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

who the hell thinks cannabis is a simple, humble plant?

This feature reads like it was begrudgingly written as a favor to someone:

In Carly Rose’s knockout of a debut single, this sly young pop singer describes her burning desire to disappear with somebody from an overcrowded gathering.

“I don’t want to dance, so just finish your Bacardi,” she moans over the creeping, bottom-heavy groove of “Birds & Bees,” which came out last month and quickly racked up nearly a quarter-million streams on Spotify and YouTube. And just before she rhymes "party" with the name-brand rum, she drops an unprintable modifier — two syllables, starts with F — to show how serious she is about leaving.

(.....)

An unprintable modifier, you guys! Pop music is sure crazy these days, lol

I too am faggot about leaving

Felcher

lmao fgti

I checked out the song; it’s a few degrees better / more interesting than the description makes it sound, IMO (another failure of the writing).

Wow, you know, I’m really excited about Alex Cameron (musician) and I couldn’t imagine that somebody could be presented with his brilliant and rich and ripe-for-analysis body of work so far and instead rip it to shreds while doing a diarrhea

https://www.beat.com.au/the-best-and-weirdest-alex-cameron-lyrics/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/magazine/neil-young-streaming-music.html

you will not trick me that easily, maura

wow that was awful, and I love Neil Young

You weren't kidding, huh. This a masterclass in abysmal writing.

Also, lol @ '“I really wish this interview hadn’t happened,” he later said, seeming more downhearted than angry.'

That’s another thing about Young that rescues him from nihilism and self-pity: He does stuff, even if what he does sometimes seems loony.

One thing I really do appreciate about Young is all the....ugh what do you call it (*gestures*) you know “stuff” he does.

From the comments section:

This article is painstakingly beautiful. If you have a child that is atypical in your life, it will pierce your soul. This sentence at the end made me cry.
“His lesson Is that everything human is shot through with imperfection. Filtering that out doesn’t make us more perfect; it makes us sick. He’s a great artist, which means that he sees and hears more, which may make him a loon, but is also why he is still worth listening to.”
The way David Samuels wrote this article conveys such love; love of Neil’s music, love for his son, love for something we’ve lost in streaming music.
Thank you, thank you for reminding us that music touches our souls, hearts, and brains and that to dumb it down is just plain dumb!!!

comments are awful as well, do not wade in

Neil Young is crankier than a hermit being stung by bees. He hates Spotify. He hates Facebook. He hates Apple. He hates Steve Jobs.

Neil, I have some good news for you my dude.

lol they shit on Zuck only to praise Edison further down

this article is now frontrunner for the thread title imo

His ire this afternoon, directed through me and my notebook and my Sony digital recorder,

I was hoping to soothe the old rock star, who spoke to me through the headphones of my Sony Walkman at the moments I felt most isolated and alone.

someone tell me at the end they reveal this is an advertorial for sony

no such luck, but did you hear that "high-end consumer digital-sound-recording systems" were made by companies such as Sony?

His music helped shape the melodic-depressive post-Beatles catalog of Pacific Northwest angst, which was brought to its songwriting peak by Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Elliott Smith, the Irving Berlin and Cole Porter of suicidal ideation and addiction. Cobain committed suicide on April 5, 1994. Smith, who was an even more intimate songwriter, in the same catchy, brilliant, self-pitying vein, stabbed himself through the heart and bled to death on Oct. 21, 2003, in an apartment in Los Angeles. While the circumstances of both deaths are disputed by conspiracy theorists, Neil Young is indisputably still here.

sorry this is outstandingly bad

the Irving Berlin and Cole Porter of suicidal ideation and addiction

idk this is p hilarious

anything goes

Kurt Cobain jazz hands

sirius should be simplified to 3 stations: pre-Beatles, Beatles, and Radio Margaritaville (post-Beatles)

post-Beatles catalog of Pacific Northwest angst

I think my favorite part of this is the implication that between 1969 and 1989, *nothing* happened in the Pacific Northwest

like, why are the Beatles even in that sentence?

i'm fascinated by the choice to wait until the fifth time he mentions elliot roberts, 20 paragraphs in, after describing elliot's porch, after watching tv in elliot's living room, and after elliot orders pizza for everybody, to point out that elliot is not currently alive.

the reveal happens in this sentence, a masterpiece of bad editing:

His second studio album — and first with his longtime band Crazy Horse — “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” is my personal favorite Neil Young record, and was also Elliot Roberts’s favorite (he died two months ago).

last sentence from Brad's quotation is also a tour de force of bad independent clause usage

Courtney Love paid the Mentors dude to kill Kurt, but Neil Young is still alive

Biggie killed Elliot Smith

he killed elliot roberts, too, iirc

How in the world does that sentence quoted by fcc even make it through the lightest of editing?

While the circumstances of both deaths are disputed by conspiracy theorists, Neil Young is indisputably still here.

this is, indisputably, an amazing way to make a non sequitur immune to criticism for being a non sequitur

what's with all these comments about how ppl don't know how music is supposed to sound bc they only listen to streaming? i go to concerts regularly, play piano every day -- i think i know what music is supposed to sound like. i also use spotify extensively. it sounds fine.

pbbbbbblt

that's why it's so bad, it's even ruined your ears for real music, ruined. ruined!!

Soon as I saw the thread revive, I knew it was this article. One gem is his description of Mozart as "perhaps the most perfectly structured and at the same time most effortlessly fluid sound that human beings have ever made." [fart joke redacted]

While the circumstances of both deaths are disputed by conspiracy theorists, Neil Young is indisputably still here (Elliot Roberts died two months ago).

Was this piece edited by a quahog?

while kurt cobain and elliot smith were perhaps "chris gaines" style projects of neil young, "neil young" is indisputably an ongoing project of neil young

Young got mad about his Facebook user agreement, which not even his high-priced lawyers can untangle. “I’m pissed off about my user agreement,”

...Young says, using an unprintable post-Beatles slang phrase for anger [make sure to check w/NYT whether actually unprintable]

While Bush's involvement in 9/11 is disputed by conspiracy theorists, Neil Young is indisputably there in the melodic-depressive grunge music of Bush.

the Irving Berlin and Cole Porter of suicidal ideation and addiction

I would like to be thought of as the Lorenz Hart, or possibly the Ira Gershwin, of suburban ennui and tipsiness.

I think my favorite part of this is the implication that between 1969 and 1989, *nothing* happened in the Pacific Northwest

a heartless suggestion

well I don't think we should overlook Queensryche, the Rodgers/Hammerstein of 80s Pacific Northwest fantasy metal