how hard does music blow in 03....

at this point, i probably wouldn't argue with this statement either.

...and i can't think of any albums on the horizon that might change my mind about it. hopefully some new artists will come along and surprise me.

Can this be the thread where people tell me where to start with all this nu dirty south/thug pop rap that y'all been harping on about?

and digging on all the insane shuffle crap coming out, and lo and behold actually loving a rock record (Elephant), and finally hearing Jeff Parker's debut cd tonight, well, I haven't been more excited in a long time.

What the heck is up with all the lame, trollish threads by previously unseen posters lately, anyway?

Great music around as always, shit music as always, end of story. Blah.

plenty of good stuff has come out this year.

just get new batteries for your hearing aids.

I liked the new Luomo aLbum, and The Bug, and that Dizzee Rascal is quite the rascal.

Writing off that state of mind, though, as something that's a limitation of fun/a sign that you're getting old/a sign that you're too conservative is telling, though -- a bit of groupthink in reverse -- and the best counterarguments DON'T play that card as some sort of automatic explanation. That everyone's likes and dislikes are their own is patently obvious, that someone's differing belief means they don't 'get it' on a cosmic scale is extremely NON-obvious, I'd venur. Tico Tico's current belief, for instance, may be a radical inversion of a rockist paradigm, where it's all the stuff in the charts that is usually good and all the stuff that doesn't make it that's usually bad, but like he notes above, this is all down to his state of mind and how one interprets what is there, not down to a sense of "I've found the key for EVERYBODY." I'm not fond of movements either, Pete, but neither am I fond of free agency in a listener locked into one particular approach -- free agency in a listener means infinite approaches beyond the constraints of genre or listening model, and in my case recently, that's also the increasing freedom to shut off and step back from everything.

http://www.blissout.blogspot.com/

I have to admit that the amount of insistence that its been a good year for music is stupifying

(It also might be that if I'd had my experience and outlook now in 1982, say, my head would have exploded with the wonder of it all. I'll never know.)

Yes! And when I factor in file sharing and the ability to buy more than one record a month...

THERE IS NO NEW BIG THING COMING IN MUSIC - at least not in terms of fresh sounds, new beats or whatever. i truly believe we've reached the end in that respect. i don't mind whether i end up being proved wrong or not. as i said before i've still got enough catching up to do to keep me happy for a good while longer...and so should you.

*I don't remember what or where. I never remember anything important.

When I was briefly involved with ETAN, someone else in the group once wrote up a flier with Chomsky's name spelled this way.

What the fuck is your problem, Jim? And what's with The Coral obsession? I liked the first album but the recent singles have been shite; I haven't mentioned them in aeons. I suggest you take that chip and feed it to a seagull.

Saying "I think this is the best year for music ever" doesn't neccessarily come with a sotto voce "and so should you".

When it was still looking dire (April?) I spent lots of time buying and listening to old records. This was a wise move (instead of forcing myself to listen to new crud) because discovering old music opened doorways into new music of a lineage I wouldn't have previously understood (ie. discovering the Blue Nile this year leads me to the new Coloma, by association). Listening to old Throbbing Gristle might not pay off until 2004, though ;-)

True enough. I think I'm so distrustful in general of criticism's slide from the personal into the universal -- and this applies to just about EVERYTHING, not simply music by a long shot -- that I have tendency to see that unspoken subtext everywhere even when it might not be. If there's a bugbear of mine, that is it.

Still -- and this is tying in with a question that I'll be asking here on ILE in a bit about cultural currency in general, again not just referring to music -- what might be worth asking is, is someone who disagrees with that particular stance this being the best year of music -- something so rooted in the now and in the apparently universal (though in practice more of a North American/European construct) -- someone who seems to miss a fundamental point about social life and connections and interactions or not? This again perhaps is a confusing of points (and I'm not sure those two strands aren't more intertwined than you're making them out to be) but I don't know...

I'll wait for the ILE qn though.

i think the proliferation of music making technology will only increase the beast. trouble is, with new forms proving sketchy, the majors are slow to latch on. they need safe investments. if a stock goes down, they sell. artists as stocks in a portfolio.

where are the gambles? that's what makes a NEW sound new and exciting.

don't blame the state of mass culture. blame the state of mass distribution.

look into the smaller spots and you'll find plenty of vibrancy.

i think media overload (ala the internet) has sliced thin our attention spans. we can be into and over a band in moments. critics have to be culture gobblers to stay current with the new bandwidths.

what was once a monumental band, suddenly becomes a passing speedbump on the queue.

next!
m.

I think looking at the release date of records is a bit of a dud, anyway.

