OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Also, Hurting, isn't that the way the mind works: some stuff you like right away and some stuff requires some time and effort? Me, I'm still waiting for my Grateful Dead moment

The problem is that the J Mitchell piece is so washy it's not really about that experience, or about Mitchell, or about ANYTHING.

ysi

OK, still can't read that article but the description and the word "epiphany" in the title are worrisome.

i still have a long-brewing tumblr post about how some of the the music writing in 'visit from the good squad' is bullshit

yesssss

absolutely.

and then on the "novelists doing it right" side, there's of course this:

“So?” is Säure’s customary answer to that one. “Which would you rather do? The point is,” cutting off Gustav’s usually indignant scream, “a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn’t even have a sense of humor. I tell you,” shaking his skinny old fist, “there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part to La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony. With Rossini, the whole point is that lovers always get together, isolation is overcome, and like it or not that is the one great centripetal movement of the World. Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs. All the shit is transmuted to gold. The walls are breached, the balconies are scaled—listen!” It was a night in early May, and the final bombardment of Berlin was in progress. Säure had to shout his head off. “The Italian girl is in Algiers, the Barber’s in the crockery, the magpie’s stealing everything in sight! The World is rushing together. …”

I think the thing that bugged me most about Zadie Smith's Joni Mitchell piece was all of her anxiety and insecurity about not being able to understand and appreciate music in the same way she does literature. That idea might've made for a worthwhile article on its own, but since the article was basically billed as "Zadie on Joni," I was disappointed that Smith seemed too afraid to capture anything interesting about her ostensible subject.

The problem is that the J Mitchell piece is so washy it's not really about that experience, or about Mitchell, or about ANYTHING.

^Yeah, basically.

I think the depiction of the punk band and its surrounding scene in Goon Squad's early chapters is unusually believable but the later stuff about the outcast singer-songwriter redeeming a plasticised world through the magic of authenticity kind of undoes that good work. Novelists have a bad epiphany addiction when it comes to describing the music itself rather than the characters involved in making it.

Bad epiphany addiction good way to put it.

Where were you Whiney when the pinefox did his slow liveblog reading of that book? Looking forward to tumblr post

feel like all my examples of "novelists doing it right" = "novelists on classical"

Zadie, you listen to Joni, but you can't HEAR Joni

The Music Man?

is this the thread where they talk about the vice on pitchfork piece? which thread is that?

Ah yes, Q-Tip--blessed Q-tip! And his dog, who plays upon the fife! And Ali, the mussulman!

― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Wednesday, December 26, 2012 10:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahaha

someone brought a rock 'n' roll mystery novel into the store today! weird. it originally even came with a cd of original songs to go along with the book! its looks horrible.

burn it

le guin novel that originally came with a tape of original new age folk in a made-up language is really good though if you ever see it.

it even says A ROCK & ROLL MYSTERY on the cover. worst genre ever.

for people who hate music and reading

anywayyyyyyy......

http://www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2012/2012/12/26/168097407/what-happened-to-music-writing-this-year

I always wanted to read one of those lord iffy boatrace books by bruce dickenson of iron maiden

and my immediate response to maura's thing is: what happened this year? what about all those other years?

i'd gladly write an overview of "all those other years" if asked

see, i was gonna point that out in the spirit of equal time: musicians often write horrible novels.

x-post

Can that genre be worse than sudoku/crossword mysteries? Probably.

rock 'n' roll mystery = Inherent Vice, more or less

i'm just cranky when it comes to music writing. and it makes me sad that this thread and threads like them are bumped waaaaaaaay more than any good music writing threads on here.

wait, cat mysteries might be the worst.

Do you have a lord iffy boatrace book skot? If so I would buy it

i'm just cranky when it comes to music writing. and it makes me sad that this thread and threads like them are bumped waaaaaaaay more than any good music writing threads on here.

i bumped the thread for great music writing just a few hours ago and yet everyone INCLUDING YOU, SCOTT!, prefers to be in here

but i blame myself too cuz when i read a horrible rockcrit thing what do i do first? link to it here, probably. which is fun for a minute and might have been instructive at some point but you could kinda do it every day of the week if you wanted to.

(i really liked that article maura)

sorry lex! i'll check it out. just got home from work. been shoveling snow.

(thank you)

has anyone read any mick farren books? sci-fi stuff, right? maybe those are good. kinky friedman, i read one of his once. not bad.

i bumped the thread for great music writing just a few hours ago and yet everyone INCLUDING YOU, SCOTT!, prefers to be in here

I just read the beginning of that piece because I was surprised it wasn't Maura's NPR piece and I really, really hated it

Maura's NPR piece is super rad

has anyone read any mick farren books? sci-fi stuff, right? maybe those are good. kinky friedman, i read one of his once. not bad.

I read one of Mick Farren's vampire books, it was okay

the only good music writing is on ilm

god help us all

Really excellent piece by Maura.

The only thing i wished for was a mention of the rise of the kind of outrageously inept listicle we keep coming back to on this thread. EG the Village Voice jazz thing with Brubeck his insane rhythms fly at u face. It functions the same way as the contrarian/provocative listicle (ppl will click to get pissed off cuz ppl sorta like getting pissed off) except the provocation here is the abysmal quality of the writing itself. There's no way the VV didn't know what was gonna happen with that jazz thing and they sure got their clicks out of it.

it seemed like a signal moment to me

there were a whole bunch of things in this month's wire that were pretty awful

visit from the goon squad, though, enh

Moorcock was great at putting pop music in his sci-fi

http://perpetua.tumblr.com/post/38971850406/critical-discoursin-in-the-social-media-era

Don't know if this is too short to be considered, but it is pretty laughable and lacking self-awareness.

well consider the source

I always wanted to read a moorcock book because of his blue oyster cult association

Inherent Vice rules so hard

his book starring Hawkwind is better in theory than in practice, unfortunately (I blame his cowriter tbh)