Here is the thread where we bitch about rock critics we don't like

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (144 of them)

Yeah - neither of the examples cited strike me as particularly contraversial.

The expose in my newspaper the other day about how Britney and Holly Valance (wait for it) use their scantilly-clad bodies to attract the attention of girls and men in order to sell songs written by middle-aged men (OH MY GOD!) was much more annoying (those "middle-aged men" = Nelly Hooper and Max Martin ==> GENIUSES!)

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 3 November 2002 10:48 (twenty-three years ago)

''Yeah - neither of the examples cited strike me as particularly contraversial.''

same here, can we have an explanation as to why those paragraphs were so damn awful.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 3 November 2002 11:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I like music critics that agree with me.

I hate music critics that don't agree with me. They are just wrong, end of story.

― kate, Sunday, 3 November 2002 11:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Here's the warning: They're coming and they are going to shake the Rock and Roll world up, destroying the diet-strength version that has been clogging up our airwaves and replace it with a new sound which is raw, human, righteous, and downright brilliant. Meet Dolf, Christian, Matt and Phil: The Datsuns. They have come to convert us to their new brand of rock, which combines frantic drum solos with electrifying guitar rifts.
The Datsuns self-titled album is their first offering of loud, fast music, fuelled by sexual frustration. This album is so animated and energising that it manages to instill in the listener a sense of what it must be like to witness these four geniuses in person. Indeed, each song on the album contains so much feeling and passion that it is clear they all have a meaning to the band. From the latest single, entering at number 25, In Love, which tells the story of feeling warm inside about girls and yet at the same time trying to remain cool - to the infectious Harmonic Generator, with its guitar spinning sound and incessant chorus that you can almost hear being chanted around the gig venue, each tells its own story.
Fink for the Man, a single in 2001, is another prominent track, with its drum beating introduction followed by the exhilarating, screaming voice of Dolf, which manages to convey the image of the young lady described in this pulsating tune. Lady indicates some of the band's influences, moving dangerously towards sounding like a cover of Aerosmith's track Dude Looks Like a Lady. While the individuality of Dolf's voice on You Build Me Up (To Bring Me Down) is reminiscent of the White Stripes. Digesting this album, however, makes it clear that influences go further. AC/DC and Deep Purple are definitely reference points. The highlight of the album, of which there are many, is Freeze Sucker with its high pitch guitars, dramatic drums and addictive chorus.
The Datsuns is a highly charged, emotionally exhilarating album, which takes the listener on a head banging rock and roll ride that increases with excitement with every listen. The album indicates the direction in which that the new school of rock and roll is heading. Guitar riffs that return to the days of Slash and Axl and vocals that are sung with intense passion and desire are the order of the day. The Datsuns are indeed, in the words of Dave Grohl, 'rock 'n' roll'.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 3 November 2002 11:48 (twenty-three years ago)

damn, was it really in 1997 that it ran? It seems long before that. You seem pretty convinced anyhow Matos, and you're probably right.

If it was in 1997, I find it even more dubious that someone had only heard the Rolling Stones was off a very rare PG tape that came out in 1986. It was a hard tape to find back then, as it is now. If that was indeed her leaping point, fine. It strikes me as an overstatement or some attempt to register some urban, Gen X credibility.

It just seemed all too conveniently hip to me at the time, and until I read it again I'll continue to think it wasn't a good review. I don't think you're necessarily being unfair Matos, but your evaluation of people who hated that review is rather dismissive--it implies that those of us who didn't like it didn't take the time to "get it." All I can say for myself is that I read it over and over, surprised that something like that ran in SPIN.

I see that review on the exact same terms as I do the Murray Street review in VV this year. Unoriginal. And not funny.

― Don Weiner, Sunday, 3 November 2002 12:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Even the worst pigfuck is better than the best PR puff, especially the ones that don't announce themselves as such

― dave q, Sunday, 3 November 2002 13:31 (twenty-three years ago)

how Britney and Holly Valance (wait for it) use their scantilly-clad bodies to attract the attention of girls

Lezzing up is the new Chartpop! The video for "Down Boy" implied as much, anyway...

