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

http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-05-06/music/kill-yourself-if-you-listen-to-classic-rock/

^^^unbelievably terrible. let's challenge received wisdom with... a different kind of received wisdom! urgh fuck you

Surprised you read an article in the Weekly.

I don't have anything to read at the moment (a rarity, but I am poor and haven't been to any bookstores lately)

Libraries are friends to the poor!

You know, the big problem with it is this:

probably every other person sharing your Wi-Fi connection at the coffeeshop right now knows the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long," but how many can sing along with a single song by My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom, Of Montreal, or any of the other best rock artists of our era?

This is like being in the 60s and going "Yeah, the Rolling Stones are good, but why arent you listening to the Fugs and the Godz and Terry Riley?

Our shitty generation is doing JUST FINE adding to the shitty classic rock canon thanks to Foo Fighters, Bush, Stone Temple Toilets, Sublime, The Chili Peppers, Incubus and 1,000 other bands that OUR shitty kids are gonna know still all the words to 25 years from now.

Dude is getting his strawmen mixed up. The same people that have

dinner parties where the hosts put Heart on the stereo

Stone Temple Toilets

you did not

i can think of a few ilxors past and present who would agree with the notion of you should kill yourself if you listen to classic rock.

I don't listen to the radio at all (much less classic rock radio) so its not like I took this personally or anything but the piece is just such a mess of unfounded assumptions and misdirected anger the only person it made me want to kill was the writer. Like, does he really have that much of a problem with his parents and their record collections? grow the fuck up

to take one minor example, the central problem with classic rock acts still filling arenas isn't that they're classic rock, its that arena shows BY THEIR VERY NATURE suck shit. Its not like I want to see any of my favorite bands in an arena...

I know this guy has been ref'd on ilx before because I went to his blog and have seen his article on fruitcake before.

article blog post

My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom, Of Montreal are all classic rock

You know, the big problem with it is this:

probably every other person sharing your Wi-Fi connection at the coffeeshop right now knows the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long," but how many can sing along with a single song by My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom, Of Montreal, or any of the other best rock artists of our era

Pretty sure there aren't four existing 'rock artists' he could have mentioned instead to prevent his article from being spectacularly retarded

Is the strawman here even prevalent enough to write an article about? The vast majority of people I speak to or hand with or whatever are in their 20s or 30s and I don't think any of them listen to classic rock exclusively

hand = hang

Pretty sure there aren't four existing 'rock artists' he could have mentioned instead to prevent his article from being spectacularly retarded

True enough, especially since he doesn't provide any sort of rationale as to why they are "the best" -- apart from "because I say so." And considering most of the article rests on the argument "because I say so," he comes off sounding like a petulant teenager.

this guy is a teenager, right?

xp Shakey: Thanks for posting this ... I read the article yesterday and immediately felt that it deserved a place on this thread.

http://www.myspace.com/morbidund

right?

Music: White Lion, Elzhi, Black Milk, RA The Rugged Man, White Rabbits, Bill Callahan, El-P, Avril, Replacements, DJ Khaled, MC 401(k), Brother Ali, Kanye West, 50 Cent, John Maxfield, The Long Winters, Band of Horses, The Streets, Ghostface, DJ Crucial, Serengeti, MC Paul Barman, The Frozen Food Section

xp omar: I think you found him. What I want to know, and one of the things that makes me dislike the SF Weekly, is why they are paying a bunch of non-local music writers, when the SF Bay Area has plenty of music writers? Is this a corporate thing? By that I mean, is this New Jersey dude and the other non-local music writers who write for the SF Weekly part of a New Times/Village Voice stable?

Each music editor in the VVM/NT chain is pretty much free to put together his/her own stable of music writers -- at least that was my experience.

"Is this a corporate thing?"

Yes.

I mean in so far as I don't think that VVM/NT has a particularly loyalty to the idea of using local writers for media (or for that mannner anything else.)

