Simon Reynolds is a gobshite

Reynoldsbot and Frere-Jonesbot would still get paid more $$ for their regurgitations though of course

lol i was thinking earlier about how this thread is basically posts very much in character 24/7

When people were saying "omg lol dance music is dead" back in 2001 a lot of similar critical moves were busted out: "All our old heroes - you know, the ones that put out big albums, have big live tours, well-known guests vocalists preferably from UK rock, and generally embraced by a mainstream indie-rock readership - are getting old and uninspired and relatively less successful, while everything else is rote filter-house and trance-pop or hopelessly obscure stuff that will never amount to anything."

Of course by 2004 dance music was in rude good health again, with its new creative and commercial success rooted in a combination of chartwise moves and the background of all that stuff dismissed as "hopelessly obscure" a few scant years before. You could say the story of 2004's success started (if it started anywhere) in 2001 - Discovery, electroclash, German house and techno...

so - if not "omg lol dance music is dead" - would you have agreed with the weak version in 2001? "ooh eck dance music's a bit boring right now unless you're deeply into it like"

No 2001 was a great year for dance music actually. Just not the kind that critics who only listen to a little bit of dance music (and then, like, The Chemical Bros et. al.) would think is a great year I guess, because The Chemical Bros, Underworld, Fatboy Slim et. al. weren't ruling the charts.

Basically the journalistic narrative hadn't caught up with what was actually going on, and when that happens, oddly, what is new is actually mistaken for same ol' same ol', in the same way (but oppositely) to the way in which commonly what is actually familiar and unshocking can be mistaken for being new.

hip-hop on the guillotine
because music like you
makes critics like Simon Reynolds feel so tired
when will you die? when will you die? when will you die?

2001-2004 now feel like a golden age for dance music. If anything house and techno is a bit uninspired now.

<3333 "go out and eat ice cream" btw. adorable

Dance music in that period is a best-case scenario for a genre really. The end of one era - superclubs and big crossover live acts - coinciding with the growth of fantastically potent and fertile new sub-genres. Very much the death of one version of dance music but, in retrospect, for the best.

If you told me 5 years ago that every hyped indie rock band in 2009 would sound like Ariel Pink, I would have said you were crazy

Sounds like paradise. Which bands are you talking about here?

that change in dance music was mostly the genre adjusting to the internet...prob a lucky time for a facelift

this thread is hilarious, btw, i wish Whiney and Deej could get Weird Science computers to create living embodiments of their respective constant stubborn talking points so that they could go out and eat ice cream and play video games while Talking Points Whinebot and Talking Points Deejbot battle it out

― henry man see u (some dude), Saturday, November 28, 2009 9:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what 'talking points' does whiney have? as far as i can tell hes consistently burt_stanton-ing w/ constantly misguided cultural mis-observation

well a lot of the time they are just deej^(-1)

yo dog...thanks 4 dat shineblockas tip

trakk iz bangin'

none of your medical mumbo-jumbo dr., just give it to me straight

you have 3 months to live...until you are suggest banned

The lack of "narrative" or "big new important thing happening" is different from there not being any good rap music. Obviously there's plenty of good rap music out there, and obviously there's a lack of any big new important thing happening in rap. The latter is Simon's real beef, because his best writing about the BNITH in popular music. He says there's good shit, but no narrative. There's plenty to listen to, but not as much to read about and write about and think about, at least nothing substantially different from what's come before. This is why all the hip hop mags are dead/dying, and why no one pays anyone to write about hip hop. Unless you are SR or SFJ.

i think things are happening but that its more difficult to tell exactly what those things are w/out the charts to orient yourself around -- it was easy to create a narrative when it was, like, "hmm these neptunes sure are popular."

pretty sure hip hop mags being dead/dying has nothing to do w/ whether or not there are existing narratives

the state of popular rap in 2009

Funnily enought, the company behind Zero Books is a wacky new-age crystals'n'meditation outfit. But I do think the imprint is a Good Thing (despite having a few issues with the whole k-Punk archipelago). I'm looking forward to N Power's One-Dimensional Woman.

― Stevie T, Monday, September 7, 2009 11:40 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

crystals'n'meditation'n'outspoken-anti-semitism outfit now

expand on that

publishing gilad atzmon