"seemed mainly to be grading for lyrics": might well be inaccurate, and I hope it is, but that was often my impression in the last few months before hitting the paywall (and mainly why I haven't signed up).
― dow, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:08 (three years ago) link
So I'm still Undecided.
― dow, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:09 (three years ago) link
Writer vs website is an odd poll tbh but I voted for Christgau. He's funny sometimes and, if he is saying nothing, he only takes a few sentences to do it.
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:20 (three years ago) link
I'm just here for the Earl Misogyny discography
― DJP, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:21 (three years ago) link
Writer vs website is an odd poll tbh
I may in fact be trolling a little bit here.
― pomenitul, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
Also, if we're talking about "moving towards being inclusive", this was his Dean's List for 1986: https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/deans86.php 2xp
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:24 (three years ago) link
if he is saying nothing, he only takes a few sentences to do it.
counterpoint: ive spent longer trying to parse wtf xgau is trying to say in a 12-word review than its taken me to read entire pfork features
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:25 (three years ago) link
this is like choosing between having my left testicle or my right testicle stomped. throw fantano in the mix and i will pass out as a result from the physical pain. hopefully to wake up in a much better off world.
so idk, pfork i guess?
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:25 (three years ago) link
Just doing his part to keep close reading alive in the age of distant reading.
xp
― pomenitul, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:26 (three years ago) link
lol I genuinely did not expect you to say that.
Austin said "fuck you, left testicle"
― DJP, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:34 (three years ago) link
Literally Hitler.
― pomenitul, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:36 (three years ago) link
On the third day Xgau rose again.He ascended into heaven,and is seated at the right nut of God the Father Almighty.
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:37 (three years ago) link
B+
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:40 (three years ago) link
Lol
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:42 (three years ago) link
I think "Earl Misogyny" might be my most proud moment on ilm.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 9 November 2020 21:46 (three years ago) link
it is a stellar contribution to the canon
― DJP, Monday, 9 November 2020 21:47 (three years ago) link
(which, given the thread, is very appropriate)
I love reading his Consumer Guides on his site, fun tracking the evolution of music over such a long time frame. Personally, I prefer Stereogum.
― Bjork’s lawyers just would not budge, Monday, 9 November 2020 22:01 (three years ago) link
so this is basically a deathmatch between the Dean of American Rock Critics and the Duke of Earl Misogyny, did I get that right?
― kiss some penis reference (breastcrawl), Monday, 9 November 2020 23:32 (three years ago) link
Yepperoni.
― pomenitul, Monday, 9 November 2020 23:35 (three years ago) link
"Nitsuh"; "Katherine"; "Brad"; "Philip"; "Alfred" ✂
― flamboyant goon tie included, Monday, 9 November 2020 23:47 (three years ago) link
. . .but what about earl's early misogyny?
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Monday, 9 November 2020 23:57 (three years ago) link
Earl Misogyny’s Top 50 albums of all time
The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LThe Beatles, The Beatles’ Second Album LChuck Berry, The Definitive Collrction LBlondie, Parallel Lines LJames Brown, Star Time LThe Clash, The ClashCulture, Two Sevens ClashDeBarge, In a Special Way LDJ Shadow, Endtroducing DJ ShadowBob Dylan, “Love and Theft” LBob Dylan & the Band, The Basement Tapes LEminem, The Marshall Mathers AlbumEno, Another Green World LThe Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace of SinFranco & Rochereau, Omona Wapi (Shanachie version)Girl Group Greats LGogol Bordello, Super Taranta! LGrateful Dead, Workingman’s Dead LAl Green, I’m Still in Love With You LGuitar Paradise of East Africa LMichael Hurley/The Unholy Modal Rounders/Jeffrey Fredricks & the Clamtones, Have Moicy!The Indestructible Beat of Soweto LLatin Playboys, Latin PlayboysJohn Lennon, Plastic Ono Band LJerry Lee Lewis, “Live” at the Star Club, Hamburg LLil Wayne, Tha Carter IIILittle Richard, The Very Best of . . . Little Richard LM.I.A., KalaJoni Mitchell, Blue LVan Morrison, Moondance LNew York Dolls, New York DollsOrchestra Baobab, Specialist in All Styles