★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

I hope I didn't come off like too much of an all-or-nothing R&B purist itt, funny thing is 2 of my favorite records of the last couple months, by White Life and Patrick Stump, are both basically white guys with rock backgrounds sort of doing their own twists on pop and R&B. Something like The Weeknd is much closer to current mainstream R&B but maybe the little differences produce kind of an uncanny valley effect, where I'm like this reminds me of The-Dream but is in no way preferable to The-Dream. Art/rock interpretations of R&B can be extremely hit and miss, but there's at least more chance of it feeling like its own distinct thing that doesn't remind me too much of something better I can turn on the radio and hear at any given minute.

yeah the most baffling assertion that has been made itt is that the weeknd is extremely distinct from current mainstream r&b

hey guys I'm going to quote ~at some length~ richard meltzer on robert christgau:

I now realize what he had in mind was simply topical news of the "trade," of a scene writ LARGE (but still of questionable existence) for which he relentlessly shilled, shills, will always shill (when you review everything, or pretend you do, without an external guarantor of the "fact" of such supposed mega-reality--even one as lame and noxious as the Stone--you would pretty much seem a freakin' FOOOOOOOOL, eh?). Whenever he spit the notion of journalism at me, I shot back with "Consult yourself," which he in turn pooh-poohed as "bourgeois individualism" or whatev--'twasn't "universal" enough for the bastard...fuck me.

Then as now, on the street as at motherfucking Yale, my fundamental concern was with truth, THE truth (hee haw), i.e., for starters: what you can be surest of. If we're talking records and bands and whatnot, all you c'n be anywhere NEAR sure of is the shadow of this shit in your own playpen. Which is no easy ride--mercy! To confront and interrogate your merry ass, you've gotta be objective, impersonal, you've gotta go straight at your own jugular--mix a metaphor--and take furious notes while the blood is still fresh. If the initial calculus ain't perfect, you're nowhere, and anywhere you proceed is triple nowhere.

yah some dude otm

where's the surboard dudes article ?

http://blatantineptitude.blogspot.com/2011/03/jj-abrams-ication-of-music-on-web.html

yah, that's a good piece

oh yeah, that was dope, i linked to it itt after seeing it on the vv thing

oh yeah i already read it, real good, on point.

there's merely a spiteful one you created yourself, and simultaneously pretend to be annoyed by, even as you perpetuate it further in the name of a newspeg!

oh fuck you

"spiteful"?

"pretend" to be annoyed by?

do me a fucking favour and stop being so fucking disingenuous

also can whichever of you are pretending to be "concerned fans" on my tumblr quit it

as i've said: the people who've cosigned my piece versus the people who've taken offense = TOTAL VINDICATION

what about the ppl itt who agree w your opinions overall but find your methodology for expressing them to be counterproductive

i mean its like, i can disagree w/ you up to a point, but then next time it'll be an artist who i think is doing something interesting, where it's far enough from R&B that it justifies itself, and then its like, well, at least i didnt cosign earlier

they too will be liquidated

i find "delicately picking one's way towards reasonableness" a horribly inhibiting way of writing, and one that's far too easily ignored. basically people need to punched in the face (figuratively) (well also literally but sadly geography prohibits this) with #realtalk

i don't get "counterproductive". i could write a nice article about the kandi album that isn't negative about anyone! it would a) not get commissioned b) even if it did it would get 1/100th of the readers that this did c) would do nothing to rectify the imbalance in the critical discourse that's what's pissing us off here

cf my sunny sweeney feature in last week's guardian that afaik three people read

its a rhetorical style, it doesnt mean your underlying points are any different, and a smart reader should be able to figure out the diff

this is more like an a-bomb to the face, where you're not afraid of what other ideas remain standing

this is more like an a-bomb to the face, where you're not afraid of what other ideas remain standing

that's the POINT

look indie kids are notoriously dense. they are not going to NOTICE anything less

fwiw i dont actually have as much of an issue with you using weeknd for a hook into writing about other stuff, in and of itself

personally i find it more damning when a writer can identify things that people like about something & talk about why it appeals, THEN lead into why this is, relative to the genre as a whole, a marginal accomplishment at best. i think its a more convincing case. otherwise people just assume you have an axe to grind & dismiss you

