XXXTentacion - ?

music like this makes me realize there is really no imperative for me to listen to all the “good” music out there

otm i mean if this is supposed to be "good" ok sure if you say so .

I agree that 'Sad!' is compelling. The other couple of tracks from ? I just listened to brought home – a bit too conspicuously – why he lists Coldplay and Papa Roach among his influences.

you have to be willfully oblivious to think it’s not well executed version of what it is

Nah, this song is shit. And I say that as someone who has heard over a dozen Jandek albums. I say that as someone who has reviewed scores of nü-metal albums, and interviewed nü-metal bands. I've listened to dumb teenage shit for over 20 years, and this song is nursery-rhyme garbage with a beat that any rando could make in their sleep.

i mean if this is supposed to be "good" ok sure if you say so

This is music for teenagers - people who haven't heard enough music to be able to judge what's good or bad. They only know what they like. The real cynics are people like Jon Caramanica who have heard more than enough music in their lifetimes to recognize this as vapid garbage from a not-particularly-intelligent teenager and still cheerlead for it in the pages of the New York Times.

This guy's former manager is a creep too

https://pitchfork.com/news/no-jumper-podcastlabel-founder-adam-grandmaison-accused-of-rape-responds/

Nah, this song is shit. And I say that as someone who has heard over a dozen Jandek albums.

.... well in that case

decent board description

This is music for teenagers - people who haven't heard enough music to be able to judge what's good or bad. They only know what they like

this is otm to me . not to discount teenage taste in music completely but along with some good stuff i was very much into some crappy music that was popular among my friends and looking back was just shit.

this is gonna be a great thread

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, March 24, 2018 1:05 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Teenagers have the best taste.

Eh, lyrics aside, 'Sad!' strikes me as a bit more interesting than that. Can't vouch for his other stuff but the melody here is a suitably achey ear-worm, the booming kicks are effective throughout and the almost cimbalom-like synth introduced in the second half of the song gives it more replay value than the average contemporary pop track.

I could see “i dont even speak spanish” being a moderate hit in latinamerica if pushed.

Which is btw a weird song in this album... uncredited features and XXXtentacion is only there for a verse in the song and doesn’t sound like anything else in the album.

I like that song BUT the title makes me hate him more than ever.

As if you needed more reasons to hate this scumbag

will grown-ups ever grow out of insisting that teenagers have the best taste, it's such a weird and frankly pervy look

I mean it's gross to completely discount the opinions & experience of the young don't get me wrong, this is not me saying "teenagers have the worst taste!" either but

if you're jocking for "teenagers! their taste is the best!" after thirty

idk man that's a bizarre fucking look. I know d-40 might feel targeted by this post but please trust it's not just about you, this has been a systemic problem in pop/rock/rap?? crit since forever, this wordsworth/blake garbage where the zeal of the teen is elevated to some projected ideal critical stance

weird fuckin shit imo

like you don't really see people goin "wacky wafers! this is way better than actually good chocolate!" because guess what your palate develops and you come to understand that your frame of reference, having grown broader, is now actually much more attenuated to nuance & fine points

why do grown-up pop-oriented dudes resist that so strenuously, it's not like you'll be even a day younger by copping this stance nor will any young dudes be fooled

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/favorite-songs.html

i don't think people's taste in chocolate gets calcified w age though, or that there's a steady evolution of chocolate being offered generationally

all i saw was a short reactive quip about teenagers having the best taste, this doesn't need to be blown up into a thing, at least itt. what makes music compelling to teenagers can be talked about separately from how "good" or "bad" taste correlates w age or w/e, which frankly in this context just seems like a boring convo to me

your palate develops and you come to understand that your frame of reference, having grown broader, is now actually much more attenuated to nuance & fine points...why do grown-up pop-oriented dudes resist that so strenuously, it's not like you'll be even a day younger by copping this stance nor will any young dudes be fooled

This is the part that I'm baffled by too. You can say "I understand why a teenager would like this" without feeling compelled to make the leap to "The teenager is right! This is great!"

Fwiw I don’t feel targeted by that bc it very doesn’t reflect my attitude—see the kitty pryde thread

I do find “incurious revelry” (copyright r|t|c) re the music of teens on ilx specifically a bit frustrating but that’s a difft issue

That doesn’t exactly apply in this case... idk I think Jordan summed up why it makes sense this stuff is popular even as it sucks that it’s popular

It’s not the music that’s terrible in this instance methinks.

I mean, the music embodies terrible but it’s not poorly made

So PWR BTTM might still have a career if only they'd worked a little harder at convincing us in their music that they were "authentically" incredibly fucked up people

lol ok

― Paul Ponzi, Monday, March 26, 2018 7:29 AM (fourteen hours ago) Bookmark

i guess this guy left the thread but aside from the self-policing of queer spaces that got pwr bttm nuked off the planet, the reaction against them was so strong because (assuming the allegations were true) they were revealed to be frauds. hypocrites as people yes but more to the point the music, given what it was about, couldn't help but come off as cynical in a way that my have been really rotten. i dunno if artists whose music touches politics or morality can really "work to convince" people that their art actually represents who they are... pwr bttm tried to do that work just in the opposite direction (working to convince us they were queer heroes) and eventually the lie was found out. for whatever you want to say about xxx's music, it represents that he's a shitty person.