LPublic Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back LRamones, Rocket to Russia LOtis Redding, The Immortal Otis Redding LThe Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street LThe Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones, Now! LThe Roots, How I Got Over LThe Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols LThe Shirelles, The Very Best of the Shirelles (Rhino)Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation LDusty Springfield, Dusty in Memphis LSteely Dan, Pretzel Logic LTelevision, Marquee MoonThe Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground LKanye West, Late Registration LWire, Pink Flag LWussy, Funeral DressNeil Young, After the Gold Rush LTom Zé, Brazil Classics 4: The Best of Tom Zé L
P4K’s Initial Release 10.0 albums
12 Rods - Gay?Walt Mink - El ProductoAmon Tobin - BricolageRadiohead - OK ComputerBob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" ConcertBonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See a DarknessThe Flaming Lips - The Soft BulletinRadiohead - Kid A...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & CodesWilco - Yankee Hotel FoxtrotKanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted FantasyFiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 01:49 (three years ago) link
💣 vs 0.0
― Master of Treacle, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 02:21 (three years ago) link
I mean, if newspapers in the '70s had the technology, would xgau have embedded a video of a monkey pissing in its own mouth for a review?
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 02:24 (three years ago) link
Christgau, flaws and all. (Unfair vote--Pitchfork came along after my interest in reading any kind of rock criticism had narrowed to a few people I'd been reading for years.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 02:27 (three years ago) link
My taste probably overlaps about evenly with both (ie not that much), but Christgau is reliably more interesting to read, IMO.
― o. nate, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 03:02 (three years ago) link
idk if this counts as a hot take but I read music writing to learn of music I think I will enjoy and will enrich my life, not (primarily) to delight in sparkling prose or whatever, and for all its flaws Pitchfork has been a good resource over the years. I mean, Wussy are fine and all, but.
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 03:19 (three years ago) link
Essentially my position as well.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 03:24 (three years ago) link
Pitchfork I've been reading loyally since Ryan Schreiber/Brent Dicrescenzo days, but they've consistently improved, and they've aged right along with me.And as for Christgau, I've never understood his shtick. Is he still alive?
― enochroot, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 03:28 (three years ago) link
Real poll options:Are you closer to 60 or closer to 40?
― enochroot, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 03:29 (three years ago) link
but I read music writing to learn of music I think I will enjoy and will enrich my life
Exactly why I read Christgau (discovering Wussy being a perfect example); actually not that big a fan of the way he writes. (By which I simply mean the way he puts words together.)
And yes--much, much closer to 60!
― clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 03:48 (three years ago) link
enchoroot - he is alive
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 03:54 (three years ago) link
in terms of sourcing music to enjoy, I find having a variety of writers more useful than having one guy whose sensibility/interest set seems to rarely overlap with my own
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 04:21 (three years ago) link
This must surely be a joke but xgau for his stubbornness and tenacity. p4k has some good reviews but the institution of "p4k" amounts to less than the sum of its parts- obsession with consensus is nauseating. both execrable tbh
the idea of sourcing music through reviews seems a bit old fashioned.
― Cabo Weibo (卡波微博) (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 07:35 (three years ago) link
obsession with consensus is nauseating ^ goes for this board too (ducks)
― Cabo Weibo (卡波微博) (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 07:38 (three years ago) link
hipster canon building is tedious but horny old hippies are worse
― a nice person (Left), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 08:51 (three years ago) link
I had seen Christgau's name before and, of course, had heard Lou Reed calling him a toefucker on "Take No Prisoners" but I had never read a word of his, so when I joined ILX (quite a while ago now) and his name kept being brought up like he was the fucking Pope I was quite taken aback. Then I realized I had fallen into a den of music critics.
