Best Music Criticism of the 2000s

I've seen a bunch of threads of the type "best ______ of the 2000s," but somewhat surprisingly I haven't seen a thread dedicated to the best music criticism of the 200s.* So, feel free to discuss and post links (if available) to some of your favorite pieces from the decade, addressing anything having to do with any aspect of music.

I'll start:

Erik Davis, "Nearer the Heart of Things" (Arthur Magazine, No. 25)
http://www.arthurmag.com/2006/12/23/nearer-the-heart-of-things-erik-davis-on-joanna-newsom-from-arthur-no-25winter-02006/
-- Davis on Joanna Newsom right around the time Ys came out. An excellent example of how music criticism itself can be art.

Nick Southall, "Imperfect Sound Forever" (Stylus Magazine, 2006/05/01)
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/imperfect-sound-forever.htm
-- Southall on the "loudness" wars in music production, and why so many records from the past twenty years sound horrible.

* I already searched to see if this thread has been done, but I couldn't find anything. If there's already a similar thread out there, feel free to bury this one.

That would be "the best music criticism of the 2000s," not 200s.

Didn't have the same admiration for Davis's piece, though I know you're not alone in your affection.

Carl Wilson's Let's Talk About Love book for 33 1/3 definitely qualifies.

John Darnielle's Amnesiac series for Last Plane To Jakarta.

Plan B magazine's Dan Deacon cover story this year.

Bloggy stuff is faster to go in one pair of eyes and out the other, I find - lots of amazing things but hard to remember!

Yeah, almost too much out there to recall. Excellent choices so far!

Also from the 33 1/3 series: Amanda Petrusich on Nick Drake's Pink Moon and John Darnielle on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality.

I wasn't even thinking of books when I started this thread, but there are a bunch of great ones: Simon Reynolds's Rip It Up and Start Again, Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, and The Pitchfork 500.

John Darnielle's Amnesiac series for Last Plane To Jakarta.

<3

Mark Prindle's Miles Davis reviews, including the reader comments.

Robert Forster's piece from Australia's The Monthly on Dylan.

Douglas Wolk's piece from The Believer on The Fall.

Drew Daniel's TG book.

Scott Seward's Caina review for Decibel, which is no longer on the web.

dave q on The Clash and Joy Division vs Flipper.

sinker on Joan Jett.

Kulkarni.

padgett's baltimore city paper review of the lil wayne/birdman album

http://www.citypaper.com/arts/review.asp?rid=11175

Really? The best of the decade on that review?

Yes indeed.

And speaking of Yes, Dave Q on same ranks up there.

Hmm, alright then. That Dave Q. one is great though.

padgett's baltimore city paper review of the lil wayne/birdman album

Wooooooooow.

Da Capo needs to get on that shit imo, it's a classic review

loooolz

Oh man I haven't looked at that Yes piece in ages. I'm so fucking happy about that one still.

"Don't Kill the Whale" would be remembered only as the fifth-best Disco-Sucks-disco (Dahldisco?) record ever (after "Miss You," "Another One Bites the Dust," "I Was Made for Lovin' You," and Don Felder's "Heavy Metal") if not for Rick Wakeman's surrealist/intoxicated subversion of the material.

tonnes of penis jokes in that like father like son review.

A rapper with this much spunk coming out his mouth doesn't need to spend any more time boning up on his skills or trying to impress people with his stamina ... to the point that Birdman often gets the shaft ... And he'll still bend over backward for a hot line, fleshing out his long narrative arcs with violent thrusts ... Wayne dishes out the white stuff uncut on the crack rap of "Over Here Hustlin," while Birdman goes harder than ever on "Leather so Soft" before cocking and squeezing on "Army Gunz."

but uh, why exactly do you find this review so good? i'm curious.

wait, what? penis jokes? uh... project much?

The entire Freaky Trigger Popular series

oh weird...yeah i guess if you read that birdman review from a certain perspective you could read a lot of homoerotic imagery into it....

it's almost as though it's intentional

Really? I didn't notice. Just seemed like a positive review of a solid 12-inch to me.

not a 12" NV, a long player

Oh sorry, I cocked up there.

its ok, weve all had weird stuff come out of our mouths

the main thrust of the piece, when you get to the bottom of it, is really tight

I know nothing about Lil Wayne. Is he rumoured to be in the closet? unusually homophobic?
Who's the joke on?

guys is it true that birdman is secretly made of bird corpses like a young money frankenstein

it is true, yes

Just seemed like a positive review of a solid 12-inch cock to me.

― General Pubic (Noodle Vague), Thursday, July 23, 2009 3:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can someone ban this vulgar reprobate... enough with the dirty dick jokes

OK, it was pretty clever stuff, It's not that I mind the odd gay reference, It just felt like he was ramming it down our throats by the end.

yeah don't beat me over the head with it

You guys, can we stop gushing all over this review now?

Nah, you gotta make sure it sticks with you.

