NPR is turning my mom into a corny indie fuxx

Like botched mastering aside

Yes, because waveforms were such a pressing issue for Bill Haley.

The waveform represents how you experience sound. It's not irrelevant even though they might not have talked about in the same way we're talking about it.

See sometimes in indie rock circles I feel like an opposite generational thing where stuff feels so wimpy to me compared to the 90s

― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, June 15, 2012 1:35 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seriously tho

definitely true in terms of rock music

well even in rap, it's almost like you must be an old retro head if you wanna hear rappers yell on the mic and for producers to use big booming drums

Which is also kind of why I don't get a lot SFJ reviews in the NYer, because it's like "Just face it, you are not going to get your readership to like this stuff except the young part of it that probably already knew the music before it was reviewed here."

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Friday, June 15, 2012

I don't agree. As long as he has that platform and his editors do not mind, he should write about what he finds of interest, whether a stereotypical NewYorker reader is expected to like it or not.

it's almost like you must be an old retro head if you wanna hear rappers yell on the mic and for producers to use big booming drums

wait waht

Waka not enough for you

ha i heard this last night and was wondering if it would be brought up here! nothing like some olds quipping about "amphetamines at a rave" to get ilx defending diplo

I'll take Diplo over more typical All Things Considered crushes like the hideously sunshiney Regina Spektor, but NPR currently has a not-bad to sometimes awes range, especially some of the live/archived concerts (Newport coming up again next month) and new albums. Need to check Fiona's Idler Wheel again, but some of it got me instantly, and I'm really into Neneh Cherry & The Thing's The Cherry Thing (some of the sax solos go on too long, but don't bother the overall momentum)
http://www.npr.org/2012/06/10/154159413/first-listen-neneh-cherry-and-the-thing-the-cherry-thing?ps=mh_fl

i went through a srs "liking diplo and hollertronix" phase way back there in two thousand and something. baltimore club music! money studies! spank rock even. caught some flak for it hereabouts, but that shit was enjoyable. still like his MIA album. gave up when the novelty buzz wore off, perhaps not coincidentally when he started "discovering" rapping children from australia

NPR should throw the video for "Pon De Floor" up on their website if they REALLY want the complaints to roll in

Spank Rock's first album is totally fun

I like how most of our NPR discussions devolve into trying to figure out what exactly we find off-putting about the tone of NPR. It's usually not fully articulated.

It's like when people talk about a mutual friend and the tone is always "he's a cool guy, but I don't know..."

we like you but we're ambivalent about you too, npr

Well, as we said, there was a conversation online and there were Diplo defenders. Among them, Chris Thompson(ph) of Rochester, New York, who writes: I find it hilarious that you people are tuning in to a show called ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and getting upset at the fact that they're considering all things.

this is kind of top-shelf.

Ha ha yeah cunga so otm

we like you but we're ambivalent about you too, npr

Title of LCD's eventual comeback single.

i went through a srs "liking diplo and hollertronix" phase way back there in two thousand and something. baltimore club music! money studies! spank rock even. caught some flak for it hereabouts, but that shit was enjoyable. still like his MIA album. gave up when the novelty buzz wore off, perhaps not coincidentally when he started "discovering" rapping children from australia

― contenderizer

diplo did like 2 tracks on that album iirc. not that i care.

i mean piracy funds terrorism

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-all-songs-considereds-bob-boilen-went-from-tiny-desk-to-tastemaker/2016/04/08/354beb44-e492-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html

“I’m one of the people who didn’t care for Michael Jackson,” he says. “Talented, yeah, but there are so many other people that will never get their voices heard, and it’s so cool to be able to find the ones you connect with. I just try to find music that makes me think, ‘This needs a champion.’ ”

Many of the acts he loves, such as the Low Anthem and Taken by Trees, fall into the category of indie rock. And he’s been criticized more than once for his indifference to country and hip-hop in particular. Frannie Kelley, co-host of NPR’s “Microphone Check” podcast with rap icon Ali Shaheed Muhammad, was asked to create an “All Songs Considered” for rap music, but she declined. “We said we didn’t think hip-hop needed that, nor was recommending new rap music something that took advantage of either of our skills and assets,” Kelley says. “We said we would make something where we spoke with people in the culture.”

