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

grant hart would be relevant point of comparison for grohl, except sounding a bit like husker du never really brought him any great success
― john wahey (NickB), Wednesday, November 19, 2014 4:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Except Grant was a main songwriter and sang in Husker Du

so... are we all pretending that deej's Chief Keef review never happened or did no one else see it

for reference: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20027-chief-keef-gucci-mane-back-from-the-dead-2big-gucci-sosa/

idk if anyone thought it was bad???

I find Deej's tireless efforts to cast Keef as anything more than a nihilistic moron p baffling but it's not like the piece is badly written/constructed. Deej is a good writer who knows what he's doing

I don't see how anyone could read the sentence He plays his own narrative close to the vest, letting his story loom below his elliptical rhymes like ice cubes in a glass and not notice that it is saying the exact opposite of what it's supposed to say, for starters.

people who like keef are v dedicated to defending him on what are occasionally shaky grounds, but that particular review is overall solidly written minus the overcooked sentence here and there (and who, among people who professionally or as amateurs write about music, hasn't written one of those?)

I must be missing something cuz that sentence parses correctly to me - close-to-the-vest and keeping things below the surface are related metaphors.

idk why I'm defending this, I find Keef unlistenable

xp

see now im trying to again after ignoring it for like...well over a year

i can see the appeal better now (by far) than i could then - it's one of the closest things rap has to punk sensibilities that isn't, like, fucking ill bill or odd future (barf)...but in a universe where gunplay and waka flocka fill that void & are also capable of nuanced/emotional stuff amid the chaos, why bother?

*trying it again

I must be missing something cuz that sentence parses correctly to me - close-to-the-vest and keeping things below the surface are related metaphors.

Ice cubes float and most glasses are transparent. He's trying to suggest hidden depths by using imagery that is all surface and visibility.

ah it's a fun review, i love deej's writing about keef just because it's so adorbs to me, or i wish i could hear the keef that deej hears

this also made me lol

Like King Louie, he will lock into a particular pattern for several lines, using extreme slant rhymes ("I just hit a stain, finagle/ I just hit a stain, finito"), as if trying to demolish the distance between words themselves, or to camouflage his thoughts. He’s made rhyming a word with itself into an art form of its own—he likes to complete the circuit early, or to let words stay static while the meaning shifts ("Nigga don’t slip, you lose it, then you lose it").

Ice cubes float and most glasses are transparent.

ok well he should have gone for the iceberg metaphor but obviously the part of the image he was trying to emphasize was the beneath the surface part

He’s made rhyming a word with itself into an art form of its own

yeah this was lolz

let words stay static while the meaning shifts ("Nigga don’t slip, you lose it, then you lose it").

i really like this about keef. it reminds me of mallarmé in a way -- the same word (or sound) deployed in different contexts can mean ten different things. of course, keef's rhymes are pretty limpid compared to the density of the poetry i'm thinking of, but still.

basically i dont just know why one doesnt just transfer this enthusiasm to like...3 other, better, less blatantly sociopathic rappers from the same scene

because yeah...you dont have to have complex rhymes to make powerful statements but his are almost always neither, just rage & there are rappers who do rage better from his scene and various others

the same word (or sound) deployed in different contexts can mean ten different things.....like a basketball, player

i want to go on the record though i think deej is a great hip hop writer for real & i liked reading that review

agreed

thought of a sidebar stemming off this but will post in goon thread

using extreme slant rhymes ("I just hit a stain, finagle/ I just hit a stain, finito")

technically "two three-syllable words that begin with f" rather than a "slant rhyme," but hey, who gives a shit about terminology

I'm gonna assume he pronounces it fin-ay-go

Deej's opinions and theories about Keef are generally batshit insane, but certainly well-argued and well-written.

Ideally they would be published in a place like the Chuck Eddy-era Village Voice instead of a place so rooted in "editorial voice" but w/e

im not going to defend my review on ilx bc i think thats prob bad form / bad precedent but i dont think keef is either nihlistic or a sociopath, at least any more so than boosie or spice 1 or any other gangster rapper throughout history, w/ age & experience artists evolve & early boosie is all "the one who rap bout killin, shootin, marijuana distribution"—def feel like those ideas have been foisted on keef due to the discussion around chicago violence that blew up around him, people blame him in a way they wouldnt do to idk c-bo or someone...its very strange

actually, i will defend the ice cube thing bc wtf that totally makes sense, when you drop ice cubes in a glass a tiny piece of them pokes above the water and the rest *looms* below

http://www.ginnytonkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Do-not-think-it-means.jpeg

Not music, but if there's ever been anything worse, it would drive the insane maaad:

http://www.examiner.com/article/robert-de-niro-book-darkest-secrets-shawn-levy-book-alleges-drugs-bad-temper

xp ffs its exaggerated for scale obv

it was an obv reference to iceberg theory but i wanted to shift to a less cliche'd image

xxpost

"While some may only recognize him in more recent movies like “American Hustler,” [De Niro]’s talents go way back to earlier films in the 1970s and then into the 1980s."

That De Niro piece reads like it was written by a computer.

people who like keef are v dedicated to defending him on what are occasionally shaky grounds, but that particular review is overall solidly written minus the overcooked sentence here and there (and who, among people who professionally or as amateurs write about music, hasn't written one of those?)

― hanley ramirez ordering a pizza (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:10 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I often read back my own reviews and realise I'm as guilty of this as anything. Do any more experienced writers have a particular way of avoiding these kinds of sentences, or is it just down to practice and knowing when to reel oneself in?

low-hanging fruit I know but

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmessitte/2014/12/03/on-hozier-why-is-take-me-to-church-so-popular/

page 1 is relatively unremarkable throat-clearing, page 2 is the same old horseshit (cherry-picked lyrics? griping about Swedes? misspelled pop artists' names? yup yup yup), but page 3 is a horseshit tour de force

That De Niro piece reads like it was written by a computer.

― rising stones cross (anagram), Monday, December 1, 2014 3:40 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's examiner, it probably was (or by an article-spinning app)

are there good three-page (web) reviews?

In terms of lyrical subject—and deftness of imagery—“Take Me To Church” has much more in common with James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (or Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes) than with the preposterously sexualized transformation of Nic Jonas or Ariana Grande

!!!

http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-artists-cant-survive-as-saints-and-martyrs

haven't actually read it but it's a think piece on pomplamoose so ... shruggy emoticon

It's actually good. It's not about Pomplamoose really, it's about the way American society treats its artists.

yeah p good piece

the forbes piece is like.......ever time i think we've reached a cellar for wites writing sanctimoniously about the triumphs (or lack of attention paid to) "real" music, we fall even lower

also i had never heard of pomplamoose (i know rite total ILX party foul, i have been led to believe) and...um wut

not like "this prob sucks" necessarily, i haven't tried it, but the overall explanation of what they are....i think "um wut" will remain a fair reaction regardless of how they sound

wait, were people really criticizing Pomplamoose for over-paying their band? Given all of their annoying traits, this seems like one of the least objectionable things they could do. Or am I missing some crucial detail?

but for real though, why is that Hozier song so popular

It's actually good. It's not about Pomplamoose really, it's about the way American society treats its artists.

― Humorist (horse) (誤訳侮辱), Friday, December 5, 2014 4:19 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not a good example though. The situation with Pomplamoose just shows that nobody wants to sympathize with fucking Pomplamoose (especially when they're asking for it).

i feel like i pay attention to & enjoy a lot of pop music and i have no fucking clue who hozier was, and after reading this goddamned forbes piece idk if i have any desire to even try it for music-anthropology reasons

Consumers and supporters of the “music wants to be free” ethos picked apart the numbers and decided that Pomplamoose spent too much money on lights and on pay for their back-up band.

No, it was touring musicians who questioned the lighting costs (and the relatively expensive motels every single night). And I don't recall a single word in any of the anti-Ploose pieces that implied they were paying their band too much; even the most vitriolic responses said something along the lines of, "(but at least they paid their band)."

no mention yet of the homophobic piece about the Peter Pan musical that Gawker ran?

i try to avoid gawker if possible w/ the exception of deadspin but it does not surprise me that they ran such a thing

that said they also like to pay lip service to moral stances so they can assuage their consciences (the ones who have functioning consciences, so, not hammy noles) over their denton-enforced dive-bombs into content aggregation for the sake of DEM CLICKZ, so, its double annoying when they do shit like that

there was definitely some question of "why did they HAVE 6 salaried people on their month long tour if it meant they toured at a loss?" before the Patreon info bubbled up, but that's not the same as asking why the salary was so high

the big irony of that "artists can't be saints or martyrs" piece is that this all started because pompladude wrote a faux-confessional about how his band ain't rich because they chose to tour at a loss

he sold HIMSELF as a martyr

https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10462836_10153511319012137_7867710557987849448_n.jpg?oh=4ed5ed594ca71b54567d50be5b2dad5d&oe=54FAE6B5

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/14428_10153511322072137_6083905235496799694_n.jpg?oh=9ba57a71aa5b30af1fa08cdd56d36e50&oe=551C2845&__gda__=1425900420_77aac503d5c0da5216d13cfb663efc88

That gawker piece is a abomination on like a million levels

http://morningafter.gawker.com/peter-pan-live-was-the-worst-three-hour-drag-show-weve-1667018164

Love the idea of some music nerd sharpening his critical knives to skewer those darn musical theater types that beat him up in high school. Make sure you cram as many references to embarrassing gayness in there as you can, you shitheel.

they also like to pay lip service to moral stances so they can assuage their consciences

I almost wish they wouldn't. When the two modes collide and you get sanctimonious gossip it's the worst.

oh god i so did not miss this style of music writing. we have to go back

http://ratter.com/your-2015-coachella-friday-headliner-is-fucking-drake-1671889461

that's well suited to this thread; made me kinda ill to read

unless you are a medieval Venetia or Cher Horowitz don't say ducats imo

yeah it's just gross on multiple levels

it's like a parody of what everyone thought gawker was when it launched

Bros have felt like music journalism doesn't "get" them, so this helps.