I'm just tired of having it thrust in my face repeatedly, you know?

i don't know, frankly i'm just not swallowing the argument that this article was intentionally homoerotic

haha, anyway, to get this thread slightly back on track, I think that Frere Jones's Arthur Russell piece is great http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/03/08/040308crmu_music I know SFJ is a controversial figure round these parts, and I definitely don't like everything he writes, but this one is a keeper. (no double entendres in there, right? phew! thought i was going to cock up and blow it)

I think SFJ has written some (deliberately) controversial pieces, but I don't think there is any doubt that he's a very good writer.

yeah -- i think I just wish sometimes that he wasn't writing for the New Yorker. It's sort of a weird audience he's trying to write for, I think, sometimes over-explaining things, sometimes under-explaining them. But since we're on the New Yorker tip, has anyone mentioned The Rest Is Noise here? Best book on music I've read this decade, I think.

more like SFGay

Sasha Frere Bones right?

the only thing i have read by sasha frere jones were the new yorker animal collective and bon iver speads, which were just usual fine and boring, and this which is pretty awful. not even because i disagree with what is being said, but just a silly way of proving a really obvious point (indie rock is not groovy).

Rockcritics.com's Rockcritics Music Blogger Symposium from October 2007, where five music critics discussed the state of the music blogosphere, was excellent. Wish there were more pieces like that one!

I could probably just post www.stylusmagazine.com and that would suffice, but I want to single out Marcello Carlin's excellent Consummation of consumption piece and the entirety of Nick Southall & co.'s Soulseeking column (2005, [http://www.stylusmagazine.com/archive.php?type=27&year=2006]2006[/url], and 2007). Oh, Stylus, I miss you.

Hm, that 2006 link didn't work the way I intended.

Jess Harvell's An Idolator Real Talk Special Report: The Black Kids Hype Must Be Stopped.

Jess Harvell on Lil Wayne's The Carter III.

And, for now, I'll end with the four final "2007 Year-End Thoughts" pieces, the last things Stylus posted before it closed its doors:

Derek Miller's
Nick Southall's
Mike Powell's
Alfred Soto's

Also: S/FJ is coming out with a book on Michael Jackson, apparently. (via Sasha Frere-Jones)

cha-ching?

(i kid, it sounds like it could be interesting)

Though it had a rough introduction to ILXers (via an attack by Jeff Chang), Nik Cohn's Triksta: Life and Death and New Orleans Rap remains a towering work.

And, for now, I'll end with the four final "2007 Year-End Thoughts" pieces, the last things Stylus posted before it closed its doors:

Derek Miller's
Nick Southall's
Mike Powell's
Alfred Soto's

― kshighway,

Glad someone mentioned Mike and Nick Southall's farewell pieces -- some of my favorite writing of the last two years.

All of those pieces--yours included, Alfred!-- are excellent. Nick's particularly pulls at my heart strings though. I still miss Stylus.

Nick Sylvester's immense "RE HIPSTER RUNOFF'S ANIMAL COLLECTIVE POST" on Hipster Runoff, Animal Collective, and identity.

http://www.riffmarket.com/2009/01/re-hipster-runoffs-animal-collective.html

Ick, sorry that Sylvester thing's some hippie let the children frolic b.s. Liked him better when he made stuff up.

pieces by nick sylvester where he insults maura johnston are unlikely to be high on ilxs collective list of best music writing

maura dissin or no it's sort of a painful read

To put it mildly.

The disses are the least of this piece's problems.

that sure is a lot of words

Who's the double-sided dildo? Are you the double-sided dildo?

pretty sure it's you

he's right about idolator tho -- once it shed actual critics like whiney, mike barthel & al shipley it's become borderline unreadable

some of the... sylvesterian flourishes are a bit much and taking on HRO seriously is a bit unfortunate but i think it had great parts about criticism and animal collective, but then again i love most of what he writes

The essay didn't require the glimpse into PFM politics to remain effective.

I also dislike how Mark Richardson exists as the means through which he scores points off Schreiber and PFM. But anyway.

the "main problem" with the piece, if there is one, is that sylvester seems unable to understand how a person could both "authentically" like/enjoy/love animal collective and also appreciate and laugh at the jokes hipster runoff makes

a lot of the posts on his blog are about pfm politics. kind of comes with the territory of reading his blog idk. it's pretty unsubstantial out of the thousands of words

sorry -- not about pfm politics. but a lot of the posts touch on pfm politics while talking about much larger ideas & subjects

he gave ilm one of the all-time clusterfuck threads, so he'll always get a pass in my book

I didn't read that far into the Sylvester piece but I really hate defenses where the argument is "he's in on the joke, it's a parody!" Maybe he inverts the whole thing later?

also just caught this line out of context but it's on some "What if there were all these alternate realities like in The Matrix, man" level: "In the Hipster Runoff universe, the only acceptable worldview is blowing up the hospital. "

glad 2 see that someone is taking a stand against hipster runoff tho--its pretty important that we save ppl from its terrible negative influence

Don't you know how important it is to be able to make mistakes? To fuck up with impunity? Why won't you let my kids be kids? They will be the better for it. And you were too--and I'm so sad you don't see that. I'm so sad you don't remember how fucking hard it is, being that age, not knowing fuck-all how anything or anybody works, let alone yourself.

man i forgot how unbelievably embarrassing that charles aaron story was

In the Meat Synthesis manifestic of repressed desire masked by sex in the face of world hunger, Run off is no longer accept

^^^ my man

Nothing unites ILM like a good old-fashioned noogie.

max OTM about the whole "I'm in my mid-20s and am having a mid-life crisis" vibe throughout the piece

unless he's actually parodying that whole meme and is secretly in on the joke. I mean, that's what it has to be, right guys?