(ha ha i almost feel like uttering the dread "none of you really LOVE music"...sigh...)

yet MORE albums I don't hate from this year

(ignore this post if you like folx it is the text of my loving war w.simon r since the year dot)

Well, boil it down to what Simon IS talking about, namely 'the mainstream,' so to quote:

But if Pop-ism is your creed, or the idea of vital currents making waves in the mainstream is something even remotely dear to your heart, then…. I simply cannot see what could sustain such rictus-like conviction that these be days of plenty praise the Lord. The forced (p)optimism resembles some Moonie-like creed.

I think the first clause is the key one, in otherwards he's tackling something specific, namely the biggest subculture of them all, the pop one. I sorta sense something similar to what I asked Sterling once when I was curious why I never saw him say anything negative about bands -- he responded, quite reasonably, that there were plenty of things he didn't like but he didn't want to talk about that when he'd rather focus on what he liked. A stab in the dark but perhaps what Simon R. is also saying beyond his main points is simply that he's wondering where the negative commentary is, where is there room for critical doubt as well as celebration. If Pop's subcultural motto is 'we're the one everyone knows,' then the argument might be, "We've heard one side of it, let's hear the other." Now, you can easily then turn to the 'worst singles of this year' thread and note, "Hey, we ARE talking about bad stuff too, we're not monolithic, jeez" -- quite true, of course. And another argument -- Tico has said, Tim has said it, many others -- is that in the instant rush of now, you concentrate so much and get off so easily on the good stuff that's just much more involving TO celebrate, an also equally good point. But is that the only way to approach things?

The charts are wicked! If i was an 11 year old Woolworths head i'd be so happy with my cassingle of wayne wonder and the girls aloud album or whatever. Seriously the charts are so good at the moment i fail to see how they don't cater for all tastes; this week alone there's thug rap, dancehall, wicked rnb, house-y ibiza stuff, "sophisticated" pop or whatever AND the odd indie guitar band for the purists/guardian heads.

(xpost)

Whoa, hold up, Sean -- Simon R. is saying this is the kind of thing he's tired of, the immediate "yeah, it's great, yay!" So how do you address that criticism or can it even be addressed? Is it more important that the charts have a range of taste or that you like what's in it? He seems to be saying, "There's a range of taste all right, and frankly I hate just about all the examples."

maybe he should stop listening to music. otherwise he'll turn into meltzer. and we really don't want that now.

That said, though, I think the sense of the possibilities of range -- while very refreshing in contrast to something that just hates the charts flat out for being the charts, which isn't Simon's point thankfully -- slightly elides the fact that after all the years and decades of entryism and open manipulation and the feeling that we know everything and anything (thus Pop Idol et al) you're still talking about an enterprise, a business, involving money, marketing, etc. rather than the simple romance of 'chart placement = true popularity,' certainly the charts' best selling point if not its most accurate. Maura and I had a talk about this some time back and if there's something which we both think might be ignored in a celebration of chartdom's possibilities -- and I think this applies more in the States, perhaps -- are the businesses involved, not just the record companies but the media outlets and so forth, and how THEY do business. Indie's own romance is to see rose-colored-glassedly itself as not being like Those Awful Conglomerates, of course, and that dream helps in its sustenance even at lean times. And someone like Tico is no fool -- he works in marketing, after all, and is astoundingly cognizant of what the business of pop can and does involve -- and he'd probably argue we're seeing more range because the market needed to adjust for x number of reasons and those responsible for all the behind-the-scenes work etc. want to stay employed somehow, so they must adjust accordingly.

Where are these supposed '2003 = best year evah' rooters.

Wasn't there a thread called just that? ;-) The ILX hothouse's OWN romance is that everyone in the world is here and we're determining all discourse. ;-)

Richard X type stuff in the late 90s? hmmm the only people really taking hits from the 80s at that point were Puff Daddy i guess. but Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx and the like were having top ten hits out of sonically and rhythmically fresh ideas then too.

I think there's an equivalent from the past for whatever's happening now, but I don't wish to undermine the great stuff out at the moment at the same time. but even with 50 Cent, what he's doing is not revolutionary really and owes much to the previous success of Dre, Eminem, Snoop and Tupac who all had their hits - that said, 'In Da Club' HAS probably sold more copies than any other single by a rap act since Puffy, except maybe Eminem.

indie rock is what's blowing.

What's the best indie rock record this year? Exploding Hearts? Clearlake?

My friend's brother once had a gerbil with this name.

indie rock? uh... hmmm... .... The Postal Service are good.. meh.

