★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

Could also mention miguel has hits so obv i'm not the only one who hears a diff

The point about my world of bars was that bars that don't normally play r&b suddenly would only play weeknd. annoying and dumb trend chasing imo

Well yeah, "All I Need Is You" and "Sure Thing" are better songs then anything the Weeknd is doing, but my point was that they are basically working in the same milieu, rather than any direct comparison.

About the most obscure music I've heard in a bar in this town is Vampire Weekend. :/

in my world of whatever the fuck it is i do, i've never heard anyone even MENTION weeknd IRL except for one of my assistants and this was yesterday.

Did they pronounce it "weakened"

more like "weaksauce"

no, just "weekend"
she was surprised drake was involved in any way.

Not buying the correlation between Miguel and The Weeknd. They occupy totally opposite emotional plains: Miguel's album is lovelorn and saccharine, where The Weeknd is harsh and spiteful. Two very different moods; it's very possible to feel one but not the other.

But who gives a fuck what Pitchfork thinks about an r&b act?

― 51 suggest gang (The Reverend), Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

1) :(

2) its not just pitchfork, i mean i get that u & forks dont have "cool" (note the scare quotes) friends but like, ok, from today's chicago reader, from its primary music critic:

"Much of the other 75 percent of my music listening has been taken up by the most fascinating R&B record since D'angelo's Voodoo. An album-length sneak preview of what pop radio will sound like in 2012."

like, lots & lots of people think this stuff! alt weeklys & magazine editors across the country imo

Yeah, I realize the discourse around it is p. obnoxious and all that, but given how misaligned it is with my experience of the record, I feel free to disregard it entirely.

that chicago reader quote is just... baffling

worried about 2012 if kids are listening to the weeknd. something really bad must have gone down.

i kind of agree w/ that part, in the sense that R&B is totally the 2011 chillwave

you know, i mean, indie w/ R&B affects

it cracks me up when critics go all Harold Camping with really short term predictions about THE FUTURE OF MUSIC -- like dude we'll know if you're wrong in 7 months!

so they play chillwave on pop radio now? well i give up and am going to watch matlock now

ha woops yeah i was just thinking, like, what indie kids will be like in 2012 -- pop radio already kinda sounds weeknd-ish whenever drake comes on

I don't know which leap of logic on this thread I find more offensive: The insinuation that all these people who are enjoying an R&B album somehow aren't fans of true R&B, or the misperception that The Weeknd is somehow primarily a creation of indie-rock culture enjoyed only by denizens of indie-rock culture. Most of the press/buzz I've seen for these guys has come from R&B and urban bloggers, and the handful of major R&B blogs I know of hype The Weeknd weekly. "Wicked Game" even closes the latest Future of R&B comp, and it's not like those things are loaded with "indie" R&B. They're pretty damn purist in their tastes.

(I'll concede that Chicago Reader blurb is pretty horrific though.)

i dont see whats 'offensive' here. most of the h8 on this thread is coming from self-described R&B fans.

i mean, id be ok with minor oddball R&B record if thats all it was, like, swade or something. but instead its treated like the best record since voodoo

it's been a couple months, let's do this entire thread over again

reader critics adding fuel to the fire

some dude otm

lol u were just cosigning one side of the argument!

i mean, id be ok with minor oddball R&B record if thats all it was, like, swade or something. but instead its treated like the best record since voodoo

― arachno-misogynist (D-40), Thursday, June 16, 2011 5:26 PM Bookmark

I just don't see how this detracts from it as the minor oddball r&b record that it is.

"the wrong people like it for the wrong reasons" = the lamest critical stance possible. if you like it, say you like it. if you hate it, that should be good enough.

"the wrong people like it for the wrong reasons" = the lamest critical stance possible. if you like it, say you like it. if you hate it, that should be good enough.