― Boring blighters bloaters (Tom D.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 09:28 (three years ago) link
Christgau's Rock Albums of the 70s book did get fairly widespread distribution in London bookshop at least, and iirc was even remaindered at one point. So that plus the Lou Reed and Sonic Youth mentions put him more on my radar than most US rockcrits.
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 10:07 (three years ago) link
the idea of sourcing music through reviews seems a bit old fashioned
what, I should be relying solely on the algorithm? fugouttaheeere
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 12:49 (three years ago) link
I’m all for virtual crate-digging; that’s how I found out about Let’s Eat Grandma. I am also all for people putting music through their own contextual spaces and describing what they’re hearing and what that means to them because it often sharpens and enhances what I do or don’t like about a piece of music, or makes me curious about something I normally wouldn’t have paid attention to.
― DJP, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:00 (three years ago) link
oh forgot to mention that Pfork pays a bunch of good and smart writers to gush over music I would likely have glossed over otherwise and none of them subject me to their gross hangups in the process
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:09 (three years ago) link
Poll needed.
I don't really source music through either of these (or Spotify algorithms) with any frequency tbh, although I can think of at least one album I discovered bc of Christgau (Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner). I imagine he was possibly responsible for putting some older music on the map in the first place.
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:24 (three years ago) link
For all its (un)intentional bouts of lulziness, Pitchfork has durably shaped my listenings habits, no doubt because I am a millennial. Xgau… not so much. The first time I came across his website (never read him in print, obv.) I remember thinking he had the worst, most offensive taste of any music critic I'd ever encountered up to that point.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:29 (three years ago) link
I don't know anything about the "taste" of Robert Christgau because I find his prose offensively unreadable. Like others here, I only know of him because of ILX, otherwise I'd never encountered his "writing" IRL. RIP.
― All cars are bad (Euler), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:32 (three years ago) link
Haha, in the days when you could still read Christgau in print, there were a lot of critics with worse taste.xp
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:35 (three years ago) link
xgau for his stubbornness and tenacity.
see these are not key attributes i value highly in a critic. ive learned from xgau and discovered music through him (when ive been able to decipher his ridiculous prose), but the flipside of his stubbornness is reading him grind the same boring axes and exhibit the same boring blind spots over and over again, year after year after decade. thats also clearly a result of reading any individual critic cover the same beat for 40 years, but still. the variety of pfork has offered me much more over the years. obviously they have their own axes and blind spots and missteps, but at least those shift over the years as writers and regimes change.
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:46 (three years ago) link
he had the worst, most offensive taste of any music critic I'd ever encountered up to that point.
Examples? I'm curious.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:47 (three years ago) link
one thing i like about reading xgau capsule reviews is that i can imagine the thoughts on the page passing through his head as he listens to the music
obviously there is also space in criticism for the poetry of "emotion recollected in tranquility" but i appreciate the dynamism of first-thought-best-thought
― handsome boy modelling software (bernard snowy), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 13:55 (three years ago) link
over and above its poll rival
Tbf, there's a perpetually-updated thread dedicated to Pitchfork, or at least its dumbness.
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 17:09 (three years ago) link
Carducci is a genuine kook libertarian
I haven't read Rock and Pop Narcotic in years. He's a rockist, but like he owns it, he likes a certain strain of rock music and thinks that it's the best music ever made.
Can be a really amazing writer about the things that he loves. Can be ugly at times.
Enter Naomi: SST and All That is by far is great work, really touching and kaleidoscopic reflection on LA punk, California itself through the lens of one of the great (and overlooked) rock photographers of all time. But it was written much later than R&tPN and feels more elegiac and wistful. he talks about a lot of the people who didn't live, a lot of the people who got lost on the way.
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 17:11 (three years ago) link
he makes you think about how he feels about them. Which just isn't as interesting.
Those two reviews side by side are a funny comparison.
Astor Piazzolla: "I dont know or care an iota about this kind of music. That being said, I happened to hear it, so here's my opinion.Born Again: "Why should the world be so fascinated by what THIS guy thinks about? Boooring!"