Ms. Rac-Tan

Are you bigger than Drake? Get at me, zel✧✧✧@rat✧✧✧.c✧✧.

no mention yet of the homophobic piece about the Peter Pan musical that Gawker ran?

― EZ Snappin, Friday, December 5, 2014 4:48 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

buncha straight men in this thread calling a gay man a homophobe.... welcome to 2014

I know nothing about the writer, but the piece read as classic bullshit musical theater = gay.

just scanned through it and there is literally nothing homophobic about it. i can see how one might think so if one's basic understanding of gayness-as-identity is lowest common denominator musical-theater-ness, but that would be actually homophobic.

Pretty sure a bunch of us saw the article as homophobic. Which it is. Also it's written from a position of complete gleeful ignorance about the subject at hand, and badly written at that. Maybe he should add an "I'm gay, btw" to the article to clear everything up to the casual reader.

being funny with gleeful ignorance is a great position to write from, actually

Should I make a comment about social justice warriors scooping up the low hanging fruit or would that be misconstrued?

i can see how one might think so if one's basic understanding of gayness-as-identity is lowest common denominator musical-theater-ness, but that would be actually homophobic.

but anyway, mattresslessness has it

"being funny with gleeful ignorance is a great position to write from, actually"

So you were a big fan of the wife writes about her husbands record collection thing then

After I read the part about how beating on pots and pans was analogous to beating off, this immediately sprang to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHLEA2HNR98

being funny with gleeful ignorance is a great position to write from, actually

― J0rdan S., Thursday, December 18, 2014 8:45 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

larry the cable guy fan here

Let's all construe the statement in the most simplistic way possible. That will make a strong statement against gleeful ignorance.

don't curse our darkness, complex it up for us

So:

perpetuating LCD tropes = not-homophobic

dismay at LCD tropes = homophobic

Gotcha.

i haven't seen the peter pan musical and don't care to, but from what i can surmise, from clips and coverage, it's exactly the kind of gay minstrelsy hetero culture latches onto to share in the fabulousness (and then draw a line in the sand with "homophobic" when someone takes issue with its representation of gayness or boringness or w/e). get a clue morans

it's very gay ghetto. i don't think saying that's boring is homophobic.

get a clue morans

Rufus Wainwright is boring.

Young Thug is not boring.

it's not homophobic in criticism to point out that something is cribbing from or has taken on the qualities of gayness/gay culture

ty

and sorry for use of the g-word.

The lineup has been shit the last couple years – COME AT ME.

anybody taken him up on this offer yet?

http://www.vanyaland.com/2014/12/18/state-pop-2014-average-person-doesnt-give-shit-music-still-popular/

classic URL

A bot generated that article, yes?

Headline OTM, not reading the article tho

Don’t get me wrong, the purging of the popular music star is far from finished; but it is hard to miss that there used to be dozens of household names generated each year, whereas now entire genres of music are subsisting entirely on vapors still whiffing around from the 1980s. When recorded sound became a possibility more than a century ago, experimental genius and notable asshole Thomas Edison reckoned that those cylinders containing electrical audio would be most useful for archiving political speeches for posterity; instead, that recorded sound created gods on earth of all types of singers and music-makers, and for a good century a formidable industry was built that took a singer of songs, allowed their voice to imprint within the minds of listeners everywhere. Within decades, we let our music stars determine the attitude of our times and become the erotic politicians that taught us how to comport ourselves as we interfaced with all strata of society.

But the all-seeing eye of modern technology has destroyed the god by shattering the myths that allowed us to take a rock band or a pop singer and let them swell in our mind into a personal deity to be worshipped at our own appointed household shrines. Sure, lots of people still bought, say, the new Taylor Swift or Beyoncé album — but no one but a prepubescent child would actually think that these people mean or say anything of any significance.

love the mixed metaphors, treacly mix of serious and vulgar.

first one of '15 http://www.cvltnation.com/is-veganism-changing-the-face-of-extreme-music/

appreciate this website isn't in line for a Pulitzer but even so this is astonishingly incoherent

Yeah, he seems to be coming from a vague position of 'veganism is happy hippy stuff so it's changing the militant image of extreme music' or something, but that's fatally undermined by the first things that came to my mind: youth crew, Earth Crisis, etc etc.

'White rappers are always difficult to comprehend'

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/29/the-cultural-crimes-of-iggy-azalea.html

I like the idea that "Real hip-hop fans" are defined by their inability to let go of questionable Grammy victories.

i'm being unkind here but
http://diffuser.fm/classic-means-of-music-discovery/

Who would I be if the greasy kid in my high school music theory class hadn’t told me, with rapture in his eyes, about Neutral Milk Hotel?

http://www.avclub.com/article/fugazis-promises-bleak-honest-213040

The general concept of promises is great, but as Fugazi notes, actual “promises are shit.” That’s the basic message of “Promises,” from the group’s excellent 1989 EP Margin Walker. Singer and guitarist Ian MacKaye begins the song singing about how “Words and expressions / All these confessions / Of where we stand / How I see you / And you see me” are essentially meaningless. Promises are super and everything, but they don’t mean shit if there’s nothing but words there to back them up. Moreover, if you’re a committed significant other, friend, worker, brother, sister, etc., then you don’t need to go into absolutes to be loyal and to be there for someone. As MacKaye sings later in the song, “You will do what you do / I will do what I do / We will do what we do.”

It’s a message that could be perceived as a little bleak, especially set against MacKaye’s blunt and accented expletives, but it’s also a solid one, if you think about it. Promises might sound sweet, but they can be broken with just one word, glance, or stray thought. Stay true to yourself by doing what you want, when you want—keeping others in mind, of course—and you’ll never need to make another promise again.

smdh

http://i.imgur.com/POQp55x.jpg

Has been bugging me for ages, so: Tiny Mix Tapes on Oozing Wound's latest. Sneering tone and parade of familiar "insights" presented as damning profundities irritates me to no end.

otoh, obviously not the worst piece of music writing ever

Inherent Jest. Infinite Vice.

youtube.com

wincing so damn hard

h/t to fallen ilxor LG for that btw

if you absolutely must describe metal bands/records as being "false" I don't think tinymixtapes is the best arena in which to do it

Highlights from the TMT review:

In a musical world populated by so many fake and false genres, metal stands out as perhaps the most irredeemably fraudulent of them all. It’s said that metal is angry, indignant music, music that funnels rage into condensed explosions and shoots it at a corrupt universe. But when was the last time you observed metal’s “anger” actually causing someone to cower in fear, make amends for a wrong, provoke an imflammatory response, or incite any of the effects that serve to invest anger with its particular, everyday meaning? Probably never. Metal’s power to shock and disturb has been lost in the decades of repetition, inbreeding, and overfamiliarity, leaving it in a position where it’s no longer a disaffected rupture along an otherwise tranquil continuum, but rather one tranquil continuum among many, churning an endless simulation of itself and the “fury” that it’s reduced to so many empty signifiers.

Its four-bar exchanges may be as powerful as hell, so powerful that the band whip themselves through the gears with agitated finesse, but this is a duplicitous show of power and strength, since like all metal it’s ultimately the result not of brute muscle and physical exertion, but of the modern guitar equipment (e.g., pedals and amplifiers) that allows a few gentle strums and picks to be magnified beyond all recognition and a few nerdy dudes to hide their limitations behind torrential yet artificial walls of gain and fuzz.

Consequently, when flurries like the caustic “Bury Me With My Money” and the Darkthrone-esque “Genuine Creeper” hurtle at full speed in a blaze of tremolo picking and fried power chords, the resulting force and rancor are more expressions of the technologies that enable them — and by extension the social and economic structures that produce these technologies — than of the band’s own inherent resources and qualities. Rather than critiquing their world, they unintentionally end up affirming their dependency on it for their own being and individuation, so that the animosity of the semi-epic “When the Walls Fell” becomes another example of falseness, insofar as its biting crunch and air-raid leads make a show of attacking a system that its dependency in fact perpetuates.

tiny mix tapes is the worst

Paul Foster Anderson's "Inferrent Vest"

that irish times picture is amazing

the little snippet of the above review just adds to the glory

this guy couldn't have done it better
http://matablog.matadorrecords.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/harvey_head_big.jpg

Review of "Anthony Braxton Diamond":

http://www.365bristol.com/review/anthony-braxton-diamond/194/

"a sequence of arbitrary, terrifying sounds reminiscent of a cat being castrated or a particularly eye-watering, post-vindaloo bowel movement. "

link no work

"a sequence of arbitrary, terrifying sounds reminiscent of a cat being castrated or a particularly eye-watering, post-vindaloo bowel movement. "

things to do in bristol

it may be bad music writing, but it certainly is striking imagery

link no work

It needs a forward slash at the very end which I did c&p but for some reason doesn't show up. Trust me, it's worth it.

http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm

it's the worst and the best. maybe most people have already stumbled upon it. it hails from the golden days of internet. you can scroll down to brian eno or whatever and read tens of thousands of words and opinions that are occasionally enlightening (it happens often enough that it makes you want to keep scrolling) but on the whole, make no sense at all.

