cokemachineglow, you are reliably terrible

isnt it possible that maybe the author just didn't know how to describe exactly what words to use to describe this and so fell back on describing it as scat, without totally and completely adhering to the jazz-scat tradition?

or at all to the jazz-scat tradition actually;nvm. I just relistened and remembered what he was talking about.

how is an "academicized" reading – whatever that means (and I'm in academe!) – not one imbued with "feeling"? Is this the old heart/brain divide?

I suppose, but that's perhaps a bit limited of a view. I think for me, a big part of it is that 'academicized' writing forces you (at gunpoint) to contextualize music within some cultural/social/political/ideological/etc sphere when I'm not necessarily interested in getting into all that, especially when we're talking about pop culture. Sometimes that can be very interesting (particularly when we're talking history), but most of the time, what's interesting to me about music writing is more about stories and characters, and hearing about how people react to things. It's a personal preference.

sorry DJP you are actually p much otm there. my bad.

The Quietus tends towards CMG territory a fair amount of the time, I find.

Not that often but I'll grant you that it does sometimes unfortunately. Luke and I are overstretched to fuck so there's a lot of writing round the clock goes on and often when we get something in that is completely off piste, we don't have time to spike it and then recommission from another writer, we simply have to make the piece as presentable as possible and get it up. And I don't mind pretentious/ambitious/creative writing per se but we will not stand for bullshit that doesn't make sense. Look into that Gotye play thing and it barely means anything. That's where I'd say we were different.

And I edit the features not the reviews but I'd still say that most of the writing we publish is very straight forward really. Certainly in the features well, nearly everything is in Q and A format - you can't get much more straightforward than that.

Music crit wasn't meant to be complex but there's no reason why it can't be occasionally - it's all about a balance of voices for me.

See there's the difference right there -- you gave that answer where I assume CMG would be all "YOU ARE NOT SMART ENOUGH"

xxp: it's actually much, much worse IMO that he called a trumpet a saxophone, which definitely contributed to why I really couldn't let the scat singing thing go

the opening torpedoes the review, which does move into less fraught/more defensible/more factually convincing territory later on, but the egregious mistakes at the beginning make me distrust the entire thing

(and, if it wasn't clear before, I blame the editors just as much if not more than the author; IMO one of your jobs is to notice blatant mistakes and unambiguous misuse of words)

yeah agreed

of course the editors are probably going around thinking how much more intelligent they are than anyone else that they probably didn't have the time to listen to Nu Amerykah pt. 1 to even see wtf C Betz is talking about

I still like the review anyways

I love it when vocals sound like quantum physics

I LOVE THAT TOO!

Finally got a copy of Ekstasis and my considered opinion is: a very 4AD <i>circa</i> 1986 cover and the music in part reflects that; a sort of halfway house between Enya and Imogen Heap - fractionalisation/deconstruction of the voice and so forth, mixed with a melancholy melodic approach - but I think there's more going on than the first listen might suggest. In some ways she's acting as a female counterpart to John Maus in the sense of reactivating old/discarded music and trying to make it live and matter again. I still can't get into Mr Maus' music but JH is a lot more appealing (and with better chord changes) though no doubt that reflects my personal bias when it comes to voices/singers. Still, I'll definitely be giving it some more listens.

Nitsuh pulls off referencing other materials or other cultural aspects in a much better way than most "intellectual" reviewers, imo, because he's gotten quite good at summing up why a particular reference is relevant, concisely, without the reader having to have a detailed background to get what he means and without casting the referenced material in the wrong light.

It always makes me feel much better reading that style than something too philosophical where I'm having to interpret exactly what is trying to be conveyed, or more pandering work like Malcolm Gladwell where I have no idea if he's used his references or evidence correctly because he tends to throw out a lot of (relevant) context in order to make dubious points.

The thing is, as countless editors and publishers have said to me over the years, writing a blog is different from writing for a wide audience. Sometimes if the blogger's canny they overlap but more often than not they're two entirely separate activities which require two entirely separate approaches. For a "mass" readership the piece ceases to be about "you" because it involves teamwork; editor, subeditor, readers, fellow writers and so on. Whereas you can get away with a lot more stuff on a blog because you're generally writing for a known minority of readers with shared knowledge and you can go off on wild tangents without fear of being pulled up for it. But it helps to have the knowledge in the first place and also, and more importantly, the ability to communicate it. Ekphrasis (a work of art inspired by another work of a different discipline of art, e.g. a piece of literature inspired by a piece of music) is a fine thing but not everyone is Hazlitt and can pull it off. It takes discipline, years of falling over and making mistakes, and a hell of a lot of application to make it work. Otherwise you come up against this situation: "they brought the arc lamps to the scene of the crime with commendable promptitude." "'With commendable promptitude'? Does Dexter mean 'quickly'?"*

*Edmund Crispin on why he wouldn't provide a cover quote for Colin Dexter's first Morse book

Yeah the JH album is pretty nice. I probably wouldn't have paid attention if it weren't for ILX having fun with that deranged review.

DJP otm - but it's not news that pop/rock writers seem to feel above learning musical terminology. not above using some of the words. but above doing the groundwork of knowing what they mean.

the escalating stack of Venn diagrams

This sounds like a great way to serve pancakes.

https://twitter.com/#!/shit_rock/status/192619557075165186

They've noticed!

Cokemachineglow

@NedRaggett Alternatively - and I know we're asking a lot - you could actually read what we publish and, y'know, draw your own conclusions.

good marketing strategy: I know you've heard we're reliably terrible, why not find out for yourself?

T/F: People who use the word "alternatively" are the worst people on Earth

what about if Chris Lowe used it?

that would hurt me deeply in my heart

you know the logic of that tweet--don't trust the opinions of your knowledgable peers--eliminates the need for music reviews. granted, they don't seem to be in the business of publishing those, so n/m

lol was that tweet in response to something specific Ned, or are you just the public face of ILX?

The "thanks for participating in our podcast" tweets they have seem a little odd. Do artists personally respond to requests for music and send websites audio for the podcast?

I'm assuming they mean "thanks for letting us use your song / thanks to your publicist for sending a song to promote you with" or in the worst case "dude, we put your song in a podcast, hope that's cool"

xpost -- specific, but I had linked here.

Ned, you need to send dude a link to this and say "you lost this game before you published your first review"

Lordy.

:)