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 18:19 (three years ago) link
I'm a 78-year-old white man who favors radical police reform and hopes you in particular get everything you want from politics and life. But I'm also a veteran editor who knows an unfortunate turn of phrase when he sees one. "Defund the police" does more harm than good. Period. https://t.co/dIwyiUDwX8— Robert Christgau (@rxgau) November 11, 2020
Well, I'm certainly glad the dean has weighed in on this one.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 20:49 (three years ago) link
78? Damn, I hadn't realized.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 11 November 2020 20:51 (three years ago) link
has this guy’s political outlook changed even slightly since he was chiding funkadelic for letting the black community down or whatever. entitled liberal dickhead
― a nice person (Left), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 20:55 (three years ago) link
what is even he doing there, pairing or opposing his whiteness/maleness with his seniority & supposed lefty credentials. gross attempted power move
― a nice person (Left), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 21:02 (three years ago) link
"radical police reform" uh huh
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 21:07 (three years ago) link
What he disliked about Funkadelic were their ties to the Process Church of the Final Judgement, a quasi-Satanic occult group. He wrote a review of Ed Sanders' book on the Manson Family and other cults of the era, and swallowed a lot of the author's dubious claims about these occultists.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 11 November 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
I didn’t know about that, I was just going off his fymayawf review which seems to epitomise his weird race politics
― a nice person (Left), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 21:34 (three years ago) link
Lefty cred not very impressive, and he was pretty soft on Bush Wars (as Merle Haggard called them, and not as a compliment), at least when they started (incl. First Gulf War), but I have heard liberal Dems saying that "defund the police" was a gift to Republicans--"radical police reforms" is not much better, just not as catchy, not as likely a gift: if he means something about police unions, who tend to defend even the worst police, then yeah, but he should say so (lots of investigative journalism on this subject, esp. in past year or so). However dangerous they may or may not have ever been, The Process were (hopefully mostly past tense) Satanists, yeah, though with their own take. a few years ago, I got a promo of one of their songbooks performed by Wooden Wand and friends: hymns to Jesus and to Satan, like If you love X, give Y a try. No idea how closely or how long any of Funkadelic were ever tied in with them, but it was worth mentioning in the post-Manson era, when several cults were becoming more noticeable via bad behavior.
― dow, Wednesday, 11 November 2020 22:54 (three years ago) link
George Clinton apparently read Process Church literature when he was living in Toronto. The church members, hooded and robed, would hand out their pamphlets to passers-by on Yonge Street. Clinton reprinted some of their writing as the liner notes to Maggot Brain and America Eats Its Young; I don't think he was really a hardcore adherent of their philosophy.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 11 November 2020 23:09 (three years ago) link
Yeah, think you're right, judging by the records.
― dow, Wednesday, 11 November 2020 23:12 (three years ago) link
The Process were more like a Scientology knockoff, manipulating the malleable; their "theology" was not Satanic so much as a warped Christian bothsidesism:
The Process Church preached the existence of four gods, who were regarded not as literal entities but as inner realities existing within each human personality. Accordingly, these deities were not worshipped. The names of its deities were drawn from traditional Judeo-Christian religion. They were known as Jehovah, Lucifer, Satan, and Christ, and were collectively referred to as the "Great Gods of the Universe." The Church stated that "Jehovah is strength. Lucifer is light. Satan is separation. Christ is unification."