I just assumed you'd dug up something from Christgau.

I remember this one. I would come across both this guy and Pierro Scaruffi by looking up certain bands.

this is kind of like christgau, but if christgau allowed himself 3000+ words per album

Not sure what's going on but I've read two very different versions of what Kim Gordon said about LDR and anyways I'm getting tired of seeing music mags try to start some beef or something. Particularly here it feels really gross.

and arguments b/w women

http://starling.rinet.ru/music/captain.htm#Replica

I mean it's cool that feminism is being discussed on P4K, but how about in terms beyond "This woman said this mean thing about this other woman not being feminist! Meow!"

xpost this is kind of amazing: http://starling.rinet.ru/music/zratings.htm

I'm sure there are more interesting parts of Kim Gordon's book than the section that deals with her husband and this.

lol i haven't thought about starostin in yeeeeaaaarssss

ahh ... mark prindle.

been a long time since i visited his site.

Starostin & Scaruffi are both auto-didact, super-systematizers with differing yet equally narrow aesthetics. (Scaruffi I can at least raid for album suggestions in the avant garde area, so he's more useful). Next to these two, Christgau seems like the most open-minded, acknowledging-his-own-subjectivity-guy in the world.

I'm really glad ILX has finally caught up to /mu/ with the Christgau vs. Scraruffi vs. Fantano debates

That's awesome happy for you Whiney :)

it's so great to see him in his element

http://only-solitaire.blogspot.com

George Starostin's taste (and writing style) has loosened up somewhat in recent years, but it's amazing that he's been keeping up his "review bands alphabetically" blog for 4.5 years and he's still only on the letter B (for Bon Jovi).

*5.5 years

starostin dude is unreadable. one paragraph oughta be enough to warn people away forever:

"That said, all of these factors are still not enough to account for the band's passing into utmost oblivion (together with other great British blooze bands, such as Ten Years After or Taste). Because, in a certain sense, these guys symbolize everything about yer basic early Seventies rock, that loud, raunchy, sloppy hippie music as opposed to, say, acid hippie music. And at least they never tried to 'fashionize' their music by carefully avoiding heavy metal and glam rock trends. Throughout all of their six studio albums, they remained what they were: a naive, drug-addled, heart-on-the-sleeve, hair-down-the-waist bunch of idealistic young men trying to find consolation in blues riffing and folkish whining amidst a sea of problems. They just weren't particularly talented, but who was particularly talented? Gary Glitter? And, for my two cents, I'd at least take Paul Rodgers' voice over Robert Plant's any day of my horrid life."

I still really like reading all those Prindle/Starostin/one-guy-with-a-website music reviews and am sad that that whole scene totally died off.

ilx's own glenn m. is the only one of them worth reading.

You are talking about this? http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=log

the war against silence entries:

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=issues

http://diffuser.fm/box-sets-arent-meant-for-you/

Let’s jump ahead about 50 years. The current holder of the Jimmie Rodgers baton is one Bruce Springsteen, a globally popular musical storyteller coming off of the biggest album of his career. Born in the USA would eventually sell 30 million copies worldwide. (To put that in perspective, hit your thumb with a hammer. Now do that 29,999,999 more times. Thirty million is a lot; also, put some ice on that thumb.)

really puts it in perspective

And so while we in the media continue to report on the inevitable death of physical media, any artist who attracts enthusiastic fans remains a candidate for a lavish box set. As I write this, I’m staring lovingly at my Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection. I’m also shaking my head at the online auction prices for Insane Clown Posse‘s recently released The First Six which is, of course, a seven-disc set that’s fetching prices not too far below the great Miles’ 53-disc box.

I can shake my head all I want, but the simple truth is that ICP didn’t make The First Six for me any more than Victor made that very first Jimmie Rodgers album for fans of Enrico Caruso. It’s a priceless treasure to the Juggalos, and that’s why the idea of the box set remains a viable one even after 80 years.

But seriously, Led Zeppelin, enough already.

a priceless treasure to the Juggalos

This has a real nice poetic ring to it.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/fugazi-politics

Fast-forward thirteen years, and it’s all too easy to draw straight lines, not just to the increasingly unstable geopolitics of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but to the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City—both of whom were killed by police officers while unarmed. When protests erupted over the deaths, police responded with heavy-handed action that sounds awfully similar to what MacKaye described in 2002. War and police brutality seem fairly straight-forward to gentrification and the link between neighborhoods and the housing market. Last November, Dave Grohl fretted that Austin, Texas, was losing its artsy character during an interview promoting the Sonic Highways series.

Who is Jen Trification, and why do war and police brutality seem straight-forward to her?

Last November, Dave Grohl fretted that Austin, Texas, was losing its artsy character during an interview promoting the Sonic Highways series.

Surprised the writer didn't mention Nirvana's Ferguson anthem "I Swear That I Don't Have a Gun."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/09/pop-political-british-musicians-paloma-faith

taking shots at a member of ILM's favourite band, whatever next

I had a suspicion I'd see that linked.

Raccoon Tanuki writing for the Guardian now?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiator_(album)#mediaviewer/File:Radiator-SFA.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/Radiator-SFA.jpg

why does this piece get commissioned and written over and over again

old people

they forget they commissioned things. it's tragic

Hate to be cynical about it since I'm a huge fan, but he's got a "protest" album coming out in a month or two (which he mentions near the end). Pretty good number of comments, too.

anything > 0 = a pretty bad number of comments

I'm surprised that anyone cared enough to comment. The essay didn't say much, but I guess he hit enough soft targets (UKIP) to warrant a reaction.

i grew up on british protest music...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JctNVfE06l4

http://thetalkhouse.com/music/talks/luke-haines-the-auteurs-black-box-recorder-talks-noel-gallagher-and-the-scourge-of-dad-rock/

Not sure if this qualifies as worst or best:

But even after all the above, Noel comes across as a decent enough guy. He’d be OK in the pub. (Well, he probably wouldn’t be OK with me in the pub after this.) You’d trust him to look after your cat as well. (Although I wouldn’t trust him with my cat, not after this.) But it’s his reactionary fear of the extraordinary, and the clapped-out Cloughie act, that need questioning. These are ultra-conformist times we live in; the imagination is unwelcome, the maverick is unwelcome and the weirdos need not bother turning up. The music industry and the publishing industry are grasping at straws to survive. The middlebrow media have a stranglehold on culture, and art is, amazingly, still seen as “not for ordinary people.” Poverty abounds. No one wants to hear a rich man boasting, but when Noel speaks, people listen. As for the records, they sound like they’re getting harder and harder to make. Noel never seems like he’s had any fun making them. The slow turning of the cogs in his brain grinding to a halt is almost audible. So, as Noel has all the money in the world — as he is often so keen to tell us — maybe it’s time to give up.

Oh I love the Haines piece. The Ciaran one is full of the usual ignorant generalisations though.

Haines piece calls Noel Gallagher's slow songs bollards, I'm going to go for 'best'

not really sure this is "writing" exactly
http://www.buzzfeed.com/carlanka/reasons-why-you-should-be-following-jme-on-twitter

"The most logical expansion for UMG, WMG and Sony is to embrace online video stars from YouTube, Vine and Snapchat"

uh, sure big-picture cuepoint guy, maybe you should talk to karmin

whatever i know i have an Officially Chapped Ass after getting totally lowballed by that company to start a music collection, but jesus christ the intersection of edm idiocy and mba idiocy fueled by tech dollars is just... the worst thing

also i mean all of these 'online video stars' make their bones by covering popular songs... that are initially disseminated by umg, wmg, and sony. maybe this guy is just advocating for the snake-eating-its-tail process to be sped up?

or maybe he doesn't actually consume music and is instead lost in a thicket of spreadsheets and impressive-sounding numbers

what a great time to be alive

just in case you needed reminding how bad drowned in sound is

http://drownedinsound.com/releases/18698/reviews/4148809?ticker

Whoa! I didn't know Chilly had a new album out. Must investigate.

i don't know enough to say whether that review is right, did pique my interest

"What was once accepted and ignored is now the target of pieces of writing like this one."

http://www.popmatters.com/feature/191920-get-hard-and-get-angry/

I agree that that piece is a total failure when it comes to music writing

Attributing it to Ethan Cohen rather than Etan Cohen is never not funny though.

Like many of the Nintendo Generation (born between 1977 and 1982), I’m offended by everything.

lololol

wait is that my generation, i've never felt so accurately identified before. finally!!

wait i want to be in the nintendo generation, but i come from the year 1983. guess i have to be a millienial and be really selfish but also really important to the future but also good at adapting to new technologies instead

"With the George W. Bush presidency being bookended by Freddy Got Fingered and Role Models, both interesting examples of ‘00s shock value comedy, there was a furor in the air, an feeling that shit wasn’t right, and we were plunging further into doom. The Obama era is more about how to rectify such social ills."

as a nintendo generation spokesperson, we are letting you in karl malone

77-82 is a pretty tight turnaround for a whole generation

Mark Palermo co-wrote the 2012 theatrical teen horror sci-fi comedy Detention, distributed by Sony Pictures.

xpost fuck yeah! now i regret selling my bright blue NES bag last year.

http://galleryplus.ebayimg.com/ws/web/311124260128_4_0_1/500x500.jpg

"I wish to register my disdain at the disgust and outrage which has greeted this, er, admittedly disgusting and outrageous film"

well, you know the nintendo generation... offended by everything.

fucking mario

yeah, its pretty dumb to make a point about overreactions to art that's perceived as offensive in reaction to something that...looks like it might be genuinely offensive (i haven't seen it, probably won't, i think my assumption can be safely made)

sorta like fuckin patton oswalt yesterday!

i remember when the super nintendo came out it wasn't launched in the uk (and europe?) till about a year after it was out in the US and Japan, so some game heads would buy ones imported from Japan- the Japanese version was called the 'Super Famicom'. How 'bout that.

