Sleater-Kinney breaks up

-- gear (speed.to.roa...)

Nothing holds water upon closer examination.

http://www.aversion.com/bands/sleaterkinney/images/sleater-kinney.jpg

That's correct, no one outside indieland knows about Sonic Youth (whose Rather Ripped was featured in the weekly Best Buy circular last week), Cat Power (who is frequently namedropped in the New Yorker when she's not dropping trou there), or Sleater-Kinney (who get coverage in obscure indie publications like Time and Rolling Stone). You're right, I must be on Mars and how does Britain have fuckall to do with this?

not saying this is bad or wrong, just think it's interesting that nobody ever seems to be mixed or on-the-fence abt sleater-kinney.

I also love the use of the contrasting voices on Hot Rock, that's what makes that record great to those who love it, and why "Burn, Don't Freeze" makes a lot of the POX lists (since B,DF is the apex of that technique by the band). What does it mean that on The Woods there is barely any difference between the two voices? Brownstein seemed to have completely appropriated Tucker's style on a bunch of the songs.

*holds up sign for "camp middle ground"*

-- m coleman (writeco...), June 29th, 2006.

HI DERE

One more hour
The drama you've been craving
Little Babies
Dance Song '97
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone
No Rock n' Roll Fun
Get Up
Oh!
Step Aside
Sympathy
What's Mine is Yours

HI DERE

hey kids let's start a tribute band! I'll dress in combat-boot drag. coming soon to BBKings' on 42st: The Your Joey Ramones

That said, the situation isn't as dire as it was 10-15 years ago. I'm *glad* people are still talking about Bad Moon Rising and EVOL 'cause for years they were ignored and/or dissed. The improving conditions probably have something to do with widespread reissues, high availability of music via p2p / eBay / Amazon, and the wealth of info available on-line.

But when given a choice between interpreting an artist's career as artistic progression of growth vs. entropic decline into diminishing returns, the mainstream tends to support the former view while indie folk support the latter. It's like you've never read a review by Christgau or something. If you say, "Well, who cares what they say," that's a different argument than, "It doesn't happen at all."

still beats talking about sleater-kinney (sorry folks!).

album all-time rank

slanted and enchanted 114
terror twilight 1604

daydream nation 82
sonic nurse 1526

murmur 58
up 1346
(around the sun and reveal apparently didn't rank in the top 2000 and hence weren't ranked at all i guess)

let it be 228
pleased to meet me 761
(all shook down and don't tell a soul didn't rank)

dig me out 577
one beat 1026
BUT IN FAIRNESS TO EDWARD HE MAY WELL BE ONTO A POINT
the woods 616

the greatest and you are free beat moon pix too (the inside scoop from el scandalo knows of what he speaks)!

by and large though i still hold that with indie rock the cliche is 'the early stuff is better'. to quote 'still at the top of his game'/'rock n roll's roger clemens' billy joel - i may be wrong you may be right.

by and large though i still hold that with indie rock the cliche is 'the early stuff is better'.

Yeah, we agree there. All I'm saying is that mainstream folk looking at indie from the outside don't always see it the same way, and given that they have the larger audience they can end up writing the history books...

yeah, esp considering how fairly irrelevant to the culture at large the indie rock scene or rock criticism are any sorta mainstream notice can easily overwhelm what was there beforehand - one vw commercial had a much huger impact than 30 years of crit gushing and artist namechecking did with nick drake. an american idol entrant sings 'one more hour' or some detergant uses 'ironclad' for their jingle and pow - that's what sleater-kinney's known for, that's their legacy.

stence since you got matador sales stats i'd heard that for the longest time the top selling matador titles were all the liz phair and then cr, cr - is this true now? what are they?

Of course, you'd have to be able to find a copy of Dark Continent to play this game...

Edward, you say mainstream folk have a larger audience and get to write the history books, but the question is: how many people are paying attention and how many people give a shit?

you totally should photoshop a broken bat and Mike Piazza into the cover of Glass Houses.

Pavement is different because they had their indie smash from the start.

That VW commercial had a huge impact. From a VH1 article: U.S. sales of Nick Drake's Pink Moon album rose from 6,000 copies, prior to the song's use in a Cabrio commercial, to 74,000 copies in 2000.

Edward, you say mainstream folk have a larger audience and get to write the history books, but the question is: how many people are paying attention and how many people give a shit?

Just to clarify, the mainstream doesn't *always* get the last word, but its influence is stronger. Who's paying attention and who gives a shit? Anyone with more than a passing interest in music, I guess, which would be millions of people.

That acclaimedmusic.net site is interesting, here are Eno's rankings:

Another Green World 173
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts 316
Here Come the Warm Jets 351
Before and After Science 503
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) 903
Ambient 1: Music for Airports 1213
Wrong Way Up 2091

I've would've predicted much bigger finishes for Taking Tiger Mountain (though I'm not a big fan of it myself) and Here Come The Warm Jets. Is this still a Sleater-Kinney thread?