Music Criticism in Video Form

If every day isn't a struggle session for you, you're doing it wrong.

xp not blaming you or anyone on here for that matter, just that this is what makes me sick about fantano.

both in terms of the artists he (and of major publications, only he) is boosting

he still fundamentally sucks at explaining why music is good so i'm not sure why i should care?

lol c'mon Doja isn't 'roundly cancelled' in any meaningful sense of the word, she literally has a Billboard Top 5 hit this week

don't really wanna defend Fantano here cuz I don't care about him much but I'll say this at least. our generation is the one raised on Family Guy, Eminem, South Park, and gruesome internet shit, which I think naturally turns people into edgelords, especially if you've lived through the 90's when people were generally optimistic and it was maybe a bit easier to separate the jokes from real life. especially if you're a teenager growing up in a white town where none of that shit feels particularly real to you. humor is wrapped up in that Borat-era concept of "hah, wouldn't it be funny if anyone took this seriously". edgelords find edgelord communities which are generally incredibly accepting while communities that look down on that sort of behavior are generally not. so you have your tribe. and then, hopefully, you grow up and understand how the world really works, spurned on possibly by the nonstop avalanche of terrible shit that's been happening since 9/11, particularly everything from 2016 on where suddenly the racist cosplay stuff is revealed as actual racism with actual consequences, and then hopefully if you aren't a worthless human being you change. I would've liked to see him actually address the shit he did rather than handwave the whole article away because it was riddled with inaccuracies (which, to be fair, it was) but in general I don't see any indication that he's just playacting a 'woke dude' to make a career in a field that basically does not exist.

like good for him

i remember his participation in alt-right memes very clearly. it wasn't that long ago. but good for him

if some idiot gave the idiot thumbs up to something i happen to like it wouldn't make them a force for good

i also don't think we should be necessarily going out of our way to applaud white guys for being decent allies right now, seems to be beside the point

half this thread feels like people applauding a t-shirt with a picture of Pepe the Frog saying "Black Lives Matter" on it

What would be the most helpful and diplomatic way for him to make amends and express solidarity? Genuinely curious.

could have given Fiona Apple a 10

i seriously know NOTHING about Fantano's story but for anybody with a significant fanbase that is alt-right, step one would be to disavow openly on your media channel, then go off the air entirely and rebrand fresh and with clear motivation in a different way so that you do not continue to profit from bad faith members. until you do that, i have no idea why anyone would take a conversion seriously.

could have given Fiona Apple a 1 xp

in other words: take account for your actions and stop profiting off ugly shit that got you what you have is STEP ONE.

anybody with a significant fanbase that is alt-right

Is this true? I know a few peeps who keep up with Fantano and who are anything but alt-right (anecdotal evidence, I know, I know).

(Feels like Rogan redux a bit.)

not convinced he has a significant alt-right fanbase at all, he's spoken out against them pretty consistently for the last several years

i seriously know NOTHING about Fantano's story but for anybody with a significant fanbase that is alt-right

Not baiting anyone itt!

yeah, sorry; that's bad faith. I mean "taking bait" as in "typing angry while on the internet"

I’ve said this many times before but it is absolutely baffling to me that any adult would want to watch 12 minute video of some soyfaced dude talking at them about anything, let alone a King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizard album.

imago, did you ever think that your constant need to have your taste validated by the faux-quantitative numbers rankings of RYM, Metacritic, Fantano, Scraruffi and all the other stuff that like only *you* post about on here might be an unhealthy way of thinking about music in general, which is partially why it’s the purview of /mu/ weirdos?

not to mention the ILX EOYs!

you're not equating aspie with unhealthy now are you WGW ;)

obviously music shouldn't have a fixed score or placement, but we do it anyway. why? because it helps us understand our tastes, organise further exploration, and feel validated when the good shit gets recognised

thread to dis hyped modes of quantifying music that you don't get/don't like/wanna complain about

not to mention the ILX EOYs!

you're not equating aspie with unhealthy now are you WGW ;)

― imago, Wednesday, June 3, 2020 2:09 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've said before that I would love some non-ableist way to express what the internet terms "aspie" with whatever this and TV Tropes is. And, yeah, I love scores and lists, but there's a point where you have to consider the source

The ILX EOY list has also changed from "let's tabulate what people liked this year, half of which are particular to things we fixated on as a group over the year" to "let's curate a diverse list of genres so we can do a happy internet dance about how broad our tastes are", which makes what was already a giant well-meaning jack-off sesh into a smug, self-satisfied jack-off sesh with a wholly unearned sense of superiority, so even though I still participate in it I don't really have a problem with it being lumped in with things Whiney listed.

I was the one who lumped it in!

The diversity of the EOYs is a good thing imo - I know there are plenty of genres it still completely overlooks

Just so I can indulge in my self-satisfied, wholly unearned sense of superiority for a second, it still reads like 'things we fixated on as a group over the year' to me, especially once you hit the top 40. Diversity is an afterthought, for the most part.

Obviously I don't think it should be diverse by design, but it does tend to work out that way now, which is good. I still believe most individual ballots are pretty sincerely everyone's top 25 of the year (minus artist repeats) and not artificially 'diversified'

It is true that the voting populace will get obsessed with some boring shit like Purple Mountains and splatter that all over the top 10 while congratulating itself for coordinating on the promotion thread to get one afropop song in the mid-50s

"let's curate a diverse list of genres so we can do a happy internet dance about how broad our tastes are"

^^^ truth.

xp

forks otm

was just about to say, how is it smug ? it's just for fun.

no need to put it down in such forceful terms.

this year's tracks poll top 10 was my favourite top 10 of any EOY poll ever lol

it also had 2x more Afropop (including Afrorap) songs than Purple Mountain songs in it

most "general" music crit sites/mags do the same tokenism shit too

I’m basically just ready to fight anyone who shits on that Purple Mountain record. Bad target imo.

imo the ILX list is one of the least tokenistic as it's the result of literally 100 people's opinions, aggregated - people who can have been expected to have listened to a lot of music and voted in good faith. it is the only EOY i truly care about!

Fantano's review style enforces stereotypes and expectations that he as a white dude has on the race gender sexuality etc. of the creators of the content he's reviewing, and it sucks to behold

I also resent the way the way he puts so much weight on the rating of music instead of actually interacting with it in a meaningful way, as I often do with people who use ratings to create canon rather than act as a facilitator and/or meaningful commentator

He gets a hard zero from me

"result of literally 100 people's opinions" doesn't preclude ppl from making calculated "for show" selections. (fwiw I think ILM EOY list is fine, no worse than bunch of other EOY lists, prob more interesting than most)

calculated "for show" selections

Can someone cite an example of this?

you want someone to delve into the minds of those who made EOY lists?

My point exactly.

great point

Thx.

ok here's one:

A-Sun Amissa - Ceremony in the Stillness
Anna von Hausswolff - Dead Magic
Anne Garner - Lost Play
Autechre - NTS Sessions 1-4
Daniel Bachman - The Morning Star
Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses
Feu ! Chatterton - L'Oiseleur
Grouper - Grid of Points
Mitski - Be the Cowboy
The Necks - Body
Rival Consoles - Persona
Saba - Care for Me
Sarah Davachi - Let Night Come On Bells End the Day
Tim Hecker - Konoyo
Xylouris White - Mother

lol I repped for that album a fair amount before the EOY poll so try again.

wtf xp

wait that's your list pom ?

Yep.