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

I think a great side-effect of the internet is that it has devalued merely having an opinion about an artist or piece of music as being worthy of extended writing.

Like it already used to be boring enough when the NYTimes or NPR would ask a bunch of random people of note what their ten dessert island discs were and why, and they'd fumble through their thin musical vocabularies for an explanation, as though just being who they were and liking something mattered. That might have been tolerable when I didn't have a million better pieces of music writing at my fingertips, not to mention spotify.

*desert island

JUST TELL ME WHERE TO FIND THIS DESSERT ISLAND DAMMIT

easier ways to get music recommendations

i know right if I were on dessert island I wouldn't need music cuz I'd be too busy eating DESSERTS

"#10: Chocolate Lava Cake. This just has this really great, like, chocolatey flowy-ness."

whipped cream and other delights mirit

I like how Zadie keeps saying "open tuning" because she heard that's what Joni did and it sounds technical.

Piece doesn't know whether it wants to be Hornby or Morley. Doesn't tell me anything about the music because there's obviously no technical knowhow.

I can't imagine a less famous writer getting a better piece past the editor of the New Yorker, unfortunately. I wonder whether I should tell them about Then Play Long, or whether they'd just go ho-ho-ho like Santa on the cover if I bothered.

Well it's bloody hard for anyone to get anything into the New Yorker, but they do publish good music articles by people less famous than Zadie Smith. James Wood's Keith Moon piece was fantastic - knowledgable, passionate, funny and illuminating.

Harder now that Anna Wintour's going to be running the New Yorker, as I understand it.

started reading the zadie smith piece and ended up bailing after this line:

In the passenger seat of a car, on the way to a wedding, I no longer had the excuse of youth: I was now the same age as Christ when he died.

pretty sure she's confused as to what a bat mitzvah is there

A good unit of time. "It's been two christlives since they've won the Super Bowl"

for years (and still kinda) i would measure long events in "Seven Samurais". As in, "that line was half a seven samurai wait".

I am one and quarter Jesuses old :(

(Jesii?)

Noun
Jesuses pl
Plural form of Jesus.  
Usage notes
Care should be taken to establish context when using this term as some Christians find the notion of more than one Jesus to be blasphemous.

Jesuses just alright with me

Plus, if you go to only Catholic Christian Churches then they believe in the doctrine of Transubstantiation, whereby the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus. So far, taking Jesus to be the size of an average Nazarene man, I have eaten nine whole Jesuses plus one of Jesus legs. This is more whole Jesuses than anyone has ever eaten. Neil Petark says he has eaten 12 Jesuses, but he includes bread and wine consumed at Protestant Churches, and Protestants do not believe in Transubstantiation so he is wrong and I am still the Jesus eating King. Neil Petark has really only eaten 4 Jesuses which is rubbish.

started reading the zadie smith piece and ended up bailing after this line:

In the passenger seat of a car, on the way to a wedding, I no longer had the excuse of youth: I was now the same age as Christ when he died.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, March 14, 2013 7:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Christ was already "done with early Joni" by the time he was 25 and would only listen to Hejira and maybe Hissing of Summer Lawns if he "was in a poppy mood"

xp

lol i have that book

what book is that?

Fist of fun I'd guess

just googled it up and the whole pdf is online! great stuff. the section on challops seems particularly prescient.

link?

http://www.fistoffun.net/book.htm

this is the challops page: http://www.fistoffun.net/book/16.jpg

<3 interesting music column

wd be less challopy if he wasn't championing Blur

it was the done thing in 1995 tbf

yeah i don't hate Blur but the real challopry in that bit is Stewart Lee - cos it's obviously Lee - doing his "everybody knows that objectively shitty indie bands are the best and anyone who says otherwise is fronting"

Interesting music column = exactly my impression of ILM when I first got here.

I love St3wart lee but he has the worst taste in music

Well he likes some cool improv & jazz stuff but probably for dumb rockist reasons

Hands up if you have mostly given up music writing but you still check this thread to make sure you're not busted on something stupid you wrote recently or long ago

O/

hehe, this thread is the music writers' equivalent of Posts Very Much In Character.

Hands up if you have mostly given up music writing but you still check this thread to make sure you're not busted on something stupid you wrote recently or long ag

Real talk.

Context for that "interesting music column" is early 90s writers making a big deal about liking pop, which was both a necessary counterbalance to rockism and, in many cases, an annoyingly self-aggrandising posture. It all seems a long, long time ago.

