Thanks hip-hop writers from New York for your interest in Kacey Musgraves, but we’ve got this handled. Or as Kacey Musgraves would say, “Mind your own biscuits.”
― Frozen CD, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 18:05 (six years ago) link
xp he's good at writing about the music business, i find him lacking when he writes about the artform itself
― stormzy daniels (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 18:10 (six years ago) link
I still think it’s funny that Michael Nelson called the band name Dog Shredder “gross and indefensible”
― like æ duce says, smell my anvil vapre (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 18:27 (six years ago) link
i think it was weird that, given his casually enthusiastic style, his pallbearer review was p much all comparisons to other records, which made it p impenetrable to someone not acquainted w a lot of the records mentioned, but also sort of meaningless even w the ones which which i was. like, if the progressions are so great, try to describe them? he mentions a chord change that struck him once and doesn't expand on it
― lowercase (eric), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 18:55 (six years ago) link
tbf dog shredding is more gross and indefensible than most things
― lowercase (eric), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 18:56 (six years ago) link
no way, a german shepherd busting out some sweet lightspeed yngwie licks on a neon-green flying v is cool as shit
― star wars ep viii: the bay of porgs (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 18:59 (six years ago) link
bizarro is right as usual. Are we talking about dogs who play fast modal tapping solos on guitar? Or are we talking about dogs being thrus in Fargo-esque woodchippers?
― like hell, but with more ketchup (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:01 (six years ago) link
participles are confusing
― lowercase (eric), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:02 (six years ago) link
What if the shredder is a dog?
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:07 (six years ago) link
(...should’ve read the other replies first...)
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:08 (six years ago) link
bizarro is right as usual.
more of this from the rest of the board too pls
― star wars ep viii: the bay of porgs (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 19:15 (six years ago) link
i like Nelson's stuff usually (a lot more than Brad, apparently) but again:
10,000+ words!
on the Strokes guy's not-the-Strokes new band!
― alpine static, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 23:27 (six years ago) link
serious question: is Nelson paid an annual salary by Stereogum? he's on there enough, i assume he's on staff.
and if so, did Scott, like, tell him he could take a week off of doing news updates or w/e and write that piece?
and if so, then I guess they think 10K words on the Voidz is clickworthy enough to go a man down on day-to-day stuff?
or am I way off base here and Nelson's a freelancer and he pitched a thousands-word-count story?
i'm never going to read the thing, but i am kinda interested in the economics and logistics behind it.
― alpine static, Tuesday, 10 April 2018 23:31 (six years ago) link
Michael Nelson is the managing editor, and he doesn't file that much copy in comparison to the others who are on staff. (I wish he'd do more on the music business - when he did that string of pieces on streaming in 2016-2017, he was knocking it out of the park every time.) Why do I know this? Because at this point, Stereogum is my favorite music site.
― The Harsh Tutelage of Michael McDonald (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 23:45 (six years ago) link
saving country music is a horrible blog
― dyl, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 03:54 (six years ago) link
it really is.
― maura, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 04:39 (six years ago) link
xxpost thanks Raymond!
― alpine static, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 07:18 (six years ago) link
de nada, alpine static
― The Harsh Tutelage of Michael McDonald (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 15:19 (six years ago) link
The Saving Country Music guy is just Neill Jameson (Decibel's go-to essayist for incoherent anti-Antifa grumblings and other "defenses" of "keeping" "metal" "dangerous") in a cowboy hat.
― grawlix (unperson), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 15:38 (six years ago) link
So Tracey Thorn complained about a review on Twitter:
A 55 year old wife and mother. God the more I think about it the crosser I'm getting. 55 year old husband and father. I'm trying to imagine it as a description in an album review. Nope. Can't do it.— Tracey Thorn (@tracey_thorn) April 13, 2018
And I figured it was probably just some random UK jagoff. Turns out it was King Jagoff, typing with his dick again:
Tracey Thorn: Record (Merge) Calm, deliberate, undemonstrative, Thorn is a singer some find magical and others prosaic. I've always tended other, but when a 55-year-old wife and mother claims she's recorded "nine feminist bangers," I pay attention.
Is this a "dog walking on its hind legs" situation for him? "She's old and married with a kid...but she says she's a feminist! This is a job for Christgau, The Dean of American Women's Studies Rock Critics!"
In four other songs, decent but fundamentally clueless guys mess with various women's lives, while two others evoke a motherhood you assume is autobiographical
Do you? I don't, any more than I assume George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher has really murdered all those people.
― grawlix (unperson), Saturday, 14 April 2018 15:17 (six years ago) link
*face palm*
― The Harsh Tutelage of Michael McDonald (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, 14 April 2018 16:20 (six years ago) link
And this one comes exactly one week after his Amy Rigby review. He's on a real roll.
Rigby's response, in part (the whole thing is worth reading):
All I know is that it was fine when he’d conjecture about me as a single mother, my work, my songs, hell even my breasts. It was fine cause I was hungry then – I wanted what ever any critic would say about me as long as it felt sort of like a compliment.But I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t want his praise that feels like a put down. I don’t want him talking about me in terms of my first husband who, bless his heart I have not been married to for twenty years. I don’t want him praising while panning and damning my partner, my husband, by saying he’s kept me too busy to do much work on music when he’s done nothing but encourage me to work. I don’t want him dismissing my hardworking husband for taking the easy way and living on the past when he’s done nothing but try to outrun the past.I don’t want his readers thinking something’s a rave review when it feels hurtful and personal and dismissive.