There is quite a lot of chart music I don't like, even stuff which other 'poppists' do - I don't think much of the Javine single for instance. But even with that stuff I very rarely hate it or think there's any way my dislike can be illuminating, whereas in the post Britpop years there were lots of big hits which seemed to me to crystallize something I thought was Wrong With Music. That's what's disappointing about Simon R's post - unlike the guy who started this thread there's no specifics there, just a big shoulder-shrug.

Worse, he could turn into David Toop

1. response to music is intensely subjective
2. people have a predisposition to prefer the music of their youth when everything was new and exciting and MEANT SO MUCH
3. hence baby boomer critics fusty belief that the Beatles/Stones/Beach Boys era represent the golden age of rock/pop. or the next generation of equally blinkered indie obsessives that it was in fact their era of the Smiths, Joy Division, yadda yadda.
4. Conclusion: in fact the belief that music is getting worse is perennial and has more to do with your age than the quality of music being made. The quality of music probably remains fairly constant, which people might realise if they could only open their ears to the good stuff that's happening now.

There's obviously some truth in these assumptions. It's a seductive way of thinking, and it's become an orthodoxy for many critics. The only problem is that the conclusion doesn't stack up.

A cursory look at cultural history shows is that the quality of music, like any art form, varies from period to period, that genres have their times of birth, their golden ages and their times of exhaustion and decline. English drama wasn't as good in 1800 or 1900 as in 1700. Part of a critic's job is to identify when the golden age happened and when the decline set in. Obviously it's hard to get round the prejudices of your own era (which can work both ways of course: they can just as easily lead to you preferring Madonna to The Beatles as well as vice versa). But if you are going to present yourself as someone with a valid opinion on the relative merits of music from different period - ie a critic - you have to try and evaluate your prejudices and see beyond them, not hide behind the myth that quality doesn't fluctuate with time.

Music critics tend to be very willing to suggest that particular styles or centres of production have declined even when they retain faith in pop as a whole, but they do not have the luxury of either a long-term perspective or hindsight. It seems to me that criticism in ArfArf's sense is not actually possible - instead a kind of reactive journalism is what's being practised.

Interesting phrase, I like. But do they retain faith in pop or pop in them? Or both?

Having been off in other parts of the musical world and not paying much attention to the charts recently I was surprised to find myself sitting in a room and listening to 20 big chart hits back to back the other day. Several of them were terrible but by the end of the exercise I was saying "this *has* been a great year for pop".

the blog has been a real backwards step for simon r, i think. but really his ideology was always primed for the "old man argument" shift wasn't it? i read an old morrisey interview he did last night, and we was spouting his normal "pop fidelity/anti-dillytant" argument (in 1988, mind) but even then it was tinged with a sort of condescension, a snoot cocked at "regular pop fans" who weren't into the art-school versions of pop he nearly always champions.

I do think the "you must be jaded/old" line is just as weak as the "you must be stupid/brainwashed" line tho.

As for indie-alternative whatever rock isn't the consensus that Ted Leo, Grandaddy, and White Stripes records aren't as striking as what these folks have offered in the past (and some of these folks are too retro to boot) and nobody seems to agree on whether (call the genres what you want) Manitoba or the Postal Service or the Bug albums are top-notch(rather than merely not bad or kinda good but uneven).

Yea there are new likeable songs out there worth downloading for free or hearing on radio or tv or in clubs, but there seems to be less agreement this year on great albums....

I'd also like to note that, every single point you made, was totally nonsensical and retarded. Even in relating to the genres you brought up that I happen to dislike as well, your remarks were insanely vague and stupid.

Some folks try to do a little bit of both venturing back into musical history in search of things they like or think they'd like, and trying to keep up on what is new. I'd say both are difficult to do...

Chuck---I confess to not having the time to check out all those hiphop cds you mentioned but based upon what I have heard and the views I've read by others(including your fellow Voice scribe Xgau) very few people seem to be hailing any of those cds as consistently great--they all have a decent enough single (although I'll still take Troublefunk's old "Pump me Up" over Budden's good but not great "Pump"
single) but how many of 'em have more then 3 great cuts...I need to hear Fannypack although again lots of folks seem to be saying great concept but where are all the great songs...

Panjabi MC's disc again sound best on the singles--you don't really like the ones he raps himself on do ya?

A pal of mine who treasures all of the Ted Leo cds and a couple of critics I read all liked the Ted Leo cd fine(me too) but just didn't like it as much. Same for Grandaddy...

Ted Leo's album is the first one where he sounds more like a rock guy than a wimpy prissy powerpop guy, which is good enough for me.

