Max B The Thread

no it doesn't, pretty much the only connection between those 3 artists is "these are people that the author of this review loves and has to bring up at every opportunity"

― hong does your geirden gro (some dude), Sunday, May 1, 2011 10:57 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this sounds likea point-blank 'what you wrote here was incorrect' criticism, not a 'lol, deej mentioned artist he talks about a lot' ribbing. youre backpedaling into 'just zings bruv' which is fine but when u first posted it read to me as some kind of disagreement w/ its relevence to the piece rather than lighthearted lols

remember when i made almost the exact same kind of crack about Whiney's Quik review like a week ago and it didn't become a federal case? good times.

yeah but that was correct

like, comparing the beastie boys to quik makes far less sense than max b & the jacka, for the reasons i outlined upthread

so you think whiney just quietly realized his error and isn't also just way more laid back and able to take a jab than you are?

did you think maybe there is no 'error' and that your entire 'i am the only rational viewpoint on ilx' schtick is often wrong?

like, my entire point is that i thought this through in advance & think there are lots of parallels between the artists & there is no 'error' here; its an easy zing but i made the point for a reason

did you think maybe there is no 'error' and that your entire 'i am the only rational viewpoint on ilx' schtick is often wrong?

― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Monday, May 2, 2011 12:31 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

um, which one of us is famous for saying "i have been otm on this thread"?

I don't know any of these guys' music & I know D-40 will think this is just me takin a shot which it isn't it's just me talking about something I've been thinking about since I was a kid which comes up in this thread but FWIW probably nothing but other SoCal grampas will be able to attest to the following: the LA Times for years had a writer named Robert Hilburn for whom absolutely everything had to be framed in the context of the artists he liked best. He would have framed that differently: he would have said "these are the artists who are important and who frame the current pop dialogue" or something like that. Nevertheless, absolutely 100% of his readers lol'd at him twice a week because he was completely incapable of reviewing anything at all without referring at least once to Springsteen or Elvis Costello or X, and for a while there to Big Country and the Alarm. Once every review, it'd be like, "INXS are good, but, in lacking the vibrant optimism of Bruce Springsteen or the cutting worldly-wise wit of Elvis Costello, they come up short" and it got to be very, very lol. Growing up with this, back when I had designs on being a critic, I took this from it: no matter how certain you are that the artists you feel are most important in the current dialogue are, and no matter how certain you are that comparisons are fitting and apt, if you have some artists whose names you seem to mention in pretty much everything you write, people are going to clown you, either to your face or behind your back. If there are artists you namecheck regularly, people's radar will be up about it and they will clown even when you'd be likely to say "look I know I'm always talking about Springsteen but these guys really sound like Springsteen. D-40, I take from the way you talk about it that your writing is important to you, so I thought I would share this idea, if it's unwelcome, no harm intended, the end.

totally.

fwiw, I think it's OK to compare a track that samples "Paul Revere" to the Beastie Boys

i dont fucking do that though! my entire argument here is that these two particular artists, max b & the jacka, are actually very very similar and make total sense as reference points for each other! i dont refer to jacka in my other reviews! flopson agreed with me in this thread that it made sense to compare them!

yeah that admittedly got lumped in w/ the other 2 refs a little unfairly, sorry whiney (xpost)

Like sorry, I didn't load my 75 word review with comparisons to Compton's Most Wanted and WC or whatever, guys; but like the point I was making was "this is Quik's iconic sound with some cool detours that might appeal to alt types" and so I 100% stand by the way I wrote it.

fwiw my problem w/ whiney's review is, i see the reason he made those comparisons, but for me that kind of writing is pandering, that an artist shouldnt have to be justified on alt-rapper approved grounds to be worth hearing & can stand on his own two. its a different comparison than what i was doing, which was connecting lines between three seemingly unrelated artists who actually approach the form very similarly.

i dont fucking do that though! my entire argument here is that these two particular artists, max b & the jacka, are actually very very similar and make total sense as reference points for each other! i dont refer to jacka in my other reviews! flopson agreed with me in this thread that it made sense to compare them!

okay man it just sounded like 2 people were kinda clowning you for being a dude who brings up gucci mane whenever possible which seemed like a thing from a couple years back, I'll return to smoking a corncob pipe in this rocking chair, like I say just sorta bringin my own unwelcome & uninformed perspective to things as per usual no big

deej, there's a huge difference between "pandering" and "writing for your audience" which is coincidentally why no one gives two shakes of a dead dog's dick about a pitchfork review of a Max B record

okay man it just sounded like 2 people were kinda clowning you for being a dude who brings up gucci mane whenever possible which seemed like a thing from a couple years back, I'll return to smoking a corncob pipe in this rocking chair, like I say just sorta bringin my own unwelcome & uninformed perspective to things as per usual no big

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, May 2, 2011 5:04 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark

imo there's a diff between 'bringing it up a lot on this board' whichis like conversation for me, vs. 'bringing it up in my writing,' where i do only try to make those connections if they make real sense to do so

deej, there's a huge difference between "pandering" and "writing for your audience" which is coincidentally why no one gives two shakes of a dead dog's dick about a pitchfork review of a Max B record

― bananas foster wallace (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, May 2, 2011 5:06 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you're right i should have compared him to 'chillwave'

sorry swooshwave

i get that YOU see the connection and were making a case for it. but like aero said, you should also see why those connections seem a) totally random and arbitrary and, in the jacka's case kind of uselessly obscure, to non-goon thread regulars and b) hilariously in character to us.

