Classic or Dud: Chuck Klosterman

I do think the earlier thread on the Ratt/Ramones deaths brought out some suprising defensiveness in the responses. I'm not sure why people saw his fixation on Ratt's "popularity" as such a weak point. I think his arguement is that, on the surface, it might seem strange that Dee Dee's death got "more attention", since Ratt had more mainstream exposure; and that it's the weight given to an artist by the critical apparatus that ultimately trumps the importance of mere sales / airplay numbers. I don't think he's proposing that the situation is unjust because Ratt were truly somehow "better", just that the critics' history-making tends to obscure significant (by some measure) bands or artists that aren't judged significant (by a select set of other measures). This is not a particulary insightful observation, nor is the situation it describes limited to music-crit, but I do think it holds some water.

That said, one not particularly insightful observation such as this is not enough to hold up an entire book, much less an entire approach to music criticism (although to be fair, I haven't read much else of Klosterman's writing).

And so: neither classic nor dud, but his writing works a lot better when he's just talking about himself, and acknowleging all his biases and emotional attachments, rather than letting these create a righteous-contrarain critical voice that approaches dud.

Hadn't met him or read him before that, but I loved his rock lists in the recent Spin. That shit is so much harder than it looks. Classic so far...

But what is the measure if not supreme personal concern or interest? In which case the popularity card is a red herring on his part. Personally I think James Blount's take says it all, and explains why he's so frustrating in the end.

He's like Bangs without the talent, or the heart, or the ideas, or the balls, or the curiosity, or the drugs. He might have the gut though, not sure (willing to bet though). Probably a similar wardrobe.

http://velvetrope.starpolish.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=249342&page=&view=&sb=&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

I've actually been buying SPINs a lot lately, even though its been six months or so since my subscription ran out. The last one was REALLY disappointing. The Dischord article was haphazard, the Linkin Park piece blatantly unenthusiastic (understandably but still disappointing), and the Good Charlotte piece, despite being on the cover, was only half a page (for relationship advice, reaffirming Joel is the nice one). Plus the review are pretty bland.

I thought the lists issue was pretty funny though. Cute song quotes.

Agreed that the Spin list issue was terrible. It looked like something you'd find in some one-off 'zine stacked in some forgotten bar alcove.

Ira Robbins and Chuck Klosterman see the world differently, no news there.

nf

1. anybody else wish SPIN reviewed more records? their section (and RS's, admittedly) gets punier and punier. and don't try to sell me on that "more records, more opinions, let's do this" thing.

2. anybody wish more than 15 people - with some writing 2-3 reviews per issue - were writing the reviews?

Of course he's motivated by his personal concern AND interest--is that so awful? I'd say yes, when he tries to pretend that's not what's motivating his writing--but when he occasionaly owns up to it I think it's hardly a problem. I'd argue that many people want their critics to be motivated by their particular emotional attachments; part of the fun of reading them is getting a glimpse of someone's possibly irrational passion for something that you don't feel so strongly about yourself. This is not to bolster up Klosterman's writing, cause I think it's got plenty of problems, as described throughout this thread. And so yeah, his playing of the popularity card is a problem cause it's disingenuous, but the personal motivation that he's trying to cover up doesn't seem as bad as the effort to obscure it.

Certainly not! I think we're agreeing here. I have no problem with him talking about what he loves, but as you say, trying to justify something on the basis of its former popularity evades the issue.

"The Guns 'N' Roses it's OK to like"

I think people here will likely have a bit of the Narcissism of Small Differences thing going on with this book -- the subject matter is so exactly the sort of thing covered here, and the approach to working through it is very similar, that the immediate response is to recoil when he gets this or that bit of it horribly wrong. (There's an unfortunate comment about Dexy's that would make some people's heads explode. And he has absolutely no clue what he's even saying about soccer.)

So, even though he is defensive about 80s hair metal, and twists himself into a pretzel trying to defend its sexism and so on, there's almost a hollowness in the middle of his argument. I mean, I wish he'd simply take the idea that Theatre of Pain IS better than Tapestry, run with it, and see where that leads him.

however I agree it's not always fun to hear people try to tease out and pontificate on those reasons.

and agreed that the retroactivity of it all often feels like a dud.

?!?!??!?!? can we have a definition of avant-garde plz?

this is horrible. what an embarrassment for a paper that i thought had been all embarrassed out for years now. insult to injury -> this'll fuel chuck k's underdog complex even more!

(my guess is k's schtick reminds him of his own, but he's languishing in the ussr writing for an awful paper while chuck gets big. i'm embarassed for him)

It's like barely disguised aching homoeroticism or something.

the press rarely writes about music (or any other subject); instead, it writes about what other writers are saying about music. and it always claims, of course, that they are wrong. it's as if the paper is staffed by a roomful of people who don't go to movies, don't listen to records, don't go outdoors, and probably don't socialize with other humans. they just read about all that stuff in other newspapers and magazines.

the thing that's amazing to me is that in spite of all that, they've managed to publish a number of really good writers over the years, including another guy named ames (jonathan) who i hope is no relation to this one.

I feel another sarcastic tee-hee attack coming on.

http://exile.ru/167/167122301.html

Chuck Klosterman doesn't sound like a lot of fun either. I'm really turning into a terrible reactionary I suppose but this kinda pop-culture riff essay style just.. doesn't make me feel like I've gained anything at all from having read it.

Oh, speaking of reviews - the Metafilter entry that linked to the Klosterman piece also linked to an extremely harsh yet hilarious review of a Chuck Palahniuk book in Salon - now THAT is worth reading. (the review I mean, obv.)

Probably also I do this sort of thing myself, and it seem there's a pretty strong element of defensiveness in his stance; criticism is instantaneously diverted because he already KNOWS it's "low culture."

That said, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs isn't very good. Nor has been Klosterman's columns in SPIN.

But he's still a good writer. I was re-reading those comments by Ira Robbins...damn, that was scathing. And rather pious, I might add. Kind of depressing, really.

I liked Fargo Rock City, though really wasn't that impressed by the writing all that much.

But you have a point maura: the explosion of the WWW (and more pointedly, blog culture/bulletin boards like this one) has made the writing voice of guys like Klosterman seem very tedious and commonplace. Or at the very least, hardly clever or unique. I'd even argue it makes Lester Bang's talent much less apparent. In fact, the new Bangs book, like the Marcus comp before it, seems completely unenlightening.

(I would also argue that ILX irritates me in the exact same way that Klosterman does when it's mired in its semi-perpetual argument for the sake of argument nadirs.)

You elitist, Maura! ;-) The Coulter comparison is harsh but you know, the more Klosterman continues the more it starts to make a certain sense...

(My view on Klosterman, ie rather overrated (Robert Plant inadvertantly but perfectly cutting him down directly is still a thing of joy), remains the same; my view on Ames is that he's useless.)

He does say some less-than-informed things to Liz Phair and Robert Plant in his interviews with them, but by being blunt and risking offense with them he gets some of the better quotes I've heard from those artists. His willingness to hear out opposite arguments in those cases is one major reason the comparison to Ann Coulter bothers me.

