OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

I don't think Stewart Lee has a problem with treating popular culture as a serious object of inquiry tbh.

he likes some cool improv & jazz stuff but probably for dumb rockist reasons

― dat neggy nilmar (wins), Monday, 18 March 2013 14:12 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is he still doing that thing of posting all the negative comments abt himself he finds on his website, because I think this would be an excellent addition

oh is that why someone g00gl3pr00f3d him?

yeah it was a half-joking allusion to that.

Hand up. I imagine that when I hit the jackpot I'll print it off and blu tak it on the wall next to my Pseud's Corner appearance.

British Rock - Forgotten Heroes & Where We Went Wrong (Palma Violets, The Strokes, Muse Feature)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/45186_10151370213003526_643562198_n.jpg

Hands up if you have mostly given up music writing but you still check this thread to make sure you're not busted on something stupid you wrote recently or long ago

O/

― @GracieLoPan #fyi (Display Name (this cannot be changed):), Monday, March 18, 2013 7:17 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My music writings are probably the worst I've ever read, but I still write them, for myself. I do share them online, but obviously they're so bad no one comments on them.

What I find funny is the surprising amount of music writing that people consider to be 'good', yet when compared to those they find 'bad', they offer very little difference in their approach or concept. It usually sounds more like, "I like this dude's writing better and think this other piece is utter shite" (hyperbole included), but they display this preference simply because they don't like the other 'shit piece' because they just don't agree with it--with very ambiguous justifications.

For me, the only music writing I enjoy reading these days is writing that tries to put music in historical context or within a certain movement or artistic group. More of a study of, rather than an opinion on the value of art/music as a representation of a given society/time/movement/expression, because this last bit seems to be so arbitrary. The worst (read, cheesiest) things in art/music have been influential in pop/mainstream culture, yet some were or have been discarded by 'critics' because of a so-called 'inherently' poor artistic/musical expression; that is, they made a value judgement or imposed a truth value on statements which do not have truth values (in terms of logic).

Sorry to go on a tangent. I might just be really disconnected with contemporary musical thought/criticism.

Hooray, Elizabeth Wurtzel's back!

I wonder if there will ever be another rock star. Probably not. Axl Rose was the last one in the sense of having a drug problem, dating a centerfold, showing up onstage at Madison Square Garden two hours and 15 minutes late to an audience that continued to sit and wait. No one would sit and wait anymore. Too exhausted. And the whole point is to post that it happened on Facebook, not to have the experience. Kurt Cobain was an anti-rock star. That was good too. Eminem: maybe. Jay-Z is a businessman—it’s not that he isn’t talented, but he is a professional, the kingpin of an entertainment conglomerate. The opposite of a rock star is a professional. He is the platform and the content. And really, ideally you are the platform, even if that makes you inanimate: People now form lines around the corner not to buy a new album but because a new iPhone is out. Then they use it to send text messages mostly, or to do something they could have done two devices ago, but in any case the wait begins at 4:45 a.m. Which is to say that the party is over. Or maybe standing there as the dark of night becomes the light of day and the Apple Store opens for business is the fun part. Steve Jobs was weirdly both a rock star and a professional, so it figures he would check out before this got any worse.

There is nothing like lying in bed listening to music. Sometimes it’s better on a sun-drenched happy day; sometimes I prefer the cool gray winter sky. There is nothing better still than a Sunday morning in Greenwich Village under the covers with Blonde on Blonde playing. You could fake the experience in another city or even in another part of this city, and maybe it would even be the same—but when it comes to sensual matters, the details count. And it really works. I have been spending Sundays with Dylan for a long time now. I have done it in cassette and vinyl and CD and mp3, because it doesn’t matter. (This point is so obvious that it is necessarily parenthetical: Nothing sounds better than an LP, but nothing feels better than not having to flip it over three times.) What matters is that there are people who may get their clients a consistent 12 percent return on investment and there are others who run corporate empires, but I am sure their lives are not anywhere near as rich as mine is, because they don’t know what I know. Just being a great listener to music has made my life impossibly sweet. And all the while, it has kept me clear of any of the many industries that are really just hastening civilization’s decline. Or maybe it has kept me in my nightgown. I have many lovely lacy nightgowns.

ew, thank you

Yeah, but you mustums read the whole thing.

From the comments:

I really love this article. It makes me want to go home and lay in bed and listen to coldplay.

People now form lines around the corner not to buy a new album

1,974-word article about doing nothing. Proust this is not. Not even in the suburbs of Simon Barnes.

Whatever you think of the album in question, this is such a horribly witless, inept hatchet job. The byline photo really caps it off.

http://www.offthetracks.co.nz/willy-moon-heres-willy-moon/

That's so hacky and awful I'm surprised it wasn't published on Collapse Board.

I really liked that single...

I like Willy Moon but I didn't want to get into the pros and cons of the record. Even if it was indeed the worst album of 2013 it would be better than that review. Nothing sadder than seeing someone huffing and puffing to deliver a killer hatchet job only to drop the axe on his foot.

I don't hate Elizabeth Wurtzel's recent blogging. It's not especially good, but it feels honest.

