★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

i mean the songs are worse and the voice is worse and the lyrics are worse but yeah

it is insane that someone pays you to write about music

its like celebrating "Rapture" -- its a cool song, deserves to be celebrated, brought scenes together. but in the end, in the annals of rap history, its really not the greatest example of the genre

Except no one, not even the most rockcentric of critics, thinks of 'Rapture' as rap, especially after 20+ years of pop songs with a rap in the middle of them.

gr8080 what do u think of the tom ewing article linked upthread

smarter people than you think otherwise

xp

Except no one, not even the most rockcentric of critics, thinks of 'Rapture' as rap, especially after 20+ years of pop songs with a rap in the middle of them.

― Matt DC, Friday, March 25, 2011 6:43 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and we'll see how time treats the weeknd as well

its total bullshit to pretend that The Weeknd is in the same category MUSICALLY as Diddy or Marsha Ambrosius or even a "sparse, dark & moody Trey Songz mixtape"

i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd but afaict it's not any more different from those 3 other things than those 3 things are from each other. but it's definitely unfortunate and counterproductive to this discussion that that totally random assemblage of recent records has become this thread's shorthand for all contemporary R&B.

i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd i haven't heard a lot of The Weeknd

The Weeknd is TRIP-HOP this has already been covered.

should i read this thread

bro - & i cant really imagine myself ever saying this again - this thread needs you

afaict it's not any more different from those 3 other things than those 3 things are from each other.

this is true. and - o my life o my sacrifice - i have heard everything that the weeknd have made, it was almost as unenjoyable as that week i had to listen to the jessie j album on loop

i listened to the song this thread is named after. i don't think i've said really anything itt that suggests otherwise or that i wouldn't have a right saying without listening to their entire album.

some dude, that "shell game" post seems like the point where this thread is becoming too dicky to even post in -- I'd already said "magazines, websites, columns, and reams of daily newspaper coverage" before I even mentioned social media

ok but this thread has taken off since they dropped a full album/tape this week fyi

xpost

i'm sorry if that wasn't sufficiently clear

sorry for thinking its really weird that you would call foul or at least stroke yr chin about the way an album you havent listened to was getting covered

tbf hes arguing abt abstract 'issues' here not the specific characteristics of this record

What's weird is that when white Britishes dudes from the Stones onwards appropriate black American or Jamaican music for an indie audience there's usually an understanding or a celebration of their limitations and a fun point of differentiation, with some self-clowning thrown in for good measure, which is why Toddla T - a pasty white guy from Sheffield, can release a dancehall album without anyone batting an eyelid.

holy crap @ this thread

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?

trying to form a slightly more coherent take on this qn - at this moment in history when music is so readily accesible to anyone w/ an internet connection its worth thinking abt music as much fitting into 'emotional' or 'functional' constellations as traditional sonic/cultural ones. & so instead of always using genre as a starting (& end) point in these discussions its worth acknowledging the emotional content of the music & how big a part that plays in how its received

does that even make sense?

i do think that indie music is privileged in mainstream discourse nowadays & i think you can see that laid out in something like the pazz & jop results of the past two years when compared to the pazz & jop results from 5 years earlier -- that said i'm not totally on the side w/ lex going 'oooh lord robert please make pitchfork pay attention to kandi' because whatever, i mean really

Pazz and Jop is not "mainstream discourse".

lamp u realize that i started writing about rap/R&B because it felt like most critics i read -- aside from, like, kelefa sannah & some of the bigger nyt/nyer names -- didnt do that w/ those genres? its kind of funny to me this feels like a weird inverse of whats going on really

hey guys, i'm peacing. someone lemme know if these guys put out more music or something

its total bullshit to pretend that The Weeknd is in the same category MUSICALLY as Diddy or Marsha Ambrosius or even a "sparse, dark & moody Trey Songz mixtape"

yeah by the way the album totally is

Pazz and Jop is not "mainstream discourse".

― Matt DC, Friday, March 25, 2011 7:02 PM (3 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

is it 'indie discourse'?

Pazz and Jop is not "mainstream discourse".

