Sleater-Kinney breaks up

speaking of Bill Berry, Joey Waronker seems like the type of pro indie rock lifer that will get this

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, July 1, 2019 11:10 AM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What's Michael Bland up to?

I'll miss her, and the departure is an ominous portent, but some of the anti-St. Vincent crap I'm reading on Twitter's a bit much.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 1, 2019 9:09 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, thank you

I last saw Waronker live with Roger Waters.

as someone who actually liked the new single (and not because of st. vincent either way) this discourse sure is making me feel like shit

Why, for liking something that other people don't like?

One of my first thoughts after seeing the Fallon perf was how that song would be 10x better if they ditched the robot beat & boring tempo and let Janet cut into it and put some energy behind it. What a waste.

i do think the discourse of "blaming" St Vincent is let's say a little weird, or even feeling the need to immediately blame anyone.

otm

S-K already recorded a record with synth bops in 2002; no way on earth does working with St. Vincent signify a pop sellout. And they've been faffing around for almost 20 years anyway, despite my admiration for NCTL. The new album might be cool, it might be okay, it might be a disaster, but the idea of Annie Clark producing them delighted me when I first read it.

I was being more than a little facetious personally, I actually think it's cool that S-K is interested in exploring different directions this deep into their career, though it still sucks if pursuing that direction cost them Weiss.

what does "faffing around" mean?

wasting time

The new songs have been a logical next step to No Cities, which was my least favorite SK album to this point. If it hadn't been St. Vincent, the sound would still be moving in this direction with someone else I think.

the stars are aligning for la lechera to join s-k imo

maybe the drummer from trenchmouth is available.

Samantha Maloney replaced both Patty Schemel and Tommy Lee.

mookieproof otm

Thirded

Why, for liking something that other people don't like?

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, July 1, 2019 12:26 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because the implication is that poppier music is de facto bad, which is the same old shit

(and the album could well be bad! I haven't heard it. The key words are "de facto.")

My daughter's got her grade four exam next week, but she's probably Team St V anyway :)

It's not a poppier direction that's bad, it's a bad poppier direction, esp one that comes at the expense of all the things that made the band good to begin with. incl apparently Janet.

maybe they can get the drummer from gay dad

I'm not hearing a poppier direction in "Hurry on Home" tbh

^^"Hurry On Home" fits right in with stuff like "Oh!" and "A New Wave". Popcorn S-K.

I don't know if it is necessarily poppier, at least not from the one listen I gave it, but it did seem more robotic, which I conflate with a certain strain of electro indie pop/rock. And the Fallon clip really seemed to be trying too hard on every front. For a band that once made it look effortless. But hey, maybe the album will be awesome!

Bummer. She elevates every band & artist she plays with.

Did Devo teach us nothing? You don't take a monster drummer who can also play simply in metronomic time for granted, and you never make them double the machines..

Hurry On Home is a jam to be sure. It felt a little flatter on Fallon than it did in the video, maybe? But talk show performances can kinda suck sometimes.

as someone who actually liked the new single (and not because of st. vincent either way) this discourse sure is making me feel like shit

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, July 1, 2019 12:25 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To clarify only for myself I didn't mind the single. It sounded nice. It was the Fallon performance that seemed flat. And it seemed like, at least here, that was mostly what people were talking about in the beginning? I stepped away so at this point I'm not totally caught up with the development of the discussion.

sleater-kinney are one of my 2 or 3 favorite bands and i've spent the last few weeks trying to convince myself that i don't hate the new songs. i have nothing against st vincent but imo the "new direction" was a bad idea if all three members weren't on board with it. it sounds like carrie and corin should have just done this as a project together and left the sleater-kinney name out of it.

It's not a poppier direction that's bad, it's a bad poppier direction, esp one that comes at the expense of all the things that made the band good to begin with. incl apparently Janet.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, July 1, 2019 1:00 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sure, I can believe this distinction, but this distinction is not being widely made

did we learn nothing from the liz phair wars

But talk show performances can kinda suck sometimes.

I myself considered this and also took salt grains figuring they hadn't actually played the song live outside of the rehearsal room.

I dig the new songs, and nothing about them remotely screams "poppier direction" in the least.

The Fallon performance was fine, even exciting: I would never have guessed in, say, 2003 that they would embrace an approach like this.

We know what they've done, and what they can do, and I'm happy to see them defying expectations.

How would you describe the approach they have embraced?

I wouldn't. But more to the point, to my ear it sounds decidedly less "poppy" than "Dance Song '97," "Entertain," "You're No Rock 'n' Roll Fun," "Little Babies," "O2," "Step Aside," "Milkshake 'n Honey," probably a few others.

Lol mookie — this is def not a band that would want me to join them. I don’t know any of their songs for starters, though I’m a quick study!

“Liz Phair wars” getting close to the truth — the extra-musical drama seems unnecessary imo. I find myself glad for everyone going their own way and collabing in their desired fashion. I’m looking forward to Janet being able to use her musical voice in her chosen way, whatever that happens to be.

I’ve never had much interest in S-K — tbh I posted itt bc I love free agent drummers who aren’t tied to any particular band. I’d be miserable if playing drums= playing one band’s songs exclusively. That’s my projected dream for Janet, lol.

watched that fallon performance and gotta admit it reminded me of that scene in A Star is Born when gaga's character goes on SNL...

Maybe they will go on tour with Promise of the Real.

I don't know, everybody has a different conception of what the word pop means. To my ears, the Fallon thing looked and sounded like a band trying hard to be something it is not by embracing sounds with more commercial (or fashionable) potential. Imo it suited the band about as well as sounding like Fugazi would suit LCD Soundsystem. They should have just added horns and blowns everybody's minds, like the Saints did.

Anyway, furious phone calls being made to Steve Ferrone right now, and maybe Kenny Aronoff.

If they really wanted to go Pop they should have hired song doctors and used trap beats, covered "Old Town Road", brought in Lizzo for a chorus hook...

sounding like Fugazi would suit LCD Soundsystem

More like Fugazi trying to sound like LCD Soundsystem

In their case, yeah.

They could totally get the Blink 182 guy to play drums and make it one of those crazy hybrid hip hop blowouts he does.

If they really wanted to go Pop they should have hired song doctors and used trap beats, covered "Old Town Road", brought in Lizzo for a chorus hook...

― frustration and wonky passion (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, July 1, 2019 1:20 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

funny enough, lizzo opened when i saw s-k on the no cities to love tour

They should have just added horns and blowns everybody's minds, like the Saints did.

They had sax on a track from 1997! ("It's Enough" I think?)

Horn section on "Step Aside" too.

Ha, that's right! One Beat was kind of their "pop" move, right?

They've had big singalong choruses forever ("Little Babies"), but what's different about "Hurry on Home" (which I really dig!) is the shiny production, which tbf is a direction they were taking on No Cities already, so this is as much a logical extension as you might expect.

XP Kind of. They'd been moving in that direction since The Hot Rock. I remember a circa-'99 interview w/Corin complaining about THR being "too soft" or something like that.