His reviews in SPIN seem lacking to me, he can be hit-or-miss and it's possible that just like with his hero Axl Rose fame will not benefit Klosterman's work, but his openness, humor and insights make him one of the more interesting and exciting writers out there. But as Nabisco noted earlier, I share similarities in taste and style.

He does make a ton of good points about CK being useless, though he himself is as well. Screw 'em both.

What exactly was "weird" or "assholish" or "speaking for womankind" about his reaction?? (Or "stupid," as that Ames retard said?) It was actually one of the smartest excerpts Ames quoted, seems to me.

Lester Bangs? Maybe not. But I'll take him.

!

Uh, I'm with Mike on this one. But Stence, can you let me know how ya know?

Perhaps tellingly, today I was listening to Rush.

If you disagree with Atlas Shrugged, it basically means you disagree with the concept of “being great.”

what a douchebag.

The Franzen reference is worse, though, because I think about how someone coming up to be saying something similarly negative about Loveless would just get a 'hey, that's fine' statement from me. Is my love for that album not justified in his eyes because I don't see fit to go into that ridiculous kind of defense he demands for his love objects? Fuck it.

Animal Farm by George Orwell (Signet, $8). No one has ever written something so brilliant, so concise, so insightful, and so charming all at the same time.

"Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" really feels like the thoughts of a guy who's spent a lot of time at the end of a couch watching too much tv, listening to the "cool rock" (and everything else) on the radio, and arguing with his roommate about ridiculous subjects that have no bearing on reality.

With that mindset, you end up ascribing a lot of personal importance to whatever's going on at the time, but you quickly end up realizing that it's going to be replaced by something else in short order. There's not really a strong sense of foundation or history, more about the here and now. Klosterman's sitting downstream from the guys who are idolizing the influential "greats" that stand the test of time, so he only ends up with the end product.

I'd imagine his writing has changed over the last few years, but that's my impression. Even the Rand thing fits in -- huge, romantic notions of greatness, without the thought that someone's probably already done all this and thought it through. It's all about the spectacle and the emotion.

Its ironic, yes?

I enjoyed SD&CCP overall, the Ayn Rand thing makes sense but that's part of his sort of juvenile appeal I suppose. I think ppl in this thread are really making a bigger deal out of him than need be, as if he's TRYING to change the world or something. His self-deprecation is appreciated, he's wrong a lot but whatever. Its an enjoyable read, trashy and entertaining.

He managed to articulate my own fascination with "Saved By the Bell" very precisely. However I would say the worst essay in the collection is the piece toward the end about how Vanilla Sky is actually a "good" movie because well... actually it's not and in discussing cinematic discourse on the nature of reality Klosterman gets way off point. He doesn't seem to have a point in the essay other than not exactly sure why everyone hated the movie but him. If anyone else has read it, then they might possibly concur with me that Klosterman's enjoyment of the film is completely predicated on his own stated attraction to actress Penelope Cruz.

Still, it's a shitty movie.

Myself, I'd go for Diaz since she's livelier and exhibits far more 3 dimensional sexiness in personality than Cruz does in her wooden performance. Though, in her defense, Cruz doesn't really speak english and her getting cast in Hollywood films has more to do with the spread in maxim than because of her good performances in spanish-language films. Regardless of the geeky debate I'd like to have with Klosterman on the subject of diaz vs. cruz and their respective on screen hotness...it's a shitty movie.

I haven't read "Fargo Rock City," which is what made his name, but I can appreciate that he gave voice to some kind of Midwestern its-only-rocknroll-buddilikeit populism. Fine. But the things of his I have read, magazine pieces here and there, just aren't interesting. That's his biggest problem. He introduces no new ideas, he traffics in watery received wisdom, and there's a prickly defensiveness underneath the golly-gee regular guyisms that makes him less likable than he thinks he is. I guess he shouldn't annoy me so much -- who really cares, right? More power to him for making a living at it.

Except that I can't help seeing some connection between his bogus, resentful anti-"elitism" and the bogus, resentful anti-"elitism" peddled by the Bush administration. Both seem calculated to appeal to people who want to be assured that it's OK not to know very much about anything, and to cast aspersions on knowledge itself. Which is maybe a heavy seabird to hang around the neck of Chuck fucking Klosterman, who's probably a Kerry Democrat for all I know and is certainly whole solar systems of magnitudes of malignance removed from Dick Cheney. But still, he annoys me.

(This is the same sort of quick claim that either would debate endlessly, too.)

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/faceoff/040817/part1

http://espn.go.com/i/magazine/new/simmons_klosterman_white.jpg

I bought it after reading an excerpt on The Real World that I loved, but in this thread a lot of people who's opinions I trust are really going to town with the Klosterman hate and I'm wondering if I shouldn't even waste my time with it.

Though this line of thinking:

I suppose my problem is that not only can't I understand why anyone would waste their time watching Saved by the Bell, I feel a degree of contempt for the way it seems Klosterman is determined to make this into a badge of honor.
Probably also I do this sort of thing myself, and it seem there's a pretty strong element of defensiveness in his stance; criticism is instantaneously diverted because he already KNOWS it's "low culture."

-- daria g (daria_gra...), August 28th, 2003.

does not appeal to me at all.

How large is your car?

-- latebloomer (posercore24...), March 11th, 2004.

I STAND BY THAT STATEMENT.

I read a chapter or so of his new book at the bookstore, I think it's a lot better than his previous efforts. Other than that, I stand by about everything I've said.

i'll readily (and i'm sure he will too) admit he's no master writer, and i think that's 1/2 his appeal is to say up front- i'm not very good at this, but i'll try. and it works, for the most part.

i don't get all 'teh h@t3' on him...

now, if someone can tell me where Mark Leyner is, i'd be much appreciative.

yikes! you really think so? or that he thinks this? i never got that from him. i only read his esquire column (or is it gq?), but i never got that vibe. he knows how to write for one thing. he has journalistic skills up the wazoo. i actually liked his val kilmer piece in the last gq (or was it esquire?) i could never write that kinda thing in a million years.

i think he CAN write but, like scott said, gets bogged down in the 'insights' category. but, said 'insights' can be pretty funny, too!

i guess my thing is i don't get why so many dislike him SO much.
hell, i'm shocked that this many people even cared he writes!

boy, that eggers boy can write!!

i rest my case against both klosterman and kid a. (i'll let espn classic slide.)

It's just that he's gotten there by -- at first -- playing a sort of critic, the culture critic for people who aren't super-engaged with culture or criticism. (That is populist, I guess; it's how Roepers are born.) And he has a lock on a core audience, and a lucrative one -- guys who read Maxim at their friends' houses but Details at home, these sort of regular-guy young professionals who watch sports and enjoy New Pornographers and are shopping for good plasma-screen TVs because they're buying condos with their girlfriends, and they play video games and genuinely like to think about stuff (just not all the time) and spend lots of time on Metacritic and ESPN.com and buy lots and lots of DVDs and liked The Matrix because of its "interesting philosophical underpinnings." The more highbrow among them will see Klosterman as a regular dude, like them; the less highbrow among them will see him as a kind of intellectual type, but palatable and down to earth about it.

