OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

What is this shit: https://www.thedriftmag.com/dream-of-antonoffication/

some bizarre claims in that, like what is this:

It is no wonder that Jack has made a cottage industry out of replicating “Venice Bitch.” The song hovers over records like Solar Power and Being Funny in a Foreign Language, the Antonoff collaboration with last-pop-rock-band-standing The 1975, like either a benevolent spirit guide or a demanding ideal ego, something to be emulated but never matched.

i think antonoff is relatively anonymous as a producer despite being so prolific. to the extent that he has a sound it's that sometimes his production/co-writing work ends up sounding very close to his solo work ("out of the woods" etc.) but that was only really prominent early in his production career

If Antonoff had been around in the 70s he would have been just another competent craftsman like Ted Templeman or Bill Szymczyk. People have decided it's necessary to portray him as an auteur for some reason, but he's not.

that feels like what the article is saying tbh. morrisp feeling attacked out here

In the 2000s, a fierce debate raged among music critics between proponents of “rockism,” those committed to enclave principles of taste and a rigorously policed standard of authenticity, and of “poptimism,” those who resisted the idea that some musical genres were worthy of serious critical attention and others were not. Today such terms, along with the divide between high and low culture on which they were premised, feel almost foreign. Increasingly, where once there were musical subcultures with their own standards of taste, under the regime of streaming there is now a free-floating tastefulness, a pop version of what Lee Konstantinou calls “mass high culture.”

ilm bang to rights. mitch therieau should post here lol

"where once there were musical subcultures with their own standards of taste, under the regime of streaming there is now a free-floating tastefulness"

I think there is something in this. But then again I also still feel that music is more balkanized than ever.

i shd add, a competent craftsman who has lucked out on focusing on a couple of replicatable styles which fuse indie and pop aesthetics into machines of sonic suggestion. nothing wrong with that claim - it's an incomplete picture that doesn't address other current movements in pop (contemporary rap or reggaeton, for example, but also a myriad other less-popular trends which ilm loves to ignore) but i feel like 'antonoff pop' is definitely a thing, even though it shouldn't be. he ISN'T an auteur, but his particular limitations have crowned him by default as he lies so close to what is currently tasteful (according to a certain critical hegemony).

lol there was no fierce debate in the 2000s, gtfo, and insofar as a "debate" existed it wasn't Jets-vs-Sharks.

the local indie rock website in Portugal reached out to me at that time to write about pop/hip-hop, which they'd previously ignored as a matter of course, and this was def trickling down from discussions they'd been following amongst UK and US critics

lol there was no fierce debate in the 2000s, gtfo, and insofar as a "debate" existed it wasn't Jets-vs-Sharks.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 11 July 2023 09:44 (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

how quickly we forget alex in nyc

I think this article is... pretty good? I agreed with the stuff about tasteful pop, Harry Styles etc.

if we really want to re-ignite the beefs of the 00s then plz to respond to what perpetua* says:

If yr gonna publish a Jack Antonoff hit piece in July 2023 and never mention "A&W," the best and most artistically ambitious thing he's ever worked on, then you simply don't have credibility as a critic - yr conveniently leaving something huge out to make a point from 3 years ago

— Matthew Perpetua (@perpetua) July 10, 2023

*i have no particular issue w/perpetua and am totally stirring r/n but for some here he was routinely a PUNCHING BAG

Cuz he was a knob?

I was lurking at the time and thus have no partic issue either but I do remember his "joycore" thing being v embarassing.

You can come and embrace my free-floating tastefulness and feel its ubiquity

I think the best Jack Antonoff indictment was that clip that was going around on twitter where someone listened to a new Taylor Swift album and was able to identify whether he produced the song within the first ten seconds of audio

It's because of his tag: "If Antonoff don't trust you I'm gon' sue you"

Remember when Jack Antonoff made his fans walk through the room he jacked off in like 5,000 times

https://www.spin.com/2017/05/bleachers-jack-antonoff-bedroom-trailer-tour/

ant jackenoff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY1RsDpRmIU

i barely know anton

there was a debate in the 00s! it wasn't jets vs sharks because one side found the choreography inauthentic.

a fierce debate raged among music critics between proponents of “rockism,”

Did anyone actually think of themselves as a proponent of "rockism"?

history written by the victors iirc

no rockist would ever admit to being one, they just think they're right

anyway i only read about half of that antonoff piece but even if i disagree with the particulars it felt decently-written and argued

lol this is like someone talking about a debate between the groomers and the freedom lovers.

morrisp feeling attacked out here

I don't even really care about the subject matter or "argument," I just thought it was so poorly written that it physically repulsed me.

i lol'd at "He is often an abuser."

Rockists disliked the label (obv, it was perjorative) but there were absolutely tons of ppl signed up to the ethos, don't really need a monicker when your stance was basically just conventional wisdom. There's a few embarassing threads you can hunt down where some of them had a go at diagnosing "popism" (before the also bad poptimism label was coined).

xpost

anyway, i shouldn't read this thread because i hate almost all writing about music, but i will say i agree the piece is bad. it feels of a piece with a lot of recent online criticism in that it uses lots of jargon and fancy language without really saying anything. i kind of hate writing that takes it self so seriously but is ultimately vacuous and just a front for some half-baked non-ideas

"there is still no neat place for the producer in the mythology of pop music."

one paragraph later:

"In the history of pop, the producer’s place is clearer."

it's important that people have a space to write "kids today don't appreciate real music" every so often tho

kids today pay to look at people's toes

most toe fetischists I've known had great taste in mysic ftr

And music.

it does seem to continually hedge its bets instead of actively saying something about anything, yes

yesterday, i talked to a 19 year old kid - a very nice kid - and he liked metal - lots of bad metal but he's 19 - and somehow he started talking about how "real music" played by people playing instruments was more valid and harder to make than taylor swift music blah blah blah and i wanted to ask him if he was secretly one of my regular old beardo customers in disguise cuz he was 19 and wasn't he weaned on cloud rap and all that but i just let it go. we talked about trumpers instead. a safer topic. the rockists are born young!

School of Rock alum, obviously.

to be fair scott, you do live in the boonies. limited cell service. maybe he was born in a shack

i think young people sense pretty early on that music is something that people use for status and for sex. and young people pitting their ideals and their art against a crass, materialistic society is a story that's rather old and definitely not unique to rock N roll. so i think certain aspects of rockism are likely to recur just as a process of identity formation

I’ve always found a lot of this debate strange, frankly.

"how quickly we forget alex in nyc"

Fuck is that supposed to imply?

They forgot you didn’t like bad music writing.

Alex, think imago was just citing you as the main person pushing back against early ILX's love of commercial pop, don't think it was meant as a diss?

I wasn’t sure if Alex’s comment yesterday was leaning into that for comic effect.

A shirt I wear while posting to ILX that reads “I’m with Alex in NYC”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/21/new-labour-1997-rave-culture-ed-gillett-book-extract

Worst music tweeting 2023:

Snoop Dogg has canceled two of his forthcoming concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in solidarity with the strikes that are completely unrelated to what he does as a musician. https://t.co/SdS5LqRUEj

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 25, 2023

this is not the worst but it does read a bit like a very high person seeing the light
https://www.stereogum.com/2230948/big-thief-pitchfork-festival-2023/reviews/concert-review/