And in this case it looks like this dude writes for all the Weeklies. There are links to LA and OC Weekly articles on that Myspace page.

xp Alex: That's what I've noticed ... he's not the only NJ/NY dude that writes for other chain papers that the Weekly has writing for them now.

yeah it's pretty horrific to think that not only have papers like the village voice, la weekly, and others in the vvm stable completely turned to shit, but they all employ the same bullshit writers.

Yeah I'm not saying that they should be loyal to that idea. The problem here isn't that this guy lives in NJ. It's that the article(s) he wrote is crappy. I'm fine with getting the best writer who live wherever to write your music pieces.

xp Alex: but that crappitude is stock in trade for the SF Weekly. A friend of mine used to write for them ... and he said that for articles there was a common format, as he explained it, one either writes about "This thing you thought was good? It's really bad." or "This thing you thought was evil? It actually is good."

Yeah I don't read the Weekly and basically I never have (I used to a little when Phil Sherburne used to write for them). I don't read the music section in the Guardian either though.

they all employ the same bullshit writers

:-/

I give both at least cursory skims. I usually read at least one or two things in the Guardian, Kimberly Chun's column, and there's usually a show preview for someone interesting.

I think the answer to the thread's question is yes, this is the worst piece of music writing ever.

well, there are diamonds in the rough, ned ; D

oh come on now guys, it's bad but not that bad

The Village Vanguard. New York City. 1961.

We was sittin’ there watchin’ the stage. Waitin’ for the man they called Coltrane to come out and do his thing. It was me and my four droogs. Them bein’ Peter, Georgio and Dim; Dim being really Dim.

‘Round an hour’d passed and the place was packed straight through to the back. I’d just dropped some dollars for ‘Trane’s Giant Steps six months back. Now was the time, this was the place. The Village Vanguard. New York City. 1961.

I was only there for the first night, see, but them cats at Impulse! just made my life complete. They put out four CDs of all that sound ‘Trane put out those nights. But you know my type, man. Can’t afford to eat, let alone spend some heavy cash on music. So I only got the essential. Live at the Village Vanguard: The Master Takes is one disc, makin’ it one-fourth the cost of the box set. And you only get the best stuff.

Man, the opening beauty of “Spiritual…” It’s like a dream I had: I floated on the River Nile, smokin’ some fresh weed, relaxin’. But I ain’t ever gonna see the Nile anyhow. This track’s as close as I come, and it’s close enough. Best of the best, though, has gotta be “India.” It’s only when you listen to a perfect old jazz tune like this that you realize how much drum-n-bass is derived from this music. ‘Trane takes it to heaven and back with some style, man. Some richness, daddy. It’s a sad thing his life was cut short by them jaws o’ death.

Shit, cat. It don’t make a difference. The man produced enough good music to last me a lifetime. This Village Vanguard thing’s just another example of the genius of Coltrane.

easy target i know

I give both at least cursory skims. I usually read at least one or two things in the Guardian, Kimberly Chun's column, and there's usually a show preview for someone interesting.

Guardian's definitely better, I like Chun a lot. (didn't she just get laid off tho?)

xp Shakey: I saw her a couple nights ago and she was talking about an article she was working on ... but I heard that rumor somewhere, too.

This is actually an excellent article, making some very valuable and very correct points.

but Geir the Beatles are "classic rock"

xp Oops I just accidently Permalinked you Geir. Sorry about that.

LMFAO

The same people that have dinner parties where the hosts put Heart on the stereo have 90 shitty contempory bands they like too. Who do you think is buying all the Coldplay records?

A few points: I assume there are several millions Coldplay fans who have never had any use for Heart at all; I don't know what Coldplay and Heart have in common in the first place (one was a great hard rock band, one wasn't); I've never been to a dinner party where Heart was played in my life; and though I never thought of it before, I think it might be kind of neat if somebody did play Heart at a one (especially if they put on Bebe Le Strange or Jupiters Darling, neither of which get played on classic rock radio much either, I don't think.)

Actually, if the food and company was good, they could even play Coldplay, for all I care. Hell, it's their party. They should play whatever they want.

Now I was speaking of the original article.

Classic rock is the canon is good. Of course.

(But nothing wrong about checking out new stuff - as long as it sounds like the old stuff)

Right, I've killed myself. Now what?