And he serves that audience decently -- his big forte isn't being "clever" so much as being conversational and engaging and digestible. (He's also really good at magazine features, just in terms of craft -- entertaining, readable, vivid, etc.) But of course this means that those of us who pay attention to culture in what we think of as "serious" ways will have to be slightly offended by him, this guy who's taking fairly uninteresting culture-views and packaging them for people who aren't necessarily in our circle. It's hard to complain, though, especially as he travels away from being seen as any sort of "critic" and becomes basically just a columnist, which is the honest vision of what he's up to.

Seriously, though: the Roeper of ten years from now, basically.

that's the most sympathetic take on him that i can basically agree with. sometimes i feel bad for how much he irritates me because i sort of think he's probably not a bad guy. and you're right about his audience -- which is still a niche audience, but it's a lot bigger niche than someone like, say, kogan or your-favorite-critic-here appeals to. i have met klosterman fans, the kind of people who would stand in line for 40 minutes at a booksigning for him, and they're totally fine. i tell them i can't stand klosterman and they just kind of laugh, they don't get mad about it or anything. which just makes me feel worse for badmouthing him.

as a member of his generation, though, i would like to file a complaint with cnn.

xpost: his 'snakes on a plane' column made him sound like the andy rooney of this year.

"The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records. They haven't seen the films that are supposed to be important."

Or perhaps the problem is that Klosterman, a man who claims to be a writer about culture, has obviously never actually read the New Yorker or listened to NPR?

The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.
The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.
The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.
The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.
The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.
The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.
The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records.

"He's a small white man in a world of tall black men. He has no choice but to run around in circles trying to not get pounded. That's the only way he can possibly survive out there. He represents white, middle-class America being introduced to the dangers of the ghetto kids; you have no other choice but to run away from them. Now don't even get me started on why Ichiro represents the overachieving Asian kid in math class!"

this paragraph is fucking gross.

"The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They've never listened to Yo La Tengo records. They haven't seen the films that are supposed to be important."

isn't this basically Chuck Eddy's schtick? To engage middle-American culture head-on and take it seriously (no matter how fucking trite or offensive or downright bad it is?)

Re SBTB: I didn't even think the cast was attractive! And I was 14!

xpost

Dude, Kelly was hot and I copped my first drum beat from A.C. Slater.

and yeah, chuck k's shtick is related to chuck e's (and chuck e has expressed some appreciation of chuck k), but chuck k's is sort of a cheap knock-off. chuck e has actually gone to the trouble of thinking about stuff, while chuck k mostly goes to the trouble of appearing to think about stuff -- which is enough to impress cnn.

(xposts)

To me, Chuck is sort of the original blogger with all the weight and depth that title deserves. In other words, I probably wouldn't ever print out a blog posting by Chuck, but I might save the link somewhere on my hard drive.

"I SEE DEAD CRITICS! AND THEY WON'T SHUT UP!"

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27870

now i'm kind of afraid.

It may take a while before you realize that he's wasting your time.

if by "a while" you mean "on average, three sentences," i guess you have a point.

http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/lss/trends/graphic/rasputin.jpg

Fitter, happier, more populist

I don't really believe in "mainstream America" anyway. I don't think there's such a thing.

-- A-ron Hubbard (Hurtingchie...), February 26th, 2000.

That was before 9/11 changed everything, apparently.

you get my drift. he's the post-Cheerios version of those laughable hack newspaper columnists like Bob Greene (who wrote a book about Alice Cooper in the 70s). self-consciousness sells like sex.

I think the problem is that he doesn't take himself seriously enough, and indirectly, that he doesn't take his audience seriously either. If he did, then he would probably try to think through his ideas a little better. Instead I get the feeling that he looks for the "Klosterman angle" on a story - ie., the unconventional perspective that will hold up a sociological phenomenon at an unexpected angle - which will give him the element of surprise. And as long as audience disbelief can be suspended for the three or four pages that a Klosterman essay typically runs, he is satisfied with that. He's not really that serious about the issues he discusses, though he tries to come off as a cross between Malcolm Gladwell and Dave Barry.

I'll put the book in the mail tomorrow. :D

Oddly enough, all the examples I can think of are men's-magazine sex columnists.

The more I think about it, there are a lot of music writers who possess a strong writing voice that yet don't really have that much to say. Jessica Hopper comes to mind.

I bet Chuck likes Fall Out Boy more than Sleater-Kinney. I know I do.

Five Things No Bar Should Have

By Chuck Klosterman

1. Natural light. Bars are supposed to be womblike sanctuaries, separate from the blinding bleakness of mainstream society. They should always be poorly lit, and they should not have windows. If I'm drinking at 3:00 P.M., the sun should not remind me what time it is.

2. Patrons who are reading. Darkness also discourages all the bozos who think people will be impressed if they're seen reading in a bar, which is as cool as being drunk at Barnes & Noble.

3. Loud music. There is a belief among many bar owners that loud music creates intimacy (which theoretically increases the possibility of romantic interplay, thereby prompting people to return) by forcing patrons to sit closer together and scream directly into one another's ears. Everybody hates this. I have never been in a bar where people complained about the music being too soft.

4. Dogs. Never bring your dog into a bar. Ever. They're not clean, and they make the place feel like a veterinarian's office. How is it that you can't have a lit cigarette in any bar in New York or L.A., but you can have a pit bull? I understand that cigarettes cause cancer; they do not, however, rip the faces off small children.

5. Twenty-two-year-old female bartenders who "just wanna party." I already have enough problems. That's why I came to the bar.

2. He's can't be out pretensed

3. He's old

4. He's got no dawgs yo

5. all of the above

I've arrived early today, well before sunset, to make some demands that you help me get laid tonight. As you can see, I'm not naturally attractive, and I'm getting quite old. Can you tailor this entire evening to my needs in this quest? They are great indeed. I've written articles, books, and even been interviewed on TV. I understand the power of networking. This is why I've come to you.

Love,
I don't need to tell you my name, I was on TV once

klosterman otm on all other counts

^^ lol @ pappawheelie in "character"

in a small footnote in his new book he calls Killdozer a "shitty Communist grindcore band". i don't even like Killdozer much and that pissed me off.

i don't hate everything he's written, but any charm his writing schtick might've originally had is non-existent now.

touche, mister wheelie, touche...

Totally underrated.

SPEAKING OF WANK IT"S YOU AGAIN PEW PEW

Also--WTF with reading in bars? who cares?

Mr. Que, you are welcome to read my blog and post any comments there. I'm always interested in feedback.

And, from someone who has walked across a parking lot from a brew pub to a Barnes and Noble many times, I would have to say that drunken magazine browsing and bookbuying is seriously underrated.

Oh fuck it, PappaWheelie OTM

you got that right, Amigo...eating tacos when you are drunk is pretty underrated too...IMO.

http://www.amazon.com/Fargo-Rock-City-Odyssey-Dakota/dp/0743406567/sr=8-1/qid=1159547518/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1444821-4239222?ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.uga.edu/union/Pics/I&I%20pics/klosterman.jpg
Toasted teacake

http://www.mrsomalleys.co.uk/images/large/110056l_LRG.jpg
Chuck Klosterman

Whole E Shit

http://www.aldeaeducativa.com/IMAGES/capote.jpg
http://www.bookreporter.com/art/covers/140w/0679643109.jpg

And so far as I know, he never wandered around the Spin offices wearing a velvet cape. But I could be wrong.

gypsy mothra did you ever lay out this theory of yours? I remember you mentioning it before in a thread about Dave Eggers ages ago.