as far as i can tell nick sylvesters #1 subject is his major anxiety about status/authenticity so i can see why hro strikes such a chord w/ him

i had to look up what hipster runoff was just now and i looked and wow is that ever hard to look at. my eyes hurt.

you are old

duh

yeah I think it's pretty telling that he's so surprised that Mark Richardson is able to genuinely appreciate music without being worried about the accompanying baggage...I mean I thought authentically/genuinely appreciating music was a character default for all music geeks xp

oh I see hipsters have contests and run-offs haha

alright i'm gonna look up mark richardson now

can we all agree that the charles aaron piece belongs in "worst music criticism of the 2000s"? let's all agree on that

i keep trying to reread the piece to be specific abt my criticism but theres so many layers of self-loathing and anxiety that i cant really even figure out what he is trying to say except "im smarter than hipster runoff"

Mark Richardson, c'est nous.

Sylvester et Carles are our generation's Bouvard et Pecuchet

^^ I don't actually know what that means, but it sounds good

what a sentimental education.

Mark actually has posted here a lot, Scott!

pipecock or mr. snrub?

ok basically i think my problem is this--its hard to take an essay whose main thesis is "hipster runoff is dumb because it makes people nervous about the things they like" seriously when 2/3ds of the essay is spent bombing on other writers for not being smart/cool/secure enough in their enjoyment--you cant really have your cake and eat it too

just imagine it was published in the new yorker and u will have no problems with it

lol

u know me 2 well babe

Let Charles Aaron be Charles Aaron! Don't you remember what it was like?

"Mark actually has posted here a lot, Scott!"

I'M REALLY bad with names. i mean no offense.

i don't remember who most of you people are. jordan s. is the one who loves tuba bands, right?

actually, now that you mention it, i do remember the name mark richardson on ilm.

i can't read that whole nick sylvester thing. can anybody really read the whole thing? and no offense to him either, i figure its just one of those long blog posts that people like to throw out there when they've had a lot of coffee. i wrote lots of stuff on my blog that i didn't think anyone would actually read all the way through. just venting, you know?

I think he had just watched The Dark Knight and it really made him think about the nature of nihilism and sarcasm and life in general

I read the whole thing. I think that if you're worried that your love for an album is a pose... it could be it's just a pose. The lesson I learnt from the essay: Lots of people lie to themselves, including NS, and he probably doesn't like Animal Collective as much as he thinks he does. I bet the albums he really loves, he never has existential quandaries about loving them.

(His whole socially constructed taste versus ignorant enjoyment is so bullshit too. Butler said gender is also socially constructed, but I don't see NS grappling with whether his masculinity is just a pose he strikes, but then becomes conscious of, but then returns to anyway. And that seems like a much more important thing to be worried about than the new Animal Collective album!!!!)

mordy u r super otm there. if you have to question whether hro is a big joke; if a charles aaron (who sucked when i first read him in 1997 and who sucks now) piece, the animal collectives, and the dark knight inspire you to write a gigantic blog post with "ass to ass" as the central metaphor you may be beyond help.

Linked to from the front page of Sylvester's blog, another 2000s classic of music criticism: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11617-partie-traumatic/

And: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/

The Black Kids's review is more interesting, I think, insofar as Pitchfork admitted to fucking up in overhyping the band.

i reread that JD vs Flipper thread, and the original post is good, but i think

Flipper were defiant punk rock in many of its guises. Funny,fuck you,cleverly sloppy, angry,hateful,hilarious,nihilistic, miserable and more. Joy Division were just miserable

Another Flipper rules, OK?

― Fer Ark, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 4:15 PM (1 year ago)

is better. maybe i don't "get" music criticism......

Also in response to the Nick Sylvester thing, which I am not going to really go into except to say this: Mike Powell's "goodbye Stylus" piece is a much more elegant and, to me, relevant way of getting at what NS seemed to be getting at. I think it deserves more ganders than that NS piece at least:
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/2007-year-end-thoughts/i-humanize-the-vacuum.htm

I understand where the impulse comes from, but I'm not liking the argument that there is some purer or more accurate or more genuine or more honest way of enjoying music that takes place when you absent yourself from critical discussion.

To quote Sylvester:

There is nothing more annoying than people liking music for the wrong reasons? Not to pull a Chuck Eddy, but are there wrong reasons for listening to music? If blasting DMX out your Wrangler as you're pulling into some high school girl's driveway makes you feel awesome, makes you feel like a fucking bad-ass, is that wrong? If listening to metal makes you feel tougher, less insecure, is it my job to tell you that you are an idiot? You know when some people say "music is like a drug for me", this is what they're talking about: the simple act of listening to music makes them feel good. Imagine someone saying "You're enjoying heroin for all the wrong reasons." Are there right reasons?

are there wrong reasons for SB'ing kshighway?

:-(

Why would you do that?

oh, there are at least 51 reasons

List several?

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

Thanks, some dude.

I really don't understand why you're singling me out here when I haven't really done anything. I'll admit that I definitely don't know as much about ILM or music as many of you here do -- my knowledge of this place is limited to two years of lurking and a couple months of posting, and my knowledge of music is mostly limited to US indie rock, but I don't see why that makes me worthy of mockery.