I remember when this thread was about shitty music writing.

nintendon't kill my vibe

i remember i was conflicted, misusing my threadfluence

http://whereistheprotestmusic.tumblr.com/

Terrible articles

That protest thing is hilarious

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/04/10/carly-rae-jepsen-makes-heads-explode/

feat. bonus ilxor diss

that one is pretty bad all right! i don't think i've ever pictured stoned hipsters reading pitchfork. more like earnest high school kids.

lol @ "yoga columnist, admirer of trees" in his bio

who are these people who still think statements like that are big truth to power moments? aside from the otts and auks and austerlitzes, of course.

"Mark has been described a few ways -- as a Lenny Bruce character, or as a Generation X Hunter S. Thompson, or as a liberal redneck," Kershner said. "He has a following, but he's always close to the edge."

everyone gets older faster these days

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/3-Staffers-Suspended-Over-SF-Gate-Column-2937413.php

got an couple hours?

All of those descriptions of Morford are too flattering, even liberal redneck.

Is it still 2004 in San Francisco?

fixie bike jokes is some real trenchant social commentary in 2015

what about microbrew zings tho

Nice to see he takes time out of his schedule of yoga therapy and admiring trees to engage in pointless culture-bashing rants. Nothing more enlightened than jokes about PBR.

aside from the otts and auks and austerlitzes

this one is actually the worst

pretty sure it's lifted from a Frank Barone column written for Everybody Loves Raymond, though

just about every sentence of that is completely moronic

“Bro! Did you read our Carly Rae bit? Can you believe us? We are so meta! I bet no one saw that coming. How hipster can you get, but to like the least hipster act there is in this modern world right now? Someone punch me in the face!

“Next up, we praise a Kardashian. Shut up! Who wants a PBR?”

yeah boy do they ever have the writer of that carly rae jepsen piece pegged, such an indie loving hipster

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/21/8441443/hozier-profile-interview

reading this actually hurt me; I am a broken man

article nails that "sponsored content" feel

totally unaware of Hozier up to now. reads like Russell Brand's Infant Sorrow lead singer character

"He's a naturalist. He plucks the guitar strings with his fingers."

get the fuck outta here

picks are so artifical

"Most of the songs are meaty, desperate, and honest about the world we live in."
Hozier 2015: Meaty, Desperate and Honest About the World We Live In

"He's a naturalist. He plucks the guitar strings with his fingers, while naked."

"He refuses to brush his fluffy mane of brown hair, writes his songs based off a feeling, and doesn't let a piece of plastic come between him and his chords"

His guitar tech has to put his capo on for him.

Where other artists hire songwriters to build out their hits for them, Hozier wrote his in an attic.

"Hozier's set is lit with electronic candles"

you'd think he'd go with real candles

"He's a naturalist. He plucks the guitar strings with his fingers, while naked."

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/67/6718/FVLA100Z/posters/a-shot-in-the-dark-a-peter-sellers-1964.jpg

Most of the songs are meaty, desperate, and honest about the world we live in.

http://meatcampbaptistchurch.org/

can't tell if people are deliberately confusing naturalist with naturist itt

not that either has anything to do with guitar playing

#standup4nudists

Hozier fan 'completes' "perfect interview". Is that possible for you?

there are no guitar picks taped to the tall mic stand in front of him. He refuses to brush his fluffy mane of brown hair, writes his songs based off a feeling, and doesn't let a piece of plastic come between him and his chords.

this really is one of the dumbest things I've ever read

he should just stretch his own fingers over a fretboard and resonator and play them

MEATY 'n' DESPERATE

hoping that guitar pick thing is just a reductio ad absurdum parody of the discourse of authenticity

bet u could get some cool sounds flicking the free end of a sounding rod

he should save that for the tour bus

I bet he authentically picks food out his teeth with just his fingernails, too.

wow this is a misfire right from the first sentence

knew I was done with Hozier when I caught him using a waterpik

"Hozier is also 6-foot-5. When he takes the stage at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, DC, in March, wearing all denim and carrying a guitar that sparkles under the lights, he towers over the other members of his band."

Between this and all of the marketing for Tobias Jesso Jr. making a big deal over him being 6-foot-7, are we treating music like the NBA draft now?

"Andrew Hozier-Byrne is a titan — musically and literally. He plays music professionally, and he is also one of the first divine issue of Gaia and Uranus"

"Long wingspan, averaged 10 songs per hype cycle"

When he takes the stage at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, DC, in March, wearing all denim and carrying a guitar that sparkles under the lights, he towers over the other members of his band."

This reminds me of a student who once wrote, "Because he was tall, he looked over the heads of his classmates."

just pitching in from the ilx brigade weirdos but fingerpicks are tough to learn but ultimately really help your articulation and devlopment as a fingerstyle player, step yo game up hozier

"Hozier is also 6-foot-5. When he takes the stage at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, DC, in March, wearing all denim and carrying a guitar that sparkles under the lights, he towers over the other members of his band."

Between this and all of the marketing for Tobias Jesso Jr. making a big deal over him being 6-foot-7, are we treating music like the NBA draft now?

― klonman, Tuesday, April 21, 2015 5:16 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a long, athletic true senior from arizona state, hozier has an explosive first move, but questions about his toughness and commitment to defense have scouts questioning his ability to be a true NBA wing. excellent at penetrating the lane, he needs to develop a go-to post move and improve his three-point shooting. still, his upside and his ability to play naked and without guitar picks should make him a mid-first round draft pick. playing in the right system, perhaps for greg popovich or t-bone burnett, he could develop into a solid rotational 3 in the league

man my fat thumb never goes into those things right, always feels like i've got a c-clamp on in about 10 minutes

xp lmao

pssh picks are for small-handed 5-8 manlets.

a long, athletic true senior from arizona state, hozier has an explosive first move, but questions about his toughness and commitment to defense have scouts questioning his ability to be a true NBA wing. excellent at penetrating the lane, he needs to develop a go-to post move and improve his three-point shooting. still, his upside and his ability to play naked and without guitar picks should make him a mid-first round draft pick. playing in the right system, perhaps for greg popovich or t-bone burnett, he could develop into a solid rotational 3 in the league

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, April 21, 2015 6:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And in FULL DENIM! Amazing.

Damn, DJP - I just rushed here to post that as soon as I saw it

I think we have a winner (and not just for the year)

Yeah we have a winner, every sentence of that can be quoted for maximum bullshit. We may as well shut down this thread and all of ILM for that matter

i never thought a turd could be that many words big before

I like to imagine Edward Sharpe reading this article and muttering "I was this close."

everybody's favorite fuddy-duddy outdoes himself

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/love-songs-rip/

fissiparous
adjective fis·sip·a·rous \fi-ˈsi-p(ə-)rəs\
Definition of FISSIPAROUS

: tending to break up into parts : divisive <fissiparous tendencies within a political party>

I'm all for improving my vocabulary, even at this late stage in the game, but hey "divisive" would read better in my untutored editorial view

Teachout is SO heavy-handed and predictable, you can smell his cliched argument and conclusions from a mile away

"For one thing, Gioia has given us a book about lyrics, not music. He has little to say about the specifically musical matters upon which one might have expected a trained musician to shed light."
oh how the worm turns

'why don't you focus on the muuuuuusic, mannnn' - every annoyed music aficionado of a certain age

good to see tesla finally getting their due

terry teachout is certainly of a certain age - late 50s or early 60s - though judging from his writing you'd think he's over 100. he's obsessed with the "music maaaan" issue too, regularly trots out his own experience as a "professional jazz musician" to set himself about the yapping critical pack. in his infuriating bio of duke ellington he actually had enough chutzpah to patronize the duke about his lack of schooling in classical european composition methods and theory. unlike terry, you see, who understands the proper way to compose a symphony

you do realize the irony of these charges being levied against mr. 'why is music writing becoming lifestyle reporting' right

oh yeah this guy, now i remember that dopey daily beast article. so teachout's review is turf-protecting; stay off my lawn, interloper

don't care how skilled a musician gioia may be, any critic who refers to himself as a "music scribe" is deficient as a prose stylist

in his infuriating bio of duke ellington he actually had enough chutzpah to patronize the duke about his lack of schooling in classical european composition methods and theory. unlike terry, you see, who understands the proper way to compose a symphony

Teachout is so fundamentally dopey, and I refuse to go near that Ellington bio for the reason you mentioned, which he boiled down to, "Ellington never wrote a great long work, because that's not what he was about, nor should he have been, and he should've studied proper European compositional methods in order to compose the great long work he should never have composed."

Also, this little nugget of dumbfuckery from the Nat'l Review around the time of the book's release:

LOPEZ: One of the “peculiarities” of Duke Ellington’s career, you write, is that “he was a major composer but not an influential one.” Why is that? How does that happen?

TEACHOUT: He wrote great music, but his techniques were so intensely personal and unique unto himself that they were for all intents and purposes inimitable. Hence he didn’t influence anybody — all that other artists could do was play his songs in their own ways.

now THAT right there is one of the dumbest things i've ever read. wow.

