Sleater-Kinney breaks up

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.

Actually: "I had a lot of anxiety about it. I had a lot of self-image tied up in really distorted guitars and putting up this front of angriness. The band really blocked it out, but I freaked."--Tucker to Spin, re:The Hot Rock and change of direction.

the song itself isn't as surprising as the choreography

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.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Monday, July 1, 2019 6:05 PM (one hour ago)

i mean this is kind of already what all of the members of SK do, they all have plenty of other things that keep them occupied. at this point i assumed their career as a band now consisted of getting together once every few years for an album and a tour, whenever they felt inspired. that's why janet joining the reunion and then quitting right before the tour feels particularly weird and wrong -- whatever's going on behind the scenes, it feels like things are somehow going off the rails.

Idk — I only want what’s best for Janet. Hypothesizing about a breakup feels tabloidy to me.

I mean, yes, any number of things could theoretically have happen, it's a wide and varied world, but "the band has decided to go in a different direction" is pretty established code

i didn't see fallon but I heard somewhere they were adding another person to the onstage lineup (beyond the 4th I think who toured NCTL..so there were 5?), is that correct? that's too many people in S-K for me.

Yeah, there was someone playing a keyboard, like a synth-bass kinda thing. No idea if they're joining up for the tour, though.

Haven't they had a fourth member in their live shows for a while though?

Yep, Katie Harkin joined on guitar in 2015. Toko Yasuda is the new addition, on keyboards.

What specifically is making people speculate that she's playing to a click in the Fallon performance?

I see drum hardware and lights. I don't see an earpiece.

OK, I guess I do see Brownstein and the keyboardist (?) with earpieces - could be other reasons.

I see dead people.

Well, there are no stage monitors, so they are all wearing earpieces. But whether or not she is playing to an actual click she is playing like she is reluctantly playing to a click, stiff and unenthusiastic, because of the nature of the song's robotic groove.

all I know is that in this age and as I get older as a woman, I make quicker decisions without giving a fuck and it's fun. Go with god or a feeling and be done with it, janet will be awesome no matter what.

this "Janet left the band because the songs are different and not as good" hypothesis for some reason shifts blame anywhere but her, and if we're going to be tabloidy you'd think she would have raised the issues early on before or during recording vs this relatively late in the game and leaving them in a worse position. as a tabloid reporter i have decided to blame Janet, the evidence is all there.

more realistically this was probably in the works for a bit and they tried to convince her to stick around but she decided in the end to leave, maybe she just wants to chill and doesn't want to deal with touring, who knows. So, no need to blame anyone.

I'm assuming that some particular straw broke the camel's back.

The click track thing was just me hypothesizing.

Yeah, it could really be anything, especially because everybody in the entertainment world lies. Maybe they wanted to do a flashy choreographed tour and she wasn't into that. Maybe she thought the auxiliary members were getting paid too much. Maybe she wanted it to be even more programmed and click track, and they were all, no, Janet, you will not get your click track!

maybe Janet has followed Mo Tucker and become a Trump supporter and is disgusted by the rest of the bands libturdism

That reminds me that Samantha Maloney also played Moe Tucker in a movie.

I feel like there are other ways of looking at that rhythm pattern rather than the discussion of how "robotic" it is. I think of it more in terms of layering, the hi-hat, the snare, the bass drum, different patterns working together. Not sure how much I agree with the assertion that she goes about it in a way that is "stiff."

They remind me of a less abstract Ut. I don't think anyone would say Nina Canal's drumming in Ut is robotic.

is she still drummer for the Jicks? I thought she was just making choices. But whatever, they have had so many sides projects, before bands I am fine with whatever. I really liked Cadallaca and The Spells.

Now the drummer is only in 14 bands.
― yours fondly, harshaw. (mrgn), Tuesday, June 27, 2006 12:37 PM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xpost I dunno, it sounds to me like what drummers sound like when they are playing along to a programmed beat that doesn't really need them. Like Cut Copy, for example, who have a live drummer, but don't really need one. You end up with kind of awkwardly sloshy rhythmic hi-hats atop pristine programmed stuff. But it can also be a cool effect, like in New Order. Think "Temptation."

kinda glad i hadn't bought my ticket for this tour yet

You are going to wish you did when they actually land Phil Collins.

Like if you're saying it's stiff, you'd also probably have to say this is stiff, and I would not, and I feel like we may be getting into gender-related territory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ax_OFb1w4

Here's the Fallon performance, for anybody who hasn't seen it yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xrSuIqrhRU