I'm a little surprised that the dude doesn't post here.

is this guy like still a thing? i had him written off like neal pollack or something

dud

Chucky gives Chinese Democracy an A-

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/chuck_klosterman_reviews

Oh, weird. He's all beardo now but still wearing the conspicuous thick-rimmed indie specs of his "toasted teacake" period. What's the cultural significance of this?! Also, A-minus would have been the grade I'd have guessed Klosterman would have given Chinese Democracy, without having a) read a word he's written, or b) heard a note of the album in question. Does that mean a) I'm spooky clued-in, b) I'm a troll, or c) dud?

Now I have read a word Klosterman has written. I read the piece linked to above. The Chinese Democracy one. And I liked it very much. (Despite my having hated nearly every note Guns & Roses has produced since Appetite For Destruction, or, briefly, embarrassingly, Gn'R Lies, it almost makes me want to hear the album. And I know how Klosterman feels about wanting to divine Axl's inscrutable motives; I have felt this about treasured artists' work on failed projects produced under intense scrutiny, and sadly I'm too drunk to remember what they were.) I'm sorry I was so foolish in my previous post and I repent. Classic?

i think g n' r lies is pretty awesome mostly.

I haven't heard it (G'n'R Lies)since 6 months after it came out and I became a Politically-Correct Young Person Who Reviled Hair Metal And Racist And Sexist Opinions Except Those Held By Eldridge Cleaver and sold my cassette of it. Maybe it's still pretty awesome. Anyhow, I went back to that AV Club page and found it really really spooky how much Klosterman looks like late-period (sensitive, beardo, I AM AN ACK-TOR) Robin Williams in that photo, down to the slightly blossoming nose. Must close internet now and get more wine and erase memory of anonymous, penetrating stare.

And I know how Klosterman feels about wanting to divine Axl's inscrutable motives; I have felt this about treasured artists' work on failed projects produced under intense scrutiny, and sadly I'm too drunk to remember what they were.)

I remember now. My subconscious was trying to give me a prod by providing the phrase about divining motives: REM. Their period of transition into superstardom post-Green I recall listening to them with more fascination for their self-awareness than their music, which was sometimes astonishingly good but increasingly often fell über-flat as they very transparently wrote for a larger and larger audience. W/E.

Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we'll ever contemplate in this context—it's the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file. This is the end of that.

"(pretty much)"

Yeah, that part that m. coleman quoted was definitely the part of the review (at least of the parts I actually skimmed so far) that bugged me the most -- "last Old Media album... last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs..." Haven't people been saying that about albums for at least the last five years now? And then another one (or another hundred) come along that disprove the theory.

(I like the review in general, though. Even though I really have no particular interest in hearing the new GnR album unless it falls into my lap.)

Dear Chuck (Klosterman): don't worry, there will be another U2 album

Klosterman kind of looks like Paul Krugman with that beard.

Did his Beatles piss take get discussed on another thread? I kinda hate this piece.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/chuck-klosterman-repeats-the-beatles,32560/

I thought it was intermittently funny and not too objectionable by Klosterman standards.

NO.

I don’t know if I’m helping or hurting anymore.

Take a guess.

Rating Rock: Klosterman versus Kant

Why stop there?

deep dark secret confession: i discovered ilx by googling "chuck klosterman"

The immediate assumption is that this is some type of sonic endurance test, and that no person could possibly enjoy the experience of seeing the most hated (yet popular) rock band of 2001 followed by the most popular (yet hated) rock band of 2012. But this is what I wanted to do: I wanted to see Creed at New York's intimate Beacon Theatre (performing their 1997 album My Own Prison in its entirety), followed by Nickelback in front of 18,000 people at Madison Square Garden.

Srs question: Nickelback is the most popular rock band of 2012?

They're still up there, but they peaked in 2006-2007.

they're up there but Coldplay outsells them handily

but do coldplay really ROCK. [future klosterman thinkpiece]

is there a reason Klosterman picked 2001 for Creed instead of 1999 or 2000, when they were even more popular? and forgive my memory, was any rock group MORE popular than Creed then? Linkin Park's the only competitor that comes to mind.

sigh, My Own Prison Creed seemed so innocent, just a bunch of monotheistic Pearl Jam fans with a dream

christ Chuck would it kill you to have an opinion on something once in a while? "Why do people hate Creed and Nickelback so much?" Is the answer really that complex that you need to write a zillion fucking words on it?

this guy sucks

it's kinda weird that he wrote this piece in 2012 and not only didn't acknowledge that nickelback + creed are probably no longer on the radar of most grantland readers (i assume?) but pretend like they're still these wildly popular, zeitgesty bands. i haven't even heard someone say that they've hated either of them in years. maybe i'm just out of touch.

well he still writes mega pieces on van halen, so

Hey Mordy, tell us what Grantland readers listen to

idk, i assume whatever bill simmons is digging?

http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/48235/what’d-we-miss-at-coachella’s-second-weekend ?

Can't believe this fucking idiot thinks that a band that plays Madison Square Garden is still wildly popular

http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/47814/the-top-10-songs-in-…-america

whiney i don't have the strength to argue w u about this. u are right about whatever it is u are saying.

Hey Mordy, tell us what Grantland readers listen to

hahahaha

Klosterman really could have written "the experience of seeing the most popular (yet hated) rock band of 2001 followed by the most hated (yet popular) rock band of 2012" and been just as arguably correct. you know nathan rabin would have explained the distinction if HE made it.

I don't understand it either. It's like writing about how people hate Hootie & the Blowfish in 2000. As far as I know, the last viable year of feverish Nickelback hating was 2008. Even the haters are more like "well, they suck, but they know how to write a hit"

I think I 'hate' nickelback but I also have no idea what they sound like or what their hits were

I'm sure you've heard them before. Their hits are ubiquitious if not very distinctive. If it helps I've always found them more tolerable than Creed

As far as I know, the last viable year of feverish Nickelback hating was 2008

that's a long time to save receipts

never forget: http://idolator.com/366019/nickelbacks-chad-kroeger-gives-us-one-more-reason-to-be-jealous

so proud

Always he reminds us of who he really is.

shocked idolator still has all that shit archived

it really goes well with the new WE LOVE EVERYTHING CUZ WE'RE A CONTENT FARM logo

As far as I know, the last viable year of feverish Nickelback hating was 2008.

nah, after that petition over some halftime show last year you can still make the argument they're the most hated band of the moment. surprised chuck never acknowledges that or that creed was sued for sucking in concert.

i haven't read the klosterman thing yet, but i enjoyed the GQ creed/nickleback thing. GQ dude is young too! and funny.

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/201204/nickelback-creed-nyc-concert-beacon-theatre-msg-review

kinda crazy that both articles came out the same day.

As far as I know, the last viable year of feverish Nickelback hating was 2008.

nah, after that petition over some halftime show last year you can still make the argument they're the most hated band of the moment. surprised chuck never acknowledges that or that creed was sued for sucking in concert.

