Ariel Pink

that’s exactly what JC is saying though right? In a better world “Round and Round” would’ve been a radio hit. All the records this decade have as much mass appeal as Bowie imo - “Only in My Dreams,” “Baby,” “PYNIMP,” “Another Weekend,” “L’estat,” “Kinski Assassin,” “Feels Like Heaven”... and “Space Oddity” was only a hit years later after Ziggy.

All the records this decade have as much mass appeal as Bowie imo

not in the opinion of the masses tho!

well it's a different era, Bowie was on a major label, exploded in popularity after a performance on Top of the Pops when everyone watched that show no matter who was on because there were so few options on TV

Space Oddity saw Bowie temporarily become a one-hit wonder until Ziggy

sure but again he was on a major label. But it is true AP the man does not have the charisma or stage presence of Bowie. quite the opposite in fact.

n a better world “Round and Round” would’ve been a radio hit.

lol whut

I remember Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence: "Oh, my dear - where is that country? Have you ever been there?"

def could've seen it becoming a crossover hit helped by commercial syncs & a bigger push by 4AD. I'd say the same for Grimes but as has been discussed on her thread, Art Angels performed shockingly poorly on the charts compared to how much acclaim it got & how much people love it. maybe the problem is 4AD.

Agree about the hit potential for "Round and Round." That fan video with the footage from "Perfect" made it seem like it should be soundtracking crossfit/soulcycle sessions.

a bigger push in what direction? there's no radio format that's hospitable to the type of music the dude makes.

greater commercial success for an artist like a purity ring just involves getting it in front of people who already like similar music and will immediately understand it. ariel pink's music doesn't really resemble anything that ever has been wildly successful or is wildly successful currently. to get him over the hump, you'd either have to find a way to make his music more commercial without sanding off the edges that make it appealing to fans, or have a legion of his acolytes go forth into the industry and do that work for him by creating commercial music that proudly bears his influence that would provide mainstream audiences with the context they'd need to understand and appreciate what he does.

that's not even getting into any of the personal stuff.

i personally would characterize "round and round" as a song that actually over-performed relative to what the natural demand for this guy's music is, and that the dude's boosters in the media and at his label performed a miraculous act akin to squeezing blood from a stone when they managed to get his name out there as much as they did.

a bigger push in what direction? there's no radio format that's hospitable to the type of music the dude makes.

all the songs I listed, esp. 'Round and Round,' could slot in perfectly on pop/rock radio. not to mention every single college radio station in the country. I agree that the main problem is his complete lack of charisma, really an anti-charisma, that shatters the Bowie comparison & his pop chances. and again, even that's not getting into the personal stuff, which is another huge problem. but on the music alone, I could see it in another world.

Round and Round is a good song that droops under the weight of its deliberate lethargy and lacklustre vocal delivery. A cover of the song could be a hit but this song as it is? no.

"round and round" is over five minutes long and takes forever to get to the chorus. the relevant radio formats are overrun by beat-driven comfort food like portugal. the man's "feel it still" and imagine dragons. ariel pink is not LP1 MGMT - what he's doing has no relationship to the type of rock music that's currently doing numbers.

the dude's brand as an underappreciated mad genius or whatever is a perfect match for his actual skillset. he routinely over-delivers relative to the very low expectations his public persona inspires, which keeps a small base of hardcore fans happy. that is the type of career he seems to be able to handle and i don't think anything bigger would work out well for either him or the world.

flappy bird, were you listening to pop radio in 2010 and 2011

"Round and Round" would have fit just fine and Usher-Pitfull, Rihanna, Bruno Mars, and Gaga.

