Do you find yourself better able to express those inferences by way of talking about the lyrics than about the music?
― on a top secret challops mission in contraristan (The Reverend), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 19:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Vocal tonality and rhythm matter as much – it's how they all signify.
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 19:49 (fourteen years ago) link
I think it's sorta inherent to the concept of criticism or really just any kind of engaged reaction to art to think over what it seems to be "about" or what it's saying or what it represents, etc., though you sorta need to do this in a modest way where you don't pretend that's what it's actually about, or that it isn't complicated and open to lots of interpretations and whatnot. Being good at this is even handier when people can just click "play" on embedded mp3s.
You know who's great at making there not be a music/lyrics divide, is Tom E, who's really good at talking about how the two things suit each other -- this is oddly kinda rare, being able to talk in a comprehensive way about how music and lyric and performance and emotion interact with one another, or support one another, or clash, or whatever.
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 19:50 (fourteen years ago) link
I can't separate how I respond to, say, Girls from the vocalist's timbre; the lyrics are secondary.
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 19:51 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah nabisco otm, especially this
though you sorta need to do this in a modest way where you don't pretend that's what it's actually about, or that it isn't complicated and open to lots of interpretations and whatnot.
this is super key.
― pariah carey (Mr. Que), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 19:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Hm. Qualifying an argument isn't very important to me; isn't it a given that your argument is one of many, a part of a conversation?
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 19:55 (fourteen years ago) link
people don't read reviews for that uppity talk
― da croupier, Tuesday, 13 October 2009 19:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, I'm not so sure about the importance of hedging/qualifying. It's definitely an art, and something that has become much more important in recent years for whatever reason (pavlovian reaction to the expectation of derisive internet snark?), but to me it's more a style point than part of the essence of good criticism.
― a bleak, sometimes frightening portrait of ceiling cat (contenderizer), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 20:21 (fourteen years ago) link
HEY "XXX HARDCORE" MEAN PENETRATION, NOT FROLICKING INNA NOOD, NOOB
― Fox Force Five Punchline (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 13:07 (fourteen years ago) link
lolllllll
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 28 October 2009 14:07 (fourteen years ago) link
ha, it just came to my attention that "xxx hardcore girls video" is an interesting bit of search-engine optimization
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 23:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Girls as aspiring SEO expert.
― the supposedly self-aware acoustic stylings of Joe Latte (kshighway1), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 23:35 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.komailnoori.com/web-designing-images/seo-expert.gif
Koller's kit is so murderous, it's practically the sound of ethnic cleansing.
sigh
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 October 2009 17:13 (fourteen years ago) link
o_O
― itsybitsyspiderMk2 (some dude), Friday, 30 October 2009 17:25 (fourteen years ago) link
ok then
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 30 October 2009 17:47 (fourteen years ago) link
his drum technique is dictatorial
― TGAAPQ (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 October 2009 17:48 (fourteen years ago) link
his ride cymbal is a genocide symbol
― they were wein, so she drowned (some dude), Friday, 30 October 2009 17:50 (fourteen years ago) link
kinda wonder how that line got through
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 30 October 2009 17:57 (fourteen years ago) link
I started reading the review and didn't even get to that line before taking umbrage:
Converge are this generation's Black Flag. This generation might not remember Black Flag, so here's a refresher. In the early 1980s, Black Flag and peers like Bad Brains and Minor Threat took punk beyond "three chords and the truth." The result was hardcore punk. It was deliberately ugly and harsh; Clash-fetishizing critics have mostly ignored it.
wtf Bad Brains made UGLY music? This is news to me!
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 17:57 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm just glad someone finally started talking about black flag, minor threat, and bad brains after years of them languishing in obscurity.
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 30 October 2009 17:59 (fourteen years ago) link
also lol that whole "ethnic cleansing" section was edited out
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:00 (fourteen years ago) link
i went to amoeba last week and asked about black flag and the counter guy looked at me and said, "i've heard of electric flag but black....no..."
