Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

"Indie purists" *don't* have bad dreams about bridge & tunnel types?

I figured as much, it's just the sort of thing at which I immediately bristle.

so much x-post

not sure i'm right, but the band members he describes sound to me like kids of people who if need be could pick up the phone and talk to someone who matters if not right away then a few phonecalls down the line. i don't have a good handle on how close to the ruling class the average online geekboy is, but the internet is pretty democratic these days.

but it's stupid to get hung up on that when this is mostly about the music. it's a great piece. "koenig is smarter than you haters" is lame tho.

i'm all right with xgau calling jenny lewis "strictly gorgeous" cos i'm really skeeved out by men of my demographic losing their sense of propriety talking about her, plus her band is not very good.

Nah, Matos is right and I feel bad for bringing it up.

I like the piece a lot, but what do people think about Christgau's claim that "Historically, syncretism has been the main way pop musics have evolved"? I mean, I get how, say, Bob Wills or Elvis or Donna Summer or yeah the Beatles were syntheses of musics that came before; not so sure I get how, say, Louis Armstrong or the Velvet Underground or Joni Mitchell or Black Sabbath or Kraftwerk or the Sex Pistols or Pavement were (well, I suppose Sabbath could be heard as a synthesis of horror movie soundtracks with '60s hard rock, etc., but I don't think that's how most people have heard them.) An interesting claim, but I'm not certain it's as obvious as Bob seems to imply in that paragraph.

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes pop music evolves through syncretism - ie., introducing elements borrowed from other genres, styles, traditions - but other times it evolves through refinement of a form's existing elements, or because of changes in music technology, or for other reasons entirely.

The key word is the adjective "pop." That's how I read it.

maybe in those cases, the synthesis had already been explored by other artists, but the ones you mention just had the talent/opportunity/whatever to take things to that next level? i mean, with louis armstrong for ex., it's been pretty well documented how early jazz evolved (to be reductive about it, african music + european instruments & harmony + collective improvisation), but he was the first guy who really had the chops to be able to carry the spotlight as a soloist & frontman.

xp

xhuxk each of those artists you mention look to me like they syncretized ideas from outside music. like, VU = 60s garage + 60s avante-garde downtown art ish, for example

Exactly, which is why xgau's choice of adjective matters.

VU = 60s garage + 60s avante-garde downtown art ish, for example

This doesn't really tell you anything about VU's actual music though. What does avant-garde art sound like? We now say it sounds like VU, but that's only because VU made music that sounded a certain way and they branded it as being somehow avant-garde and arty. Before VU, the thought of mixing garage rock with avante-garde art wouldn't have suggested anything in particular.

So I think these kinds of formulas make for fun rock critic parlor games, but I think they're too abstract to really explain anything about how music evolves. I think the term "syncretism" needs to have a fairly concrete meaning to be useful, which should relate to mixing together clearly defined elements of different musical traditions.

Before VU, the thought of mixing garage rock with avante-garde art wouldn't have suggested anything in particular.

which is why VU are successful and/or important. nobody would have known, before hand what modernist/surrealist poetry + american folk traditional music would have resulted in, but know we can just say, bob dylan. people try things, and if it works, before you know it, it just seems natural

i guess i don't have a problem with "fun rock critic parlor games." what other SERIOUS BUSINESS are they supposed to be up to, anyway?

"but NOW we can just say" i mean

I have no problem with fun parlor games either (that's a lot of what ILM is about after all). I'm just saying that we shouldn't let these kinds of amusing formulas fool us into thinking that we are explaining something about how music actually evolves. These formulations are entirely post-hoc. They don't explain how it happened, they are just a way of making connections after the fact.

These formulations are entirely post-hoc. They don't explain how it happened, they are just a way of making connections after the fact.

well i think the explanations of why things turned out the way they did, the processes at the time, are a lot more contingent and frankly half-assed.

right place at the right time, i was just trying to get laid, i dunno seemed cool at the time, i was ripping off this other thing but kinda did it different, we just kinda got lucky and it sounded good

^^ this is "how art evolves" sad to say!

I agree, but I don't think it's sad. I guess I prefer the creative spark to remain slightly mysterious. It would be sadder to me if it could be reduced to a few elements from Column A plus a few from Column B.

bbbut we were talking about syncretism!! it's a given that if you're talking about something halfway good, there's always "column C: MAGIC" added

Right, but Xgau saying "Historically, syncretism has been the main way pop musics have evolved" seems to leave MAGIC no more than 49% of the credit - even less, because you've got to leave room for all the other factors causing music to evolve: such as technology (could there have been a Hendrix without a Les Paul, could there have been a Phil Spector without the multi-track mixing board, could there be techno with no drum machines?), the refinement and rearrangement of existing elements, and so on.