I've also tried to sincerely contribute to this place by starting several threads on topics that I thought were interesting, and I've tried to engage in discussion with others who seem to be interested in the same topics, which is what I thought the purpose of this place is. I understand that some might not find my contributions particularly interesting, but I'm giving my best shot here.

it's all good, homie. the transition from lurking to actively posting is tough, and i would say you need thick skin but i think you've already demonstrated thicker skin than a lot of regulars, so hey. i will say, there are a lot of things i could say to seriously engage w/ that sylvester piece, but some folks up thread already kinda nailed my basic feelings.

also please remember SB'ing is more like playful ribbing than anything else if you're pretty sure the object is not getting anywhere near 51 anytime soon.

Just read that Sylvester piece, and I have to say I really, really like it. (I know the internet has changed our length-of-thinking standards, but it doesn't seem caffeinated or bloggy to me at all, just a well-formed critical essay, one I wouldn't have minded reading cleaned-up and in print.) I don't think Maura needs any defending from a passing comment -- Maura's fine on her own -- and I agree with most everything said about Mark in there, even if it means I'm misremembering a conversation in Ryan's car. Those things are true and impressive and likable about him. Most of all it's nice to see Sylvester -- who has at times dipped pretty deeply into the kind of mindset he's disowning here -- write earnestly about this stuff, and seem right about it. (And have a nice Joker metaphor to wind it around.)

Wow some dude, that was an almost Brentian level zinger there.

Also it's my contention that SBing people for having opinions is less "playful ribbing" and more "being a dick," but that's just me, ymmv -- also honestly if that piece is considered too gigantic to chop through I guess I can understand why print magazines with text that actually extends from one page to another are in such dire financial straits

The thing is, though, since the whole angle of it is that noone really knows who Carles is and the guy is pretty much voicing opinions he himself can't possibly believe, the NS piece amounts to a really long, impassioned and self-aware argument with a sock puppet.

Basically saying "hey, thanks for creating a strawman for me to rage against so I don't have to"

the other obvious unspoken thing about SB's is saying you SB'd somebody doesn't necessarily mean you actually did

not that that makes it any less of a dick move

As flattering as it is to be included in the initial post, I can't help but feel that my presence here is a little... incongruous.

I don't want to get into a whole lengthy cap'n save-an-article-you-liked thing, but I think that's the reason Sylvester spends a good quarter of the piece decoding not what HRO's "opinions" are but what its "engine of comedy" is; I think he's basically correct in his assessment

I couldn't read the whole thing - do not care about critics' relationships to one another, plus (lolz I R old) I am way past caring about the whole "authenticity" aspect of enjoying music.

also isn't this guy Nick Sylvester, Maker-upper?

yeah i v much disagree with sylvester about what the "engine of comedy" of hro & how its taken up by its readers...

by which I mean, people like what they like, and I enjoy reading analyses of why people like things, but questioning whether or not a particular "why" is valid is a non-starter

x-post

jeez shakey you might want to read the nick sylvester thing

it's all good, homie. the transition from lurking to actively posting is tough, and i would say you need thick skin but i think you've already demonstrated thicker skin than a lot of regulars, so hey. i will say, there are a lot of things i could say to seriously engage w/ that sylvester piece, but some folks up thread already kinda nailed my basic feelings.

― weingar management (some dude), Thursday, July 30, 2009 1:47 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

Thanks for the kind words, some dude! I understand that I'm probably making a lot of rookie mistakes in repeating things people've said in the past, missing references (I had no idea your 51 referred to Suggest Bans), and revealing obvious gaps in my knowledge. But I do deeply care about music and music criticism, which is why I'm here; talking to all of you is excellent. Anyway, thank you for the response. :-)

xp one thing nick is definitely not doing is questioning whether or not a particular why is valid or not--in fact hes arguing that all whys are valid--and i would guess that most people posting on this thread agree with that, myself included--more likely the bone of contention (at least w/ me) is nicks take on hro and how it operates and how its read

jeez shakey you might want to read the nick sylvester thing

I stopped when he got to the ass-to-ass/dildo metaphor

in fact hes arguing that all whys are valid

I got that he was saying this, but its like a foregone conclusion for me at this point

i just thought the leap at the end to "soon ppl won't just LIKE stuff" was a bit dire.

One the one hand, I have a lot of respect for the amount of energy & focus he's putting into his idea in that piece; that's what I like in music criticism: engagement. I think a lot of the "young, and in New York" stuff is really quite silly, but it's a distraction. So, A for effort, kinda. Only then he says

Step into the music, the lyrics, and you realize this album is about three thirty year-olds trying to figure out how not to become grups.

I think the sentiment that underlies this is really noxious & grotesque, and it reframes a lot of what he's saying, for me.

well agree on it and yet like 80% of ILX posting suggests the precise opposite

I think we need to keep in mind something Sylvester says in his piece:

"Young people don't know who they are and I am going to make fun of them to the delight of slightly less young people who don't know who they are yet either"?

We're all probably older than HRO's target audience, but we need to keep in mind that some people do take his site and his opinions seriously. Look at the Animal Collective piece Sylvester is responding too. It's an absurd, messy piece that tries to argue that the Animal Collective was created by and for the internet, as if Avey Tare & co. sat down and calibrated their music directly to pander to indie rock fans, which of course they did not do. HRO sucks because he's cynical about everything, and if you adopt his point of view you can't sincerely enjoy anything.

And Carles is making ad revenue off of young kid's cynicism, which is kind of disgusting.

J0hn please tell me more about that and what sentiment you're finding!