MGMT is a great comparison, 5 minute hits are not unprecedented, I'm just saying it could've happened on the same scale as an MGMT. james is right though w/r/t AP's actual skillset and abilities and likely inability to cope with / manage a huge boost in popularity.

but MGMT have never had anything close to an American top forty hit.

yeah I know they did reasonably well on all those obscure tertiary charts, & those songs are still in rotation a lot, i.e. = pop hit for an indie act

jb otm

I thought I hated Ariel Pink but I realized that I just didn't need him, and most of the people I knew who were passionate fans I think were themselves goofy insecure musicians who felt more personally validated by his presence and acclaim than they actually felt moved by his music

There were parts of Pom Pom that spoke to me I guess

He came to my house once for a party, I'd never met the guy, he was a guest of some other people I'd invited. He ended up kind of holding court with my guitar on my couch and it was good! But then I ended up getting drunk and needing to sleep before people could leave. I woke up and all the lights were still on nothing was cleaned up and the front door was wide open and one of the showers was inexplicably on. I found Ariel's bank card on the ground outside and returned it to him later that day. It took me all day to clean up the mess

“pink's music doesn't really resemble anything that ever has been wildly successful or is wildly successful currently”

You mean pop music?

idk, the 'hold i'm coming' part of the chorus is good but it's not one of his best songs or anything

the 'everything's my fault" part is godawful

^ both of those are irrelevant to whether or not it could've become a pop hit

"Round and Round" is cool for what it is but when placed on a radio next to actually catchy songs its muddy dull and doesn't do much. Bowie actually wrote songs that could stand up next to other songs. songs with deep variety that still came a steady clip. for a decade straight. "Space Oddity" and "Fame" are like half a decade apart.

at any rate if this was a fantasy universe then can't we ask for someone better than Ariel Pink who perhaps wasn't appreciated as much as him in this universe

yeah... Joe Meek

round and round is def a popular song. i hear it every time im perusing the sales rack at urb outfitterz.

perusing the $28 new vinyl section at UO

nah man looking 4 those marked down sweat shorts.

According to spotify Ariel Pink has an average of 813,552 listeners per month against Julian Casablancas 203,700 monthly listeners.

Maybe tell Julian that nowadays Ariel Pink is at least 4 times more famous than him as a solo artist. That should make him happy.

"Witchhunt Suite" scratches that Before Today itch pretty well

Julian Casablancas solo or The Voidz? Solo he only made one album 8 years ago

"Witchhunt Suite" scratches that Before Today itch pretty well

― zlstrz (calstars), Wednesday, March 14, 2018 3:49 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

true, which is strange, because it was allegedly recorded on the evening of 9/11/01

Ariel Pink is this generation's...Stephen Malkmus

Mankind is a nazi (Humanity’s the devil)

Just saw Tim on the street, said hi

Glad he’s back on his feet!

Yeah! He was wearing a red bell bottom suit so it seemed so!

https://open.spotify.com/track/0lzEmkwqePDPoau88C4VjJ?si=qeZKGB-BSsipLtWpbEB5nw

Part Time feat. AP - I can treat you better

heard Put Your Number in My Phone in a Whole Foods today. Sounded really good, AP's voice cut thru the din. I enjoyed reciting the phone call bridge with my friends. submit post

new old songs, probably will end up on Oddities & Sodomies vol. 2 this fall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYmy1OPFb-M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtH5Q1K2ReE

Pink x Trux

I'll see your Pink x Trux and raise you one Ariel Archives

“new” Oddities Sodomites II thing on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/65JqQUlzflf9fsIZLjCfdp?si=stFt1gsoRVSZDQbacpZbQQ
Happy Friday

new reissues sound incredible

it’s like listening to them for the first time

Underground was a surprise for me. Each song an alternate universe hit. Reminded me of a something like Alien Lanes.

great interview with him and the engineer who helped dig up all the tapes and re-mix/master: https://www.weirdomusicforever.com/weird-news-and-interviews/ariel-pink-talks-ariel-archives

does anyone know how much of oddities is unreleased? i didn't recognize much. he seems to indicate that this volume and the next will have lots of new material.

bolivian solider as an example, is a brand new song done in his "old" style with mouth drums, etc. i can't get it out of my head. house of yesterday is also very strong.

was always a fan of Underground, so reissue is a treat. i'm struggling to get into Loverboy though aside from a few cuts.

it's impressive how much mastering guy was able to clean these records up; really opens them up

I think tracks 1-3, 5-7 and 13 are new. Gates Of Xion was a 2006 7", This Night and Go Go x2 were on the My Molly 7", Driving To The Grave is Underground era and was on some very limited tour CD (and was up on youtube for a while). Chart-Beep and The Law were on the I'm Not A Genius EP.