Sreynolds probably points to grime and (reluctantly) dancehall, as the only things around because he's looking for *actual* subcult cred. Youth cultures based in class conflict/desperate economics, maybe some postcolonial identity crisis as well - most importantly, social practices, rituals and so on; ala Hebdige... (YAWN!)

Sreynolds has never really liked pop music - he is a subculturalist and rock critic, straight up.

the first clause is the key one, in otherwards he's tackling something specific, namely the biggest subculture of them all, the pop one.

I'm not sure that the chart is a subculture, Ned.

I think that subcultures must be constituted through actual everyday practices, based on locality, shared cultural identity and rituals. People go to the club to listen to the latest record, take the same drug, know people 'in the scene', wear the same clothes/styles, etc.

Pop music, while it contains elements of this, I believe often works as inclusive medium. Not shoring up identity, but provoking people to relate or project upon it - in other words, it is polysemic. PLUS, more often than not, this is based in the mediasphere. People download it, listen to top-forty, watch MTV, and so on...

Both definitions are complicated by the Internet, mind. Particularly forums like this...

I don't think hip-hop really tries to make "albums" most of the time anymore. They tend to be more like extended branding/promo opportunities than, y'know, coherent works of art. Once you fit in the guest spots for other big MCs, the guest spots for the up-and-coming MCs on the star's boutique label, the movie tie-ins, the R&B joint, the product placement, the couple of tracks you had to have from the big money producers, the hidden bonuses you had to thrown in to make people buy the CD... there's not much time left over to make sure tracks 1-18 are all really good and flow nicely.

(The real question is, how good a playlist can you make out of the year? My May and July mixes are pretty damn hot already)

Ben, you're probably right about the hiphop "album". So where does that leave consumers who are busy working and busy with the rest of their life and don't have time to make mixes...

I have not heard any of that stuff Chuck mentions, but hip-hop tracks I really like this year (at least I think they mostly came out this year) (and OK, some of them are probably R&B but who can tell the difference anymore) include...

Kanye West--The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
Solange--Feelin' You (Chopped 'n' Screwed Mix)
Kardinal Offishal--Belly Dancer
Beyonce--Crazy in Love
50 Cent--In Da Club
TES--New New York
Snoop Dogg--Beautiful
Kiley Dean--Make Me A Song
Freeway--What We Do
Talib Kweli--Get By Remix
Nas--Flyest Angel
Lil Kim/50 Cent--Magic Stick
Slum Village--Disco Remix
R Kelly--Snake (Remix)
Pharrell/Jay-Z--Frontin'
Busta Rhymes--Light Your Ass on Fire
Outkast--Ghetto Musik

And I would throw stuff like Dizzee Rascal in there except I'm not allowed to call him hip-hop...

Also, almost all the good hip-hop albums came out at Christmas last year anyway...

Well, I can't hardly think of ANY albums EVER (hip-hop or otherwise, this year or any year) that I'd recommend people pay 15 bucks for; I almost never pay more than five dollars for an individual album these days myself (only buy used copies at Princeton Record Exchange, unless I'm getting reimbursed by the Voice), and even then it's gotta be really promising. Then again, I get my CDs mostly for free, so what do I know? Also, I've never downloaded a song in my life; wouldn't know how to if you paid me. So I guess that answers the first part of your question. As for your second part, I don't know what you're asking; I'm not saying any of those will place in the Pazz and Jop top 40 (in fact, I doubt any of them will), but since when has THAT been a good way of judging how good a record is? I was kinda confused about your earlier post, too, Steve; seems like your confusing consensus by rock critics with CDs' actual worth, but then if I remember right you've done that before, and it never makes sense to me at all. Anyway. If you're asking whether I'll VOTE for any of those albums I listed MYSELF, in MY top ten, well, I'd say Triple Threat defintely have a shot. Maybe McEnroe too, though that shot would be a longer one. I voted for Northern State last year, though. And this year, Bubba Sparxxx's album (which I left out of the list above, since I've only actually heard a five-song advance sampler CD) is a shoo-in; in fact, if the year ended now, I'd just vote for the advance sampler CD -- which, by the way, is as consistent as any hip-hop album in years. (Jon Caramanica, who has apparently heard the entire album, says it's easily going to be the hip-hop album of the year. And yeah, I'd say that one very well might have a shot at finishing in Pazz and Jop. So does Fannypack's album, come to think of it, though you didn't ask about that one.) (And oh yeah, if I had to bet right now about what album would WIN pazz and jop, I'd bet on OutKast, even though it's not out til September and I haven't heard anything on it yet, and may or may not like a lot of it when I do.)