LOL

wow. how do you not say that out loud, catch yourself and go, er, wait, sorry, i didn't think this through did i

i mean i kinda get what he's getting at there but even if i agreed with it which i don't there are lots better ways to phrase the point

I picked up that biography in the library, looked up several late albums including Far East Suite, saw that Teachout dismissed them or didn't even mention them, and put it right back.

I actually read the Ellington book, and I thought it was pretty good. I found his analysis of the larger works interesting; he makes a reasonable argument that Ellington wasn't actually composing long-form works, just creating medleys of shorter pieces and adding framing devices. He also argues that Ellington's tendency to procrastinate and write to deadline (and frequently blow deadlines) ultimately harmed his work. Both of these seem like reasonable perspectives to me. But I'm not a huge Ellington fan; in general, I find a little of his music goes a long way for me. Four or five tunes at a stretch is plenty, especially because he insisted on using vocalists so often.

renowned procrastinator duke ellington...

Hence his famous catchphrase, "We will love you madly tomorrow."

the guy just didn't get enough done in the time allotted...

"Four or five tunes at a stretch is plenty"

sadly this is in line with a lot of hepcats i know who own a copy of money jungle and nothing else...

dook smellington

he makes a reasonable argument that Ellington wasn't actually composing long-form works, just creating medleys of shorter pieces and adding framing devices.

With varying degrees of contortion, one could say this about any long-form work by any composer. I think Teachout's view is a combination of the John Hammond (and borderline-racist) "Hey, you're supposed to just be a swing/dance band! Stop trying to aspire to more than that!"; and the generally Eurocentric "no, THIS is what constitutes a long-form work! Stop trying to reinvent/redefine it!"

And if Teachout believes Ellington's work suffered due to procrastination, this means that a) Ellington released half-realized work at some point in his lifetime (evidence of which is as yet nonexistent); or b) Teachout (and no one else) has access to Ellington work that, presumably supported by documentation, was not sullied by procrastination, and Teachout is therefore able to make an informed comparison/judgement.

I'll go out on a limb with a half-baked thesis - hopefully the cheesy crusty parts will be edible though:

Teachout dismisses late Duke Ellington because:
1) Some of it gives equal billing to Billy Strayhorn, hence working against the "exploited Billy Strayhorn" angle
2) Some of it was undeniably achieved after the death of Strayhorn, hence working against the "after 19xx, he was nothing without Strayhorn" angle.

I don't have the background knowledge to defend these so do shoot away...I suspect I'm not entirely wrong either

"With varying degrees of contortion," you can claim Teachout is saying almost anything you want. Read the book. I'm not suggesting I agree with him 100% across the board, but I'd be more interested in discussing it with people who'd read it.

What I'm characterizing as procrastination, btw, is multiple projects - stage shows, movie musicals, etc. - that fell through because Ellington promised people a full score, then never got around to writing one and attempted to fob off producers with existing leftovers.

As someone who loves ie Far East suite, in a sentimental mood, Afro-Eurasian eclipse, 70th birthday concert, money jungle et al--I think there's a pretty legit argument that ellington's most significant work, the perfection of the aesthetic he divised, was not in his long form symphonic works but in his three minute sides for like, okeh records. I think this is a pretty standard line on Ellington at this point ! 3 minute records was the canvas he was built for, at least in terms of recorded output

Yesss ^^ it's possible to feel this way w/o being a condescending dick about it like TT. I'm not one to cry racism at the drop of a stereotype but TT also clucks his tongue at Duke's prolific infidelity during a long marriage in a superior tone that suggests well, you know how these black guys are...

"With varying degrees of contortion," you can claim Teachout is saying almost anything you want. Read the book. I'm not suggesting I agree with him 100% across the board, but I'd be more interested in discussing it with people who'd read it.

I'm mostly basing my characterization of Teachout's contortions on his "(Over)praising Ellington" essay. When Teachout writes, "The idea, I guess, is to push him up into the classical-music arena: he played in Carnegie Hall, therefore he's serious. And that's completely wrong. Duke Ellington is serious because he is Duke Ellington" I think he's otm. But elsewhere in the essay, he's critical of Ellington for aspiring to lengthier works because Ellington didn't have the tools necessary to realize works Teachout thinks Ellington should never have attempted. If Teachout simply thinks Ellington's longer works aren't fully realized, that's fine (if a bit predictable -- and Teachout, in his essay, gives no indication of trying to meet the works on their own terms). But as I noted upthread, he's critical of Ellington for not studying that which Teachout thinks he never should have studied anyway.

What I'm characterizing as procrastination, btw, is multiple projects - stage shows, movie musicals, etc. - that fell through because Ellington promised people a full score, then never got around to writing one and attempted to fob off producers with existing leftovers.

I would hope that Teachout fleshed these scenarios out within the context of, say, Ellington having to constantly keep his band on the road in order to meet payroll. But I found his Armstrong bio underwhelming, and since Teachout apparently doesn't know what the word "influential" means, I'll skip the Ellington book.

XP-that's interesting, I thought the Armstrong bio was...well, delightful. I thought it was warm, enlightening, thorough and sympathetic. I guess he used all his compassion on Armstrong though.
I somewhat regularly read his sightings column, which is to say when I can stand it, so I'm not surprised he blows it on Ellington.
which isn't too often.

second place is still open tho

lol contenderizer

This one is so bad I'm providing it via donotlink. http://www.donotlink.com/framed?704999

not saying there's any edit of that which could make it worthwhile but it's a textbook 'pick out the most obnoxious sentence and make it the headline' dealie

have a go heroes

Famous Briton Dolores O'Riordan

xpost to the meme that will not die
have a go and a smile

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121794/other-peoples-playlists-spotifys-secret-social-network
i have a real sore spot for "i typed in a phrase and look at all these big numbers" writing and the faux naif patina is grating

Keep going, listening to snippets of songs or speech. See what tugs at your ears. It’s one of the more satisfying ways I know to spend an hour. At the end you know something.

People lament the ascendance of pop culture. Just because Katy Perry is in charge doesn’t mean that Charles Ives is out in the cold. He has 57,643 listens for his 1906 composition “The Unanswered Question.” Honestly, I don’t care what people like, only who they were and what they thought. I want a way for people to mark their paths through all this sound, so that I might follow.

I start with someone popular but a bit weird, like Peter Gabriel, and then I click on the “Related Artists” tab and up pops a set of similar musicians: Sting, Dire Straits, Roxy Music.

It makes me wonder, what the hell is wrong with my friends? One listens to too much classical; another is far too into electronica. There’s the music critic who loves her 1970s metal, the Depeche Mode-obsessive, and a host of other breeds of snob or miscreant.

There's also the clueless asshole his friends might think is a friend.

"[Selena Gomez]'s music is produced via a complex industrial process involving engineers, songwriters, and coaches" -- gee, you don't say

I actually thought the piece was OK but "this pop music is so artificial, unlike every other form of music, but it's an earworm anyway :(" is the laziest trope of music writing by non-music writers

"At the end you know something."

This is so brilliant. Some kind of pure idiot savant green tea zen sloaneering.

Also that is possibly the weakest playlist ever. This whole article is like a robot trying to read tea leaves.

this is kind of great though-"Watching other people listen to music is too much like knowing their sexual proclivities: You start out curious and end up horrified."

just a note, archive.today is a better way to not give websites traffic than donotlink, which only really affects a site's google pagerank, which isn't a thing as much as it was a few years back

About that New Republic article:

-Since when is Blancmange "weird"? I can think of quicker ways to find obscure synth pop. Like typing it in.

-One can never listen to too much electronic music

I have not read the piece yet but I'm going to put it here based on this subhead:

"Is it time for a disruptor to change what songs look and sound like?"

nope, not great at all

Lmaooooo

cuepoint just always wins this thread

this only tenuously qualifies as music writing but it's enough to crowbar it into any thread with 'worst ever' in the title http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/uk-shops-that-sound-like-the-hottest-rappers-of-2015-10276462.html

hardly the worst of its problems, but there are two number sixes there.

For her "Butterfly" single and video, Mariah Carey intended to finally let go of all her inhibitions, insisting on rubbing her bare vagina all over the camera's lens. Eventually, the director fought for a reshoot, not out of fear of offending, but because the footage looked like "a giant squid attacking a sub." Mariah still forced her ideas into the single packaging, suggesting she squeeze the head of her kitten, Nipples, between her thighs. The art director note d they could achieve the same effect in graphics editing, but Mariah insisted on grounds of realism and "that look of pained resignation." Tommy Mottola wasn't havin' it, and sold the image to Lords of Acid.

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/6194-the-worst-record-covers-of-all-time/7/

way to take Nantucket to task for their visual identity

Terrible, unfunny article there. Goddamn.

Balls to the Wall posters prompted Deutschland dads to retool the focus of their "we need to talk" talks from satanism to sexuality, especially upon learning Accept's singer and guitarist, Udo Dirkschneider and Herman n Frank, translate loosely as "silicon buttplug" and "her lady penis."

Great work, guys!

BTTW is a fantastic album cover on multiple levels

As is Smackwater Jack,which I doubt they have ever seen a real copy of, since the point of the cover is that its got a weird shiny part and a matt part, sort of creating two images however you look at it. Plus, inside the gatefold is the funniest pic.

guys that is literally a ten year old story

yea i was wondering who was gonna say it first lol

like how is it remotely trenchant/relevant to bring up a decade-old piece by a dude who was a punchline right out the gate (deservedly so, his writing sucks) but hasn't made so much as a peep as far as i know or care in any way that the average person would see...like om gosh pitchfork did dumb things then and now what a brave truth-to-power statement

*but hasn't made so much as a peep as far as i know or care in any way that the average person would see in like 5 years

On the other hand nothing wrong with visiting that Kid A review once in awhile.

given that this thread was started to clown an article in a zero budget British university newspaper I think that Pitchfork is also fair game

I know this is 'rolling terrible music writing thread' by any other name but most articles tend to only be written right after they're published and then never again so

I don't normally believe in "so bad it's good" but that Brent D's Kid A review is the exception that proves the rule. Every sentence is pure magic.

