thread to dis hyped releases that you don't get/don't like/wanna complain about

I’m more just making an observation about “hyped releases”... if I’m shot-taking anything, it’s more Pfork than the album.

It does seem like the uniqueness of the approach to percussion on the album is being overstated and over-celebrated as if y'all didn't join in on dunking on like, Tilly and the Wall. Different times I guess.

This release has definitely triggered my tendency towards aggressive knee-jerk contrarianism when I feel as though I'm left out of something and not really getting it, so I'll try to be restrained and just say that there's just not a lot about this music that does it for me. There are small moments of melody or lyricism where I feel "ooh, I quite like that", but they either then go for too long, or not long enough to make them turn into a satisfying song. Some tracks sound like they came together after a bunch of sing-song melodies were captured in Voice Memos and then shoehorned into one song together. I can see why this messy/stitches showing approach might have appeal for some, but it just hits me as ineffective songwriting.

I don't really give a shit what Pitchfork thinks. My view on Fiona Apple is that she has a thing that she does and she does it very well, but it's just not the thing I like to spend a lot of time listening to, with the exception of "Ladies" and maybe a few other tracks. I'll just go and listen to the new The Garden album again (6.4 on Pitchfork).

Full disclosure: I’ve never really “gotten” Tom Waits either, who seems to me one of Apple’s spiritual forebears.

disappointed in this revival -- in my FB feed, people are being accused of having bad politics if they don't freak completely out about Bolt Cutters. nag more plz

"It's not even the best homemade album by a long-standing American indie singer-songwriter released in the last ten days!"

idk I mean I really *don't* hate the music, and as I said, I thought two of the songs were great. framed only slightly differently I'd be focusing on the positives (those two songs), but it is so damnably easy to be drawn into the heightened Narrative, or at least, make the Narrative the issue, even above the Art. while I said some mean things about Apple, these are all personal aesthetic differences and I'd certainly not want to deny her her truth and her expression, nor be so arrogant as to suggest how she should be. but my vitriol & momentum is aimed, not even so much at the fans who love the album, but at those who have proclaimed together as one that music as a competition is over for now - not so much on ILM either but across the internet

& maybe I do view music as a competition myself too much. it is so easy to do and such a trap

This tweet was kind of a positive (because Powers is almost always positive, something I like sometimes and hate others) gloss on my initial skepticism:

To all loving the brilliant new Fiona Apple album #FetchTheBoltCutters: I'm excited for you if you don't know out jazz or new classical music, there's a whole world for you to discover that's redolent of what you're loving, not to mention Afro-Cuban and Afro-Haitian rhythms

— Feeling Distant (@annkpowers) April 17, 2020

When I actually listened to the record, though, I was won over by it on its own merits and stopped giving a shit whether the people raving about it had heard all the music I'd heard that caused it to resonate for me.

Is that whole world redolent of the lyrics and the singing and the melodies too, or just the rhythms/percussion? Because that’s just one piece of Bolt Cutters’ appeal imho

is powers subtweeting that p4k 'no music has ever sounded like this' review?

kind of a passive-aggressive tweet, lol

tweeting is a relay sport

i have twitter blocked on my computer and therefore in my head the "powers" y'all are talking about is the renegade doctor with some interesting and novel ideas about hormone replacement therapy

please don't spoil the illusion by correcting me

It’s Kenny powers actually. And you’re fucking out.

i don't even know what that means!

It’s Kenny powers actually. And you’re fucking out.

actually, fiona came through and reminded everyone what an actual good album sounds like.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Wednesday, 6 May 2020 17:37 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this

is why i dis(s)

Not super hyped on the release of Grimes' new baby tbh

truth hurts innit

It doesn’t hurt, you’re just being a 🤡

okay, insult time!

uhm. . .takes one to know one.

imagine if someone were to adore not the music of his great friend, fiona

lol ikr

Wait -- you were being sarcastic?

i don't even know anymore, dude.

hold on, i mean: well the jerk store called and they're runnin outta you.

(also: me sarcastic when talking about grimes? well i never!)

I thought you were being serious about piping up in the Grimes thread and saying "Fiona reminded everyone" etc. But maybe you were actually clowning on the Fiona hype? Idk anymore either, lol

i thought my shamelessly opportunistic grimes dissing was well known in that topic.

guess i'll have to try harder!

going slightly off topic but ppl write some real hyperbolic nonsense abt kraftwerk eh? makes you never want to read a word about influence again

its true tho

im p sure I've posted in this thread before so I'm being hypocritical here but i haven't heard the Fiona Apple or Grimes album, and will never have to, and if you don't like Grimes or Fiona Apple you can do likewise

kraftwerk are gr8 but ppl make absurd claims abt influence which cld not possibly be true of anyone, it's the maverick isolated auteur thing

kraftwerk are really that band tho

ha! yes, was going to say, if anyone is. a radio documentary on kraftwerk's influence on early hip hop was very illuminating on this.

the zeitgeist finds a way

*awakens from rip van winkle sleep* yeah, fuck parquet courts

hahaha otm

kraftwerk are really that band tho

otm

every post about what the music sounds like is so intriguing and yet every post about the lyrics is so cringe :o

sorry, I mean the lyrics themselves are cringe imo not the posts about them!

Is this about the MCMLXXV?

that's ok, calling things "cringe" is way worse than any lyric on the record

given how they've alternated between album i've disliked -> liked -> disliked then we're due a like, here's hoping

I really like “love it if we made it”, was bummed I didn’t hear anything else of theirs that sounded like that.. kinda dirgy 21st century screwed tears for fears

there's a decent chance you'll like this one lj but ofc i've been wrong about this before many times

Their music makes me feel ancient but it doesn't sound like it's from the future.

im p sure I've posted in this thread before so I'm being hypocritical here but i haven't heard the Fiona Apple or Grimes album, and will never have to, and if you don't like Grimes or Fiona Apple you can do likewise

I feel for my beloved sister, who, back in IL, has been hanging out a lot with one of my good friends (her "quarantine buddy) who is an enormous Fiona fan (and Grimes to lesser degree). I warned her that Fiona just released an album. Poor girl.

and then the Blake Mills album hits her when she's down!

I don't often get to / feel like dissing new records of note, but: I used to really love Braids but their new album is repellent to me; the definition of worthy-as-pejorative. it all either sounds like relationship counselling tunelessly set to music (was going to say "couples counselling" but that's probably not Montreal enough) or sub-ILX white liberal struggle session stuff. I'm sure they're lovely people but it's the album equivalent of that bonus season of Steven Universe where they replaced battles with literal scenes of therapy. there's gotta be a better way.

Not sure I get the Montreal reference.

I have no idea who Braids are btw, but that sounds unspeakably awful.