But I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t want his praise that feels like a put down. I don’t want him talking about me in terms of my first husband who, bless his heart I have not been married to for twenty years. I don’t want him praising while panning and damning my partner, my husband, by saying he’s kept me too busy to do much work on music when he’s done nothing but encourage me to work. I don’t want him dismissing my hardworking husband for taking the easy way and living on the past when he’s done nothing but try to outrun the past.
I don’t want his readers thinking something’s a rave review when it feels hurtful and personal and dismissive.
― grawlix (unperson), Saturday, 14 April 2018 16:37 (six years ago) link
I think Christgau’s issue (one of them) often is writing positive reviews that feel like condescending pats on the head and when they’re aimed at women they feel just really paternalistic and the winking asides and mild caveats come off as even insults. And he still can’t write about women without regarding them as equals (he’d say otherwise and then pause to be dazzled by their looks or juggling of the domestic chores with music-making.)
― omar little, Saturday, 14 April 2018 16:46 (six years ago) link
Christgau’s reviews seem largely worthless even just on the basic level of talking about the music (never mind the issues discussed above). I’ve never understood why he has such a rep.
― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Saturday, 14 April 2018 17:28 (six years ago) link
That Amy Rigby piece is terrific, btw
― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Saturday, 14 April 2018 17:37 (six years ago) link
change my comment above to *disregarding them
― omar little, Saturday, 14 April 2018 22:07 (six years ago) link
https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348047913l/341633.jpg
Although Artificial Intelligence's sleeve notes had insisted that the new electronica "cannot be described as soulless or machine made," what's most interesting about Autechre's work is the absence of heart and humanity, the way that the listener's impulse to forge an emotional connection simply ricochet's off the impenetrable, gmonic surfaces of their sound. At times you can't help wonder if the "aut" in their name stands for autism; listening, the mind's eye conjures up a vision of two small boys surrounded by techno toys, lost in a preverbal world of chromatics, texture and contour.
― like æ duce says, smell my anvil vapre (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 16 April 2018 14:31 (six years ago) link
20-year-old music criticism in problematic attitudes to autism shocker
― Mahogany Loggins (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 16 April 2018 14:43 (six years ago) link
The Impenetrable Gnomic Surfaces is the name of my Autechre tribute band btw.
― fleetwood machiavellian (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 16 April 2018 14:54 (six years ago) link
jeezus fucking christ
― marcos, Monday, 16 April 2018 14:58 (six years ago) link
This is why I only write for Consumer Reports now
― Paul Ponzi, Monday, 16 April 2018 15:08 (six years ago) link
almost certain that it does stand for autism and that sean autechre is proudly autistic
yours, someone w/ mild autism
― imago, Monday, 16 April 2018 15:35 (six years ago) link
the only problem with that bit of writing is that autechre DOES contain emotion and feeling, but u neurotypicals don't get it I guess
― imago, Monday, 16 April 2018 15:37 (six years ago) link
hold me closerneurodancer
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 16 April 2018 15:47 (six years ago) link
This Scottish newspaper employs some good arts writers, but its op-ed section is a joke...
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/16169683.Brian_Beacom__Pulitzer_music_prize_judges_deserve_a_rap_on_the_knuckles/
― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Thursday, 19 April 2018 09:34 (six years ago) link
That might be the worst piece of music writing ever.
― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 19 April 2018 09:58 (six years ago) link
Jesus christ
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 19 April 2018 10:02 (six years ago) link
some excellent Scruton-ising there, it's a load of (c)rap, innit?
― calzino, Thursday, 19 April 2018 10:07 (six years ago) link
all I see there is a campaign to give Limmy a Pulitzer, everything else was just padding
― thirst trap your hare (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 19 April 2018 10:44 (six years ago) link
I imagine Brian Bee Cum is about to have a slaughter in his menchies
― like æ duce says, smell my anvil vapre (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 19 April 2018 12:20 (six years ago) link
High and low culture? Who is right when you recall Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize for Literature last year, which caused a stooshie. “Lay lady lay, lay across my big brass bed,” may have acutely summed up man’s sexual imaginations but doesn’t quite compare with Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
This is something of a self-own, considering that lyric could literally be a line of Steinbeck dialogue...
― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Thursday, 19 April 2018 13:10 (six years ago) link
I'd ask if anyone had any bets on how many previous music Pulitzer winners Beacom has listened to but you can't really bet on a certainty.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, 19 April 2018 18:04 (six years ago) link
https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/album-review-jason-aldeans-rearview-town/
should be easy to see why this review is both poorly written and reprehensible (i don't buy his excuses in the comments.)
― omar little, Friday, 20 April 2018 18:55 (six years ago) link
this dude
― lowercase (eric), Friday, 20 April 2018 18:58 (six years ago) link
including in some songs these strange feminine (or synthesized) sighs and calls like something you would hear in the soundtrack of a 90’s-era war strategy RPG or 1st-person shooter game
what, like warcraft? is jason aldean going zug-zug
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Friday, 20 April 2018 19:02 (six years ago) link
the zerg queen doing background vocals
― mh, Friday, 20 April 2018 19:15 (six years ago) link
best phrase...
Among other fair criticisms...
...in which he critiques his own critique, and judges it to be a good, fair critique.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 20 April 2018 19:26 (six years ago) link
new jason aldean single right here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwWh1xy6gvU
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Friday, 20 April 2018 19:27 (six years ago) link
There are a lot of provocative statements in here:http://www.vulture.com/2018/05/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-artists-ranked-from-best-to-worst.html
― aphoristical, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 22:31 (six years ago) link
lots of discussion about that on the Pitchfork thread but it belongs here in the HOF
― omar little, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 22:33 (six years ago) link