Haha omg I was seriously just reading the p4k worst albums cover thing like last weekend

i can recite huge chunks of the kid a review from memory

comparing this album to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper

something about witnessing the stillbirth of a baby while also watching it "play in the afterlife on imax"

those first 3 covers are classic, what the hell

iirc it has a single lucid and effective metaphor ("kissing around a big nose"), like a flawed rug, xp

Vice Exclusive: People should dance at dance parties
https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/if-you39re-facing-the-dj-you39re-getting-dance-music-wrong

Perhaps our attention spans are such now that we constantly need a focal point. It could be tied to our worrying inability to 'do nothing', without inevitably flicking our phones open. In a club setting, we are hard-wired to search for what we assume to be the central point of meaning in the room, rather than allowing the music (a more abstract sensory focal point) to possess us like a sexy demon.

Dancing doesn't have to be funny or embarrassing (unless, of course, you're one of those chiefs that starts doing the worm and the splits, like a town fair acrobat). Let's have a boogie, or at least do something more expressive than the mimicking of scraping dog shit from your shoes for three hours. Not to get all "good old days," but a glance at a video of the acid house era, or a story from Studio 54, will quickly illustrate the simple truth: we are getting it wrong. The time has come to take ownership of this epidemic, to accept that we're uncoordinated and uncool. The DJ isn't there to be stared at. They are there to be forgotten completely.

Madonna' - "Allow The Music (A More Abstract Sensory Focal Point) To Possess Us Like a Sexy Demon" [Let's Have a Boogie Remix]

In a club setting, we are hard-wired to search for what we assume to be the central point of meaning in the room, rather than allowing the music (a more abstract sensory focal point) to possess us like a sexy demon.

Either I stopped going out to clubs at the right time of my life or this is the dumbest, most inaccurate thing I've ever read

rather than allowing the music to possess us like a sexy demon

to think i was just considering having a new dn

xp what the fuck does "the central point of meaning in the room" mean? like the thing/person with the most potential for metaphor? lol

i also feel like a lotta fuckin club inhabitants (or ppl dancing in plain old bars) have very much accepted that they're uncoordinated and uncool or don't know it and think theyre the bees' drunken knees

people who who can't just dance and enjoy themselves without everyone else around them dancing are the worst

allowing a more abstract sensory focal point to possess us like a sexy demon

is that piece written by a NYer? Lots of people don't actually like dancing here that think they do

the really hilarious thing for me is that "the central point of meaning in the room" in a nightclub is the bar

Perhaps our attention spans are such now that we constantly need a focal point. It could be tied to our worrying inability to 'do nothing', without inevitably flicking our phones open.

this is p forced as society-is-in-the-guttering goes, seeing as people have been imploring the sentiment of this article since before mobile phones were at all ubiquitous

that said this doesn't seem especially awful to me

So crazy that people will pay to see a famous DJ and then want to watch them perform.

Let's have a boogie

sounds like a character talking in a '95-era Blur song.

Sounds like a budget Status Quo best of

‘Shoegaze,’ was an industry in-joke. One that made Swervedriver’s career trajectory rather atypical. Cut by the hardy brambles of their peers, the belated Creation Records outlanders had to combat against the bias monopolisation of the early 90s UK music press. Performing in the shadows of Oxford’s recently reformed Ride, the band were vehemently paralleled to their era’s contemporaries. Yet their international success was prompt and brash. Their commerciality appealed instantly to the US; soused in the waves of Seattle grunge and scouting for the next Andy Bell. Yet Swervedriver were opposed to the niche they had been advertised as. Swervedriver were never the doyens of shoegaze but the British answer to America’s swell of alternative rock.

http://crackmagazine.net/article/music/swervedriver-scala/

here he is!

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52fc36d4e4b012d3648f10d5/t/53082d4de4b035db717077aa/1393044814075/137638-andy-bell-joe-was-not-prepared-for-x-factor-experience.jpg

What language was that Swervedriver piece originally written in?

Christ, this bloke could be some kind of genius

Swans end with Bring The Sun/Black Hole Man. The sound is immeasurable. You end up feeling different, like you’ve completed a dianetics conditioning session. There’s a sense of relief but also one that yearns to be back inside Swans’ cocoon. Every time you get the opportunity to see Swans, it’s like they pour salt in to your mind’s eye. Gira’s group are the controllers of chaos and still one of the only bands where the manic euphoria they inflict is truly authentic.

Technology has aided in shivving the rigid red tape of convention lassoed around live performances. This is all the more generative for electronic music. If the sounds that fall upon our ears are altogether alien, it is technology’s job to help us visualise in the mind’s eye what we hear. And as the synthesis of synth and sight propel themselves into the future, so too do the performances.

There are very few metal bands that permit themselves to shed the trite doldrums of despair. Weedeater’s image is dictated by the doom they wield, the beer they consume and the weed they smoke. Their gruesome attitude is without guise. Their mannerisms are wholly believable and consequently relatable. This is what makes their show so deafeningly gratifying. Tonight also showcases new material aiding in crystallising Weedeater’s imminent future releases. This group’s burgeoning bong riffing seems to have no intention of expiring.

'vehemently paralleled to their era’s contemporaries'

grrr, you are so similar to other similar bands!

"the belated Creation Records outlanders had to combat against the bias monopolisation"

That's some Google Translate magic

it's kind of like a rockhacksmithery version of those FB macros about how the brain can still read words even when the letters are all jumbled. everything he's written makes sense but all the word choices are super odd

why do so many people want to be music writers?

deep desire to be loved, receive free links to 128k advance mp3s

to get girls

are right about everything, need people to know this

connect to albums by bands as if they are g.i. joe figures, want to play with them forever

nv & matt otm

Free Swervedriver tix

Weedeater man those dudes are some scary fuckin rednecks they look like they'd knife you I think dude was drinking cough syrup onstage

The guy who wrote the Swervedriver review is a mine of pure gold.

On Swans: "Beneath faded spotlights, Thor Harris gently strokes a gong. His beating causes an almost erosive ambience. Minutes and minutes and minutes go by. The climate is still. Members of the group trickle in one at a time. Michael Gira arrives last. He reapplies fabric to his elbow as a cushion against the body of his guitar. The volume grows and voices are lost in the ramshackle."

He's versatile, too – he can be bad an all genres. Here is on JME: "Yet while JME preaches over the fruits of veganism and the toils of A&R depravity, there is a storming vocal aggression that uppercuts the purls of his production. Behind the computer console accreditations, the Nazir Mazhar citations and internet meme quotes is an unquenched ferocity fuelled by the desire to be self-sufficient in an unforgiving social climate."

And interviewing Dylan Carlson: “I joke I only had one good idea in my lifetime and have decided to run with it.” He laughs earnestly, winter winds bayonetting at his lungs as he relieves the catarrh from his throat. Carlson is currently travelling with his bandmates Adrienne Davies and Dom McGreevy to the north of England, a place he treasures for its folklore and sardonic humour. There’s this giddy movement to his delivery. “Obviously I’m as happy as pig in shit to be back in the UK,” he cracks another chesty cackle.

his use of language really is unique, isn't it?

Not totally unique; there's a jazz critic, Derek Taylor, who's almost as bad. It's thesaurus addiction - write a clear sentence, then pull the book out and pick the most obscure possible replacement for each word.

it's not just replacing words, though, the structure is nutso too

I don't know how you end up writing like that if English is your first language (or even second tbh). It's not bad like most of the writing on the thread is bad. It's truly bizarre.

"he cracks another chesty cackle" -- are we sure he's not just randomly quoting Finnegans Wake?

OH fuck

I think I met this guy's roommate at a Weyes Blood gig on Tuesday, he had to use my phone to access Facebook and his contact was called Tom Watson. I asked whether the MP or the golfer. It transpired to be someone yet greater

I mean, now that there's an orotund London critic game, it's time to convect those stakes upon a rising thermal blast of soliloquy

Tom Watson ‏@onetongue Jan 8
Twelve dead journalists amounts to a populace of thought and satire destroyed. Their pens are the mightiest weapons forged. Very sad.

Skepta’s emotional strong-arming gives off an intensely thick-skinned impression.

This virtual revelation from Skepta caused a potent reaction last year when That’s Not Me came at loggerheads with commercial audiences, heralding a so-called return to form for grime.

If Jane Austen wrote about grime

That must be the first use of the word "catarrh" since 1940.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/scu1gnym05a8xc9/1930019_509053615505_5042_n.jpg

Beneath faded spotlights, Thor Harris gently strokes a dong. His beating causes an almost erosive ambience. Minutes and minutes and minutes go by. The climate is still.

"he cracks another chesty cackle"

totally my stripper name...

I interviewed Dylan Carlson last year and he didn't sound at all phlegmy to me.

It was a revolution of the solar cycle ago when Dylan Carlson and this writer exchanged passionate thrusts of verbosity. No rheumy eruptions could be detected from where I resided, like all hominid creation, in a prison of flesh.

Think he's nailed Fucked Up here. Nothing else need be written about them.

