Carly Rae Jepsen • Kiss

srs xmu

Warm Blood will be a huge hit with the famed Robyn crowd.

are there good remixes of 'run away with me'? i want to feel that sax line boring into my skull for 8 - 12 mins

are there good remixes of 'run away with me'? i want to feel that sax line boring into my skull for 8 - 12 mins

― goole, Saturday, August 8, 2015 2:50 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Remix EP out now. Only heard the Cyril Hahn which has NO saxophone.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/run-away-with-me-remixes-ep/id1028169451?app=itunes

i'm honestly speechless

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20898-emotion/

well that's frustrating

A couple of things. One is that the absence of personality is preferable to a distasteful personality. But I think the conclusion drawn in that review about Jepsen's personality as manifest in these songs is illusory anyway. And I would imagine that that's due to the fact that the personality in her songs is understated. Someone would have to do a lot more than that reviewer does to convince me that it's not actually there.

i don't understand at all how an artist like carly rae, who has such an acute understanding of emotional nuance, can make people burst with feeling and also lack personality

"The best pop stars distill attitudes and emotions into gestures so perfect they can take on a life of their own. This is why pop icons inspire endless memes: Rihanna for when we give no fucks, Beyoncé for when we're feeling imperial. We have Drake for performative vulnerability, Taylor for performative generosity. Jepsen, on the other hand, hasn't captured the Internet's imagination in the same way."

I think this is turning a very specific aspect of contemporary internet culture into the level of an eternal a priori rule for pop music, and it's very typical of the somewhat distorted way in which 2015 criticism actually engages with pop music, which I have been critiquing elsewhere (though pitchfork only conforms with this trend some of the time). Basically, the reduction of pop to:

1. meme culture; and, as an extension

2. a somewhat hamfisted social relatability.

This ignores the fact that in each case the artist who has "captured the internet's imagination" did so other than just through their music, and indeed the internet's imagination of the artist tends to reduce and distort what the music might relate on its own - does Rihanna really convey "zero fucks given" on more than a handful of songs? Or is this really just about her social persona?

The writer is implying here that it's the music that generates the memes but I think that's probably the minority of cases (albeit not exceptional).

In which case Carly is being punished for, what, not having an outrageous instagram feed? Not getting into beefs? etc.

Moreover, I would actually agree that Carly's music doesn't tend to highlight any particular notion of Carly as an individual who exists beyond the songs, but I don't think this is a problem: by getting out of the way, she lets the listener identify (or not identify) with the character of the songs without requiring that they first participate in a referendum on Carly herself.

Like, Carly has the relative advantage from one perspective which is that - unlike a Taylor - it's difficult to imagine her persona stopping the listener from engaging with the material.

I don't think one approach is better than the other - for example, part of Taylor's appeal in 2015 is the way that the sense of connection with her as an individual increases (owing to sheer accumulation, like a build up of connective tissue) from album to album.

But the idea that this is the yardstick by which pop music should be measured seems very limiting to me.

it's not just critics, though; critics are just mirroring fans and stan culture in that regard

(and given that stans make up the bulk of pageviews for pop music criticism, it's understandable that critics and editors would speak their language.)

Oh yeah absolutely. But it's presented as having some more rigorous or noble basis than that.

fwiw I would read your review of emotion

If there's one thing that's evergreen and true in this life, it's that you should never trust the opinion of anyone named Corban Goble.

Hello, what is your name?

Corban Goble.

Are you having a stroke? Do you need help?

That is my name. Corban Goble. My parents were babies.

"The best pop stars distill attitudes and emotions into gestures so perfect they can take on a life of their own. This is why pop icons inspire endless memes: Rihanna for when we give no fucks, Beyoncé for when we're feeling imperial. We have Drake for performative vulnerability, Taylor for performative generosity. Jepsen, on the other hand, hasn't captured the Internet's imagination in the same way."

by this argument Joe Biden would make a better president than Barack Obama.