I can’t believe you dignified that with a response

i like to reach the people

I'm sure you guys only did what was necessary but I always feel kind of bad when a person is bullied off a thread

I really don't see why it's so surprising that kids think he was framed, plenty of people did and still do defend Chris Brown. (you can't pin it on teenagers, either, given the legions of grown adults who rush to defend even the worst of the worst people accused in the news)

anyway I haven't listened to this guy's music, it does not seem remotely like my thing even if none of the news existed as a counterbalance, but at a certain point I think ignoring it just becomes counterproductive. it's not like all of his teenage fans are going to disappear because The New York Times (hypothetical example, chosen specifically because they did cover him) nobly did not write an article

at a certain point I think ignoring it just becomes counterproductive

When you say "counterproductive," counterproductive to what? "The discourse"? This is a serious question. Why do you think music critics should pay attention to this particular artist? Why is it OK to ignore all the other stuff that your average busy music writer ignores every single day, but not this?

it's not like all of his teenage fans are going to disappear because The New York Times (hypothetical example, chosen specifically because they did cover him) nobly did not write an article

No, but it's not like anyone who's not a teenager is obliged to care. I feel like literally the only angle the Times should take on this guy is "here's what your kids are listening to; maybe sit them down for a talk."

well if your job is to write about popular music -- which is to say, it's your job to think about/analyze why things are popular and translate that to your audience -- and you choose to ignore someone who might be one of the ~10 most popular artists in the country (ignore not just in what you publish but in your thinking) then i think that can be counterproductive to fulfilling the responsibility of your job. if you view him as part of an ecosystem of artists that you're responsible for covering, then i'm not sure you can just isolate him out and ignore him. the reasons for his popularity certainly have implications for popular music at large. and if popular music is driven in part by what teenagers like, then caring about their tastes is also part of the job too.

if your job isn't to write or care about popular music then sure who cares

maybe sit them down for a talk

lol

well if your job is to write about popular music -- which is to say, it's your job to think about/analyze why things are popular and translate that to your audience -- and you choose to ignore someone who might be one of the ~10 most popular artists in the country

^^^

When you say "counterproductive," counterproductive to what? "The discourse"? This is a serious question. Why do you think music critics should pay attention to this particular artist? Why is it OK to ignore all the other stuff that your average busy music writer ignores every single day, but not this?

The other stuff that your average busy music writer ignores is not being supported by the music industry to the extent that this guy is. Even without getting into covert/secret/unreported label stuff (because it's hard to tell the difference between legit and conspiracy theory), Spotify actively supports him as mentioned above; at one point he had a (reported) $6 million record deal with Capitol; he was on a damn Noah Cyrus song. There is no reason to think that even the most horrifying allegations will stop any of this, given the entertainment industry and fans' long history of not giving a shit unless the fans do. the rest, Jordan said better than I could

in other words, the moral burden of ignoring him (if you think there's a moral burden, not everyone does) rests on the people in the music industry, not the people writing about it

Whiney's right; "it's popular, so we cover it" is a massive cop-out, there's a lot of extremely popular stuff that gets zero analysis / ink / heat even though literally millions of people are spinning it a day. there is more to coverage of this artist than "well, he's popular, so we're covering it" - which popular things get covered is I want to say an...ethical? political? aesthetic? moral? choice -- idk -- but I'm 100% certain "it's popular, so it's what gets the coverage" is flat-out untrue.

(I would also argue that the industry does in fact support other popular stuff that doesn't get the ink. That we're not reading / talking about it doesn't mean it doesn't have its own avenues of support / budget / etc.)

sure, but there's also a reason why everyone posting in this thread is in here having this discussion and not talking about shawn mendes

by which i guess i mean that if critics at large ignore something popular -- like meghan trainor or jason derulo or whatever -- that is arguably a dereliction of duty, but it also just might mean that there really isn't much there to talk about. the artist is popular but that popularity doesn't say anything about music or society. that's a different calculation than arguing that there's a moral imperative to ignore an artist.

