so tell me, why is Kaputt better or worse than Let England Shake?

I would totally play PJ Harvey at a dinner party

of course, I would also play GOD at a dinner party if my wife owuld let me, so

oh good, it's time to explain that the UK is different to different countries again

what does wife of djp actually play?

i'd much prefer pj playing at a dinner party than bejar.

"middle class indie" isn't a term I'd use myself but I intuitively read it as referring to music that is so ubiquitously held up as a celebrated alternative to the status quo that it becomes a sort of status quo itself.

okay, i get that, and there does often seem to be a sort of unearned snobbery built into mainstream indie culture, a tendency to take pride in a sense of superiority and difference that doesn't require any special ability or effort or entail any actual risk. but it's also a generic, nuance-free objection to a reductive caricature of that culture. hardly the sort of thing we should uncritically embrace.

When I read music described as "middle class" ... I usually read it as meaning that the music aspires (or is presented by the media as aspiring) toward a kind of niche-less universality, in the same sense that everyone believes themselves to be middle-class.

there's something very suspect about negatively describing music of "aspiring to niche-less universality", especially if one has any fondness for chart pop. for one thing, we can't so easy know artistic intent, and for another, all art has identity, even that which we're inclined to sneer at. furthermore, it's a huge mistake to damn art for the sins of the critical culture that responds to it.

oh come on. it's a rather harsh and disorienting album, at least relative to stuff like the XX and kaputt. grief-stricken, panicky, despairing. why on earth would we condescend to music that's "easy to like" in the first place? do we take vainglorious pride in a vision of ourselves as brave explorers venturing out into uncharted jungles of forbidding noise? do we laugh at the ants who can't comprehend our passions? do we smoke a pipe while listening to merzbow? wtf?

you're misinterpreting me but i'm not really massively annoyed about it.

what does wife of djp actually play?

usually stuff in the vein of Toni Braxton

if I start getting into stuff weirder or more active than Massive Attack, I get frowns

the only music you can play at dinner parties is dave brubeck, you ppl are savages

btw I am certain my wife would despise Kaputt because of the singing

you're misinterpreting me but i'm not really massively annoyed about it.

― I'm going to allow this! (LocalGarda), Tuesday, February 7, 2012 3:01 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, sorry, i got carried away. it's partly that ilx's snobby, knee-jerk indie hate gets on my nerves, partly that i really like let england shake.

btw fwiw i much prefer the john maus record to kaputt, was that ever discussed here?

Implying that dinner parties are at best a sedate affair at which boring couples play mellow music or at worse symptom of class prerogatives is some hackneyed shit, sorry.

why are "dinner parties" hauled out whenever someone thinks an album's dull?

what kind of dinner parties do you guys attend?

i enforce a strict turtleneck-only dresscode hippie

http://www.minilps.net/images/stories/shop_image/product/15%20Beggars%20c.jpg

btw fwiw i much prefer the john maus record to kaputt, was that ever discussed here?

not here, but in the albums results thread. i was hard on it there, as i initially felt like it was a big step down from love is real, but i've been listening to it over the last week and realizing i was rong to dismiss it so quickly & entirely. does make sense to compare it w kaputt.

there's no room for dinner in my rock'n'roll lifestyle

i only eat cocaine and pussy

turtlenecks are pretty cool, esp under a shirt.

i didn't bring up the dinner party thing btw, let the record show.

yeah i feel like the diff between john maus and destroyer is the diff between dance music and indie, or sonics v songs. i actually like plenty of more song-based stuff these days but the richness of the maus record is something i kept coming back to, prob the most expansive pop/dance stuff since sally shapiro imo, which i also still listen to a lot.

the vocals? but they are not special at all. just irritating. not only that the guy cannot sing, he even does not have a voice.

Even if it's an affected imitation of Bowie or Tennant or whomever, his voice is rather distinctive!

kaputt reminded me of the magnetic fields a bit.

i'm dropping non-sequiturs here but i am actually sober

i would totally play pj harvey at a dinner party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRxJr3DfLZ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4d12wWBVX4

s0 safe s0 middle class

localgarda, let's trip balls, wear turtlenecks, and make gabber remixes of 4 Track Demos

localgarda likes this.

yeah i feel like the diff between john maus and destroyer is the diff between dance music and indie, or sonics v songs. i actually like plenty of more song-based stuff these days but the richness of the maus record is something i kept coming back to...

that's funny, cuz i see maus and bejar as occupying a v similar place on the dance-vs-indie scale, both making atmospheric and rather ironic indie music that draws on aspects of 80s club pop. maus' stuff is a good deal more beat-driven tho.

i didn't really get that dinner party music talk. surely destroyer's harmless, easy listening stuff must be the perfect background music for a standard dinner party, no? quite like sting was in the 80s but sting was better, he had tunes & some jazzy vibes.

x-p
concerning the vocals, his voice might be distinctive but it is a mumbling voice, it is introverted. he sings as if he would speak to himself. why should i listen to someone lost in a soliloquy?