There's a good documentary about them, Sympathy for the Devil; I have the DVD. They were really good at marketing, which made their public profile much larger than their actual membership deserved.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 23:20 (three years ago) link
Xgau, no shame
I can understand someone with different taste not enjoying his takes but in terms of inclusiveness he was way ahead of the curve with pop, soul, r'n'b, hip hop, world music and yeah, female artists. there are great writers on pitchfork but in general the pitchfork perspective is incomparably duller and shallower than his. i'm closer to 40 btw
― g simmel, Monday, 16 November 2020 09:31 (three years ago) link
enjoyed rereading this 1976 longform piece abt rockcrit+springsteen (courtly overdecoration of its essential my-colleagues-are-dangerous-naifs thesis and all) this morning while listening to wild+innocent
In the early-'60s tradition of Del Shannon (a closer analogy than Roy Orbison even if he isn't named on Born to Run), Springsteen is a rather operatic rock star. Years of touring have formalized his histrionic tendencies, and now he risks getting tripped up in his own self-consciousness. Further, as Langdon Winner puts it, "Bruce has a real problem with rhythm"; when John Rockwell extols Springsteen's phrasing, I recall uncomfortably that Rockwell's roots are with Caruso rather than Ray Charles. For unlike the R&B-and-blues-influenced titans who are invoked as his predecessors--Presley, Dylan, Van Morrison--Springsteen shows no aptitude for the relaxed scat; he is obviously attracted to rhythm-and-blues as teen rather than black music. But this in itself is far from fatal. It simply means that in these respects the great rocker he resembles is John Lennon...It was an assumption of most early rock critics, who tended to be young litterateurs on a paying gig, that rock and roll was in hibernation in the years preceding Beatlemania. This was flat-out wrong. The early '60s were a rich if somewhat silly period that nurtured both the soul style (irrelevant here) and a wealth of not-so-ephemeral pop rock and roll, consummated in the enlightened hedonism of the Beach Boys and the great production machines of Motown and Phil Spector. This is Springsteen's era--he may talk Berry and Presley, but his encore is Gary U.S. Bonds....Like the early '60s, the mid-'70s are a myopic time, but they lack hope and innocence; our rock hero is Elton John, who makes up for his visionlessness with overwhelming studio perspicacity. I'm sure it will seem willful to Jon Landau, who can't stand Old Four Eyes, but on mornings when I feel like playing Born to Run real loud I often opt for Elton's Rock of the Westies as well. Both answer my need for monolithic, full-sounding, produced rock and roll--a need I indulge freely because I know I have other very different ones.... For like so many of the best American popular romantic/primitive formalists, Spector was a unique but very narrow artist. He had a vision, yes--but it was romantic to the edge of camp, barely adequate to his more innocent and hopeful time.It's fine for Springsteen to set himself up as the boy Darlene Love is gonna marry, or to vouchsafe the Beach Boys some East Coast hustle--but only if he can transform the high fantasy content of those images into something more than another of the doomed-loser myths that have littered America's artscape since the frontier closed. Early rock and roll was energized by the class mobility and material transport of a genuinely expanding economy, and the fact that those stimuli have dissipated doesn't mean people don't still hanker after them. Springsteen does, and so do his fans. His aesthetic strategy on Born to Run is to duplicate that energy and then add a patina of tragedy, just to remind us things aren't so expansive anymore. His rebel adolescent hero can be jubilant or mournful, defiant or driven to self-deceiving, but one thing is certain--he can always feel sorry for himself. This is a high grade of sentimental escapism, indulgence of a sort that is anything but wise. There is nothing tough or new in it. The future, rock and roll version included, is going to be tough, and it had better be new.American popular romantic/primitive formalism challenges moribund notions of culture and limns a psychological dynamic that anyone who wants to affect this country (or this world) had better not only understand but harness. Nevertheless, it misses an awful lot. Most significant, its purview--just like our establishment, fancy that--is entirely male. I'm not being prissy here; I'm not suggesting that Springsteen write songs to Susan Saxe or give up male chauvinism for Lent. But he might try to defeat the stereotyping that afflicts even Terry in "Backstreets" and Crazy Janie, both presumably people he has known. The women of Dylan, or Ferry, or Fagen and Becker are hardly heroic sisters, but they are at least considerable rivals; their autonomy goes beyond that of Peggy Sue and the ladies of "East of Eden."Admittedly, the politics of class and sex are a tick of mine, one that may well disfigure my analysis of an artist who has moved my colleagues so profoundly.... Springsteen... has always played a winningly articulate kind of loser, and now he is rich as well as smart. And so my colleagues both thrill to a fellow winner and identify with his loser rebel persona, forgetting in the rock and roll moment how much the winner in them shares with what the fighter was fighting against....Welles theorizes that Springsteen's success reflects "the psychological needs of those who operate the media" more than it does "the desires and interests of those to whom the media is [sic] directed," but this is massculture theory cant, the kind that can be plugged in anywhere. Obviously, Springsteen does fulfill the fans' needs and desires--that's why they buy him and not Randy Newman. This does not mean, however, that their experience of the artist doesn't differ from the critics'. For the most part, Springsteen the winner can provide them strictly vicarious delight; what they need and desire--ominously, I think--is an artist who romanticizes and even celebrates a defeat that is a lot more likely for them than it is for any establishment, rock and roll version included.