― da croupier, Tuesday, April 24, 2012 6:18 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a shame because they're so good on record

okay, read the klosterman thing. i liked that too. i like how he found some of the most eloquent Creed fans on earth to quote. or maybe most Creed fans are really eloquent!

and this is funny on Nickleback:

"The group's weakness is their obsession with transposable power ballads, most of which sound like what would happen if Bob Rock helped Coldplay write a really loud song for Garth Brooks (which would undoubtedly be the most popular song in the history of mankind, were it to literally exist)."

I never liked "it's as if Band X produced Band Y doing a song in the style of Band Z" style prose, mostly because of people like Klostermann

For the record I still think Nickelback are the most hated band around right now, but the hate has been dying down steadily for quite a few years. The era of whatever that album was with the car on the cover (All the Right Reasons?) is over. We'll always have "It's up to you, do you want to hear some rock n roll or do you want to go home?............alright, see ya"

Yeah well you have proven time and time again that you have no idea about anything

--The recent facebook page "Can a pickle get more fans than Nickelback
--The recent petition to keep them from playing the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day Game
--The recent Rolling Stone interview with dude from the Black Keys going in on Nickleback

fuck off Whiney, how many ubiquitous Nickelback hits can you name that were released in the last 7 years

^^^ rejected lyrics from Pink Floyd's "Not Now John"

The Gauntlet of Suck is a funny article name

whiney has clearly demonstrated that he's followed the nickelback beat more diligently than anyone else on this thread so i think we should just defer to his nickelbacxpertise.

all he needs to do now is demonstrate the ability to read an entire sentence without trying to interject his own thoughts

there was a nickelback single about three years ago that was 'raunchy' and in it the nickelbro sang about wanting to get his dick sucked or something. just thinking about it makes me angry. its not at all comparable to hootie in 2000, since the hootster didnt have nearly the longevity of these fuck-n-sucks

i think you're trying to draw too many parallels here. if we had Facebook in the era of Hootie I'd think it would be quite similar.

it was your parallel fuckhole!!

I hear that takes a special kind of operation.

COUGH
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/11/nickelback_detroit_lions_halftime_show_petition.php

hi everybody

i thought that piece was terrible, although in keeping with c-klo's recent Unfrozen Caveman Music Writer schtick

i do wonder what scott stapp's 'weird 40-year-old existence' will be like though

it was your parallel fuckhole!!

yes, I did compare Hootie in 2000 to Nickelback in 2012, fully aware that Nickelback's record sales haven't tapered off as badly. what's your point? that not every part of the analogy works?

i think he's just yelling at u

no part of it works

what's the part of it that works

i always think that klosterman should just do journo/interviewing stuff. i think that's what he's good at. he got good quotes from creed fans! they are notoriously shy!

this guy sucks

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, April 24, 2012 3:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nice GQ piece. This is true: "I am a firm believer that you can sincerely enjoy yourself at the concert of somebody you couldn't give a flying fuck about, as long as the people onstage give enough of a flying fuck to put their hearts into it."

what's the part of it that works

how about the part where you go fuck yourself

:0

zing!

klosterman is fine at reporting a story but somewhere along the way he decided that his taste was worth reporting on.

thats the problem - he seems so afraid to actually draw a hard line anywhere, so you can read 20 pages of the dude writing about music without any real indication of what he actually likes. instead he's just content to use half-baked "think about it, bro" statements like "Steely Dan were more subversive than every punk band combined"

it's basically in line with his general thing of trying to seem smart by equivocating and making unclear statements.

for the ilxor who has everything

http://www.amazon.com/HYPERtheticals-50-Questions-Insane-Conversations/dp/0307587924

i'm actually kind of impressed that he commodified his love of inane hypotheticals

"The group's weakness is their obsession with transposable power ballads, most of which sound like what would happen if Bob Rock helped Coldplay write a really loud song for Garth Brooks (which would undoubtedly be the most popular song in the history of mankind, were it to literally exist)."

^^i fucking swear he manages to work a Bob Rock reference into every music piece he ever does

He's apparently the New York Times' new Ethicist columnist.

http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/06/07/chuck_klosterman_to_be_nyt_s_new_ethicist_a_new_twitter_handle_suggests_the_music_critic_has_landed_a_new_job_at_the_sunday_magazine_.html

haha!

i don't know what nyt ethicist column is, and maybe ethicist doesn't have anything to do with ethics, but in case it does, klosterman would be my last choice for such a column

(not that i'm saying that i think he's unethical, but that until now his shtick seems to be explicitly non-ethical)

it's like an advice column where people write in and are like "i was at a coffee shop and I got up for a second and someone took my seat." and then the ethicist advises them on the appropriate course of action.

oh, in that case i'm sure he'll do great

I usually avoid the Ethicist column like the plague - too much portentous solemnizing and faux-certitude - but I'll probably check it out now, just out of curiosity. Maybe Klosterman will be able to deliver his sermons with enough of a wink to lighten the mood.

"Best known for his Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs collection" Really? That's his biggest book?

which other one is more popular?

Fargo?

nah. i'm sure this isn't scientific but fargo is #42,378 on amazon, sd&c is #9,032

sd&c was the one seth cohen read.

^^^^ important influence

Huh, well there you go, can't argue with sales. I always thought Fargo was the one that made his name and then Killing Yourself to Live cemented his rep. Those seem to me like original, substantial books even now, whereas S,D&CP is a hideously titled collection of glib, dated essays. Much prefer the less schticky Klosterman IV - he's underrated as an interviewer. I prefer seeing him do interesting things with a format as unpromising as, say, a Wilco profile for Spin, rather than going the full Klosterman with the kind of flip bullshit that used to fill his Esquire columns (the one about why people hate America being a low). So, um, basically I like him best when he’s not doing the thing that has made him one of the most successful journalists in America.

S,D&CP is my least favorite of his books (haven't read the fiction) because it indulges in a lot more faux-generational/"we all do this, and if you don't you're a self-hating liberal" bullshit that unfortunately tends to do better than the more openly idiosyncratic essays in his later books and Fargo.

"i'm a weirdo obsessed with a facet of pop culture" just doesn't sell as well as "we are the generation obsessed with a facet of pop culture"

The podcast that Grantland posted yesterday - a conversation between he and Joe Walsh - has so many moments where he disappears up his own ass trying to find a point. But it's Joe Walsh, so it has a certain nutty charm despite Klosterman.

From way upthread

A couple months back they featured Klosterman, and the first book he plugs is Atlas Shrugged

I am shocked that this ambitious, successful, reactionary writer loves Ayn Rand.

pretty much everything this guy does in public (and in private for all i know) is an unmitigated disaster, so i guess... good luck NYT?

The podcast that Grantland posted yesterday - a conversation between he and Joe Walsh - has so many moments where he disappears up his own ass trying to find a point. But it's Joe Walsh, so it has a certain nutty charm despite Klosterman.

they certainly share "life is good" as a philosophy.

xp Should retitle it The Challopsian or What Would Axl Do?

Alfred - they go through that song LINE BY LINE.

"Did you own a Maserati?

Not then, but I do now.

You lost your license --

I lost my whole wallet!"

It's strangely funny.

You lost your license --

I lost my whole wallet!