Obviously everyone decides what a cd's "actual worth" is by themselves individually by playing it and seeing if they like it, whether or not a lot of rock critics like it or whether or not it sells 10 copies or a million copies or has a video played on tv or whether it wins a prize in the UK or whatever. With the enormous number of cds available out there, and with radio in many places being stinky and online access not always available, a few folks including me actually turn to see if there's a consensus among their friends, people at ILM, print media whatever to decide what to get. Yea a "consensus" can be "wrong" or change over time(didn't Kogan write about this recently--Nuggets and garage punk enthusiasts changing the perception and consensus regarding the value of 3 minute songs versus lengthy rock as art masterpieces?), but isn't it interesting to examine? Isn't that one of the reasons for publishing a Pazz & Jop poll or contributing to ILX? Isn't that one of the reasons Pazz & Jop editors try to seek out more and different contributors from different backgrounds? Of course such polls can be infuriating or not tell you anything, but not always... Isn't it interesting to you that the guy who started this thread, Simon Reynolds, and others all think it has not been such a good year for hiphop even if you disagree with them all? Isn't it interesting that such a perception is out there?

And yea I only wanted to know which cds you yourself were considering putting in your own Pazz & Jopp poll ballot, and now I see that of those 12 or so hiphop cds you mentioned, around 4 or so you think might make your list. Now if only my local used cd stores had some of those discs...

I remember thinking it really sucked in, like, 1986 or so (before the Beasties/LL Cool J/Mantronix/Schooly D came along, proving me wrong.)

Speaking of which, I also left Killer Mike (whose best song may well be "Rap is Dead"!) off the list of good hip-hop albums this year. And I also left off Hitman Sammy Sam! What the hell is wrong with me??

All right you non-cynic it's all good types, tell me about all the great 2003 acid-jazz, drum n bass, and techno records I've been missing...

becky baeling
funkervogt
real mccoy
swampburger
antimatter vs. matter
audio bullys
warren burt
buttboy
code & flexor
yoshimi and yuka
yuko nexus 6
*Babylon Is Ours: The USA in Dub*
black tape for a blue girl
cooler kids
bappi lahiri
the vanishing
andre afram
natacha atlas
crack: we are rock
four tet
kaada
mr. dibbs
najma
nawal
red snapper
adrian sherwood
dwayne sodahberk
subtitle
why?
young gods
zongamin
*acualera songs 2*
*Broklyn Beats*
*Garage Rap Vol. 1*
*Garage Rap Vol. 2*
*Crews Control*

Of these, the final four compilations (which might not even count) have the best chances of finishing in my top ten, if I ever figure out how to tell them apart. A.R.E. Weapons will definitely make my top ten, and probably my top five for that matter.

Wait, wouldn't that have been '68, not '67? (I think the '67 series was, like, the Orioles and somebody, but maybe my memory's way off.) Anyway, I'm wondering if this means Denny McLain was the real original rrrapper. I can totally see that. (Also, does this mean that my suspicions that St. Lunatics were actually Nelly's softball team are correct? They even have a guy who dresses in catcher's gear!)

He's a Yankees fan for life, and no we do not discuss that in my office. He says Bernie Williams is a wonderful human being, but since the album's such a big jazz hit, he felt he should deal with it. (Me, I'm still waiting for that indefinitely delayed Mark Fidrych/Dock Ellis/Bill Lee/Bo Belinsky supergroup collaboration myself.)

I was joking about "acid jazz"... If it still exists, like "drum n bass", it seems to still exist in its own separate little world that only ultra fanatics seem to follow...But then blues and zydeco records don't ever seem to reach beyond their little core followings either and I occasionally pay attention to them. Some zydeco is now influenced by hiphop though(although this bothers some of the fans of the genre).

Chuck, is the Adrian Sherwood cd you're referring to that one called "Hippy" I read about somewhere . I think he titled it that way rather than "hippie". I used to like his productions years ago. Is this one more of his hybrid dub-electronica whatever you want to call it...

I think the exaggeration is quite tangible in the piece, I find it hard to believe someone who writes about music for a living could be finding this year (or any year) so so bad.

I mean even if the standard was constantly slipping I think if you really do love music you are addicted enough that you'd still find things to get excited about. That said I don't think it is slipping and as Jess hints, there's a definite touch of "if you're enjoying this year loads then you too are part of the malaise" about it.

Jerry you're right, but it's never a "story" with Reynolds I'm afraid. The whole blog lately reminds me of 7am on Sunday mornings with a few half asleep mates sitting around asking each other to get up and change the CD, you open another beer and cling on to that for a while but eventually you just have to accept that the party is over.