"feeling imperial"

"Performative vulnerability" is at once the most charitable and most accurate way of describing Drake that I've ever heard, though.

this probably says a lot about me, but my largest quibble is the paragraph that goes "she wrote 100 songs and only 12 made it to the album." like... that's literally how pop albums work

I don't disagree with the score though; Kiss had higher highs than this.

lol i didn't expect crj to score about a 7 in pfork but the review is garbage

above*

i haven't heard the album yet but love what I've heard, and what cracks me up about this review is how the sentiment "i can tell this is quality but it just doesn't make me care" - which matches the "like not love" grade - is the kind of of thing you could usually get away with in conversation. you wouldn't have to grasp at straws to dignify it unless there was a crj fan in your face saying "NO, you must LOVE this album, benign approval is NOT ENOUGH". but since this is a review for pitchfork, and there's already been a profuse amount of good writing raving about this stuff, it's loaded with self-contradicting big picture shit about how we don't know enough about her to reduce her to a gif. its the kind of review that dignifies abbreviated word counts in review sections.

for what it's worth I do find the general "NO, you must LOVE this album" sentiment about this album rather suffocating, and only one of the lead singles did anything for me. which is an uncomfortable opinion-place to be in

i would love to read a 7.4 review of this album that remotely engaged with it

it's definitely a bad time to be asked to write a bunch of paragraphs for pitchfork about an album you don't care about when everybody else does care, but - y'know - make them good or prepare to get shit for saying "it's fine but like uhh i mean c'mon she's no DRAKE" on the front of pitchfork

you wouldn't have to grasp at straws to dignify it unless there was a crj fan in your face saying "NO, you must LOVE this album, benign approval is NOT ENOUGH".

i mean, have you read this thread

lol xpost

I have met nobody outside of ILX who has even mentioned this album

same

A friend recently told me that he hoped her new album would be good and I thought, "have I got an online community for you!"

Not enough memes, she's not a pop star

Xpost

the popular kids stay popular for being popular

high school never ends

for what it's worth I do find the general "NO, you must LOVE this album" sentiment about this album rather suffocating, and only one of the lead singles did anything for me. which is an uncomfortable opinion-place to be in

― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Monday, August 17, 2015 2:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ditto. "i can tell it's quality but it never hits me as hard emotionally as i think it will/as it does in my head" is sort of my position; it came into my life around the same time as the years & years album which i didn't expect to love but has, in fact, gradually hit me very hard

and the "CRJ as embodiment of perfect pop" thing is both suffocating and strange to me

i feel that way about people insisting that the 2015 build of rihanna is interesting. different strokes

If pop blogger consensus is suffocating you, I suggest going outside, getting some air

it's too damn hot outside

https://twitter.com/RobThomasWeathr/status/220202497212555264

The review also chooses not to grant personality significant enough to matter as being manifest in the musical choices that are otherwise ostensibly being praised.

the manager sabotaged this album's chances at getting the coveted good p4k review by revealing that they were specifically chasing critical acclaim :'(

I don't understand how that Pitchfork review can ignore the title track and "Boy Trouble" which are the two greatest things on the album and of the year.

sorry, "Boy Problems"

I have met nobody outside of ILX who has even mentioned this album

― welltris (crüt), Monday, August 17, 2015 10:42 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah. I haven't seen any over-the-top "YOU HAVE TO LIKE THIS ALBUM OR ELSE" thinking about Emotion, but if it's happening, I feel like the solution to avoiding that is a pretty easy one since it's happening around an artist who can't crack the top 1000 of an airplay chart or the top 100 of an itunes chart. Half the reason I think my enjoyment of this album hasn't faded is because I haven't been exposed to exhaustive reviews and pieces about "how we should all love her album/how it's not all that and the fans are going overboard" that you get with huge pop acts that demand you pick a side.

But I mean it sucks if y'all have found the 4 or 5 CRJ fans who act like that.

not trolling, but i'm pretty certain that since call me maybe came off the charts i've never even heard CRJ's name brought up by anyone IRL, only online

the song did more for Cookie Monster's career if we're being honest

nobody in the real world talks about any music

sad but true

Yet everyone who did started an ILM thread

the guy behind the counter at my dad's gym said "i don't listen to music anymore," which i thought was a pretty sad admission. maybe there's some tragic story behind it. he used to teach ballroom and swing dancing. actually when i pressed him he said he occasionally puts on ZZ Top.

Listening to music vs music as background or vestigial organ