★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

max at the end of the year can you make a top 10 list of albums you would like if there was no singer

^^^ seconded, also could you post it on your blog

i can make that list right now

• all the albums

make a list of threads that would be better without music critics talking about The State of Music Criticism

some of us like talking abt thinking abt music n stuff sorry

*takes photo in front of plant in kitchen while wearing sunglasses, posts to flickr*

being cranky abt music that u dont like is fun imo sorry we brough bad vibes

oh sorry, didn't realize you guys were having fun.

well yeah man, laugh all u want but i do enjoy thinking thru why i like/dont like things critically & discussing that stuff here

im not sure who u think is being aggy here anyway.

yeah most people in this thread apart from lex aren't really frothing.

"what is worth thinking about with the Weeknd is not why they are special in general, but why they are important or interesting to particular listeners and what needs they are fulfilling for those listeners."

why is what indie listeners think always considered so important? what other demographic gets this attention paid to it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/mar/24/weeknd-rb-indie

if i hadn't pitched one, would i be seeing any columns at all about any other r&b release of 2011 so far?

why is what indie listeners think always considered so important? what other demographic gets this attention paid to it?

― lex pretend, Friday, March 25, 2011 5:22 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is the real question right - why is the majority of music criticism focused on indie music. if I were spitballing I would suggest it's probably something to do with the current state of music criticism being derived from a tradition of rock-focused criticism that grew out of the rock explosion in the 60s. but I don't know anything about the history of music criticism, so.

nitsuh's latest column re: this - http://pitchfork.com/features/why-we-fight/7948-why-we-fight-12/

idk indie as a whole has a large history of engaging w/ itself in a paratextual way that easily puts it into conversations w/ rock crit. i kindof hinted upthread that hwtd kindof does this connect the dots thing where it finds something similar in the synth washes on Fancy as in the gurgling drones of Live Loop. I kindof think this is what makes indie ideal for conversation w/ rock journalism and kindof closes the loop somewhat to the exclusion of other genres. also bc everyone is out to get lex.

There's an argument that criticism is the lifeblood of indie music, it NEEDS it in a way that r&b, which is a global pop phenomenon, doesn't, but that only really suits the artists who are right at the top of the pyramid and as a result the others tend to disappear withotu trace.

But do what extent do those artists further down actually court the press? It reminds me a bit of the pub argument I had about Night Slugs and Hyperdub getting the lion's share of the dance press through promotion, design, branding, where yr average funky producers get virtually none despite making music that's as good if not better.

The point I'm slowly burrowing towards is that it's not enough just to blame the critics, although many of them are certainly lazy and don't listen to or review things they aren't spoonfed. It's a question of whether the promotional infrastructure is adequate enough in other genres or whether it is failing its artists.

not sure pointing out how indie everything is is the solution to stopping people talking about what indie listeners think.

But do what extent do those artists further down actually court the press? It reminds me a bit of the pub argument I had about Night Slugs and Hyperdub getting the lion's share of the dance press through promotion, design, branding, where yr average funky producers get virtually none despite making music that's as good if not better.

not sure about this, am sure e.g. Donae'O would've done as much press as he could whereas Hyperdub is surely supposed to have some mystique and their stuff isn't likely to appeal to popular clubs in the way much funky would. it is really down to the whims and characteristics of the critics available, and their willingness to intellectualise (write about) dance music that ISN'T thought of as edgy or in any way alt which the two labels you mention do evoke by name alone.

Hah, you're skirting around the point that Hyperdub gets press because it cleaves to an indier sensibility. Artiness, mystique, ease of intellectualisation. Same with Warp in the 90s.