Hand up

the whole Ironic Review bit is a skit on the Modern Review which obviously employed some of the annoyingest writers of all time, but that doesn't mean it's not also carping at the mere idea of treating popular culture as a serious object of enquiry

I don't think Stewart Lee has a problem with treating popular culture as a serious object of inquiry tbh.

he likes some cool improv & jazz stuff but probably for dumb rockist reasons

― dat neggy nilmar (wins), Monday, 18 March 2013 14:12 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is he still doing that thing of posting all the negative comments abt himself he finds on his website, because I think this would be an excellent addition

oh is that why someone g00gl3pr00f3d him?

yeah it was a half-joking allusion to that.

Hand up. I imagine that when I hit the jackpot I'll print it off and blu tak it on the wall next to my Pseud's Corner appearance.

British Rock - Forgotten Heroes & Where We Went Wrong (Palma Violets, The Strokes, Muse Feature)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/45186_10151370213003526_643562198_n.jpg

Hands up if you have mostly given up music writing but you still check this thread to make sure you're not busted on something stupid you wrote recently or long ago

O/

― @GracieLoPan #fyi (Display Name (this cannot be changed):), Monday, March 18, 2013 7:17 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My music writings are probably the worst I've ever read, but I still write them, for myself. I do share them online, but obviously they're so bad no one comments on them.

What I find funny is the surprising amount of music writing that people consider to be 'good', yet when compared to those they find 'bad', they offer very little difference in their approach or concept. It usually sounds more like, "I like this dude's writing better and think this other piece is utter shite" (hyperbole included), but they display this preference simply because they don't like the other 'shit piece' because they just don't agree with it--with very ambiguous justifications.

For me, the only music writing I enjoy reading these days is writing that tries to put music in historical context or within a certain movement or artistic group. More of a study of, rather than an opinion on the value of art/music as a representation of a given society/time/movement/expression, because this last bit seems to be so arbitrary. The worst (read, cheesiest) things in art/music have been influential in pop/mainstream culture, yet some were or have been discarded by 'critics' because of a so-called 'inherently' poor artistic/musical expression; that is, they made a value judgement or imposed a truth value on statements which do not have truth values (in terms of logic).

Sorry to go on a tangent. I might just be really disconnected with contemporary musical thought/criticism.

Hooray, Elizabeth Wurtzel's back!

I wonder if there will ever be another rock star. Probably not. Axl Rose was the last one in the sense of having a drug problem, dating a centerfold, showing up onstage at Madison Square Garden two hours and 15 minutes late to an audience that continued to sit and wait. No one would sit and wait anymore. Too exhausted. And the whole point is to post that it happened on Facebook, not to have the experience. Kurt Cobain was an anti-rock star. That was good too. Eminem: maybe. Jay-Z is a businessman—it’s not that he isn’t talented, but he is a professional, the kingpin of an entertainment conglomerate. The opposite of a rock star is a professional. He is the platform and the content. And really, ideally you are the platform, even if that makes you inanimate: People now form lines around the corner not to buy a new album but because a new iPhone is out. Then they use it to send text messages mostly, or to do something they could have done two devices ago, but in any case the wait begins at 4:45 a.m. Which is to say that the party is over. Or maybe standing there as the dark of night becomes the light of day and the Apple Store opens for business is the fun part. Steve Jobs was weirdly both a rock star and a professional, so it figures he would check out before this got any worse.

There is nothing like lying in bed listening to music. Sometimes it’s better on a sun-drenched happy day; sometimes I prefer the cool gray winter sky. There is nothing better still than a Sunday morning in Greenwich Village under the covers with Blonde on Blonde playing. You could fake the experience in another city or even in another part of this city, and maybe it would even be the same—but when it comes to sensual matters, the details count. And it really works. I have been spending Sundays with Dylan for a long time now. I have done it in cassette and vinyl and CD and mp3, because it doesn’t matter. (This point is so obvious that it is necessarily parenthetical: Nothing sounds better than an LP, but nothing feels better than not having to flip it over three times.) What matters is that there are people who may get their clients a consistent 12 percent return on investment and there are others who run corporate empires, but I am sure their lives are not anywhere near as rich as mine is, because they don’t know what I know. Just being a great listener to music has made my life impossibly sweet. And all the while, it has kept me clear of any of the many industries that are really just hastening civilization’s decline. Or maybe it has kept me in my nightgown. I have many lovely lacy nightgowns.

ew, thank you

Yeah, but you mustums read the whole thing.