― Matt DC, Friday, March 25, 2011 3:02 PM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark

well maybe it's not "discourse" in and of itself but it does represent 'mainstream discourse'

Mainstream discourse = what you see on TV, what people talk about in the bus queue, what they dance to in town centre/High Street nightclubs, what you hear piped through in average chain stores, in non-music magazines and newspapers. There might be more indie in there than there was pre-Pitchfork in the US, and pre-Britpop in the UK, but a poll of music writers doesn't represent mainstream discourse even if it might overlap with it.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/03/rock-critic_pop_5.php

(btw, just to be SUPER-CLEAR about what I meant about newspapers: I don't understand why, for instance, a review Sean Fennessey writes for Pitchfork constitutes core "critical discourse," but a review the same Sean Fennessey writes for the Washington Post -- of Trey Songz, Mike Posner, Kelis, Usher, etc. -- is assumed not to. I don't get why a Caramanica or Frere-Jones thinkpiece that touches on indie constitutes "real criticism" but the stuff they write about other kinds of music just ... drifts away. The main explanation I can see is that there are more people interested in reading one than the other -- and while this might suck for some folks, market-wise, I don't see what's so terrible about the market for people who like reading critical articles about music having different sensibilities from the people who like watching TV about music, listening to satellite radio shows about music, watching documentaries about music, etc. etc. etc. Will step out of this one now.)

"magnificent think piece"

c'mon whiney you can't even think that, it was absolutely dreadful

fine, maybe i should say 'mainstream critical discourse' -- i assumed that's what we were talking about

that piece was basically "here is some "r&b" that's important cuz it has indie signifiers, and commercial r&b doesn't sell as well as it used to so i'm dismissing it"

yeah by the way the album totally is

i dunno it's closer to burial & james blake imo

nabisco i guess my motivating factor (& i hope u dont step out, i dunno why ppl think this thread is bad vibes but i think some of the discussion has been good??) in saying this stuff is that theres an element of self fulfilling prophecy to what youre saying -- maybe more of these non-indie fans would be more likely to read criticism if there was more criticism that was written for them

i dunno it's closer to burial & james blake imo

― gr8080, Friday, March 25, 2011 3:11 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark

nooooooooooooo

like, the weeknd is definitely more burial & james blake than dirty money & the-dream & drake & trey songz are burial and james blake but the weeknd is certainly more dirty money & the-dream & drake & trey songz than it is burial and james blake

Actually what it sounds like is a very rudimentary post-1998 Massive Attack if they decided to rope in some Terius clone on vocals. It's not actually new in the slightest, there are probably a load of mashups that approximate the same sound.

that piece was basically "here is some "r&b" that's important cuz it has indie signifiers, and commercial r&b doesn't sell as well as it used to so i'm dismissing it"

― lex pretend, Friday, March 25, 2011 7:10 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

you do realise sean fennessy writes abt r&b quite a bit right

like, he doesnt dismiss it

yeah that wasn't fair at all

i mean i thought the piece was hyperbolic in some bad places but that's just the guy writes about a ton of commercial r&b

some dude, that "shell game" post seems like the point where this thread is becoming too dicky to even post in -- I'd already said "magazines, websites, columns, and reams of daily newspaper coverage" before I even mentioned social media

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Friday, March 25, 2011 2:50 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm sorry if that wasn't sufficiently clear

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Friday, March 25, 2011 2:51 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah but my response only addressed the social media part, and I thought specifically mentioning those things would be understood that way, so the way you interpreted my post as equating that to the other things I hadn't talked about felt a little manipulative to me. if it was all a big misunderstanding then i'm sorry for being dicky.

also I read lots of music writing in daily papers like the Wash Post and occasionally write some (I interviewed Trey Songz for the Balt Sun!), and I don't feel like anything I've said has ignored the existence of those kinds of outlets.

deej mentions "criticism written for fans of r&b and rap" but one thing i'm interested in is whether the rap & r&b world's fascination with "haters" (by both artists and fans) has stifled that type of criticism at all

the "#teambreezy" effect

true

likewise i wonder if the perception (or reality) that major labels nowadays value only what sells over what is 'good' has done the same for that type of criticism

like tons of ppl -- both fans and writers alike! -- wouldn't say "hey look this b.o.b album sucks balls", instead they'd say "hey it's not my thing but can't knock the hustle!" or whatever the hell

i dont think that someone writing about R&B or rap makes them immune to charges of not recognizing the type of biases we're discussing here fwiw