Classic or Dud: Chuck Klosterman

--The recent facebook page "Can a pickle get more fans than Nickelback
--The recent petition to keep them from playing the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day Game
--The recent Rolling Stone interview with dude from the Black Keys going in on Nickleback

fuck off Whiney, how many ubiquitous Nickelback hits can you name that were released in the last 7 years

^^^ rejected lyrics from Pink Floyd's "Not Now John"

The Gauntlet of Suck is a funny article name

whiney has clearly demonstrated that he's followed the nickelback beat more diligently than anyone else on this thread so i think we should just defer to his nickelbacxpertise.

all he needs to do now is demonstrate the ability to read an entire sentence without trying to interject his own thoughts

there was a nickelback single about three years ago that was 'raunchy' and in it the nickelbro sang about wanting to get his dick sucked or something. just thinking about it makes me angry. its not at all comparable to hootie in 2000, since the hootster didnt have nearly the longevity of these fuck-n-sucks

i think you're trying to draw too many parallels here. if we had Facebook in the era of Hootie I'd think it would be quite similar.

it was your parallel fuckhole!!

I hear that takes a special kind of operation.

COUGH
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/11/nickelback_detroit_lions_halftime_show_petition.php

hi everybody

i thought that piece was terrible, although in keeping with c-klo's recent Unfrozen Caveman Music Writer schtick

i do wonder what scott stapp's 'weird 40-year-old existence' will be like though

it was your parallel fuckhole!!

yes, I did compare Hootie in 2000 to Nickelback in 2012, fully aware that Nickelback's record sales haven't tapered off as badly. what's your point? that not every part of the analogy works?

i think he's just yelling at u

no part of it works

what's the part of it that works

i always think that klosterman should just do journo/interviewing stuff. i think that's what he's good at. he got good quotes from creed fans! they are notoriously shy!

this guy sucks

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, April 24, 2012 3:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nice GQ piece. This is true: "I am a firm believer that you can sincerely enjoy yourself at the concert of somebody you couldn't give a flying fuck about, as long as the people onstage give enough of a flying fuck to put their hearts into it."

what's the part of it that works

how about the part where you go fuck yourself

:0

zing!

klosterman is fine at reporting a story but somewhere along the way he decided that his taste was worth reporting on.

thats the problem - he seems so afraid to actually draw a hard line anywhere, so you can read 20 pages of the dude writing about music without any real indication of what he actually likes. instead he's just content to use half-baked "think about it, bro" statements like "Steely Dan were more subversive than every punk band combined"

it's basically in line with his general thing of trying to seem smart by equivocating and making unclear statements.

for the ilxor who has everything

http://www.amazon.com/HYPERtheticals-50-Questions-Insane-Conversations/dp/0307587924

i'm actually kind of impressed that he commodified his love of inane hypotheticals

"The group's weakness is their obsession with transposable power ballads, most of which sound like what would happen if Bob Rock helped Coldplay write a really loud song for Garth Brooks (which would undoubtedly be the most popular song in the history of mankind, were it to literally exist)."

^^i fucking swear he manages to work a Bob Rock reference into every music piece he ever does

He's apparently the New York Times' new Ethicist columnist.

http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/06/07/chuck_klosterman_to_be_nyt_s_new_ethicist_a_new_twitter_handle_suggests_the_music_critic_has_landed_a_new_job_at_the_sunday_magazine_.html

haha!

i don't know what nyt ethicist column is, and maybe ethicist doesn't have anything to do with ethics, but in case it does, klosterman would be my last choice for such a column

(not that i'm saying that i think he's unethical, but that until now his shtick seems to be explicitly non-ethical)

it's like an advice column where people write in and are like "i was at a coffee shop and I got up for a second and someone took my seat." and then the ethicist advises them on the appropriate course of action.

oh, in that case i'm sure he'll do great

I usually avoid the Ethicist column like the plague - too much portentous solemnizing and faux-certitude - but I'll probably check it out now, just out of curiosity. Maybe Klosterman will be able to deliver his sermons with enough of a wink to lighten the mood.

"Best known for his Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs collection" Really? That's his biggest book?

which other one is more popular?

Fargo?

nah. i'm sure this isn't scientific but fargo is #42,378 on amazon, sd&c is #9,032

sd&c was the one seth cohen read.

^^^^ important influence

Huh, well there you go, can't argue with sales. I always thought Fargo was the one that made his name and then Killing Yourself to Live cemented his rep. Those seem to me like original, substantial books even now, whereas S,D&CP is a hideously titled collection of glib, dated essays. Much prefer the less schticky Klosterman IV - he's underrated as an interviewer. I prefer seeing him do interesting things with a format as unpromising as, say, a Wilco profile for Spin, rather than going the full Klosterman with the kind of flip bullshit that used to fill his Esquire columns (the one about why people hate America being a low). So, um, basically I like him best when he’s not doing the thing that has made him one of the most successful journalists in America.

S,D&CP is my least favorite of his books (haven't read the fiction) because it indulges in a lot more faux-generational/"we all do this, and if you don't you're a self-hating liberal" bullshit that unfortunately tends to do better than the more openly idiosyncratic essays in his later books and Fargo.

"i'm a weirdo obsessed with a facet of pop culture" just doesn't sell as well as "we are the generation obsessed with a facet of pop culture"

The podcast that Grantland posted yesterday - a conversation between he and Joe Walsh - has so many moments where he disappears up his own ass trying to find a point. But it's Joe Walsh, so it has a certain nutty charm despite Klosterman.

From way upthread

A couple months back they featured Klosterman, and the first book he plugs is Atlas Shrugged

I am shocked that this ambitious, successful, reactionary writer loves Ayn Rand.

pretty much everything this guy does in public (and in private for all i know) is an unmitigated disaster, so i guess... good luck NYT?

The podcast that Grantland posted yesterday - a conversation between he and Joe Walsh - has so many moments where he disappears up his own ass trying to find a point. But it's Joe Walsh, so it has a certain nutty charm despite Klosterman.

they certainly share "life is good" as a philosophy.

xp Should retitle it The Challopsian or What Would Axl Do?

Alfred - they go through that song LINE BY LINE.

"Did you own a Maserati?

Not then, but I do now.

You lost your license --

I lost my whole wallet!"

It's strangely funny.