"also honestly if that piece is considered too gigantic to chop through I guess I can understand why print magazines with text that actually extends from one page to another are in such dire financial straits"

oh please, i've read an entire LIBRARY of nabisco posts over the years. i have no problem with length. i had no desire to continue and when i saw how long it was i REALLY had no desire to continue. maybe if i knew all the people involved - cuz a lot of it read like high school intrigue to me - then i might be more interested. a blogger with a blog i've never read dissing another blogger with a blog i've never read doesn't exactly thrill right off the bat.

why is it hro's problem is ppl take him seriously? does he have some kind of responsibility cause he writes a popular blog?

well agree on it and yet like 80% of ILX posting suggests the precise opposite

― nabisco, Thursday, July 30, 2009 2:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

nabisco, what did you mean by this?

I don't know how old Sylvester is, but he views a lot of what constitutes being thirty through the lens of being in your twenties.

We're all probably older than HRO's target audience, but we need to keep in mind that some people do take his site and his opinions seriously. Look at the Animal Collective piece Sylvester is responding too. It's an absurd, messy piece that tries to argue that the Animal Collective was created by and for the internet, as if Avey Tare & co. sat down and calibrated their music directly to pander to indie rock fans, which of course they did not do. HRO sucks because he's cynical about everything, and if you adopt his point of view you can't sincerely enjoy anything.

And Carles is making ad revenue off of young kid's cynicism, which is kind of disgusting.

― kshighway, Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dunno, im not all that old--im probably right near the middle of hros target demographic--and i would be hard-pressed to find a single person who takes carles's opinions "seriously."

sorry, scott, I didn't have you in mind on that one -- and obviously no one wants to read longish things if they're not interested in them -- I was just surprised by various notes that it's like epic or gigantic cause it's basically an article-length article

Essentially, to Sylvester, being thirty is something extraordinary that happens when you discover that you can make good Animal Collective records.

J0hn please tell me more about that and what sentiment you're finding!

I think the use of "grups" there is completely disingenuous - it's shorthand for some vague we've-all-agreed-these-guys-suck-haven't-we "them," so that the piece's author, having allied himself w/Animal Collective (here standing in for the Good and the True), can have some never-too-clearly-defined referent of What We Aren't/The Bad Guys. Which I think is utter bullshit - if you're going to go Holden Caulfield, fine, go ahead, go all the way, but as critical stances go, it's a non-starter imo

kshighway -- I just meant that while we all tend to agree in the abstract that most reasons for liking things are legitimate, there is a decent portion of ILX that consists of discussing, poking fun at, or arguing about abstract types of people, the things they like, and why they're presumed to like him, a front on which I suspect most of us have been slight hypocrites at some point (or else just "complex")

btw just so everyone knows nabisco only likes this piece because hes a contrarian and wants to be "indie"

my dislike for this blogg is far more authentic than nabiscos "like" for it

Also I love this article by Ned Raggett

Rockism

Hey, thanks!

:)

huh, J0hn, I guess I just interpreted that as a reference to the whole "grups" concept/anxiety talked about earlier, and not something being projected on there -- haha the main thing I found iffy about that claim was the whole highly subjective thing where "hey, when you get right down to it, this album very conveniently turns out to be all about exactly the thing I'm concerned and engaging with in my writing/life at this moment!!"

it's alarming how many records are secretly about exactly the thing I want to think about when they're on

Re; Animal Collective & turning 30, I think part of my damascus thing with them was realising that Panda is, like, two months younger than me. Grups is a fucking hideous term. I'm with J0hn there; I agree with some of the Sylvester piece, but an awful lot of it is... trying to do down both younger and elder at the same time, whereas... at some point you realise that both sets know more than you, and that's when you realise it's OK to ask what song's on the iPod in the car with your music journalist colleagues. You might be 29 when that happens, or 19. It's just called "not giving a fuck about being cool anymore".

x-post - All of them, nabisco, all of them.

I like Matt Cibula's article about rockism, too.

I gotta think what's even more awkward than asking what a song is in a car full of music journos is the resulting silence while everybody hems and haws and pretends that they know, but can't be bothered to say what it is at the moment because look there's a really interesting tree on the side of the road over there

At which point somebody just fires up Shazam on an iPhone and finds out what it is.

I think the use of "grups" there is completely disingenuous - it's shorthand for some vague we've-all-agreed-these-guys-suck-haven't-we "them," so that the piece's author, having allied himself w/Animal Collective (here standing in for the Good and the True), can have some never-too-clearly-defined referent of What We Aren't/The Bad Guys. Which I think is utter bullshit - if you're going to go Holden Caulfield, fine, go ahead, go all the way, but as critical stances go, it's a non-starter imo

I 100% agree with this and would have rather read an in-depth analysis of how generational conflict becoming embedded in mass media is basically a holdover from the 60s/baby boomers-"we hate our parents" mentality that is completely useless and unhealthy.

a blogger with a blog i've never read dissing another blogger with a blog i've never read doesn't exactly thrill right off the bat.

^^also this. me and scot on the same page

I don't know how old Sylvester is, but he views a lot of what constitutes being thirty through the lens of being in your twenties.

― Heric E. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 30, 2009 2:17 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

He graduated from college in 2004, so 26 or 27 I'm guessing.

re: Grups, sometimes I wonder if my grandparents' generation hated their parents for not being into jazz and having like a job and a house and shit

I don't mind teal deers if they are interesting and thoughtful, but I'm not so interested the musings of someone so dull. Nick is dull, even when fabulizing.