Btw, Dom, that's a press release, right? NO WAY could that have appeared under the pretense of music criticism...

― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:03 (twenty-three years ago)

OK, Dom's post proves that my post is wrong. I even like the Datsuns but that is the worst press release I've ever read in my life.

― kate, Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:09 (twenty-three years ago)

jessica grose and amy phillips are *in* the bangs tradition of course, which is surely one reason why they wind ppl up so much, same as he did (another = they are girls, hence "unqualified" by the rote placeman aesthetics of how who gets to be yr local newspaper's official rock crit) (ans = size of record collection + in-placeness of established alt.status-quo positions on large enough number of well-known records)

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Amy P, from what I've read, totally has the in-placeness thing down though Mark.

Daniel - most UK writing about indie is exactly like that nowadays, pick up a copy of X-Ray if you want further misery.

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:18 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah but you need the things on both sides of the plus-sign

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:21 (twenty-three years ago)

(also by the momus-oid science of not reading posts properly, i had collapsed phillips, hopper and grose down to just two ppl, and parcelled out three ppl's writerly qualities among two ppl)

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:28 (twenty-three years ago)

How do you know Amy's got a small one though?

(I don't know Hopper or Grose's stuff well enough. Amy P seems to get her detractors saying "oh she only gets work cos she's a young girl" and her supporters saying "oh she gets detraction cos she's a young girl" - I don't think her record collection and/or taste really feature in any of the disputes about her writing)

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:32 (twenty-three years ago)

everyone knows girls have smaller record collections than boys, it's the iron law of rock

i'm talking abt unspoken assumptions on the part of my deluded opponents, the assumptions behind the kneejerk belief that girls make poor critics, not the facts in the given case => i am on perfectly safe ground here, since unspoken assumptions are unspoken!!

however i *do* think there was an element, in the murray street thread, of "she opts for mere girly blog-style biography bcz her approved and attested knowledge is obv deficient" (ie accurate knowledge of one's own responses and the reasons for them can only be of value to a reader when accurate knowledge of discographies and canons and stuff has been demonstrated) (and i wd argue that accurate knowledge of the latter is very often used in music writing as a mask for uncertainty and even fear in respect of the former...)

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:43 (twenty-three years ago)

frank kogan — who i am quite happy to state is in my opinion the greatest living music writer in the english language, by some considerable way (apologies to all ilxors everywhere) — has commented that, were the expulsion of the likes of grose and phillips from the rockwrite sphere to be achieved, for the reasons given, he too would very likely never be published at all... in other words, at a mimimum, tolerance of their contribution is the condition of possibility for his contribution

as it happens, the name of this condition of possibility is currently chuck eddy — who is as we speak (disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer) working on a piece of mine, for possible inclusion in the VV

(a review, curiously enough, of a record sent to me by a label whose current PR person = jessica hopper!!) (but i only just realised this...)

"the problem with [x] as an editor is that they only run pieces by ppl whose writing they like"

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 14:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, I just noticed this in the original post:

Most music writing is now a dreary recitation of facts written by dot-brains with no real understanding of the world. That’s how we ended up with the All Music Guide.

Hey, that's mean!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 3 November 2002 15:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh yeah there was but there was also an element of "hooray teenage girls are more honest and in touch with their lived feelings" which is deffo a trap I've fallen into before.

(Frank Kogan is an ilxor so no apology needed!)

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 3 November 2002 15:02 (twenty-three years ago)

I think though that on the Murray Street thread there was a big division among AP's critics into

- "this style of rockwrite is inappropriate therefore AP is rubbish"

and

- "this style of rockwrite is great but AP is rubbish at it"

in other words the specifics were important.

