Certainly not! I think we're agreeing here. I have no problem with him talking about what he loves, but as you say, trying to justify something on the basis of its former popularity evades the issue.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 April 2003 12:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
"The Guns 'N' Roses it's OK to like"
― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 8 April 2003 12:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
I think people here will likely have a bit of the Narcissism of Small Differences thing going on with this book -- the subject matter is so exactly the sort of thing covered here, and the approach to working through it is very similar, that the immediate response is to recoil when he gets this or that bit of it horribly wrong. (There's an unfortunate comment about Dexy's that would make some people's heads explode. And he has absolutely no clue what he's even saying about soccer.)
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
So, even though he is defensive about 80s hair metal, and twists himself into a pretzel trying to defend its sexism and so on, there's almost a hollowness in the middle of his argument. I mean, I wish he'd simply take the idea that Theatre of Pain IS better than Tapestry, run with it, and see where that leads him.
― Wired Flounder (Wired Flounder), Monday, 19 May 2003 16:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Tuesday, 20 May 2003 12:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
however I agree it's not always fun to hear people try to tease out and pontificate on those reasons.
and agreed that the retroactivity of it all often feels like a dud.
― arch Ibog (arch Ibog), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 12:32 (twenty-one years ago) link
― chuck, Wednesday, 27 August 2003 19:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 19:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 19:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
?!?!??!?!? can we have a definition of avant-garde plz?
this is horrible. what an embarrassment for a paper that i thought had been all embarrassed out for years now. insult to injury -> this'll fuel chuck k's underdog complex even more!
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 19:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
(my guess is k's schtick reminds him of his own, but he's languishing in the ussr writing for an awful paper while chuck gets big. i'm embarassed for him)
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:01 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:03 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:11 (twenty-one years ago) link
It's like barely disguised aching homoeroticism or something.
― David A. (Davant), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
the press rarely writes about music (or any other subject); instead, it writes about what other writers are saying about music. and it always claims, of course, that they are wrong. it's as if the paper is staffed by a roomful of people who don't go to movies, don't listen to records, don't go outdoors, and probably don't socialize with other humans. they just read about all that stuff in other newspapers and magazines.
the thing that's amazing to me is that in spite of all that, they've managed to publish a number of really good writers over the years, including another guy named ames (jonathan) who i hope is no relation to this one.
― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
I feel another sarcastic tee-hee attack coming on.
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 20:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://exile.ru/167/167122301.html
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 21:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Carey (Carey), Wednesday, 27 August 2003 21:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
Chuck Klosterman doesn't sound like a lot of fun either. I'm really turning into a terrible reactionary I suppose but this kinda pop-culture riff essay style just.. doesn't make me feel like I've gained anything at all from having read it.
Oh, speaking of reviews - the Metafilter entry that linked to the Klosterman piece also linked to an extremely harsh yet hilarious review of a Chuck Palahniuk book in Salon - now THAT is worth reading. (the review I mean, obv.)
― daria g (daria g), Thursday, 28 August 2003 00:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
Probably also I do this sort of thing myself, and it seem there's a pretty strong element of defensiveness in his stance; criticism is instantaneously diverted because he already KNOWS it's "low culture."
― daria g (daria g), Thursday, 28 August 2003 00:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Thursday, 28 August 2003 00:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 28 August 2003 02:11 (twenty-one years ago) link
That said, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs isn't very good. Nor has been Klosterman's columns in SPIN.
But he's still a good writer. I was re-reading those comments by Ira Robbins...damn, that was scathing. And rather pious, I might add. Kind of depressing, really.
― don weiner, Thursday, 28 August 2003 02:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Thursday, 28 August 2003 08:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Thursday, 28 August 2003 08:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 28 August 2003 10:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Thursday, 28 August 2003 11:01 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 28 August 2003 11:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
― maura (maura), Thursday, 28 August 2003 16:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 28 August 2003 16:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
I liked Fargo Rock City, though really wasn't that impressed by the writing all that much.
But you have a point maura: the explosion of the WWW (and more pointedly, blog culture/bulletin boards like this one) has made the writing voice of guys like Klosterman seem very tedious and commonplace. Or at the very least, hardly clever or unique. I'd even argue it makes Lester Bang's talent much less apparent. In fact, the new Bangs book, like the Marcus comp before it, seems completely unenlightening.
― don weiner, Thursday, 28 August 2003 17:04 (twenty-one years ago) link
(I would also argue that ILX irritates me in the exact same way that Klosterman does when it's mired in its semi-perpetual argument for the sake of argument nadirs.)
― maura (maura), Thursday, 28 August 2003 17:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Thursday, 28 August 2003 17:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
You elitist, Maura! ;-) The Coulter comparison is harsh but you know, the more Klosterman continues the more it starts to make a certain sense...
(My view on Klosterman, ie rather overrated (Robert Plant inadvertantly but perfectly cutting him down directly is still a thing of joy), remains the same; my view on Ames is that he's useless.)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 28 August 2003 17:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 28 August 2003 17:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
― don weiner, Thursday, 28 August 2003 18:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 August 2003 22:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 28 August 2003 22:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 August 2003 22:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
I mean, part of the inability to hear particular differences is down to inexperience. I'm pretty sure anything my grandfather heard, when he never listened to anything past the big band era, all sounded the same
― mh, Wednesday, 9 February 2022 23:54 (two years ago) link
I just watched “Pretty in Pink” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and can’t figure out which one was made earlier.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, 10 February 2022 00:00 (two years ago) link
The hobbits in "Pretty in Pink" were real, the Hobbits in "Two Towers" were CGI.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 February 2022 00:31 (two years ago) link
Yeah but can you tell the difference between Breakfast Club and Meet the Feebles?
― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Thursday, 10 February 2022 01:05 (two years ago) link
The former is puppets, the latter is CGI.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 February 2022 01:06 (two years ago) link
obviously I take great issue w/them calling him the sharpest music writer of his generation when I've been on ilm for long enough to know much betterhis shtick definitely affected writing styles overall, no doubt
― Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note I'm (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 10 February 2022 01:50 (two years ago) link
xpost - mh what about Future vs Lil Baby vs Jazzy Sensation by Bambaataa (81) vs How I Could Just Kill a Man by Cypress Hill (91), that's way more different
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 10 February 2022 01:55 (two years ago) link
or, the best selling rap album of 2012 was Drake, the best selling rap album of last year was...Drake
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 10 February 2022 02:05 (two years ago) link
i wonder where the growing easier access to music since the late 90s factors into all of this. i don't really have any solid thoughts on it either way, but surely that's been a big contributing factor to the uber-nostalgia overload that we're currently living through. i know for those of us who grew up relying on magazines, music videos, and word of mouth, pre-napster/internet feels very much like "the beforetimes" — and, for better or for worse, will inevitably be romanticized. not trying to sound like a "well back in my day" story, but i'd liken it to my grandparents preferring to listen to the radio instead of watching television.
(not that i preferred "the beforetime", i.e. not being able to hear new music as easily as now, but the feeling is the same. it was just "a different time" and some folks probably were young and carefree then, so look back on it fondly? idk.)
just trying to make sense of this obsession with such definitively stated time periods. i don't understand.
never read much ck, but he seems a doofy blowhard (takes one to know one, i suppose).
― get shrunk by this funk. (Austin), Thursday, 10 February 2022 03:20 (two years ago) link
yeah I think streaming has a lot to do with it
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 10 February 2022 04:29 (two years ago) link
right the whole career of "professional pop culture/movie/music dork" like Kevin Smith, James Murphy, or Quentin Tarantino didn't seem to really exist before the 90's, and now that basically everything's available 24/7 in your pocket its kind of like half of what all media is now
― frogbs, Thursday, 10 February 2022 04:43 (two years ago) link
There used to be 10 music journalists and now there are 10 million.
― billstevejim, Thursday, 10 February 2022 06:21 (two years ago) link
frogbs is right but I don’t think it has to do with “everything is in your pocket” but instead “criticism is monetized by having constant streams of content about lots of subjects, and Young Sheldon is not going to recap itself”
― Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note I'm (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 10 February 2022 07:15 (two years ago) link
There used to be 10 music journalists and now there are 10 million.Only ten are making any money from it tho.
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Friday, 11 February 2022 01:30 (two years ago) link
FYI, they had a feature with Klosterman and on 90s nostalgia on CBS Saturday Morning last week.
― earlnash, Friday, 11 February 2022 01:35 (two years ago) link
Only ten are making any money from it tho.
Has anyone written about alt-weeklies being forced to discontinue sex work ads and the effect on being able to make money as a music critic/journalist?
― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, 11 February 2022 01:38 (two years ago) link
Rightly or wrongly, I decided early on that Klosterman's interests weren't mine, and then there seemed to be a certain amount of celebrity attached to him, so I didn't read any of his books. The Nineties is the first one I've read.
Thought it was good--raced through it. At lot of that, I'm sure, has to do with my own positive feelings about the decade. Definitely the last time I was completely plugged into new music, from the start of the decade to the finish. Films and politics too. So I was interested in most everything he covered. (The only chapter I was completely uninterested in was the one on clear sodas--Zima, etc.--and the Biosphere...but there was other stuff in that chapter that did interest me.) Liked the two political chapters ('92 election + Clinton in general), and his memory of all that more or less aligns with my own. (Although he didn't mention some of the early forgotten stories I associate with Clinton: Zoe Baird, Jocelyn Elders, Cristophe.) He's good on movies and sports--liked that he highlighted Michael Jordan's season playing baseball. I wasn't really looking for deep analysis...there's analysis, but it didn't feel like work. If I wrote a book on the '90s myself, it'd probably be a lot like this one. I'd just say "I" a lot more.
― clemenza, Sunday, 6 March 2022 16:19 (two years ago) link
Somebody like Jonathan Lethem once said something like you can enjoy reading Klosterman even if you have zero overlap of taste, with the added bonus of not spending one cent on new music, although I haven't tested this theory in a while.
― Gary Gets His Tonsure Out (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 6 March 2022 16:49 (two years ago) link
I'd say music accounts for a quarter of the book, maybe less. I don't think I found anything egregiously at odds with my own memories of the decade...he says there was "an overwhelming consensus" that "Achy Breaky Heart" was terrible; I think that's overstated (really overstated in view of the fact that he doesn't mention critics, although that's the implied consensus). Some critics liked it, and at least one loved it.
― clemenza, Sunday, 6 March 2022 16:59 (two years ago) link
Overheard at bookstore a few minutes ago: "Like, that guy Klosterman wrote a book on the '90s, and he really got it." Clearly the guy yelling this moistly into his girlfriend's ear hadn't watched the bookstore scene in Annie Hall.
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 2 June 2024 17:36 (three months ago) link
now they're in the art/photography section and he's still yelling his opinions at her and I'm about to call thec cops
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 2 June 2024 17:40 (three months ago) link
Pretend to be on the phone, walk by and loudly talk about how much you enjoyed that one particular sequence in the _Barbie_ movie as you pass.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 2 June 2024 17:43 (three months ago) link
"I'm Just Terrified"
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 2 June 2024 17:47 (three months ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/QZ1DEyI.png
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 2 June 2024 19:12 (three months ago) link