... and Hyperdub's promotional people know how to court that, obviously.

i feel like i'd get my point across better itt if i went full carles and talked about how R&B is 'so hot right now' but only if it has some 'altbro-friendly branding'

i swear to god, people, part of the reason you think the world is dominated by "indie" criticism is because that's all you're reading or considering "criticism." in the US there remain magazines, websites, columns, and reams of daily newspaper coverage of things like mainstream r&b, but for some reason people rarely conceive of them as part of "critical discourse" or real "critical opinion" -- they privilege indie and then ask why indie is so privileged.

the other part is that "indie" stuff -- and many other niches -- developed a purpose to criticism (and grew a community around it) in times when that was the only way it could communicate and exist; it organized along those lines in a way things that functioned as pop didn't. it seems to me that deep critical communities of fandom -- constituencies that are actually organized that way -- are starting to develop for pop and r&b, even if you don't count the massive chunks of twitter and facebook and people's actual lives that ALREADY do that but aren't considered "criticism" because they're not indie enough to be bitched about.

also gr80 otm with this

oh ok, we're the snobs because we don't consider fan updates on social networking sites to be criticism. got it.

although honestly it might not be a bad idea to submit a collection of #teambreezy tweets to the next da capo

yeah i mean, criticism is central to indie but indie isnt central to crit! just because R&B / etc genre crit isnt as fleshed out as indie doesnt mean that those of us who care abt good critical writing of the form should have to do so on indies terms. or am i misunderstanding

if you think daily newspapers, Vibe columns, and black music journalists are on the level of facebook status updates, then yes, that's pretty snobby

i think that many times those ppl privilege a lot of indie / 'crit music' more than they should

i mean im not sure that what we're critiquing here is, like, 'people who write about indie primarily & also like R&B for the moment' but a wider structural understanding of genre that privileges certain stuff, a way of thinking that impacts jay-z and kanye as much as a dude who regularly reads pfork

Not to mention that there's as vibrant a pop-music blogosphere as there is an indie one - something I didn't fully appreciate until I met friends of friends who get as much free music, early leaks, tickets and press access to Kylie/Kelis//whoever for running pop blogs. They can be as frothing-at-the-mouth fanboyish as the indie blogosphere, but they're as much criticism as Stereogum or Gorilla vs Bear or whatever. (i.e. not full length fleshed out genre crit, but the universe exists, you know?)

yes but what were talking about IS full length genre crit, not internet enthusiasm

Well, to be fair, a significant chunk about this conversation started because The Weeknd "appeals to people who read blogs" or whatever the quote was. I just meant that I think that rap blogs/r&b blogs/VIBE/etc. perhaps interact with each other in similar ways that Stereogum/GvB/P4K/etc. do? The existence of somewhat discrete spheres of music appreciation ranging from internet enthusiasm to full length genre crit doesn't necessarily create a hierarchy, except insofar as the majority of people writing HERE perhaps fall into social and professional circles closer to one of those spheres than the other? Or that something about the organizational structure/visibility/discourse within or surrounding each of those spheres seems to imply a hierarchy?

Congestion + cold meds + lack of sleep apparently causes me to end sentences in question marks. Apologies. That paragraph should be more assertive.

uh i mean the mist commercially successful AND most blogged abt star of last year was lady gaga but yr arguments are getting closer and closer to "why doesnt the blogosphere have exactly the same taste as me?"

well blog/crit types have their "OUR pop star who should be as huge as Gaga" in Robyn etc. a star as big as Gaga being as hotly discussed in those circles as their web-friendly niche artist equivalent is a rare phenomenon.

I feel like we're inverting or extrapolating one or two arguments or questions (which I might phrase as "why does an R&B act like The Weeknd so quickly gain the kind of critical acceptance similar mainstream acts rarely if ever receive?" and "do generalist critics need non-rock music to code as 'weird' or 'exceptional' to make time for it?") into a whole bunch of other tangents that I'm not sure we're going to get anywhere with (like "why is music crit so dominated by indie in the first place?" and "why does white people never want to R&B?").

if this was being discussed w/ a cadre of vibe writers right now id likely be dealing w arguments that arent too different from this one. its not like the heirarchy of R&B writers is somehow more self-aware of the interactions of these kinds of values than indie writers are

i mean, im sure at some level they are, but its a matter of degree rather than an oppositional relationship

if you don't count the massive chunks of twitter and facebook and people's actual lives that ALREADY do that but aren't considered "criticism" because they're not indie enough to be bitched about.