i do see why its lol & in character! what objected to was the post where u asserted i had no basis to compare them

well, i get why you like Max B and why you're eager to place him in a context that isn't strictly east coast/Dipset. but paralleling him with one or a couple southern/west coast/midwest acts would imo get that point across -- bringing up Gucci AND the Jacka AND Bone Thugs in the same review just felt like you were unloading a full barrel of "stuff deej people like"

to answer whiney more seriously re: knowing my audience, i do write to an audience but i want to do so w/out losing rap readers who will roll their eyes at a madvillian ref in a quik review. i think you can make the case for the record w/out that

deej, If you don't think that song sounds like a Quik version of contemporary Dam-Funk/VHS/blown-out weirdness that's pervading a lot of hip-hop since "Sensual Seduction" than you don't have ears that work. Just because the shorthand I used was a little HRO doesn't mean it's inaccurate. I don't think rap records have to be treated differently than any other records.

but like the point I was making was "this is Quik's iconic sound with some cool detours that might appeal to alt types" and so I 100% stand by the way I wrote it.

― bananas foster wallace (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, May 2, 2011 1:01 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Also, being 31, i don;'t have some hilarious baggage about "OH NO WHAT WILL REAL HEADS think of me", like the ghost of ethan lurking over your shoulder all day while you file a review that will get the #5 slot underneath the new East River Pipe and AIDS Wolf

i want to do so w/out losing rap readers who will roll their eyes at a madvillian ref in a quik review.

like seriously, get the fuck over yourself, dude.

lol @ your only touchpoint for 'real heads' being ethan

the point was that YOUR only touchpoint for 'real heads' is ethan

well, i get why you like Max B and why you're eager to place him in a context that isn't strictly east coast/Dipset. but paralleling him with one or a couple southern/west coast/midwest acts would imo get that point across -- bringing up Gucci AND the Jacka AND Bone Thugs in the same review just felt like you were unloading a full barrel of "stuff deej people like"

― some dude, Monday, May 2, 2011 5:11 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

bone thugs & gucci at this pt are all artists that like everyone knows. how do they even remotely qualify as 'artists deej likes' before 'references anyone familiar with hip hop will identify'

i'd like to apologize to whiney and everyone else for throwing up the whineysignal itt. let's all just slowly back away and watch this thing go up in flames, shall we?

the point was that YOUR only touchpoint for 'real heads' is ethan

― bananas foster wallace (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, May 2, 2011 5:16 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and apparently yours is people whose knowledge begins & ends with adult swim rap

what, you?

read aero's post again dude -- Elvis Costello and Springsteen are artists Hilburn's readers were familiar with too

Adult Swim rap and THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA THE JACKA TUNNEL TUNNEL JACKA GUCCI BRRR

do i compare stuff to bone thugs in every review i write?

whiney is pulling a burt_stanton

read aero's post again dude -- Elvis Costello and Springsteen are artists Hilburn's readers were familiar with too

― some dude, Monday, May 2, 2011 5:18 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i mean you're basically arguing that i cant ever refer to musicians i happen to like in reviews any more?

ive never made a reference to an artist in my writing where it was relevant to do so. point blank period. im sorry if you think im overloading people with artists i happen to like but i think thats bullshit.

ha, typo. where it wasnt relevant to do so

that's a good question, but oh hey look at the beautiful weather outside, i'm gonna take my son to the park instead of spending another second talking about this right now, hope that's cool w/ you.

do i compare stuff to bone thugs in every review i write?

no but if I sweeten the deal with a quarter for every bone thugs reference could we make this a reality?

xp fuckin lol @ relevancy typo.

but tbrr you compared synths on a j stalin record to wendy carlos where goblin or john carpenter soundtracks would have been way more apt so relevant yes but I'm ringin u up with a great big comparison-aptness check so like deal w/that

i dunno man that shit sounds like some clockwork orange outtakes to me

fwiw because im tired of this 'deej is obsessed w/ [x]' coming up everytime we talk about any of an entire series of artists ive talked a lot about on ilx, im going to set this out there:

1) some artists are talked about a lot by critics / on ilx, some are not

2) if an artist i like is not talked about a lot by critics, i will spend more time here talking about it

3) if an artist - say dj quik or e-40 or gucci, for examples of artists i used to talk about a lot MORE on ilx - gets picked up by wider discussions here, i tend to talk about them less, because theres no need to get a ball rolling

4) if an artist is not, i tend to spend more time talking about that artist, because what he's accomplishing artistically feels undervalued to me, so i try to convince others of his/her value

5) none of these things are particularly related to my reference to the jacka in a max b review, which was more about identifying different approaches to the art of rapping between two similarly-minded artists.

can we be done now?

lol 2 & 4 are basically the same thing but im typing this on my clocked-out half-hour lunch break so i did it kind of hurridly

mainly I just like to bitch about the j stalin review because I copped that record on the strength of the review and I thought the record sucked balls so I will be angry abt it until I die

sad u felt that way boo. i def dont think it sucks balls tho i did feel i overrated it slightly after the fact, if only bcuz in retrospect i realized 'gas nation' is a more fully-realized project

did you like 'red & blue lights' at least?

man, max b is in the slammer and this is his ilx thread, what a raw deal

yeah it was a decent track!