I admit I had to look up what teal deers meant.

Hmm, I think Nick's stuff is pretty often a captivating read, even when I disagree or find his thoughts too tangled.

I admit I had to look up what teal deers meant.

haha yeah that's definitely some linguistic "through the looking glass" shit

did he get rejected for a job at idolator?

Okay I had not seen "teal deer" before but was it really THAT difficult to figure out from the context?

I've never really jibed with NS's sense of humor, but even when he's trying to be serious there's so much forest-for-the-trees Pitchforkworld navel gazing going on that, even being more than a little familiar with that world, I really can't bring myself to give a shit about whatever point he's making.

xpost -- I think his Idolator beef is just a general outgrowth of a Gawker-reported-on-my-controversy grudge

And basic contempt for womenfolk.

Okay I had not seen "teal deer" before but was it really THAT difficult to figure out from the context?

My first thought was that it was some sort of slang spoonerism on 'real tears' IE some sort of big emotional piece. Except that would only work if the original phrase was 'deal tears,' which admittedly sounds great as well...

freak of nature over here who comes up with labored wordplay for display names all damn day had to look up "teal deer" too

Sorry guys, I thought this was was a pretty commonly used phrase.

i basically agree with scott, this kinda shit is eye-rolling and too "inside baseball." at some point dudes like this are just talking to other dudes exactly like him and no one else.

Was there some conflict between Sylvester and Idolator?

yeah jess beat up nick once

and animal collective wrote a song about it

there's basically at least a dozen shots at idolator in the riffmarket archives (my favorite is "Russ Limbaugh of Music Criticism")

this kinda shit is eye-rolling and too "inside baseball." at some point dudes like this are just talking to other dudes exactly like him and no one else.

yeah - I don't mind a little critical tete-a-tete, particularly when the focus is really on the IDEAS (edward said vs. bernard lewis springs to mind) but when its just "lol this dude is sharp he isn't afraid to admit he doesn't know something" its just really grating.

he's right about idolator tho -- once it shed actual critics like whiney, mike barthel & al shipley it's become borderline unreadable

― a narwhal done gored my shortstop yunel (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i won't defend Maura because i think she's doing a great job solo and would still have all us on board if she could, but Nick would probably applaud the budget cut that resulted in all the freelancers going bye-bye, since we were all Poochie to him to begin with: http://www.riffmarket.com/2007/02/remember-that-episode-of-simpsons.html

wait, I am getting the sense that some of you (a) disagree that there is anything sincere or face-value about the HRO post for Sylvester to dig into, but also (b) do not disagree with Maura's commendation of the HRO post as being sincere / face-value correct -- sorry to linger on this one but I am not clever enough not to need this third way explained to me

Thanks some dude, I just found that post you're referring to. Yikes.

(I've been reading Idolator regularly for two years now. I wonder what Sylvester's problem with it is? Time to check the Riffmarket archives further.)

despite my idolator zings in the past it is 100x preferable to NS, chris ott, and those sorts of creeps.

Maybe I'm too close to things, but like Nabisco, I thought that part of the piece neatly summed up why Mark Richardson has always been one of Pitchfork's best writers. I mean, he was writing honest, level-headed thinkpieces when Ryan Schreiber was getting stuff like this out of his system.

yeah, but giving props to someone who deserves it can be done without all that other baggage

in which "baggage" = the thing he's actually writing about? I dunno, it seems fair to me to contrast Richardson's critical sensibility with the other thing he's being vexed by here -- this isn't so much just lauding Richardson as pointing out one critic who (honestly, more than any other I know a lot about) seems ideally non-vexed and sorta casually above all that stuff

could he have done that w/out the i wrote for p4k and was in a car w/ryan s. once bullshit? lol upon scanning his blog refs to p4k pop up everywhere--move on dude.

http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs20/f/2007/231/4/a/TEAL_DEER_by_kunika.jpg

Oh god, I forgot all about the horrible Jimmy Eat World review.

could he have done that w/out the i wrote for p4k and was in a car w/ryan s. once bullshit?

That doesn't feel particularly extraneous or gratuitous to me; it provides context for his story about Mark. Anyway, it's a blog post -- of course it's going to be filtered through first-person experience.

eh it just feels like winks and nudges to me but whateva

I really can't believe Nick Sylvester still has the ability to generate this much discussion.

slow month

this is like the catchup thread for ppl who missed the hro thread, with bonus sylvester content.

http://philspector.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/sylvester-1.jpg

If only.

Mike Powell's nice piece on Lovely Music, Ltd

it was good to re-read those farewell Stylus pieces. i'd say a fair amount of the best music writing of the 2000s is in those archives.

I was really hoping there was some good music criticism posted on here that was generating all these new answers, oh well.

hello alex! welcome to ilm!

Hah I'm just kidding. I knew it was just a bunch of bloviating about a stupid article I have no interest in reading. ;)

:-)

don't be such a teal deer.

i don't remember who most of you people are. jordan s. is the one who loves tuba bands, right?

― scott seward, Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol "tuba bands". nah, that's me, not j0rdan s.