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Friday, March 25, 2011 12:47 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh ok, we're the snobs because we don't consider fan updates on social networking sites to be criticism. got it.

― NO BLOGS WERE INVOLVED. (some dude), Friday, March 25, 2011 12:51 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark

if you think daily newspapers, Vibe columns, and black music journalists are on the level of facebook status updates, then yes, that's pretty snobby

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Friday, March 25, 2011 1:06 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

this isn't even goalpost-shifting, btw, it's a straight up shell game.

i realize im being, like, an R&B nationalist here vs. an accomodationist but at the upper reaches of music criticism it does feel like there is a conglomeration of values that serve to disadvantage certain aesthetic choices, and that those aesthetic maneuvers just happen to be ones that have certain social bases

I guess some people just don't want those entrenched values and aesthetics in the critical community questioned because it's SO BORING AND META or because we already fought the war on Rockism and didn't you hear Rockism lost so we're all good now.

i swear to god, people, part of the reason you think the world is dominated by "indie" criticism is because that's all you're reading or considering "criticism." in the US there remain magazines, websites, columns, and reams of daily newspaper coverage of things like mainstream r&b, but for some reason people rarely conceive of them as part of "critical discourse" or real "critical opinion" -- they privilege indie and then ask why indie is so privileged.

no ppl like the lex & tim f & deej or on some 'liberal media bias' shit & p4k is their nyt. the whole 'indie dominates the critical discourse & marginalizes pop/rnb/rap/dance/country/polka' myth is so foundational to their worldview theyll go to an length to justify it, ignore any media that doesnt confirm it, and rationalize any critical postion that legitimizes it

ohh the #1 artist on pazz & jop is a rapper but not the right rapper. oh some local alt weekly has a column abt a new r&b groups mixtape but it has too many indie signifiers. oh the times magazine has a profile of dance-pop megastar but it mentions memory tapes blah blah blah

(i just realized that w/ the comparisons to black nationalism or something this could be read in a way i didnt mean -- some kind of racial essentialism of music or something like that -- but i trust that u guys know i obv dont believe indie is a 'white thing' or something like that, that this is way more complicated etc)

no ppl like the lex & tim f & deej or on some 'liberal media bias' shit & p4k is their nyt. the whole 'indie dominates the critical discourse & marginalizes pop/rnb/rap/dance/country/polka' myth is so foundational to their worldview theyll go to an length to justify it, ignore any media that doesnt confirm it, and rationalize any critical postion that legitimizes it

ohh the #1 artist on pazz & jop is a rapper but not the right rapper. oh some local alt weekly has a column abt a new r&b groups mixtape but it has too many indie signifiers. oh the times magazine has a profile of dance-pop megastar but it mentions memory tapes blah blah blah

― i always think about you (Lamp), Friday, March 25, 2011 5:57 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its not like there isnt historical precedent for this **burns disco records**

what's the correct position to take instead, Lamp? all rap is the same and all R&B is the same, critics who backed Arrested Development over all other early '90s rap are cool because hey at least they had the genre covered at all?

like, if it's not about being able to perceive and discuss the nuances of the music, the marketing of it and how it's received by the public, if it's all just about broad strokes and general categories as far as you're concerned, then yeah I could see how you think we're calling for genre affirmative action or something stupid like that.

whatever it is it isnt this:

i realize im being, like, an R&B nationalist here vs. an accomodationist but at the upper reaches of music criticism it does feel like there is a conglomeration of values that serve to disadvantage certain aesthetic choices, and that those aesthetic maneuvers just happen to be ones that have certain social bases