It was an assumption of most early rock critics, who tended to be young litterateurs on a paying gig, that rock and roll was in hibernation in the years preceding Beatlemania. This was flat-out wrong. The early '60s were a rich if somewhat silly period that nurtured both the soul style (irrelevant here) and a wealth of not-so-ephemeral pop rock and roll, consummated in the enlightened hedonism of the Beach Boys and the great production machines of Motown and Phil Spector. This is Springsteen's era--he may talk Berry and Presley, but his encore is Gary U.S. Bonds....
Like the early '60s, the mid-'70s are a myopic time, but they lack hope and innocence; our rock hero is Elton John, who makes up for his visionlessness with overwhelming studio perspicacity. I'm sure it will seem willful to Jon Landau, who can't stand Old Four Eyes, but on mornings when I feel like playing Born to Run real loud I often opt for Elton's Rock of the Westies as well. Both answer my need for monolithic, full-sounding, produced rock and roll--a need I indulge freely because I know I have other very different ones.... For like so many of the best American popular romantic/primitive formalists, Spector was a unique but very narrow artist. He had a vision, yes--but it was romantic to the edge of camp, barely adequate to his more innocent and hopeful time.
It's fine for Springsteen to set himself up as the boy Darlene Love is gonna marry, or to vouchsafe the Beach Boys some East Coast hustle--but only if he can transform the high fantasy content of those images into something more than another of the doomed-loser myths that have littered America's artscape since the frontier closed. Early rock and roll was energized by the class mobility and material transport of a genuinely expanding economy, and the fact that those stimuli have dissipated doesn't mean people don't still hanker after them. Springsteen does, and so do his fans. His aesthetic strategy on Born to Run is to duplicate that energy and then add a patina of tragedy, just to remind us things aren't so expansive anymore. His rebel adolescent hero can be jubilant or mournful, defiant or driven to self-deceiving, but one thing is certain--he can always feel sorry for himself. This is a high grade of sentimental escapism, indulgence of a sort that is anything but wise. There is nothing tough or new in it. The future, rock and roll version included, is going to be tough, and it had better be new.
American popular romantic/primitive formalism challenges moribund notions of culture and limns a psychological dynamic that anyone who wants to affect this country (or this world) had better not only understand but harness. Nevertheless, it misses an awful lot. Most significant, its purview--just like our establishment, fancy that--is entirely male. I'm not being prissy here; I'm not suggesting that Springsteen write songs to Susan Saxe or give up male chauvinism for Lent. But he might try to defeat the stereotyping that afflicts even Terry in "Backstreets" and Crazy Janie, both presumably people he has known. The women of Dylan, or Ferry, or Fagen and Becker are hardly heroic sisters, but they are at least considerable rivals; their autonomy goes beyond that of Peggy Sue and the ladies of "East of Eden."
Admittedly, the politics of class and sex are a tick of mine, one that may well disfigure my analysis of an artist who has moved my colleagues so profoundly.... Springsteen... has always played a winningly articulate kind of loser, and now he is rich as well as smart. And so my colleagues both thrill to a fellow winner and identify with his loser rebel persona, forgetting in the rock and roll moment how much the winner in them shares with what the fighter was fighting against....