(I WAS THERE, I taught the kid from Wavves how to play guitar, I was in a car with Ryan Schreiber at the first Pitchfork festival driving over to Lakeview, I WAS THERE, etc. -- but no in my memory any joking about not-asking about O'Rourke was more joking about the car's driver paying the car's passengers to write record reviews, like more of a joke about Schreiber-as-boss than about not-knowing stuff? followed by some sort of joke about poor O'Rourke, like five indie critics in a car in Chicago and only a couple had spent much time with Insignificance)

Well it's more ns; dr.

So, did the 2000s start three years ago?

you taught the kid from wavves how to play guitar?!

For the sake of my sanity, could we refer to Nick Sylvester as Nick Sylvester or Sylvester rather than Nick or Nick S or NS, because I'm starting to feel schizo.

I introduced Donna to Althea

should've taught him more chords

xpost

I only started reading a lot of rock crit in 2006/2007, and I've been posting a lot of the links here so, for me, kind of!

"So, did the 2000s start three years ago?"

Well when you get old it gets harder to remember things that happened four or more years ago so. . .

So, did the 2000s start three years ago?

And consists entirely of writing on the internet and nowhere else. (xpost)

well that part's true

NS = Nude Spock

Well it's more ns; dr.

Ha, I initially interpreted "ns" as "not short," like "it's not that it's too long, but it's not exactly short either."

Matos, I suggested a couple books upthread and so did others.

And some pieces, like Erik Davis's piece in Arthur, was originally in the print issue of Arthur, although admittedly I first encountered it online.

Then again, I think most of us probably get the majority of our music criticism from the internet these days. (There are exceptions. I just bought the new copy of Spin because Jeff Tweedy was on the cover and there's an article about Wilco, my favorite band, in there.)

I haven't really read many print magazines since 2004, but back in the day I occasionally bought the occasional Rolling Stone, Spin, or Blender from the newsstand, and I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly way back in the day and The New Yorker for a little while after that, but now I don't subscribe to any print magazines, although I still buy the occasional issue from Barnes and Noble or something.

* print music magazines. i read some non-music magazines sometimes, but even that's on a per-issue basis if I see something particularly interesting I want to look at that's not also online or if it's just an issue of a particular magazine I want a hard copy of, like the relatively recent New Yorker that a long article about David Foster Wallace in it.

some of my favorite readings lately are by various authors in a single multi-authored feature in waxpoetics - the re:discovery stuff in the front section. most of it is kinda clean documentary/reportage style with judiciously chosen descriptive embellishments - maybe a personalized interjection here or there, but not so much. the internet has completely cured me of the desire to know how somebody felt when they were listening to a piece of music; I want to know about the piece itself, who made and, and how, and they are or were like, and whether it succeeded or failed, and what people thought of it then or think of it now. I do want to hear some description of the music, and that necessarily will involve subjective description, but I'm as or more interested in hearing about the music now. the re:discovery features are often kinda perfect little gems of documentary music writing to me, and the writers are to be commended but so generally is the mag, who must have some editorial guideline for how this feature's done; it's rad imo.

"who made it, and how," that should read.

wait it's worse than that, sorry, severe jetlag today

"who made it, and how, and what they are or were like, and whether their music succeeded or failed," try

(I WAS THERE, I taught the kid from Wavves how to play guitar

ha not sure i'd be braggin about this one, nab

I love wax poetics! Haven't bought it in a few months tho, I'll pick one up.

the banal truth is that when nick and i were sharing an apartment in 2006, i kept drinking all of his hard cider and not replacing it. from such ignoble origins are inter-blog beefs born.

!

RIP strongohulkington

"I just bought the new copy of Spin because Jeff Tweedy was on the cover and there's an article about Wilco, my favorite band, in there."

suggest ban

LOL

How do you know Wilco is really your favorite band and not just a social construct la-la-la?

Some of David Fricke's Rolling Stone features have been phenomenal this decade. I remember a Linkin Park feature from ca. 2001 that broke down how the band created a brand from day one, and all the hard work they put into it. It set the stage so well that I ended up having a great amount of respect and empathy for Linkin Park of all bands.

And I'll second Our Band Could Be Your Life, obvs

And Melissa Maerz's Lighning Bolt piece in the Village Voice from 2003:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-03-04/music/mome-raths-outgrabe/1

Books I quite liked.

Miles Beyond
Japrocksampler
Can't Stop, Won't Stop

More.

Drew's TG book (guess that got a mention already)
Also quite liking Freeman's collection of Interviews that just came out on lulu (want to read his Miles book as well)
Re-ish of the Beth Lesser King Jammy book and the Soul Jazz Dancehall book if those count as crit

"I just bought the new copy of Spin because Jeff Tweedy was on the cover and there's an article about Wilco, my favorite band, in there."

suggest ban

― scott seward, Thursday, July 30, 2009 8:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Thanks scott. :-)

Does TG book mean Throbbing Gristle? And if so what is it and who is Drew?

(I know that this is wishful thinking.)

xpost: Japrocksampler seconded, particularly the piece on Les Rallizes Denudes, which I remember from reading on Head Heritage: enthused, compelling and hilarious.

The Sound Projector fanzine has been consistently excellent, notably Ed Pinsent and Jennifer Hor on Black Metal.

xpost

Results 1 - 10 of about 13,100 for drew "Throbbing Gristle". (0.15 seconds)

xxpost, instead of snarkily referring you to google I'll give a proper answer. Yes, TG stands for Throbbing Gristle, and the book referred to is by Drew Daniel out of Matmos, who wrote about 20 Jazz Funk Greats in Continuum's 33 1/3 series of books on individual albums.

