― walter kranz (walterkranz), Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link
Adding rapping to p-funk tracks (as well as turning them into, you know, three minute pop songs) is a huge difference. Obviously its all relative but I think its entirely reasonable to use the words "retro" in some situations.
I dont think he uses "retro" as a pejorative at all! You're reading a lot more into what he's saying than he actually wrote.
(I dont think its ks's best article by far - he's much more at home with hip-hop, pop, etc....i didnt like his slint piece much either - but I think he made some good points, even if he also made some rather broad generalizations)
― deej., Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:40 (eighteen years ago) link
i mean, the search for antecedents is one of the favorite forms of critical one-upmanship but it could go on forever and in this case i think sort of misses the point.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 4 June 2005 19:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:14 (eighteen years ago) link
Re Amateurist's point: perhaps the article is understandably focused on the US, but if we're talking about bands/movements with "nationwide, not-just-college-radio-type exposure" based around "selfconscious retro-ism" then surely the model for this is Britpop??
But yeah, The Strokes are part of a different "movement"...
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:37 (eighteen years ago) link
well, all of the bands I listed above had nationwide, not-jus-college-radio type exposure, actually. and i'm still not sure anybody has explained what the strokes are retro *to* -- they don't sound like a '60s garage band, they don't sound like the velvet underground, they don't sound like television, they don't sound like the cars; basically, the one band they really sound like is, um, the strokes. and yes, they do *draw* on those influences, but not more than, say, black crowes/urge overkill/local h/everclear/weezer/buck cherry/oasis/etc drew on allman brothers/bad company/elvis costello/cars/ac-dc/t. rex/beatles/etc. which is to say, if the strokes are "retro," i still really don't understand how those (quite popular) '90s bands were *not* retro. unless you're just talking clothes and haircuts (though, as i recall, urge overkill and the dandy warhols kinda dressed in period garb, and so did the black crowes, though obviously the perioid was different). strokes do what rock bands pretty much *always* do -- they recombine influences that have already existed. (which is also what hip-hop acts sampling old funk records under '70s-style soul vocals and daft punk mimicking eurodisco and kenny chesney shuffling mellencamp/petty/buffet and the killers mixing up duran/gang of four/"queen bittch" etc. do, obviously. i'm not sure i see a difference - they're all retro, or they're all not.) and though i really don't want to dissect kelefah''s piece--it' really doesn't bother me all that much, and he can be a great writer in ways unheard of among daily paper critics--i do think his main point here is to put forward the idea that white stripes suddenly came up with this idea that you can recombine different parts of old sounds into a new sound. and my quesion is: who *doesn''t* do that? so yeah, as he says. maybe it IS time to retire the term 'retro-rock'" (assuming anybody actually uses that term in the first place -- isn't it sort of a straw man? though maybe i just talk to and read different people than k does). but it''s not time to retire it because of the new white stripes LP (which, as somebody above said, sounds good, and pretty much the same as their other albums, on which they recombined old influences as well; i'm glad kelefah loves it, but they never sounded particularly purist to me) it's time to retire the phrase because it really never meant all that much in the first place!
xp
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 13:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:56 (eighteen years ago) link
not sure i agree with this (there are *lots* of models for this kinda {bowel} movement), but i think it's an interesting thought, since didn't the strokes actually hit first (and perhaps bigger) in england? they definitely seemed to be on tour there a lot, when they just had EPs out. (in fact, i think their first EP may have showed up on american shores as a UK import.) and the same thing has happened with some american post-strokes new-new-wave hypes since -- definitely the bravery and the scissors sisters (if they count); not sure who else.(do interpol have brit hits? in the states, near as i can tell, they've never gotten much beyond college radio, though anthony can check the charts and correct me i'm wrong.) so maybe the reason i don' t notice the movement as much as some other people here is that i don't read the british music papers, who may well have invented the movement in the first place...
― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 5 June 2005 15:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cool Hand Luuke (ex machina), Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link
The LA Sunday Times today turned the subject of this thread into a grease spot with a story so big, the pictures alone take up more space than the column inches of Sanneh. The photos, of which there are four of Jack and Meg White, are all bigger than your head! Get the print version, cut them out and use them as masks!
Robert Hilburn travelled to Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, strike that, Detroit, MI, to interview Jack and a silent Meg White.
Excerpts, you'll swoon:
..."Get Behind Me Floyd" is a daring creative advance..."
"The White Stripes' Jack White is ready for a break as he slips behind the wheel of his vintage four-seat..."
"A new sound of independence..." (in 50-point pika, or whatever the designation is for lettering that's really big)
"The fifth album proves they've earned their stripes..."
"...the recording sessions left even the normally workaholic White drained..."
"Everything about Jack White's car, from the upholstery to the tinny radio -- is original - except for the supercharged engine features that make the car roar loud as a jet..."
"White makes his way back to the living room and sits in a chair by a picture of Rita Hayworth..."
"She was a metaphor for everything I could think of...the red hair, the innocence, the fact that she lost her memory to Alzheimer's..."
"I hate the celebrity stuff," [said White]. It trivializes everything..."
"Meg's so shy it's probably a relief Jack does all the talking..."
"Whatever his musical path, White is unlikely to temper his musical vision..."
http://www.latimes.com -- ya can't miss it. Subscription site, useBugmenot.
― Harry Klam, Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:15 (eighteen years ago) link
I'll give 'em a pass on the car though: could be a Detroit thing (search, Woodward Dream Cruise)
http://www.woodwarddreamcruise.com/Photos.html
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Harry Klam, Sunday, 5 June 2005 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link
I suspect that from a UK Press perspective, The Strokes weren't really a reaction against non-rock (though there were still a lot of "Rock is back!" taglines) so much as a reaction to not-so-rock rock that had had a lot of currency at that point in time - on the one hand US pansy-psych-pop like latter-day The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, and on the other hand the mournful MoR of Coldplay and Travis. The battlefield as such is more intra-rock (and only a small part of it) than rock vs [x].
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 June 2005 21:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 June 2005 21:29 (eighteen years ago) link