three Six Mafia remixes I've got. Just not loads of it to be honest, I'd be quite happy to hear some more.

Y'know this was originally a Jamaican dub effect anyway right?

I have to applaud the gentleman above me's trolling by the way ;-) outstanding... I may take a screengrab and note this down in my diary.

thx Whiney & J0rdan, will check out

I'm so amazed at having not having pointlessly lost my temper and had a meltdown, I'm going to stop posting now and ring my therapist to tell her. I think I know what everyone's saying but it doesn't feel exploitative to me, but that's never going to go beyond a gut feeling I guess.

It's not like the dude's got Sting's Jamaican accent.

xpost Who's trolling? I'm here all the time!

Anyway, as I've pointed out, objectively, yeah, The Knife + Young Black Teenagers + ARE Weapons = disaster, but I can't really explain why I dig this as much as I do. Then again, I'm no rock critic.

Well, you IM me, maybe we can make this Burzum and Skrewdriver thing happen. Fuck it, we should invite Eric Clapton and Professor Griff as well.

Young Black Teenagers at least acknowledged they were cultural appropriators instead of just passing of lazy junkie disaffectedness as an excuse to pretend they're Slim Thug

Yeah I loved their first EP, We Fully Acknowledge the Past.

i've just finished listening to this album!

when i first heard these guys i didn't really hear much of a hip-hop connection beyond the vague "oh they've listened to some chopped & screwed rap". the tracks where he "raps" on this album are the first i've heard it, and they're all dreadful (esp "tair", where he doesn't even have the decency to bury in in the synthwash). however the rest of it is mostly ok, in a so-far non-committal way, and the two tracks which really leap out as being somewhat special are a) the two i'd already heard, title track and "redlights", b) the ones that are furthest from any ersatz hip-hop crap.

i can see why people love them, it's a nice wash of sound to lose yourself in. dunno how much more i'll come back to it though.

as far as, um, witch house goes, i really really love these two tracks by white ring, and can take or leave everything else i've heard. it doesn't really annoy me as much as many of the other things that have received undeserving hype this year.

I just watched that fader fort performance for the first time

a few years ago I went to some restaurant somewhere in long beach that was run by some sect of Buddhist monks or some shit who believed that providing dining experiences for ppl was the way to get closer to god or something, bottom line it was this weird place that would open once in a few weeks and have free food and shit. I went with a friend who was into getting into religions or something I was stoned at the time. Anyway the whole time there was a dude on a synth enhancing the dining experience, getting closer to god. His movements were really slow and kind of sad. The way he played the synth made me really sad. It was exactly like the dude playing the salem synth. I couldn't get through that salem vid. It all made me so sad.