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 3 November 2002 15:08 (twenty-three years ago)

actually i just realised how important a version of the "conditions of possibility" thesis wz to my conception of the wire, esp. in the wake of the debacle of the hiphop wars at nme in the mid/late 80s (where basically three factions were at war — the laggard morleypenmanites, the indie-fanatic C86ers and the rap-obsessive soul-cialists: first the second two united to smother the first, then the C86ers, in allegiance with the incipient Greboids *and* management, wasted the hiphop wing, and got them barred... and then suddenly discovered that their united power against management was gone, and that the paper was run by focus-group boardroom idiots, and — aside from the poisoned chalice of britpop worship, which upped sales but trapped the paper aesthetically — all their room for manouevre, experiment and flexible entertainment wz gone.... )

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 15:17 (twenty-three years ago)

heh i am trying to persuade babelfish to institute a "translate from markessish" progam

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 15:18 (twenty-three years ago)

''"this style of rockwrite is great but AP is rubbish at it"''

I think its a good road to go into every once in a while. when the reviewer got into music via x and now, many years later, that person is reviewing x. Just saying what the music/band means to you with some general descriptions to give the reader an idea of what the rec sounds like (i thought those were OK in her piece).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 3 November 2002 15:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Believe it or not, Mark, I understood your post completely and I don't know the first thing about the NME.

Back to a point Ned made, which I have to agree with: there seems to be little to no place for all-out enthusiasm for music in rockcrit. Sometimes there are writers who do use it and go a bit overboard and mushy (like the currently-on-hiatus Pioneer Press columnist Jim Walsh) but it beats the editorial "lots of media outlets are saying good things about this band so let's try and find the writer on our staff who is the least likely to enjoy them so we can flaunt our veiny 'bucking conventional wisdom' jimbrowski" approach.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Sunday, 3 November 2002 17:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Al-out enthusiasm is really hard to do! I've been trying to do it more myself recently and it's very tough. Who does it well?

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 3 November 2002 17:35 (twenty-three years ago)

what do you mean by 'well'? anytime I want to find record reviews on the web, the ones on fan sites - especially where the fan reviews every single record - always seem far more enthusiastic than most 'real' criticism.

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 3 November 2002 17:45 (twenty-three years ago)

isn't that why they're called "fan sites" josh? (and "critics", come to that)

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 3 November 2002 17:49 (twenty-three years ago)

well yes, and I didn't mean to imply that this is strange. but if tom wants enthusiasm, there he goes. unless he's got uh STANDARDS and stuff lurking back there, like he wants christgau on E or something

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 3 November 2002 17:53 (twenty-three years ago)

"Well" = interestingly written, insightful, at the same time as giving a sense of the excitement and enthusiasm the writer feels.

I kind of mean who marries the other good things about rock criticism to a sense of enthusiasm.

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 3 November 2002 17:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I suppose what I am trying to hint at is the idea that maybe the two are mutually exclusive because the good things about one destroy the good things about the other. I don't know if I believe this but it seems plausible enough to consider.

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 3 November 2002 18:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I really want to know what J.R. Taylor has against the All Music Guide. I mean, other then the obvious fact that it's vastly informative and HUGE, the reviews are probably my favorite of any website. The reviews actually talk about the music, which rock critics dont like to do so much any more. And All Music does not prefer any style to any other (they actually gave NSYNC and BSB good reviews, because honestly, they're good pop albums).

The ones that tend to frustrate me the most are Pitchfork, as 90% of the reviews are usually some stupid show-off prose, with very little talk of music. I do agree with them a lot, however.

― David Allen, Sunday, 3 November 2002 20:27 (twenty-three years ago)

The main prob w/ the Amy Phillips piece - she picked the wrong SY alb to do the old "why don't they give it up the old fools they have become caricatures of themselves" routine. The article felt like something written (and rejected!) around the time of 'NYC Ghosts and Flowers', then polished up to coincide with, unfortunately for Phillips, the release of SY's best mainstream studio in years. Her failure to appreciate the qualities of 'Murray St' doesn't invalidate her case, or 'negate' her 'right' to slag off SY, but it does make me mistrust her ears/critical acumen, regardless of age/gender/biz connections/whatever.