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:01 (fourteen years ago) link
ha I just had a flashback to seward's attempt to rent "thirtysomething" from Blockbuster
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Thank god for small favors I guess.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:03 (fourteen years ago) link
xxp
The review of Black Flag in that Converge review is worse than the review of Converge.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:05 (fourteen years ago) link
this is just so horrific on so many levels
― TGAAPQ (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:08 (fourteen years ago) link
Maybe I'm old and out of touch but who, exactly, is ignoring Black Flag, Minor Threat and Bad Brains?
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:09 (fourteen years ago) link
(yeah I know beating dead horse etc)
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:10 (fourteen years ago) link
this generation is ignoring it, and also old critics.
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:11 (fourteen years ago) link
critics who are really into the Clash? i guess? (i've never seen evidence of this.)
― TGAAPQ (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Haha yeah the idea that you had to be able to "remember" them is just...
― War On The Terrances (DJ Mencap), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:12 (fourteen years ago) link
xp if this was in a British publication, thinking of one of the more middleaged ones, the there would be a little more resonance to it, although I'd stil consider it spurious at this point in time
― War On The Terrances (DJ Mencap), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Black Flag made it okay to fight cops, to fight fans, and to do what punk always promised but rarely did: be oneself. The band was both explosive and implosive. It was destined to end.
FYI, most bands have to break up eventually, except for the Rolling Stones.
― TGAAPQ (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:13 (fourteen years ago) link
actually i feel like bands are lasting a lot longer than they used to. 80s bands aside, it's kind of crazy to me that even, like, Spoon has been around for over 15 years.
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah. I had never considered Bad Brains this way. So, so wrong.
― Dynamic Leia Dress (kingkongvsgodzilla), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:16 (fourteen years ago) link
"Black Flag made it okay to fight cops, to fight fans, and to do what punk always promised but rarely did: be oneself."
This part of the sentence is even dumber.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:17 (fourteen years ago) link
i agree bands are around a lot longer these days. it still seems like a ridiculous thing to say.
― TGAAPQ (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:17 (fourteen years ago) link
Read that yesterday and was totally boggled. Unfortunately, I was so put off by the bit about "Clash-fetishizing critics" that I quit before the "ethnic cleansing". Who does Cosmo Lee even imagine he's talking about there?
A couple more choice bits:
"Black Flag made it okay to fight cops, to fight fans, and to do what punk always promised but rarely did: be oneself. The band was both explosive and implosive. It was destined to end."
"The face on the cover of 2001's Jane Doe, the hand on the cover of 2004's You Fail Me -- they are the Black Flag bars of today."
jesusfuckingchrist
― from alcoholism to fleshly concerns (contenderizer), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:18 (fourteen years ago) link
I know that, before Black Flag, I felt I had to totally sublimate my desire to fight fans and fight cops; thank you, Henry Rollins, for letting me be myself again!
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:18 (fourteen years ago) link
(in fairness, once you get past the awful revisionist history part, the review does spend some time describing what the music on the album sounds like, so good job on that)
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:19 (fourteen years ago) link
not debating that, just sayin'.
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:20 (fourteen years ago) link
I think I'm more critical than any other genre(s) of people writing about hardcore and metal in publications that don't focus on it a lot, but there are so many little needles poking in me w/ this one
― War On The Terrances (DJ Mencap), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:22 (fourteen years ago) link
"Kurt Ballou is this generation's Steve Albini" is highly debatable - dude produces almost nothing except hardcore and beardo metal bands
― War On The Terrances (DJ Mencap), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:23 (fourteen years ago) link
Doesn't Cosmo Lee post here sometimes? And do the Invisible Oranges blog?
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:23 (fourteen years ago) link
he posts as "Mr Snrub"
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:24 (fourteen years ago) link
hey, i know him!
― TGAAPQ (Mr. Que), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:25 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah i don't wanna be mean but i'll just say it was a non-shocka when i scrolled down to the author of this review
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 October 2009 18:47 (fourteen years ago) link
And former Stylus writer.
― lihaperäpukamat (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:50 (fourteen years ago) link