whenever i read people talking about destroyer's yuppie 80s signifiers i'm like, man i WISH it sounded as good as that. far more fundamental problems though. boring arrangements that aren't a hundredth as good as the cocktail bar stuff you're talking about, all but non-existent songwriting, AWFUL AWFUL SINGING

my overall take on Kaputt was "music for people who like the idea of Pet Shop Boys but find them too aggressive"

i only eat cocaine and pussy

lol

zinnnnnggggggggg

xp

his voice is rather distinctive!

one's man distinctive, another man's annoying. would like an instrumental version of this plz.

i think maus sounds v italo influenced. but something like "hey moon" is v like destroyer i guess.

maus prob my favourite record of last year...

x-post did anyone actually use the phrase "dinner party music" in earnest about any music? i am unsure if they did.

my overall take on Kaputt was "music for people who like the idea of Pet Shop Boys but find them too aggressive"

putdowns like this are always shit, regardless of the artist involved. "it's like band x i like but WATERED DOWN", yeah or maybe it just isn't like band x you like.

or "music for people who love Pet Shop Boys but think Al Stewart's `Time Passages' is a better idea than song."

its cool that you typed those words into a box on the internet

and then hey there they are

i dont know what any of those things are but i get the basic rhythm of the thing

this thread

concerning the vocals, his voice might be distinctive but it is a mumbling voice, it is introverted. he sings as if he would speak to himself. why should i listen to someone lost in a soliloquy?

― alex in mainhattan, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 3:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some people seem to like more introverted and low-key singing styles. no big surprise. i often enjoy this approach myself, find it relaxing and "relatable", allows lots of room for conversational nuance, though it's not like i reject more extroverted singing.

everyone has ideas and feelings, then they share them here

kaputt is just....man. phenomenally good.

For the record, I walked away from Kaputt with an almost entirely neutral opinion; I didn't hate it but I didn't particularly like it either. The putdown is what you read into it; I am sure that for many an non-aggressive PSB is amazing, because a ton of people loved this album.

Furthermore, the sound palettes match a lot of the stuff PSB have been doing since Release, so it's only a shit comparison if you haven't been paying attention. Some bands do actually sound like other bands and it's not really a sin or a crime to point it out.

putdowns like this are always shit

is it even a putdown?

destroyer's kaputt....so damn good.

― omar little, Sunday, February 5, 2012 9:27 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i get where you're coming from but i dunno i dont listen kaputt or west coast and go "oh cool 80's sounds here" i just hear awesome fresh music

― ⚓ (gr8080)

― omar little, Sunday, February 5, 2012 4:12 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kaputt is a wonderful album, one of the year's best

― omar little, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 11:59 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kaputt is just....man. phenomenally good.

― omar little, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 1:37 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay, i get that, and there does often seem to be a sort of unearned snobbery built into mainstream indie culture, a tendency to take pride in a sense of superiority and difference that doesn't require any special ability or effort or entail any actual risk. but it's also a generic, nuance-free objection to a reductive caricature of that culture. hardly the sort of thing we should uncritically embrace.

there's something very suspect about negatively describing music of "aspiring to niche-less universality", especially if one has any fondness for chart pop. for one thing, we can't so easy know artistic intent, and for another, all art has identity, even that which we're inclined to sneer at. furthermore, it's a huge mistake to damn art for the sins of the critical culture that responds to it.

Yes, which presumably is why Ronan said words to the effect of: "I dismissed this as X but then i heard some of it and it sounded good!"

No attempt to define music by how it is treated culturally / in the media can constitute an exhaustive statement of its qualities (or quality). This should go without saying?

This is also why I caveated my reference to aspiration by reference to how the music is presented - in truth saying what "music aspires to" is very difficult to do with any accuracy, whereas saying how music is presented in the media is both easier and more indicative of the relationship between the music in question and social groups (as opposed to between the music and you).

But above all, you should keep in mind that not every attempt to describe the listening habits of our peers is an unconscionable attack on the music listened to.

It's possible to say that e.g. The XX is perfect and archetypal dinner party music for university educated indie listeners (and I know because I've been at these dinner parties) and still really like the music (in fact my fondest XX listening experience was at a beach bar in Nice where it was played on shuffle with Sade's Greatest Hits - what does that say?), and still really like dinner parties for that matter!

I more often put on lunch barbecues, but either way I geekily really enjoy the process of working out what music to play.

But Dan its a sin!

destroyer's kaputt....so damn good.

― omar little, Sunday, February 5, 2012 9:27 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i get where you're coming from but i dunno i dont listen kaputt or west coast and go "oh cool 80's sounds here" i just hear awesome fresh music

― ⚓ (gr8080)

― omar little, Sunday, February 5, 2012 4:12 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kaputt is a wonderful album, one of the year's best

― omar little, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 11:59 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kaputt is just....man. phenomenally good.

― omar little, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 1:37 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― ⚓ (gr8080), Tuesday, February 7, 2012 11:39 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

genuine pity in my heart for u guys

mixed with a tinge of contempt of course

wow the shoe is on the other foot for once