I'm also slightly uneasy/defensive abt Mark's apparent disdain for "accurate knowledge of discographies and canons" (better that than inaccurate knowledge, surely?) I was re-reading 'Country' by Nick Tosches the other day, and apart from enjoying the bk's sheer writerly skill, I was also re-awed by his command of dates/facts/history/connections - I don't think the bk wld be half as impressive/enjoyable if Tosches only knew country music from listening to 'Country Honk' by the Rolling Stones, or if he'd Lester Banged on and on abt his deep personal relationship w/ Hank Snow recs while going to college in a small rural community of rednecks etc etc.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Sunday, 3 November 2002 22:52 (twenty-three years ago)

No "rock critic" has ever made me angrier than Mark Beaumont of the NME. He gets an A+ for smarminess and cheap shots, however.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 4 November 2002 00:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I dislike most of them because they write silly ones for alt-weeklies that all sound alike and don't make me excited about any album in particular and make my eyes glaze over. Also I dislike the ones who write long reviews which go on and on about uninteresting things and don't describe the music well.

I only notice the ones I like = the ones who stand out and I tend to like them all precisely for that.

I mean Jane Dark's Norah Jones piece seemed sorta two-years-ago but as a whole Dark can be very sharp. See the Josie review.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 4 November 2002 06:01 (twenty-three years ago)

and also the Cobain Journals piece (sorry, Mary), my favorite thing he's written in a long time.

Jessica Hopper came up in the Mpls indie-punk milieu (I didn't know her back then but had friends who did), and due to that I have no trouble believing she first heard (really paid attention to) the Stones through Pussy Galore, which if memory serves is what she was saying, not she'd never heard them AT ALL aside from that cassette. (nb that's if memory serves.) Also, I'm with Andrew L re: Phillips's SY piece.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 4 November 2002 06:23 (twenty-three years ago)

I have no trouble believing that the first time Ms. Hopper ever really paid any attention to the Stones was through Pussy Galore; I'm fairly certain that her quote was first time she ever "heard the Rolling Stones" and not "at all." And to that, I never figured her to be literal anyway. I don't know if you have ever heard the PG "Exile", but it's more or less unrecognizable to any of the songs on the Stones version. More importantly, the legacy sound of the Rolling Stones is so prevalent, even in the punk scene (and not the fractured shtuff that PG was playing), that it's hard to believe she had no *reference point* other than PG. The Stones are a pervasive corporate sound that have infiltrated American culture for at least 20 years, if not closer to 30. Again, what bothered me was the predictable snobbiness of it all--a Gen X slackster who was just so above it that she'd never succumbed to the mainstream and thus the only way she was exposed to the Stones was from a very, very obscure tape by a very, very obscure NY art punk band; it's only her connection to the Twin Cities (and thus, AmRep) that make me pause at all in questioning her credibility.

And MY main problem with the Amy Phillips SY piece is that varying degrees of it have been done a zillion times. But Andrew L. is right on about my minor problem with it.

BTW, Is anyone keeping a scorecard for the number of Twin Citians who have written for SPIN? I can testify that there's something good in the water up there.

― Don Weiner, Monday, 4 November 2002 13:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm with andrew L on the knowledge thing.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 4 November 2002 13:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I dont know enough to notice when critics dont know enough.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 4 November 2002 13:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm one of those Twin Citians you mention. The others--either born & raised or adopted--include Jon Dolan, Laura Sinagra, Keith Harris, Peter S. Scholtes, Will Hermes, Melissa Maerz, Hans Eisenbeis, Jessica Hopper, Terri Sutton, Jim Walsh and Michael Tortorello.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 4 November 2002 13:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Kate, Daniel_rf... my post was the current lead article in the Lancaster SCAN newspaper. Scary thing is, we've been nominated for a student media award as well. I despair.

My favourite bit is "Lady indicates some of the band's influences, moving dangerously towards sounding like a cover of Aerosmith's track Dude Looks Like a Lady.". He means "it contains the word "lady"". Are Modjo a big influence on the Datsuns as well, then?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 4 November 2002 13:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Dom - tell me that is not your editing staff writing. Please tell me that is not your editing staff writing.