Despite his premature death clock ticking, Abraham and his band of matured Lost Boys are forever scrutinising their ageing subculture. Unlike 2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera David Comes to Life, their newly released Glass Boys is a disciplined ten-track study of combating age and the music industry. It’s a record of genuine purity, stripped of its predecessor’s conceptual guises. “This record is like all of us giving the best version of what we’ve ever done,” Abraham raves doubtlessly.

Flagrantly ceremonious!
Premature death clock ticking!
Matured lost boys!
Genuine purity!

They read like bad Titus Andronicus lyrics.

shades of eye of argon

"Abraham raves doubtlessly"

I'm glad the AI that wrote the fake newspaper articles in Sim City 2000 is still around and has moved on to music criticism, really missed that guy

in fact, thank you stranger for my new display name

Dammit, you beat me to it

Monday morning treat for the real headz:

http://thequietus.com/users/7759

http://thequietus.com/articles/10111-quicksand-slip-reissue-review

Hardcore’s Youth Crews were suffering from a spot of biological decline and required something slightly decelerated to get angry to. Amongst punk’s wilting complacency and Seattle’s slow-broiling illegitimacy, missing links began to occur. Bands had too many influences and not enough coherent fluidity between them.

"It was 1993 - one year before Kurt Cobain swallowed a mouthful of Remington."

The new Jim Thompson is born.

a mouthful of remington? http://files1.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_27/279655/shaver-remington-shaver-w-doug-flutie-and-victor-kiam-1989-600-13296.jpg

I changed my coherent fluidity this morning.

(have sneaking suspicion i am guilty of a number of this guy's sins myself tbh)

hey fashioned abrasive intelligence, enmeshed with instrumental chaos. It was absolute pandemonium. Yet all the mess and disharmony seemed professionally maintained. The irrefutable severity of tracks like 'Head To Wall' and 'Lie And Wait', elevate beyond anarchy. As snares penetrate incessant hi-hat slaps, sludgy riffs travel like aggressive circle pits. They permeate an authentic dissonance, accentuated by Shreifels’s husked, tonal wails.

Stop. Using. Words.

"The soulful whines of John Legend".

Dorian, I'm spiking your Nina Simone piece and getting Tom Watson to rewrite it.

why would you capitalize "Youth Crews"? like they were the Whig Party or something. maybe the capital Y is okay. it's a sub-genre...but even those don't get capitalized...hmmm....

grammar rules not my strong suit...

Dictionary.com has never heard of the word "consilient."

this is a certain kind of earnest solipsistic dude writing: the boy who thinks he can build style while retaining his authenticity by using a thesaurus, rather than reading good prose written by other humans....

http://www.cine-vue.com/search/label/Tom%20Watson?max-results=30

During the making of Metropolis (1927) Germany was caught in a tundra of political restructure and cinematic prosperity. Beneath the cindered waste cast aside by the First World War was a fatherland set for reform by the Weimar Republic and a film industry set to take the world stage. The so-called 'ethic of change' was in the air and the country's cultural isolation was dwindling. With the realities of war being all too real, the Expressionist movement was en vogue and German auteurs were at the forefront of an artistic uprising. The likes of Robert Weine and Fritz Lang were paving a macabre, fantastical path that would reshape the forms of storytelling. Deep in metaphor, heaped in rhetoric.

It's fortune telling and chaos as death that riddles Wiene's fantastical landscape. At the time, Caligari was said to have unsettled its audiences. Critics applauded its ability to "squeeze and turn and adjust the eye". It was also said to be a criterion for the slowly emerging intentions of Nazism. This is by and large a warped overstatement of a film that was impossible not to influence generations of artists, thinkers and, ultimately governing societies. Wiene's film was an inspiring footnote to the ever-increasing ascendancy of twenties Dada and Surrealism.

Approximately a year ago today, a swarm of antipathy left London in a choke-hold as a series of riots engulfed the capital. What began as a peaceful protest against police brutality mutated into a beast more brutal than anyone could have envisaged. Described as 'copycat violence' by the media, thousands upon thousands took to the streets in a tirade of hateful ignorance. And from this ignorance stemmed an easy target - youth culture. Thankfully, Tarun Thind's 2010 assured short English aims to bring vital balance to the debate.

his writing is a tundra of magisterial clichés and fantastical imagery, a swarm of antipathetic words embracing the reader in a choke-hold of helpless delight

Approximately a year ago today, a swarm of antipathy left London in a choke-hold

pfah, they shoulda took the train

"As snares penetrate incessant hi-hat slaps, sludgy riffs travel like aggressive circle pits. They permeate an authentic dissonance, accentuated by Shreifels’s husked, tonal wails."

Nothing beats that feeling when your authentic dissonance gets fully permeated by.... I have no idea...snares maybe? Sludgy riffs? what is a husked wail, let alone a husked tonal wail?

"The Shreifel's Husked Tonal Whale, a rarity in these sludgy riffs, permeates the authentic dissonance only to be attacked by a roaming gang of aggressive Circlepits, whose snares penetrate the beast's incessant hi-hat slaps."

That reads better tbh

I have a BS in copy

'Permeate', tbh, has needed a couple decades in the penalty box for... at least a couple decades

It was a revolution of the solar cycle ago when Dylan Carlson and this writer exchanged passionate thrusts of verbosity. No rheumy eruptions could be detected from where I resided, like all hominid creation, in a prison of flesh.

I'm getting this needlepointed.

Dylan Carlson and this writer exchanged passionate thrusts of verbosity.

can believe this

Is everyone taking Tom Watson inspired user names now?

Just changed mine again so we don't get too many people being flagrantly ceremonious.

how do we go about inviting tom watson to ilm btw

"Swarm of Antipathy" sounds like a Suffocation song (or album title).

speaking of antipathy

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840233/art-metal

"what value is there in saying that I like Rihanna and Tegan and Sara? Everybody likes Rihanna and Tegan and Sara."

that's the kind of thing that makes me want to stop talking about music in any medium in case there's even a sliver of a chance I come off like that

from what I understand of this dude though that isn't the kind of emotion he wrestles with right

I thought that piece was overall quite good. Are you saying that one part ruined the whole thing for you?

are any of those bands particularly arty? they're all pretty accessible through the medium of weed.

deboer way too self-impressed shocker

Think about the audience, though. This piece is on Vox - therefore it's aimed at, and being read by, half-aspie Poli Sci nerds who think listening to Sleater-Kinney means they're still hardcore, even though they spend all day fellating members of Congress in print. Introducing those people to metal is tough work, and even though to the half-aspie music nerds of ILM all these bands are gonna be the usual suspects and last decade's news, there are still plenty of people who've never heard them. Also, I like this part; it's a sentiment that needs emphasizing more often:

"If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. This is music, not church. 'It’s not for me' is one of the most freeing, most useful statements you can make."

Honestly, it's not perfect or anything, the High On Fire blurb in particular is kinda lazy (though I like the fact that he rides for Snakes for the Divine, 'cause I like that album a lot too - a clean production job really benefited them). But overall, the writing is much better - in terms of quality of prose, clarity of thinking, and absence of glaring spelling errors and grammatical fuck-ups - than 90 percent of Pitchfork, never mind the shit that usually lands in this thread. And frankly, that Tom Watson guy has set way too fucking high a bar for someone who can come up with something as funny as "The last time I tried to play a Sunn 0))) album I caught my dog writing a suicide note" to clear.

Based on this evidence, I would much rather read DeBoer on music than on politics.

the thought is sophomoric

half-aspie Poli Sci nerds who think listening to Sleater-Kinney means they're still hardcore

yawn at ever thinking of an audience in this way

yeah I mean doing a piece like this with a plan to appeal to your hypothetical audience's worst hypothetical nature just seems sad and self-defeating

point ...................................................... you

^ permeating slow-broiling illegitimacy imo

If Tom Watson never makes it here I could try to post more like him, if you like

should I have any idea what that means

lmao freddie deboer's debut dive into the DC media spawning tank and it's THIS

i can't type lololololololol enough

Man "half-aspie" is gross & mean

are you surprised

a 9/10 review of a deserving album but horrifying on pretty much every other level:
http://www.spin.com/2015/06/review-vince-staples-summertime-06/

writer seems like a real charmer too
http://defamer.gawker.com/read-the-insanely-weird-emails-this-music-journalist-se-1413243759

that kind of nonsense is what ILX sometimes sounds like at its worst

i agree, he does kind of write like ljagger

to borrow a phrase of WC’s

that writing is so early 2000s, it's kind of adorable in its just-outta-undergrad righteousness.

that whole "i just blew your mind, can you even stand it???1!!!" tone.

i mean i think people do still write "i'm blowing your mind" pieces (hot takes ahoy), but now they're couched in concern-troll language instead of openly oozing spite.

So ILM is still doing "aspie" in 2015, huh? Maybe we can bring back "cripple" and "spastic" if we work real hard.

Is there, like, a non-ableist word we can use for "aspie"/"autist" that describes when someone attention to detail and weird obsessions move from being cute/passionate to being a little... unhealthy?

Because I would don't want to surrender my right to make fun of posts like this

lol they put pierce after poehler alphabetically

― da croupier, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7:32 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was kinda hoping P-Z would be totally out of order after that, which would be a wainish bit of random humor, but no

― da croupier, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7:34 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Editor’s note: It has been brought to SPIN’s attention that this review, published last week, includes factual inaccuracies about Staples (such as an implication about drug use) and language that has been interpreted as stereotypical or racially insensitive. We regret these oversights during the editing process, take full responsibility for the error in judgment, and apologize to anyone who was offended.

^ forgot to also apologise for the burdensome writing, protracted metaphors and doleful point-making, but at least it's a start eh?