^^lol i would love to kick it with joe walsh

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JErXQWk0cgM/TPOV8AKJXqI/AAAAAAAAAxk/hF31n2l1dTk/s1600/SoWhatJoeWalsh.jpg

pretty terrible: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/magazine/halfhearted-half-brother.html

Joe Walsh is so rad. He's got my vote!

Well in a way Klosterman's probably going to make that column more honest, by dispensing with the pretense and making it indistinguishable from Dear Abby.

It will still, of course, be terrible.

i don't see anything terrible in that column Mordy posted

"oh noes the dude known for saved by the bell riffs didnt use the catergorical imperative in an advice column about sick cats, emmanual kant is spinning in his FUCKING GRAVE!!!!"

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpg

mordy otm

i guess i dont read enough newspaper columns where randos tell me how to live my life to know if this is terrible or not

everyone's very aware of yr aversion to reading

frightening to think that klosterman got this gig off of that ridiculous at the time even more hilarious in retrospect 'breaking bad is better than the wire cuz the wire is liberal and breaking bad is serious moral show cuz good guy turns out to be bad guy' grantland piece.

You can’t love someone out of guilt.

sizable portion of the NYT readership will beg to differ

http://rgr-static1.tangentlabs.co.uk/images/bau/97815986/9781598693416/0/0/plain/portable-jewish-mother-guilt-food-and-when-are-you-giving-me-grandchildren.jpg

frightening to think that klosterman got this gig off of that ridiculous at the time even more hilarious in retrospect 'breaking bad is better than the wire cuz the wire is liberal and breaking bad is serious moral show cuz good guy turns out to be bad guy' grantland piece.

― balls, Sunday, June 10, 2012 11:25 AM (23 minutes ago)

oh my god, had never read this

It makes sense that they would hire Klosterman, because they need young readers, and young people love Klosterman. He is very in tune with young people, so will speak to them. And they will listen, because it is Klosterman, voice of a generation, who will be familiar to everyone of that generation, which is young and likes young things and especially young people telling them the best ways to go about doing young things and solving young problems in a voice they understand, because they are young and generally don't listen unless someone is speaking to them in a language they understand. Plus there was the time he reviewed "Chinese Democracy."

Was Joel Stein too busy?

in that ethicist column a guy asks if he should be welcoming to his disliked half-sister because of her loneliness and need for companionship -- he explicitly says "does someone else’s desire for connection .. outweigh my personal preference?" -- and chuck spends three paragraphs explaining why the guy does not need to be welcoming to his half-sister merely because she is related to him.

i actually thought that was the least bad of the 3

well yeah it did not include the part where he explains that the way you know it's ok to own a pet but not ok to own a human is that it is currently socially acceptable to give away a pet. ethics!

okay, this is pretty weird

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8624514/chuck-klosterman-david-petraeus-scandal-living-cia-conspiracy-theory

looks like it's just a coincidence but still, what if....what if....

It's a sign of something.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/chuck-klosterman-corners-guy-at-party-wearing-dio,33615/

I had a funny exchange with my dad a few weeks ago. He said, "Who's this terrible guy they have writing the Ethicist column now? It was always kind of bad, not now it's awful!" He'd never heard of Chuck Klosterman, so I gave him an abbreviated spiel on Klosterman and his crimes. He said, "OK, but that doesn't explain why they gave him this column." I had to agree.

The Onion article about Klosterman/Dio is utter genius.

Listening to him on Bill Simmon’s podcast this week, and his tales are mostly so...dated.

I’ll never forget him being on Simmons pod back in fall 2015 and predicting Trump’s popularity would peak in Feb 2016 and then it’d be downhill after that. In fairness at the time I thought he was actually overestimating Trump’s prospects.

the new podcast looks dire

was there ever a more certain "dud"

this should've been a defend the indefensible thread

The episode of I Don't Even Own a Television on him a while back was good, though it made me embarrased for ever having read and enjoyed any of his stuff way back when--though admittedly it was just the one Billy Joel piece I liked (and not the one that Billy himself was pissed about).

Came across this, took me back to an earlier ILM era

Perhaps the best insight into the world’s fascination with the band came in a Chuck Klosterman 2002 Spin magazine article. First of all, he pointed out that they were no novelty band. In fact, their music was genuinely revelatory. He wrote, “The White Stripes have done what great rock bands are supposed to do — they’ve reinvented the blues with contemporary instincts.”

He's mentioned a few times in Sanneh's "Major Labels" book, and I kept thinking, who gives a shit what Chuck Klosterman thinks about anything? Just because he likes Motley Crue or something?

The episode of I Don't Even Own a Television on him a while back was good

Klosterman is terrible but I wouldn't subject my worst enemy to this podcast, either as subject or listener

In a nostalgic tour through the decade, Klosterman defends Gen X as today’s “least annoying” generation.

dud

I saw the little excerpt from the interview everyone is retweeting on twitter, and now I'm reveling in everyone dunking on him

This Chuck Klosterman take feels true to me, but is that just because I grew up in the 90s. If you didn't does this feel true to you? https://t.co/wQOClHqPWm pic.twitter.com/FDhkM35tSa

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) February 8, 2022

I dunno, the lack of smartphones makes for a pretty obvious time distinction and somewhat less casual homophobia in general.

I know I'm but it does seem like time has slowed-- I mean this is the 3rd decade in which we're paying attention to Bieber, Drake, Taylor Swift, Kanye, Gaga, Miley, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Coldplay etc.

I'm old

that's why Lil Nas X was so refreshing, it felt like this era was getting its own little Lou Bega. but now he's a megastar too. I like him, so good for him. but still.

I think there has been some slowing of time with some types of music and music pop culture - the gap between Beatlemania and the Sex Pistols being the equivalent of 2008 to today is kind of an easy way to lay that out - but Klosterman/Klein aren't going to find a good argument for that in films and absolutely not in TV.

dud

Nah, the obvious explanations are that those, like Klosterman, who experienced the 90s as formative years mean that they loom large. As you slide through your 30s and 40s, you're generally a little less-self-centered and obsessive about cultural phenomena. Klosterman probably sees a huge distinction between hair metal from 1987 and a Pavement album from 1994. But he probably can't identify the same huge stylistic swing between a Game album in 2006 and Young Thug's Stoner in 2013.

In general, he has the vibe of the beer-breath guy at trivia night at the bar you're wanting to escape from.

if you read the whole interview, which I did despite the fact I'm now irritated about CK once again, it's clear the interviewer disagrees with the premise of his book. Klosterman's asides where he entertains the idea that, hey, maybe he left out some essential things, only to quickly dismiss the idea is pretty much his m.o.

I'd argue that Klosterman's formative years ended by 1992ish and he both claims a slice of the 90s as his, while also dismissing the weight of any of it

Klosterman/Klein aren't going to find a good argument for that in films and absolutely not in TV.

The MCU started in 2008

he's a hair metal guy at the end of the day, i feel like he's now pretending that he liked 90s stuff that he didn't actually like

the blurb for this new book is insufferable
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557048/the-nineties-by-chuck-klosterman/

xxp - Steadicam was introduced in the middle of his 1960-1990 timeline and represented a massive shift in visual language.