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 4 November 2002 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd post the Libertines review we had this week as well, but I don't want to leave a paper trail...

Swyg- thankfully, no. You can tell its not our editing staff, as it doesn't compare the record unfavourably to Sleater-Kinney.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 4 November 2002 14:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Phew. I'd post some of the stuff we get in as well, but then people who are harder than me would get angry with me, which is never a particularly desirable situation...

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 4 November 2002 14:11 (twenty-three years ago)

(sorry, just reading this now)

as much as I love Nirvana, that review is OTM

michelangelo it's the most rockist review i've ever seen!

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 7 November 2002 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

If you're going to be rockist about any band in the world it may as well be Nirvana (no-one said rockist values don't work for rock)

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 7 November 2002 14:46 (twenty-three years ago)

it is bcz rockist values diminish rock that they suck!!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 7 November 2002 15:01 (twenty-three years ago)

anyway, i wrote a letter

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 7 November 2002 15:08 (twenty-three years ago)

i even CALLED him a rockist but they excised that part

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 7 November 2002 15:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I wasn't so much lauding his terms as his point, which I agree with: the disc suxor, since their actual albums are out there and worth owning--this one isn't.

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 7 November 2002 17:24 (twenty-three years ago)

i get what you're saying, just like i got what tim said. it doesn't change the fact that "the greatest hits sucks because the albums are out there" = rockist

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 7 November 2002 18:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I could care less about Nirvana, but isn't the guy just arguing that this particular package is shoddy, not that a Nirvana greatest hits is bad by definition? You all are so OTT with this rockist thing ;)

― Ben Williams, Thursday, 7 November 2002 18:12 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't believe no one has mentioned Anthony DeCurtis yet.

And as much as I didn't like the Amy Phillips Sonic Youth review (and the reaction was closer to rolling my eyes than seething), Mr. Sinker's comment re: Frank Kogan (who I esteem as highly) makes me think it's worth it.

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 7 November 2002 18:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Skipping 44 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Seward is the absolute best reviewer I've ever read for an audience made up entirely of other record reviewers.

― donut bitch (donut), Saturday, 14 December 2002 08:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Seward needs to stop referencing his drug intake. Also his Interpol review should have come with a mixtape. But he is hilarious.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, 14 December 2002 19:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Seward needs to stop referencing his drug intake.

But he needs some kind of justification.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 14 December 2002 21:35 (twenty-three years ago)

(OK I'm being mean. Sorry.)

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 14 December 2002 21:35 (twenty-three years ago)

actually, no yer not. He gives people an easy reason to dismiss him by constantly referencing that he's high. Hell, that's how explain his overrating of SFA.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, 14 December 2002 21:37 (twenty-three years ago)

You must excuse me. SFA cannot be overrated, so therefore there is a different explanation to be pursued.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 15 December 2002 00:29 (twenty-three years ago)

SFA cannot be overrated...

SFA are better than MBV.

Happy now? :)

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 15 December 2002 01:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Perhaps the exception, yes. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 15 December 2002 01:41 (twenty-three years ago)

dude! Ned! Buy american! Or at least Brits who wish they were American. Or at least Americans who wish they were Brits (Interpol, Pixies, etc.).

Don't make me send Toby Keith out for you.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 15 December 2002 01:46 (twenty-three years ago)

OK geeta, thanx for the link, that review of El-P is TOP. I am a fan of this guy now, and usually I don't even notice who writes what, but his writing style makes me notice as much as this weirdo Stuever currently turning out very, very entertaining thinkpieces for the WashPost style section on all things banal from merino sweaters to the Chesapeake House rest stop in [nowhere,] Maryland.
BTW Nate, and if he hates one of your fave albums of the year, what is the difference..?

― daria g, Monday, 16 December 2002 03:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't make me send Toby Keith out for you.

That doesn't even work as a threat! I'd just laugh at the guy.