I think people are conflating sites that have a curatorial approach to popular music to sites that have a "it's popular so we cover it" mindset

btw personally i don't begrudge any writer on an individual level for ignoring xxxtentacion... editors/writers are being tasked with thinking much harder about how to cover abusers than ever before (and in real time). as an employed editor at a publication i'm not a bystander here, and despite the arguments i'm making itt i'm not going to pretend that i have the "right" answer. that said, i'm not sure i'd say that it's a good thing for there to be such little writing about an artist like xxxtentacion, and for even thinking critically about his music to be considered a moral transgression (talking about ppl's reactions to i.e. pitchfork's review of 17, not this thread)

speaking of the devil

https://pitchfork.com/news/xxxtentacion-appears-to-hit-woman-in-video-footage-prosecutors-reviewing-report/

that said, i'm not sure i'd say that it's a good thing for there to be such little writing about an artist like xxxtentacion, and for even thinking critically about his music to be considered a moral transgression

yeah, like, assuming the "critical thinking" is not "this man is amazing and a great person and everyone should emulate him," the only "moral transgression" argument I can think of is that writing about him boosts his signal. but that bridge was crossed long, long ago, and compared to the legions of teenagers listening to him and the industry support, a blog post or whatever is a drop in the bucket.

I would argue that the fact that you don't think there's anything to talk about with a Meghan Trainor or Jason Derulo record, or that their popularity "doesn't say anything about music or society," means that you need to think harder. You're claiming that mumbly nihilistic teenage bullshit "says something about society" but the music that non-teenagers listen to doesn't, but society is not exclusively made up of teenagers. And I doubt your readership is. (I don't know where you're employed as an editor, sorry.) I would argue that writing about xxxtentacion is, in fact, the lazy choice, and that if you really wanted to spend time seriously analyzing popular culture, you'd analyze it in its uncool/off-trend/selling-but-to-the-"wrong"-people aspects.

"this has been a systemic problem in pop/rock/rap?? crit since forever, this wordsworth/blake garbage where the zeal of the teen is elevated to some projected ideal critical stance"

my perception is that real-time analytics have made this stance a lot more prominent / transparent but i could be projecting

and there's certainly lots to talk about with trainor and derulo wrt the shape-shifting of what attitudes make the "songs you can listen to at the office" cut

society is not exclusively made up of teenagers

ok, but a) neither is xxxtentacion's entire listenership and b) an artist's fanbase being composed primarily of teenagers, in and of itself, does not make that artist not worth coverage.

i def want to be more like the demographic that watches pewdiepie videos, waits around all day outside streetwear stores and jacks off constantly

the assumption that the teenager is the default pop music audience was always around (hi dick clark) but imo it really took hold in the late '90s/early '00s, when britney backstreet pink et al hip-checked celine and her cohort and made room for them in adult contemporary radio. from then on it was all over.

A reductive story

There are communities of artists in Chicago who create music which is, through the obscuring effects of power differentials — access to PR, a weakened local press, a vacuum of investment, etc — largely invisible to the outside world.

One artist breaks out and because this stuff has been isolated from a broader mainstream, it’s culture is distinct and stands apart; outside, people want access to this experience of radical difference; they want to appreciate it, to profit from it, to enjoy it, to argue about it, to love it, to use it as a political football.

The lack of infrastructure means the demand is higher than these local artists ability to create supply, and there’s an entire system elsewhere built up to reproduce the aesthetic choices that made this local phenomenon interesting to the outside world, and the potential profits that make it worth time. And a much stronger ability to market it.

The local artists, seeing their sound or ideas replicated, respond differently: some are proud, some are angry, some are practical, take advantage of this new cachet to make further industry connections. None of the above are making much money from the thing they created; some might start calling outsider versions, which lack certain nuances or subtleties of the local culture, “fake” — aka inauthentic

Does that mean they think culture shouldn’t travel ? Does that mean they think it should be fenced in, or that they’d trade their newfound cultural cachet for obscurity? Or is it a simple economic argument, that isn’t arguing abt the illegitimacy of anyone else’s work as much as it is for the legitimacy and Real World Capital to match the much more ephemeral cultural capital they’ve earned? An appeal to the moral or ethical sense of an audience to consider the realities that what music they’ve been sold is mediated through a massive system which has not rewarded their creative endeavors but has benefitted from them?

I think in this sense, references to “authenticity” serve a very real purpose

It of course becomes more extreme when the things co opted are ie gang culture; that slang abt bloods starts getting used by corporate twitter accounts & there’s some really jarring shit where ppl are in jail & family members are dead & it’s a punchline to a guy running a social media account

I am not critiquing this as “appropriation” but just from the general POV of, like, empathy and respect for national tragedies...

Unperson: “there is no such thing as authentic blood culture so when Staples tweets ‘welcome to baples bitches’ it’s completely fine”

Yawn TLDR thread

Boring boring move it to ile

Y’all need a hot pocket instead of hot takes 24-7

Good post D-40, like exactly it

Um if I kicked off this rather droning tangent about "separating art from artist, can it be done? what is authenticity" it wasn't my intention

I was just saying that a considerable portion of rap listeners want their rappers to appear hard, and a history of criminality is an asset in this regard, my mom knows how many times 50 Cent was shot etc.

this is what spin is now

https://i.ibb.co/3rsMSkb/Screen-Shot-2019-06-06-at-3-56-34-PM.png