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

And this weekend, my kids wanted to watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, because we recently finished the book. Guess what? No Harry Potter on Netflix or Hulu. Did I scream and yell because the services I subscribe to at a grand total of about $16 a month don't have every movie ever made (or, for that matter, most of them)? No. I paid the $3.99 for the HD stream from Amazon, because 4 bucks is still pretty cheap for an afternoon of family entertainment. (We did check the public library first, but it was checked out.) There are so many fallacies in such a short space that it's hard to even know what to say. I'm not even sure who he's worried about. The industry? The consumer? Both of those seem to be doing fine, at least as far as the Adele album goes. It's like he's gotten 100 percent on board the streaming train, and he's just mad that the whole world isn't there with him. The frustrated rage of the early adopter.

The number of times in the last two years I've seen people blink several times when I say, "I checked X out of the library" has been astonishing. It's like, if the library's not part of your life, the library will never be in your life.

i was mad for years that there was no high quality version of the "like dust" video by the passion puppets on youtube. livid! finally, this year, my prayers were answered.

oh no this massively successful album may not sell as many copies as it could have. the writer of "shake it off" will only be able to afford two summer homes this year.

let's not stop until culture is 100% saturated in adele

Who's Adele? [/satire]

I finally realized what the Yahoo Rihanna stuff-up reminded me of – this, from the movie Chicago

http://s12.postimg.org/a3n9ytq8d/Chicago_newspaper_Guilty_Innocent.png

Fairly inefficient journalism imo. Half of these papers will have to go in the bin, and the other half won't really be "news". Money-saving tip: just glance at the headline, then wait a few hours and buy a better newspaper. But even this fictional rubbish newspaper accepts that there are two possible versions of reality. Yahoo isn't quite there yet. (Apparently Chicago nicked that idea)

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2015/11/13/ezra-furman-the-outsider/

Ezra Furman is the kind of artist who comes along every now and then to reduce jaded music hacks to gibbering, simpering wrecks. All cynicism evaporates, all objectivity is thrown out of the window, and terms like “life-changing” are tossed around with giddy, reckless abandon. And it’s not just the press. Witness Furman’s new label boss, Bella Union supremo (and erstwhile Cocteau Twin) Simon Raymonde. After catching a particularly riotous gig at London’s Lexington earlier this year, Raymonde took to Instagram and became very, very excited indeed. As in, capslock excited:

“EVERYTHING. ALL THINGS. LIFE. THE BEGINNINGS. THE STRUGGLE. EVERYDAY. OUTSIDE. TEARS. HEARTBREAK. UNBRIDLED JOY. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS BEFORE OR AFTER. JUST THIS MOMENT. LIVING. SHARING. LOVE. WHY WE BOTHER. THE MOST IMPORTANT. DON’T USE THE WORD VISCERAL UNLESS IT REALLY WAS. NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN.”

Quite. And it’s not just Raymonde. The rest of the U.K., it would seem, has fallen head over heels in love with Furman. He’s received across-the-board fi ve-star reviews, BBC 6 Music has practically adopted him, he sells out shows in minutes, and in one of the summer’s more surreal musical/media meet-ups, he appeared in a suitably somber interview on Channel 4’s evening news. Not bad for a selfconfessed misfi t, a cross-dressing, bisexual, observant Jew with a history of depression. Even more impressive when you consider that, as recently as three years ago, he was pleading for money on Kickstarter to fund his first solo album, The Year Of No Returning. Not that he seems particularly fazed when MAGNET calls him to talk about this sudden burst of fame.

Oh, and "his latest album, Perpetual Motion People, is far and away one of this year’s most sublime efforts...a giddily splenetic, high-octane record, packed full of a dizzying array of influences—the Violent Femmes, Lou Reed, ’50s doo-wop, Bowie, Jonathan Richman"...I admit to feeling a little dizzy, but it may just be nausea.

What's the US version of landfill indie? Because this guy is that.

Ezra Furman is the kind of artist who comes along every now and then to reduce jaded music hacks to gibbering, simpering wrecks.

mission accomplished

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01112/mission_accomplish_1112950c.jpg

I know some people who tell stories like that too, where they try to make shrug-worthy things or events sound interesting by applying melodrama. It's either desperate or delusional.

maura, it was nice to see you write about Palm in RS. they played a great show at my store this year.

― scott seward, Saturday, November 28, 2015 1:22 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love this band. weezer back!

people have been writing music for other people forever. what's the difference this time?

uhhhh...sweden?

dimbulb seabrook interview.

https://recode.net/2015/11/30/adele-owned-last-week-but-a-guy-youve-never-heard-of-owns-pop-music-heres-how-he-did-it/

"It’s also interesting that the [song-producing] technology was [initially] not used by the mainstream songwriting people, but it sort of came from the margins — from hip-hop people, that didn’t have access to the studios."

marginal hip-hop basement tech. until the swedes arrived...

is he talking drum machines

i have no idea.

apparently, if i'm reading the interview correctly, pop music was two guys banging away on a piano writing songs until the studio-less hip-hoppers showed the swedes how to do things quicker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CwwCbMq320

so how many times do I have to read about max martin before I've heard of him

until an old white guy lets him produce an album, he is only a myth carried on the wind by sylvan messengers

he's your little swedish secret that you keep in your pocket when you want money. shhhhhhh.........

that sort of thing ain't my bag

used to be just 2 people sitting at a piano. now its a rapper and a producer sitting at a keyboard. TOTALLY different.

gimme a C, a bouncy C!

http://www.abbatimeline.com/media/img/RNfWQH_53305407d910a.jpg

wake me up when robots are writing our songs please!

here go
http://francoispachet.fr/
http://francoispachet.fr/markovconstraints/audio/boulez_blues.mp3

It's not really about music. It's barely writing. But.
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/does-jermaine-jackson-have-a-jacket-potato-in-his-trousers-or-something-more-sinister

Still, makes you think, doesn't it?

wtf

Haha. Poor NME.

how the fuck can you have jermaine jackson and an alleged potato in the same article and yet not ask the question, can you peel it?

Still, makes you think, doesn't it?

peel potato and see

not know potato

lol stevie

"jacket potato"?

I mean first off it's clearly a trouser potato

tell me i'm not dreaming (of an era where pageviews mean nothing)

take off your pants and jacket potato

this is the last one like this forever. promise!

https://www.vice.com/read/hw-the-definitive-guide-to-hipster-music-genres-hipster-week

i don't actually think its the worst or whatever. just a whatever nevermind kinda thing.

i mean it's almost 2016...

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/the-decade-in-music-genre-hype-6393275

our own lil' trailblazer. god bless.

but also yeah that's what i'm talking about. and also you should get a lawyer! jeez.

you put dubstep in the microtrend graveyard. who knew?

"Ghettotech, microhouse, folktronica, New Weird America, schaffel, crunk, trap-rap, post-metal, screw, baile, Baltimore club, snap, nu-balearic, moan-wave, grindie, deathcore, nu-rave, juke, wonky, skweee, dubstep, kuduro, jerk, hypnagogic pop, crabcore."

microhouse still HUGE at my house by the way. i just never stopped listening. now i want some baile funk crabcore to listen to.

even mentioning psych horseshit in that vice thing is grounds for a lawsuit. who mentions them in 2015?

you put dubstep in the microtrend graveyard. who knew?

― scott seward, Tuesday, December 15, 2015 11:19 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also trap-rap!

I'm not clicking on Vice unless it's by accident; has anyone linked Whiney's piece in the comments yet?

okay i just did.

I knew I'd read that one before...