― And the piano, it sounds like a carnivore (contenderizer), Friday, June 17, 2011 12:36 AM (1 second ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah context has no bearing whatsoever on how ppl receive things **rolls eyes thru back of skull, dies**

i def prefer RTC's hypersensitivity to context to the DEEP TASTE opposite

i mean, fwiw, my stance is that i wouldnt be offended if a lot of people thought 'hey this is a nice minor R&B record' even though i didnt much care for it -- i might even be more open to listening to some of the tracks i was "OK" with, and checking for the dude's new stuff

but when a lot of ppl go ape over something so obviously par-at-best, it does push me away from a record

taking context into account is completely cool. "rmde at herbs likin lame shit" = zzzzzzzzzzz

but we've had this fite like a billion times before. hi deej!

rmdeiboh,d

it just weirds me out how the people who listen to what the media tastemakers are hyping up are the people who always say the hype doesn't matter and they're just responding honestly to the music. like that shit happens constantly.

Eh, the context I first encountered the Weeknd in was Jaxon posting about them in the alt-r&b thread or something like that, and that's pretty much the perception I've held onto. At any rate, it's only about a 7/10 record, so I'm hardly offended if people aren't into it. I just find the hype/backlash cycle bewildering.

lol u were just cosigning one side of the argument!

― arachno-misogynist (D-40), Thursday, June 16, 2011 2:32 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

no i was saying "how weird that we got worked up over an album that isnt really getting worked up over"

it just weirds me out how the people who listen to what the media tastemakers are hyping up are the people who always say the hype doesn't matter and they're just responding honestly to the music. like that shit happens constantly.

― Mr. John Scatman (some dude), Thursday, June 16, 2011 5:44 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

sure, but that's just the highest level of the received wisdom cycle. in this or that niche, there are heavily hyped artists & sacred cows that flirt with but never really through to mainstream acceptance. in their little niche-worlds, however, tastemakers are still leading the way and fans are claiming that hype doesn't matter, that they're just responding honestly. and in the sub-niches below those niches (local scenes, for instance), the same thing happens again.

mainstream tastemakers and camp followers aren't any more guilty of this than anyone else, they're just more visible. unless your taste is totally isolated from any critical/hype apparatus, you're almost certainly engaged with a similar dynamic, even if it's just with your friends. i just don't see anything particularly egregious about the fact that people do things collectively, as well as individually.

"isnt really worth getting worked up over"

also what Rev is saying basically

I'm listening to the weeknd right now, nyah nyah

:O

fyi here's the magician mix with the sped up glass table girls (I think)

http://soundcloud.com/themagician/magic-tape-eleven

starts about 12:30, it's fun, the weeknd sound like an indie girl band

sure, but that's just the highest level of the received wisdom cycle. in this or that niche, there are heavily hyped artists & sacred cows that flirt with but never really through to mainstream acceptance. in their little niche-worlds, however, tastemakers are still leading the way and fans are claiming that hype doesn't matter, that they're just responding honestly. and in the sub-niches below those niches (local scenes, for instance), the same thing happens again.

mainstream tastemakers and camp followers aren't any more guilty of this than anyone else, they're just more visible. unless your taste is totally isolated from any critical/hype apparatus, you're almost certainly engaged with a similar dynamic, even if it's just with your friends. i just don't see anything particularly egregious about the fact that people do things collectively, as well as individually.

― And the piano, it sounds like a carnivore (contenderizer), Friday, June 17, 2011 12:52 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this implies there isnt a larger structural heirarchy of power dynamics or w/e sorry been reading Foucault but it is true

oh jesus the last thing we need in this thread is a Foucault reference.

well its sorta the best way of explaining how we are critiquing the critical love affair w/ a 7/10 at best R&B album

i mean i reject the 'youre just a part of the hype cycle!' argument mainly bcuz its not like al & i dont ever enjoy records that are hyped and dislike others. we're removing ourselves from that kind of kneejerk discourse simply by saying, well, this record is where i would draw a line (not to put words in al's mouth he can say if he disagrees)

http://i.imgur.com/PGZQR.jpg

yeah, but disparaging a record or critic for being part of the hype cycle is hypocritical and tiresome unless you're totally outside of not only the mainstream hype cycle, but whatever hype cycles dominate in the niches you actually care about. i mean sure, everybody has to draw the line somewhere, but it's just as kneejerk to slam an album for being overhyped as it is to express interest in something other people are listening to and talking about.

if you think you're striking a blow against empire by raising your eyebrow at the weeknd record, then cool, but i'm not entirely convinced.

thats an absurd standard. 'if you're not ending segregation, then telling a racist to stfu isnt really striking a blow against the system'

i'm not sure racism is really the issue here