Historically, magic has been the main way pop musics have evolved

Ha ha, I didn't even mention James Brown. (Or reggae, which clearly had calypso and r&b in its genes, but still. Or hip-hop, which obviously synthesizes everything, but that's hardly the main thing it does.) Also don't get how pretty much every artist I mention doesn't eventually impact pop music, at least as much as Vampire Weekend are likely to, so I'm not sure why Bob's choosing that word matters much.

John Cale himself has said that the VU were syncretic in the way goole describes, and Ozzy has said something similar about Sabbath - they're both very conscious about what influences they brought to the table, but that doesn't mean - and I don't think xgau is saying - that music is ONLY x + y + z.

Between the word "evolved" and the way he's talking about "pop musics" (and not specific artists), I feel like he's making a pretty narrow claim there -- that the primary motor of new styles is some kind of cross-current between different things. How that operates with a specific act is kind of a different matter, but I'm not sure he's claiming anything much grander than the idea that, in the big picture, mixing and matching is a pretty normal pop thing to do.

Anyway, fwiw, I'm also sort of playing devil's advocate, since I'm the guy who wrote in my second book "Collages has always been implicit in rock music, in all music -- Songs are made up of pieces of other songs." (Always quote Christgau in the same graph as saying "In the late '60s, 'eclectic' was rock criticism's first cliche"!) Just seemed like an interesting claim to zero in on, either way.

("Also quote," I meant, not "Always.")

read that as "college has always in implicit in rock music"

No, only Steely Dan. And Vampire Weekend. (But you probably read it that way partly because I dumbly typed "has" instead of "have.")

okay, i've got it now. sublime + haircut 100 = vampire weekend

who knew people were needing such a thing?

hey scott haven't you been waiting for this?

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13905-talking-to-you-talking-to-me/

yes! i will read it! but first i'll post a picture of the VW dude from his blog:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/856/1336/1600/ezblog.jpg

i think he liked the album! review is kinda boring, but not bad. i like this line:

"In general, Talking to You sounds like an album that is gradually divorcing itself from history and geography, as the Twins learn to build on that West Coast sound to create something unique and personal. They're not there yet, but give them another tour."

well, i like it except for that last line. but last lines mostly suck.

Whoa - has anyone else noticed how gigantically dilated the chick's pupils are on the cover of this record? Methinks she rolleth balls.

Alzo: That Christgau piece was pretty good. I like the line "Koenig is smarter and wouldn't think of stifling it. Of course he threatens plodders and pretenders" which explains DeRogatis' reflexive aneurysm on Sound Opinions a few weeks back.

it's really good

it should be required reading for open-minded vampire weekend haters

I don't think I'm just saying this because I like VW but the reviews defending/praising them are so much better-argued than the ones attacking them, which just strike me as weak, snarky and reductive. I mean, I read an evisceration of Nick Cave recently that I completely disagreed with but loved as a powerful, persuasive piece of writing.

One mark of "weak, snarky and reductive" AND "weak, effusive and reductive" pieces is often that the writer's personal feelings about a given work interfere with her or his ability to produce a compelling close reading of that work. Yes, good writing can be motivated and shaped by an individual's emotional reaction to something, but that reaction has to be more about the writer's own perspective: it has to shed light on the work as it is.

That second "reaction" is referring to their critical reaction, not emotional reaction.

"that reaction has to be more about the writer's own perspective"

that reaction has to be about more than the writer's own perspective

Yes, good writing can be motivated and shaped by an individual's emotional reaction to something,

that reaction has to be more about the writer's own perspective:

emotional reaction and the writer's own perspective--it seems to me these are the same thing

oh i see you fixed it. so a writer should go outside his perspective? why?

It's not possible to come at anything from a completely "neutral," disinterested perspective. That's a given. But--and I think nabisco was getting at this in some of his Tumblr posts--sometimes a writer's point-of-view on something has little to do with that thing itself. It's more of a grafting-onto-that-thing of the writer's attitude than a close reading.

I'm more sympathetic towards writers who are interested in getting at what something's about than gazing at their own navel, basically.

So they should stare at everyone else's navel instead?

"The other day marked the appearance of a cultural product, enjoyed by people, not necessarily this writer."

eh, i want writers to come to things they write about with thoughts and feelings and stuff.

If I ever write a phrase like "grafting-onto-that-thing of the writer's attitude" again, sb me.

I'm more sympathetic towards writers who are interested in getting at what something's about

each individual person has or can have a differing perspective on what a piece of art is "about." it's not like we have writers and critics so they can unlock the secrets of the universe. we have them to interpret things through their own personal viewpoint

I want them to do the same, Que, but I don't want their writing to be more about them than the subject they're supposed to be writing on.

See: www.ripfork.com

None of the writing there is about the actual reviews he's criticizing, it's all about him him him and some absurd vendetta he has against rock criticism.

That was an xpost.