but i dunno i use ilx for me kneejerk "this suxxx" type reactions so i can think things thru & be more balanced when im writing for lots of people. i mean, i have friends who like this stuff (probably), and im not about to go punch them in the face about it

i don't really care what my friends like, i only really get annoyed when people whose job it is to "think about music" (or who obviously spend a lot of time doing that even if it isn't their job) make such a catastrophic error of thought

its also like, if you get all enraged abt it in the piece imo it comes off as 'doth protest too much' -- if its not a big deal, it deserves to be eye rolled & dismissed. i dunno i mean, to be clear, i dont think my rhetoric is perfect by any means. im just thinking thru how id write a piece like this / spitballin -- but like, a superiority "this is obviously not worth our time, here's what the real heads are here for" goes better when youre main tactic is arguing that 'real' R&B fans like this vs. that.

if you were trying to convince indie fans that their approach is backwards, i dont think you can couch the argument in 'real' vs 'fake' terms, because it just reinforces the divide. if you are trying to reinforce that divide, then its prob more convincing to just be all haughtily dismissive rather than confrontational i would think

idk

my tone in the piece is way more haughty and condescending than frothing-at-the-mouth enraged!

that's why people are taking offense!

i mean like, dismissive in a way where you dont spend more than a couple sentence on it, w putdowns that dont seem a bit ott. i dunno maybe theres no diff in the end

i did only spend a couple of sentences on the weeknd! i mean i didn't write the headline, which everyone obviously knows. i spent like 10 times more words praising other artists

bottom line is: the music criticism that actually gets people excited about hearing a record usually has some kind of infectious enthusiasm or positive energy. the criticism that lifts up one record by trashing another on some "your boyfriend's an asshole, you should go out with me instead" shit tends to stir shit up but not really get people listening to music other than in a spiteful or arms-folded way. you can go that route if you want, just don't have any illusions about what's actually going to happen.

so otm. lex i'm not trying to attack you personally, i just think the "personal music critic war" modus operandi results in no good for anyone, more back and forth, less value for all. you seem to disagree, but nobody can keep up that sort of angry war forever.

i find "delicately picking one's way towards reasonableness" a horribly inhibiting way of writing, and one that's far too easily ignored.

:'(

keep fighting the good fight, lex
http://www.chasingthewind.net/Images/reagan%20soldier%20crying.jpg

i find "delicately picking one's way towards reasonableness" a horribly inhibiting way of writing, and one that's far too easily ignored.

:'(

― Tim F, Friday, April 1, 2011 1:45 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha it's ironic that you and tom and nitsuh are three of my favourite writers to read, but in all three cases i do get frustrated by the refusal to ever really bring the HATE when it comes to bad, over-hyped music

though "delicately picking my way through" is kind of what i do when it comes to records i really admire & love, like the pj harvey one

ha it's ironic that you and tom and nitsuh are three of my favourite writers to read, but in all three cases i do get frustrated by the refusal to ever really bring the HATE when it comes to bad, over-hyped music

That is precisely what I value highly in Tim, Tom and Nitsuh's writing, Lex. It may sound very corny, but one shouldn't need to bring forth hate to write about good music. You seem to do it quite often, also here on ILM, hating on music. It comes across so childish and ultimately it's such a useless way of trying to explain why some music does move you, or is good. Taking a U-turn via hate to say what you love, to me is a rather weak approach, as if you are unable to say it without bringing on the hate first. That's precisely what my problem with your Guardian piece is.

ignore this peasantish bleating lex

:)

we r going too far here hating is important & fine

I don’t think I’ll be reading this whole thread.
Had some people over the other night and threw The Morning on during the nightcap session. A+ shit right there

I think most publications need a combination of "picking your way towards reasonableness" type critics and rabid attack dogs - I prefer to see debates enacted among writers within the same publication rather than with reference to a critical space that's bewilderingly large for most readers.

I mean, there's nothing more disheartening than debates getting bogged down in "OMG blogs said this" and "OMG Pitchfork said this" as this thread illustrates perfectly well.

music critics should have their own publication or their own message board where they can react to each other's editorials

ILM?

you ruined the joke

p4k has their own board iirc

and the Stylus board is still going, believe it or not.

I got around to listening to this last week and wanted to check out this thread to see what people thought but fuck that shit

so Dom is still posting?