"It has been brought to SPIN’s attention" jfc

given that the issue likely had much to do with it being rushed into publication without an editor or subeditor looking it at properly, that seems like a fair and candid choice of words

https://twitter.com/kissoutthejams/status/606094147448143872

so the editorial oversight is no one on earth looked at it before hitting publish

editorial is "over" putting their "sight" on what they publish

as sympathetic as I am to editors/copy editors not getting work, I think the more likely scenario is that an editor looked at it and didn't see a thing wrong

oh definitely

(for the record, when I wrote for spin the line edits I got back were quite good; different editor though)

lmao freddie deboer's debut dive into the DC media spawning tank and it's THIS

i can't type lololololololol enough

― goole, Friday, June 26, 2015 1:53 PM (1 week ago

rly starting to hate this dude

are you on twitter j? his last honest working class metalhead scold act was in fine form today

yes that is why the hate can't be left in peace to die naturally

This is a breakup record on a number of levels—the most obvious one being the dissolution of a romantic relationship, but also a split with the guitar as a primary instrument of expression and even the end of the notion that Tame Impala is anything besides Kevin Parker and a touring band of hired guns.

But he’s also somehow the best and most underrated rock bassist of the 21st century, and it’s not even close on either front.

has Ian Cohen always been this fucking idiot? come on ilx and defend yourself, man

The chorus ("I'm a man, woman/ Don't always think before I do") finds him in league with Father John Misty's I Love You, Honeybear and My Morning Jacket's The Waterfall, taking an unsparing and often unflattering look at masculinity and romance, examining what qualifies as biological instinct and what qualifies as mere rationalization for wanting to fuck around and/or be left alone.

pitchfork will always ride for abysmal sensitive-man-holding-dick privileged nonsense fucking indulgent shit smeared all over our willing faces like this & latterday sun kil moon, they will never change, it's final, let's stop paying them or their idiot music any attention

an unsparing and often unflattering look at masculinity and romance
an unsparing and often unflattering look at masculinity and romance
an unsparing and often unflattering look at masculinity and romance
an unsparing and often unflattering look at masculinity and romance
an unsparing and often unflattering look at masculinity and romance

pitchfork will always ride for abysmal sensitive-man-holding-dick privileged nonsense fucking indulgent shit smeared all over our willing faces like this & latterday sun kil moon, they will never change, it's final, let's stop paying them or their idiot music any attention

― The Bends by Radiohead (imago), Tuesday, July 14, 2015 10:50 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You know, the hot opinion on /mu/ right now (though I don't know how sincere it is) is that p4k only covers and supports black artists anymore

has Ian Cohen always been this fucking idiot? come on ilx and defend yourself, man

― The Bends by Radiohead (imago), Tuesday, July 14, 2015 10:47 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

basically yes

A New Music and a New Criticism: Dissent in the Age of the Internet

Scientists say that punk was not ‘a revolution’ in music, and much as I admire science for its ceaseless exploration of the boundaries of understanding, in this case scientists have got it wrong

finally a thinkpiece about punk

with all due respect, science

a sentence worthy of David Brooks.

i beg to differ, science

Guys. Remember the legendary 'was the drummer for Gay Dad' essay?

Per Mike Daddino on Twitter, turns out the author of this piece was the bassist for Bloc Party.

NOT KIDDING.

if there's a rock'n'roll thinkpiece heaven, they must have an ok band

LOL i want to see that lab w scientists in lab coats handling The Ramones first album.

https://hollywoodrevue.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/rock-and-roll-mouse.png

What is that from? It looks familiar.

rock n roll high school

Freshman profundity. Something tells me we're going to see a lot more Cuepoint in this thread from now on.

http://whyideletedyourpromoemail.tumblr.com/

pretty lolzy

^not as good as ned's fbook feed

i thought ned was just moonlighting

After we broke up, I started record- ing new songs on my own. Filtering them through Crass, the Oblivians, and classic guitar riff-rock like Ted Nugent’s ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ and Foreigner’s ‘Juke Box Hero,’ they took on a similar feel to what I was after.

based on that description I'd prolly give this a shot

It's the one coherent bit in the whole feed. (And no, not my tumblr -- but it IS a friend of an ILXor.)

http://www.vulture.com/2015/07/all-74-led-zeppelin-songs-ranked.html

i no doubt committed some of the same sins as a callow young rockwriter but holy shit, this just may be the worst piece of music writing ever. led zep song by song with more ad hominem attacks, sneering self-righteous moral judgements, cloth-eared musical analysis, wooden prose, unsupported assertions and just plain rong opinions. sure "counterintuitive" arguments are a big part of the clickbait strategy these days but a lot of this just feels contrary and calculated. written like a stunted clone of christgau & derogatis. ugh.

Looks like the Stones get off tour and dude has too much time on his hands

Off topic slightly, but "Hots On For Nowhere" (#72 out of 74) is one of the few Led Zeppelin songs I actively like. Meanwhile, "Hot Dog" is #28. Was this randomly generated?

uh, as I'm sure that both Whiney and MC know, that guy has been around forever and does seem to be possessed of particular variety of midwestern, Dero-reminiscent smug jackassery, but he hacks it out more baldfaced-ly than dero. It takes a lot for me to side with albini, who reps a a lot of midwestern quasi-puritanism himself, but his putdown of Wyman was really funny.

whiney: do you like Jidenna "Classic Man"? do you like "whip/nae nae""?

on first glance I didn't think the Zep list was that terrible other than the remarks about Bonham (who cares) and Plant's lyrics (deserved but who cares).

Love "Classic Man"

Whip/Nae Nae just seems like kind of a formless jumble of existing dances. Weirdly generic compared to even like "Chicken Noodle Soup"

Do the keyword, do the hashtag

now drop and do the google trend

i love watch me! it's a fun dumb song and it's perfectly calibrated and a good throwback to mashed potato / shangalang / camelwalk type shout-em-out-and-do-em songs.
i predict a long and fruitful career for the singer j/k that is the most one hit wonder i have ever heard

eh i took the bait on the zep thing. it happens. otherwise we're cool for the summer.

This SPIN "cover story" is really something else:

http://www.spin.com/featured/vince-staples-summertime-06-interview-cover-story/

dog bites man girlfriend

I keep getting up from the table to call my girlfriend, who is, understandably, pissed at the dog for biting her, and pissed at me for not being with her. Staples, who is in person as genial as he is pragmatic and frank on record, offers to reschedule. He gets it. “Dogs try you, bro,” Staples offers. “Maybe your dog had a bad day.”

Lydia Davis level

nu-SPIN has this weird SJW slant in everything they cover (ie, the quasi-paedo pandering in teenpop writing, calling out Shamir for fat-shaming) but then is like totally tone-deaf when it comes to running racist reviews by stalkers or this "can't my girlfriend respect that a man is working" rant

no way i'm progressing beyond that byline

Gah, this is all your fault Klosterman.

It’s tempting to read too deep into this story, twist it into some hackneyed metaphor for how Staples sees no such thing as absolute good or absolute bad in the world. And from what I can tell, both from music and in conversation, he definitely does sort of believe those things. But he’s not trying to make a greater statement about the world here, he’s just trying to help me out. (Both the dog and my girlfriend are fine, by the way.)

that is a shall we say interesting way to put a hook on that interview

finally a longread from the ryan schreiber of millenial rap writing

Actually if you cut that pointless, alienating "cool story bro" first section the rest of the profile's OK.

Actually if you cut that pointless, alienating "cool story bro" first section the rest of the profile's OK.

― A swarm of antipathy (Re-Make/Re-Model), Friday, July 31, 2015 11:44 AM (1 second ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

When it’s time to order our food, Staples orders like a quarterback calling a play. “We’re going chicken sandwich, cole slaw on the side, right?” he begins. “And I want the mac and cheese served as the side. OK and also, we need two smoked beef links. Is there a type of bread we can get to go along with that? Let’s get a sandwich roll on the side. What is buttermilk pie? We’ll talk about that in a minute. It sounds live.”

summertime '14

lol

we'll talk about that in a minute

Actually if you cut that pointless, alienating "cool story bro" first section the rest of the profile's OK.
― A swarm of antipathy (Re-Make/Re-Model), Friday, July 31, 2015 11:44 AM (1 second ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He’s only 21, but to borrow a phrase from Mobb Deep’s Prodigy, his mind is old.

xp Why is that so terrible? It tells you something about how Staples talks and behaves. I don't love this guy's writing, I'm not going to print this piece out and frame it, but the intro's so noxious that I was pleasantly surprised to find the rest was solid.

This is when print can be better for you than online. The intro would have been cut for space reasons in a heartbeat. Editors who save you from yourself are also helpful.

OK, I'm dialling back that faint praise after reading "his body is a repository of small, inconsequential motions that add up to a flurry of activity."

yeesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5EnGwXV_Pg

OK and also, we need two smoked beef links. Is there a type of bread we can get to go along with that? Let’s get a sandwich roll on the side.

paging vince staples to the 'a hot dog is' thread, sounds like he may have some valuable points to make

America’s the cause. Vince Staples is the effect.

Huh?

that wyman zep thing is so random and funny

why the hell did vulture belch out some old school rolling stone dude going "BAH!" 74 times

i hope they have him do another for sabbath: the ozzy years

Spin Lolla recap:

But if there was ever a valid reason to cram by an outdoor stage and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a crowd of thousands (each enjoying various shades of sobriety), then it would be to watch an original Beatle sing “Blackbird” and “Hey Jude.”

An original Beatle.