Boilen invited Kelley to his show a handful of times, before and after “Microphone Check” existed, but not to talk about the show. He wanted them to recommend new rap music to his listeners, “songs that he approved,” she says. “I couldn’t do the work I wanted to do within the context of his show. ... You can’t challenge Bob on his show. Ali and I had to create our own show to make NPR Music great.”

Boilen has acknowledged that he tends to play “music that speaks to me,” and his “lack of love for hip-hop, country, classical and metal stand out as big holes in our coverage.” He’s tried to fill them by inviting people with eclectic tastes such as Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio to play DJ. When Kelley suggested the NPR Music team invite hip-hop artist T-Pain to do a Tiny Desk show, Boilen was open to it. T-Pain’s October 2014 appearance is still the most-watched Tiny Desk performance, with nearly 9 million views on YouTube.

But Boilen doesn’t apologize for his tastes. In response to an email from a listener with the subject line “All Indie Rock Considered?,” he once wrote, “I won’t fake what I do when I host the show.”

tiny desk is painfully bad

I like when others (not Boilen) at NPR pick acts for it. Anthony Hamilton was great

Tiny Desk is good when it has good artists and bad when it doesn't. I don't understand how the entire thing can be described as "painfully bad."

long legs

Tiny Desk is good when it has good artists and bad when it doesn't. I don't understand how the entire thing can be described as "painfully bad."

― JWoww Gilberto (man alive), Friday, April 22, 2016 10:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah there's been great ones

The Dirty Three & the Sun Ra Arkestra performances were both great

Oh man, need to see those.

I liked the T-Pain one. They're kind of like nicer versions of standard in-studio radio performances -- the room sounds good and it's intimate.

i'm sure if i watched one of a band i liked it would be ok (you got me!) but c'mon the whole concept is hair-raisingly cutesy and early-00s indie sincere, the intimacy is so forcedly quirky 'oh how endearingly cluttered this office is'. and the curation, like the music they choose to play in this nauseatingly hungry for authenticity environment is all folky trembling indie vocalists and like wholesome alt-bluegrass bros and pop punk. also t-pain aside i feel like they adhere to what thing of like, only black artists if they play in a style that was popular 3 or more decades ago whats up with that

well and the whole point of the t-pain thing was steeped in language of authenticity, like "oh he can actually sing"

you seem fun

that said while i love microphone check i think its a little silly to abdicate critical advocacy of artists & songs, its not like indie bros will stop advocating for their favs

xp Well there are other exceptions to that last point, although looking at the list overall you may be onto something. But on the whole it seems like modern "NPR taste" is relatively broad enough that there is some good stuff in there. The name "Tiny Desk" is annoying but I don't really mind the setting, honestly it's nicer than just looking at carpeted studio walls and a bunch of gear.

i feel like they adhere to what thing of like, only black artists if they play in a style that was popular 3 or more decades ago whats up with that

That's Boilen. See the quote from the Post article above. He has also rationalized things by saying most rap and r'n'b is too foul-mouthed for npr. I wouold be fine with Boilen booking stuff he likes if they also let the folks who do the "Microphone Check" thing and the folks who do the alt-latino and the jazz online NPR stuff also have an equal hand in picking music for Tiny Desk. They only occasionally do

well and the whole point of the t-pain thing was steeped in language of authenticity, like "oh he can actually sing"

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, April 22, 2016 2:08 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

the jazz ones are often good. Christian Scott, Matt Ulery, etc.

Yeah the acoustics sound very good for jazz too imo.

obviously it's playing off of all things considered, but the name of the show should be Bob Boilen's Fave Tunes or something. all songs considered makes it seem like it'll be a wide ranging genre-free zone, which it isn't.

i guess i don't really care about the series as a series or what i means or w/e i've just watched specific ones with artists i already liked and i like it mostly because it's really really well engineered soundwise

We used the Steve Gunn Tiny Desk as an object lesson for our young teenager: this is how stoned people look and act. Great set, btw.

yeah what UMS said

yes.
wonder what the original poster's mom is into these days -- deep private press new age shit?

I love the original post

This song popped into my head tonite; I haven’t thought of it in 10 years (....bet you haven’t, either) —

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgBeu3FVi60

To the thread topic -- my mom sometimes emails me links to "Tiny Desk Concert" performance videos... usually I'm already aware of the band (or not interested), though that is how I first encountered Car Seat Headrest (of whom I later became a real fan). "Thanks, mom!"