Films made in 2005 vs. 2022 are going to look different (multiple generations of digital video improvement) but the technology visible on-screen has seen rapid change (smartphones, social media).

jesus christ, Ezra Klein is younger than me and still thinks like that

that view makes some sense for people who aren't culture/music beat reporters, in that at some point you get locked into a career, having kids, or some other stable system where your interest in popular culture becomes more fleeting

Klosterman has no good excuse

I think globalization and the internet has kind of smoothed culture out a little bit to where everything is kind of a house of mirrors that reflects all eras and all places at once. Like we don't have really stark swings like "everyone wears bellbottoms for five years" or "everyone uses gated drums for five years" like we used to. It's not an especially profound observation and it sucks that there's always a huge market for framing things as if they were

Like it's absolutely undeniable that the last 10 years in music (Future's 2012 to Lil Baby's 2022) is equally as stark and different as the change between, say, Chuck Berry's 1957 to Sly Stone's 1967. It has nothing to do with "paying attention" and is not exactly something to write a book about or worth setting the internet ABLAZE

Nah, the obvious explanations are that those, like Klosterman, who experienced the 90s as formative years mean that they loom large. As you slide through your 30s and 40s, you're generally a little less-self-centered and obsessive about cultural phenomena. Klosterman probably sees a huge distinction between hair metal from 1987 and a Pavement album from 1994. But he probably can't identify the same huge stylistic swing between a Game album in 2006 and Young Thug's Stoner in 2013.

― paulhw, Wednesday, February 9, 2022 3:23 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

pretty much. I've thought a lot about my formative memories and the times I was "with it" up until like, I dunno, 2007, and realizing all the shit that occupies so much mental space for me are things that I probably wouldn't pay any attention to at all. like one thing I remember growing up was The Lion King, it was all anyone talked about in school for like a solid month, and if you didn't see it you felt like an outcast. nowadays that would be like what, the Spiderman movie? I dunno. I haven't seen it.

even then, these are specific things that aren't happening at the individual level and cataloguing all the micro-trends and groups that are interested in them, by age and geography, would be a herculean task

that's different from looking around and saying "oh this is all the same thing as fifteen years ago"

reminds me of my dad finally buying new jeans a while ago and realizing that pants that have a lower rise meant he bought a smaller size despite having gained weight, just a funny coincidence marking the fact that he'd probably been wearing the same jeans (or at least style of them) for 20 years regardless of trend. it's easy to say "oh, style hasn't changed" when in fact, it's you not buying new pants

If anything culture has slowed in like WAU RAPIDLY CHANGING SIGNIFIERS but the BUSINESS of culture has sped up rapidly through constantly evolving means of distribution (cf. Napster -> iPod -> Myspace -> Facebook -> Twitter -> Spotify -> Vine -> TikTok -> NFT)

Like it's absolutely undeniable that the last 10 years in music (Future's 2012 to Lil Baby's 2022) is equally as stark and different as the change between, say, Chuck Berry's 1957 to Sly Stone's 1967.

how about say, 1969-1981? feel like there was more change & evolution in any given 3-year period there than you've had between 2012 and now

I think that's debatable!

I think globalization and the internet has kind of smoothed culture out a little bit to where everything is kind of a house of mirrors that reflects all eras and all places at once. Like we don't have really stark swings like "everyone wears bellbottoms for five years" or "everyone uses gated drums for five years" like we used to. It's not an especially profound observation and it sucks that there's always a huge market for framing things as if they were

― Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note I'm (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, February 9, 2022 3:37 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think part of it also that 20th-century mass culture did a good job of reducing decades to easily digestible caricatures, like the Jazz Age, the Me Decade, the slacker/grunge era (even as those labels actually described only a narrow band of what was happening at the time). I think there are lots of ways in which the culture of the 2000s is distinct from today's, but there doesn't seem to be a media caricature of it. A few years ago, I would've said we needed more distance from it to see it clearly, but now I think it's more likely that general media/cultural fragmentation has made it harder for attempts at encapsulation to stick.

x-post. the problem with the comparison is that the "story" of, say, musical change was a mass culture one (e.g. of disco in 1976 giving way to post-punk in 1980). However, now we tend to compare styles within a smaller genre pool, having given up on the idea of mass culture. The stylistic changes within disco over 20 years are less striking, same with post-punk.

I mean, yes and no... I think there still are moments like that, like, say autotune vocals and trap drums, but then it just stays that way forever as opposed to going "out of fashion"

Like, I guess pop music sounding like big tent EDM is out of fashion, but you can still fill a field with EDM fans as opposed to, say, a club playing straight disco in 1992

I think a lot of this branding is based on an extremely reductive hegemonic view written by whoever has power when an era is defined

I think culture can change more quickly in some periods and more slowly in others though. For example, when you see interviews of aging Hollywood stars in the early 1970s they're all very aware that the culture had just changed radically over the previous ten years. And the general public seemed to recognize this as well. You wouldn't find nearly as many people saying that about the last ten years.

But there's a certain irony in what Klosterman is saying, on one hand "the 1990s was the last decade with a fully formed culture," and yet things aren't like they used to be in some profound way - the latter which would suggest we live in a different culture today.

xxxp - probably, obviously I've missed a ton of what's gone on the last decade, these ILX year end countdowns are sometimes the only way I keep up with things. but thinking of the stuff I have from 69-81 it is comprised very heavily of records that could not have existed 5 years prior; entire scenes broke big and collapsed in the time it takes most bands to record a new album today

cf. the entire recorded catalog of the Beatles spanned... nine years

Anyway this is an insanely stupid argument and it makes sense that the dude literally makes money selling insanely stupid arguments

https://www.chuckklostermanauthor.com/books/hypertheticals-nt

cf. the entire recorded catalog of the Beatles spanned... nine years

It’s so hard for me to wrap my head around this, and watching that doc series just brought it to the fore…

I guess it comes back somehow to that Zappa clip where he's talking about the times when old A&R dudes would just go "hmm, interesting, go throw some money at that" rather than try to dictate the culture as they understood it. the two periods I think of where there was just an overwhelming amount of movement happening was the mid-70s and early-90s which were both boom eras for the music industry leading to bands like Ween and Boredoms getting big major label deals. idk if anything quite like that has happened since, especially not since Clear Channel took over everything

I mean, look at some of the albums that sold 8 figures during the mid-70s: Tubular Bells, Oxygene, The Six Wives of Henry VIII...I can only imagine some teenager puzzling over how that shit got so popular

The Beatles recordings people know are really from about seven years, no? Summer '62 to Summer '69 (w/ mostly touch-ups afterward)

the Beatles only recorded for less than a decade, but most of the band had been on the grind doing shows for five years before that

surely they'd have had a soundcloud much earlier if they started now

By comparison, here are some artists who released their first album 9 years ago (2013): Ariana Grande, Lorde, Run the Jewels, Haim, CHVRCHES

the first two are just making adult contemporary now, RTJ were always old, Haim and chvrches probably doing ok within their niches

(yes, I'm being purposefully cynical)

The New Yorker had some words
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/07/chuck-klosterman-brings-back-the-nineties

brief excerpt of the extended tear-down

His response to the recent progressive vilification of Bill Clinton’s Presidency is delivered in two thudding single-sentence paragraphs that encapsulate his attitude toward those with a darker story to offer: “But you know, it didn’t seem that way at the time. It really did not.” He has no patience for partisan rashness, for passionate convictions that would break upon his ghostly solitude.