Fuck buying American. Dylan vs. Bowie in my mind means dear god in heaven, Bowie any day of the week...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 16 December 2002 03:45 (twenty-three years ago)

as this weirdo Stuever

Argh!

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 16 December 2002 03:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Argh ?

I use 'weirdo' as a term of the highest flattery ! Of course I don't know how you interpreted my comment, but, that's what I meant. I'll never look at that I-95 rest stop the same way again ! And Michael Jackson and the little spaceship that flies by to clean up after him.. ! hahaha.. Thank goodness for the Style section.

― daria g, Tuesday, 17 December 2002 00:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Seriously I like El-P, too, but I think this review is hysterical (I think it's funnier if you know the album and El-P's style. . . I can't quite imagine the review being as amusing if you aren't hip to what Seward is mocking). And El-P is SOOOOOO deadly serious (on record anyway--he can be more relaxed in interviews)! He's practically begging to be made fun of!

Nate, I will forever be lost as to why you care that someone is ribbing one of your "fav albums of the year". You take it all so personally! Why does someone making fun of El-P provoke such a rage in you? Why do you take it so seriously?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 17 December 2002 02:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not sure, really. Maybe I'm overreacting since almost everyone else here is all "OMG that article is so fun-nee!"

Also, El-P's music does have a sense of humor (though usually dark, maybe Vonnegut-esque if you will). He riffs on Phil Hartman's "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" SNL bit on "Deep Space 9mm", the whole "McFly!" bit between "DeLorean" and "Truancy" makes me laugh like a spaz, and "Dr. Hellno vs. the Praying Mantis" has such preposterous dirtay-sexx imagery ("I dreamt of little bouncing cherubs with clit rings and sexy wood nymphs in crotchless lederhosen begging to get bent") that the term "deadly serious" is hardly apropos. I mean, he ain't Ludacris or anything, but he's got his nutty moments.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 17 December 2002 03:31 (twenty-three years ago)

(Actually the real reason I hate that review is it's crammed with the same tired arguments about 'backpacker' rap only gussied up with foofoo words and hiding its flimsy tired premise behind 'cleverness' - but nothing new was really said that the ILM anti-undie contingent hasn't said in more concise, less pretentious terms. It told me more about Scott's tired chart-rap partisanship than it did about anything else.)

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 17 December 2002 03:36 (twenty-three years ago)

crammed with the same tired arguments about 'backpacker' rap

but he spends a large portion of that el-p review talking about how much he likes blackalicious!

― geeta (geeta), Tuesday, 17 December 2002 03:46 (twenty-three years ago)

His few jokes aside, El-P's music SOUNDS serious/weighty/moribund. . . it's pretty far from being a light-hearted romp. A Scanner Darkly may have you laffing at points, but it's NOT meant to be a joke.

Plus if Seward is such a 'typical' chart-rap lover, why is he giving props to DALEK and BLACKALICIOUS of all things?

(PS, Don't get into this "ILM anti-undie contingent" either. Most of the people on this board who are into "chart-rap" are a damn sight more open-minded than most undie/indie types I've run into. What's really tired is this "oh I am so put upon on ILM" card which certain undie/indie fans seem to love to play at every conceivable opportunity as if to say look at how tough they have it.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 17 December 2002 03:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Fuck, I give up. Never mind.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 17 December 2002 04:12 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

Reviving this thread since it mentions scott seward and i wanted to say that his piece on Ghost in this weeks voice is one of the best 2-para things I've ever read!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

HOLY SHIT!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Nate OTM!!!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

for serious though seward, yr. review almost made me cry today at work.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 19 February 2004 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Heh heh, quite the revival.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 19 February 2004 19:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Full of the joys of spring and Nirvana Nate sucks, bring back firespitting defender of the underground flame Nate.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 19 February 2004 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

aw man I was just gonna send Scott my address so I could get a metal mixtape out of him.

de-revive! de-revive!

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 19 February 2004 19:55 (twenty-two years ago)

haha wow, y'know i never put two and two together.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 19 February 2004 19:58 (twenty-two years ago)

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