Faint praise to warm any writer's heart.

:)

I mean, people have feelings about music, and there's this tendency on ILM to reflexively dismiss most such feelings (other than exaggerated poptimist enthusiasm) because they're not adequately problematized, or something. I don't really like her writing, but I like the sentiment well enough.

I agree. I can't get angry about her.

she kind of reminds me of my sad aunt who lived a pretty amazing life but is now alone and depressed and says wistful things all the time about having "the memories to comfort her" -- full of pathos, not really objectionable

Just filing the Tiny Mix Tapes Knife review here for posterity

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/the-knife-shaking-the-habitual

That writer's whole catalogue appears to be Worst Music Writing gold.

they are responsible for a heterogeneous garland
um

I salute anyone who can write a line like this without thinking oh, wait, hang on a minute…

"Absorbing the girth of this behemoth in one fell swoop is rigorous and harrowing"

unless you're a power bottom

Holy shit, that whole article is http://tinyurl.com/bovb886

^ I'll have what he's having

That Willy Moon review... jesus.

This album dresses up vacuous in its mother’s clothes then takes it out on a date.

This album masturbates on to its own cover then rubs in whatever lands because it might help to maintain the sheen.

This album is certainly unique. (That’s not a compliment).

Like the random, half-formed scribblings I type into my iphone notes between snoozes on the train.

Killer parenthesis. "Unique? That sounds like a compliment! Oh wait, ya got me."

The main problem is approaching via wads of press material, which is painfully presented by this reviewer, and can make it seem like you've got to refer to this stuff while listening, to justify the musicians' presentation. Better to start with Clocking in at 97 minutes, this 3xLP has not been recorded with the ease of amiable track-hopping in mind, its purpose built for a single sitting., which makes the initial presentation's main point much more succinctly--but the rest of the graf argues that listeners being "obliged" to listen a certain way is a good thing----which will soon run into the beginning of the next graf The songs come in a variety of forms, destined to instigate cherry picking the “best bits” for the next subway trek Press tidbits-wise,I do like the mention of The Knife recording sounds so you can't tell the source, then telling exactly what the source is--but, still playing editor, I'd ask the writer if this kind of humor comes across in any of the music, as one way of getting past press sheet-directed conceptualism and sweeping swooping overviews, though "girth of the behemoth" is kinda fun.

I think this should be included on this list:

"Bauer remains focused on developing Q's editorial proposition to increase the brand's relevancy for mainstream music fans with a view to building exciting new properties out of a strong magazine product."

"relevancy for"

"magazine product" -- this is the worst kind of business-speak -- redundantly adding a word like "product" to try to elevate something beyond what it is.

took me a while to realize we weren't talking about the harlem shake guy.

if we were, it would be a great sentence!

i feel like the majority of tiny mix tapes reviews i have read are mind-bogglingly terrible (check out their farrah abraham one sometime)

"elevate"

http://woundedbyechords.tumblr.com/post/48147751615/paramore-selt-titled-an-album-review

For some reason I was interested in what Matthew Friedberger might have to say about Vampire Weekend but this is unreadable. Surely nobody will ever get to the end of it.

http://thetalkhouse.com/reviews/view/matthew-friedberger-vampire-weekend

I won't mention the American Express UNSTAGED: Vampire Weekend with Steve Buscemi video comedy show. I typed "video comedy show" because it was meant to be funny… yes?
But since I've mentioned it already: when "Director Steve Buscemi meets Vampire Weekend for the first time, and offers some interesting advice on how to raise their profile," as American Express UNSTAGED told us on April 16, 2013.............................................

shocker, he writes prose the same way he writes songs

God, that is appalling.

I don't know if this is 'about vampire weekend' in any conventional sense.

This opening paragraph (from Pitchfork's review of Venetian Snares - Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding) is unbeatable for its unbridled pomposity and ludicrous false dichotomy:

"A great schism has gradually formed in the orthodox church of the glitch and IDM scene. Of one doctrine is the Matmos/Oval/Mouse on Mars school, based around clicks, squelches and skips, in which musicians struggle to merge our fleshy, imperfect world with that of bent circuitry and drum machines. On the other side are those such as Autechre and Richard Devine, who program crystal-clear computer assaults directly into the listener's brain, with no patience for human warmth or error. While the first are an elusive breed of rarefied souls with mild artistic aspirations, the second are the kids who once survived on Mortal Kombat, Jolt Cola, and Dune, all grown up and ready to overload your conscious mind. And if, at the moment, electro-acoustician Fennesz and musique-concrete practitioners The Books are at one end of the scale, Canada's Aaron Funk (aka Venetian Snares) is providing the counterbalance."

Barf.

"Matthew Friedberger, a Chicagoan born in 1972, is unemployed. He has no degrees or credentials of any kind."

Surely he isn't sustaining himself via checks from solo work and Fiery Furnaces? Is that possible?

"You simply must come over to dinner. Yes? No? My wife is making the most delightful...well, some will say that, I won't go into it here suffice it to say that we have not yet been disappointed by them...burgers. Would you care, oh that's such a terrible way to put it, but surely you know what I mean, to come over?"