Welles theorizes that Springsteen's success reflects "the psychological needs of those who operate the media" more than it does "the desires and interests of those to whom the media is [sic] directed," but this is massculture theory cant, the kind that can be plugged in anywhere. Obviously, Springsteen does fulfill the fans' needs and desires--that's why they buy him and not Randy Newman. This does not mean, however, that their experience of the artist doesn't differ from the critics'. For the most part, Springsteen the winner can provide them strictly vicarious delight; what they need and desire--ominously, I think--is an artist who romanticizes and even celebrates a defeat that is a lot more likely for them than it is for any establishment, rock and roll version included.
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 17 November 2020 14:57 (three years ago) link
I like parts of that a lot, though it's got the condescention towards both the audience and his peers that turns me off on himI guess I should read more of his long form stuff, the capsule reviews he's known for probably exaggerate the smug, cryptic side of himthis is uhhhh o_O he is obviously attracted to rhythm-and-blues as teen rather than black music
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 15:17 (three years ago) link
For the most part, Springsteen the winner can provide them strictly vicarious delight; what they need and desire--ominously, I think--is an artist who romanticizes and even celebrates a defeat that is a lot more likely for them than it is for any establishment, rock and roll version included.^this is kind of interesting given we know what's coming from springsteen - darkness, the river, born in the usa, springsteen felt the same I guess
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 15:19 (three years ago) link
Admittedly, the politics of class and sex are a tick of mine, one that may well disfigure my analysis of an artist who has moved my colleagues so profoundly
"Sometimes it can be a burden, this gigantic brain of mine..."
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 15:54 (three years ago) link
lol
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 16:01 (three years ago) link
tick
― Indieland Phil and Indieland Don (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 16:39 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkBNBxQZbY4
― Indieland Phil and Indieland Don (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 16:40 (three years ago) link
78? Damn, I hadn't realized.― pomenitul, Wednesday, November 11, 2020 12:51 PM (six days ago)
― pomenitul, Wednesday, November 11, 2020 12:51 PM (six days ago)
I thought he was older tbqh
Destroy (or Defund) both options in the OP
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 17:03 (three years ago) link
To be fair, Christgau is about as defunded now as a rock critic can be.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 17 November 2020 17:16 (three years ago) link
he says he's making more from his subscription model than he ever suspected.
― Thus Sang Freud, Tuesday, 17 November 2020 18:15 (three years ago) link
I'm glad to hear that, but I assumed the previous poster meant that he should be "deplatformed" (without an official soapbox, since no-one is publishing him in a regular forum).
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 17 November 2020 18:18 (three years ago) link
orig included a note loling at how unfortunate “tick” is so close on the page to prissily [sic]ing another writer over using “media” in the singular— but ended up having to admit that the monolithic concept the latter solecism betrays is actually relevant to building a case that a guy thinks in microwaved adornoisms. lol tick tho yeah
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 17 November 2020 18:35 (three years ago) link
^booming post
― Indieland Phil and Indieland Don (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 18:56 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-dpqVdKG9I
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 17 November 2020 19:05 (three years ago) link
I can't remember which critic wrote about this (it was dated before 2006), but it was someone unaffiliated with the Village Voice and apparently Christgau called him up and badgered him to use a thesaurus. It was probably in response to a Pazz & Jop ballot.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 17 November 2020 19:19 (three years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Monday, 30 November 2020 00:01 (three years ago) link
I ain’t no boomer, I voted for the fork.
― pomenitul, Monday, 30 November 2020 00:07 (three years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Tuesday, 1 December 2020 00:01 (three years ago) link
loll
― Judi Dench's Human Hand (methanietanner), Tuesday, 1 December 2020 00:05 (three years ago) link
looooool
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 1 December 2020 00:07 (three years ago) link
This poll's victor will take on Fanta in due course.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 1 December 2020 00:13 (three years ago) link
https://atothejay.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/52pickup.jpg
― tylerw, Tuesday, 1 December 2020 00:13 (three years ago) link
otm
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 1 December 2020 00:15 (three years ago) link
oh cool they both lost
― imago, Tuesday, 1 December 2020 00:21 (three years ago) link
Next do john peel vs. wfmu
― Deflatormouse, Tuesday, 1 December 2020 06:16 (three years ago) link