obviously I take great issue w/them calling him the sharpest music writer of his generation when I've been on ilm for long enough to know much better

his shtick definitely affected writing styles overall, no doubt

also, lol that I missed this

its more difficult to tell the difference between a 2005 and 2020 film than a 1965 and 1995 film because one time period is twice as long as the other

He didn't say that. He compared 1965/1995 to 1990/today. He said it was hard to sense that 2005 was 16 years ago.

musical change was a mass culture one (e.g. of disco in 1976 giving way to post-punk in 1980).

except in 1980, mass culture wasn't post-punk - it was Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Bob Seger, Queen, Kenny Rogers, etc

xp ah, I was quoting a tweet, and while not strictly on the lines...

klosterman has never had a serious conversation with anyone who isn't white or born in north america in his life

there might be evidence to the contrary, but I'm skeptical

klosterman has never had a serious conversation with anyone who isn't white or born in north america in his life

― mh, Wednesday, February 9, 2022 2:45 PM

lol otm

fuck this trey anastasio looking motherfucker, amazing that he's kept up his streak of being both wrong and super annoying about everything for two decades now

the stupid quote in full

If you show someone an obscure film from 1965 and then an obscure film from 1995, anyone viewing those clips will be able to recognize which one is older. But I do not think that would be the case if you showed someone a movie from 1990 and a movie from now — the difference would seem much less.

Would someone really struggle to notice that Slacker or What's Eating Gilbert Grape weren't from the last couple of years?

they should go back and CG the Captain Jack Sparrow costume on to Depp in all his old movies

except in 1980, mass culture wasn't post-punk - it was Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Bob Seger, Queen, Kenny Rogers, etc

my point was about the inherited narrative, not the reality.

that's very klosty of you

man notices that color films look different from black n white films

xpost ah sorry misunderstood

My son was just telling me the differences between the old Minecraft and the new Minecraft so obviously things are changing

Like it's absolutely undeniable that the last 10 years in music (Future's 2012 to Lil Baby's 2022) is equally as stark and different as the change between, say, Chuck Berry's 1957 to Sly Stone's 1967.

I'm as ignorant as anyone here, so I decided to try this out. I listened to "Turn On the Lights" and "Voice of the Heroes", and while the emotional mood is different, the similarities (repeated keyboard arpeggios, stuttering hi-hats, squelchy bass) were striking, and there didn't feel like any particular progress from one decade to the next.
Then again, what would someone who considered themselves musically literate, born in 1917, have said comparing "Johnny B. Goode" and "Dance to the Music"?

I mean, part of the inability to hear particular differences is down to inexperience. I'm pretty sure anything my grandfather heard, when he never listened to anything past the big band era, all sounded the same

I just watched “Pretty in Pink” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and can’t figure out which one was made earlier.

The hobbits in "Pretty in Pink" were real, the Hobbits in "Two Towers" were CGI.

Yeah but can you tell the difference between Breakfast Club and Meet the Feebles?

The former is puppets, the latter is CGI.

obviously I take great issue w/them calling him the sharpest music writer of his generation when I've been on ilm for long enough to know much better

his shtick definitely affected writing styles overall, no doubt

xpost - mh what about Future vs Lil Baby vs Jazzy Sensation by Bambaataa (81) vs How I Could Just Kill a Man by Cypress Hill (91), that's way more different

or, the best selling rap album of 2012 was Drake, the best selling rap album of last year was...Drake

i wonder where the growing easier access to music since the late 90s factors into all of this. i don't really have any solid thoughts on it either way, but surely that's been a big contributing factor to the uber-nostalgia overload that we're currently living through. i know for those of us who grew up relying on magazines, music videos, and word of mouth, pre-napster/internet feels very much like "the beforetimes" — and, for better or for worse, will inevitably be romanticized. not trying to sound like a "well back in my day" story, but i'd liken it to my grandparents preferring to listen to the radio instead of watching television.

(not that i preferred "the beforetime", i.e. not being able to hear new music as easily as now, but the feeling is the same. it was just "a different time" and some folks probably were young and carefree then, so look back on it fondly? idk.)

just trying to make sense of this obsession with such definitively stated time periods. i don't understand.

never read much ck, but he seems a doofy blowhard (takes one to know one, i suppose).

yeah I think streaming has a lot to do with it

right the whole career of "professional pop culture/movie/music dork" like Kevin Smith, James Murphy, or Quentin Tarantino didn't seem to really exist before the 90's, and now that basically everything's available 24/7 in your pocket its kind of like half of what all media is now

There used to be 10 music journalists and now there are 10 million.

frogbs is right but I don’t think it has to do with “everything is in your pocket” but instead “criticism is monetized by having constant streams of content about lots of subjects, and Young Sheldon is not going to recap itself”

There used to be 10 music journalists and now there are 10 million.Only ten are making any money from it tho.

FYI, they had a feature with Klosterman and on 90s nostalgia on CBS Saturday Morning last week.

Only ten are making any money from it tho.

Has anyone written about alt-weeklies being forced to discontinue sex work ads and the effect on being able to make money as a music critic/journalist?

Rightly or wrongly, I decided early on that Klosterman's interests weren't mine, and then there seemed to be a certain amount of celebrity attached to him, so I didn't read any of his books. The Nineties is the first one I've read.

Thought it was good--raced through it. At lot of that, I'm sure, has to do with my own positive feelings about the decade. Definitely the last time I was completely plugged into new music, from the start of the decade to the finish. Films and politics too. So I was interested in most everything he covered. (The only chapter I was completely uninterested in was the one on clear sodas--Zima, etc.--and the Biosphere...but there was other stuff in that chapter that did interest me.) Liked the two political chapters ('92 election + Clinton in general), and his memory of all that more or less aligns with my own. (Although he didn't mention some of the early forgotten stories I associate with Clinton: Zoe Baird, Jocelyn Elders, Cristophe.) He's good on movies and sports--liked that he highlighted Michael Jordan's season playing baseball. I wasn't really looking for deep analysis...there's analysis, but it didn't feel like work. If I wrote a book on the '90s myself, it'd probably be a lot like this one. I'd just say "I" a lot more.

Somebody like Jonathan Lethem once said something like you can enjoy reading Klosterman even if you have zero overlap of taste, with the added bonus of not spending one cent on new music, although I haven't tested this theory in a while.

I'd say music accounts for a quarter of the book, maybe less. I don't think I found anything egregiously at odds with my own memories of the decade...he says there was "an overwhelming consensus" that "Achy Breaky Heart" was terrible; I think that's overstated (really overstated in view of the fact that he doesn't mention critics, although that's the implied consensus). Some critics liked it, and at least one loved it.

Overheard at bookstore a few minutes ago: "Like, that guy Klosterman wrote a book on the '90s, and he really got it." Clearly the guy yelling this moistly into his girlfriend's ear hadn't watched the bookstore scene in Annie Hall.

now they're in the art/photography section and he's still yelling his opinions at her and I'm about to call thec cops

Pretend to be on the phone, walk by and loudly talk about how much you enjoyed that one particular sequence in the _Barbie_ movie as you pass.

"I'm Just Terrified"

https://i.imgur.com/QZ1DEyI.png