Sweet. That has been ordered. Cheers.

Yeah, this board would be awesome wouldn't it if the old 'check google' answer was wheeled out at every conceivable op.

Wouldn't it be even more awesome if people didn't ask questions that could be answered in .15 seconds by using Google?

Not really. People ask questions, they get answered. That makes for a more lively, interesting and open-to-newbies board. IMHO.

Even though I couldn't read any choices beyond something in Spanish, I would be interested in any nominations of non-English language writing to this thread, if only as a reminder that the musical world is not solely Anglophonic.

Wouldn't it be even more awesome if people didn't ask questions that could be answered in .15 seconds by using Google?

My comment was a mixture of rhetoric and sarcasm you dim wit. If you remove every question that could be possibly answered by a google, you'd be able to see the tumbleweed blowing through this board.

Ned: What about a google translation of the Varg interview?

tumbleweeds blowing
through the once lively and interesting board;
a mixture of rhetoric and sarcasm

Wow. What a comeback. It's melted my face.

no, you don't understand -- "a mixture of rhetoric and sarcasm" is the name of my dog!

Ha ha. Ok. If only there was an acronym to convey the fact that I'd actually just laughed out loud. Someone should look into that.

What I'm struggling with is why Alex in SF couldn't have written "Drew Daniel's book on Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats" instead of "Drew's TG book". If he'd done that there would have been no need for Doran to ask the question in the first place. Sure it would have taken a little longer but it would also have had the advantage of making this board – specifically, this thread – seem a little less cliquey.

yeah, it bugged me a little, but... internet folks is lazy; what can you do?

Well, now he's sold another copy to me and two more angry young men have been mildly insulting to a stranger on the internet, so I guess everyone's happy. I know I am.

you could always give Alex shit about ".15 seconds" in his snarky post, I seriously doubt he or anybody else can type a query into Google in ".15 seconds"

the thing is, guys, Dr. Drew Pinsky wrote a book about Throbbing Gristle too.

0.15 seconds was the time taken for Google to process the search request, not the time taken to enter the request

Very mild insults indeed. Jeez new people are getting butthurt about the smallest things now.

I seriously doubt he or anybody else can type a query into Google in ".15 seconds"

CHALLENGE

http://thatwoman.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/gauntlet.jpg

I just typed "a" in less time than it took for Google to return the results to me; YOUR LANDS ARE MINE, DARN13LL3

0.15 seconds was the time taken for Google to process the search request, not the time taken to enter the request

yes but if you use the patented J0hn D. method of getting things wrong & then arguing spiritedly on the basis of your false impression you can have a really big dust-up that gives many people big lols

Jeez new people are getting butthurt about the smallest things now

xpost until I have heard thorough descriptions of the first 100 hits on "a" I will not believe you

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=a&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=flbC24gbdiA

.1 seconds to type and hit Enter
.33 seconds for results to return

Expect movers with all my stuff by the 7th

(BOOYAH)

dude anagram I agree with your general sentiment ("you don't have to be a dick about it") but "rather damaging" is practically pleading for a pile-on

CURSE YOU DAN P THE GHOSTS OF MY FOREFATHERS WHO BUILT THIS CASTLE WILL HAUNT YOUR NEW CRIB WITH GHASTLY HAUNTEDNESS

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

Who are these newbie Nick Sylvester's that have invaded this thread???

(See what I did there? I casually pushed the conversation back towards something I found interesting; NS's abortion of an op-ed > newbies crying about not knowing Throbbing Gristle, plus I've created an amusing and lovable tease to toss around! We can call each other Nick Sylvester! Also, guyz. For realz. This senseless fighting has to stop. It breakz my <3.)

"It assumes everyone knows who and what you're talking about and it makes the place seem excessively insular and "in the know"."

*mimes furious jerk off motion* Seriously you might have an actual point if "drew tg" didn't immediately return a result which explains exactly who and what this was. But whatever. Apparently it's a damaged place here. Boo hoo.

http://entertheoctopus.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/ghostbusters.jpg

lurkers and new posters, find a better thread than this one imo

is this a 'flamewar'? are we supposed to 'pwn' each other now? because I've spent a lot of time on google looking for pictures of mandalas, and I'm not about to throw all of that inner peace away for some 'troll' on a message board

"*mimes furious jerk off motion* Seriously you might have an actual point if "drew tg" didn't immediately return a result which explains exactly who and what this was. But whatever. Apparently it's a damaged place here. Boo hoo."

Is that your rattle on the floor mate?

http://www.mobilization.com/images/artists/tg/TG_Lightning_Bolt.gif

spooky resemblance!

*mimes furious jerk off motion*

admit that it was more than miming

Sssh J0hn you're damaging the place.

Is that your rattle on the floor mate?

SB, tbqh.

alex tho for real who are you trying to impress by being all hardman on newbies/lurkers? seems beneath you tbpf

(10 years from now this part of the thread will be held up as a shining example of "oblique criticism" where the critic expresses his/her disdain for a topic by ignoring it and talking about random side topics instead.)

Really? I didn't realize I gave the impression that much was beneath me. Anyway just bored and messing about.

Ned: What about a google translation of the Varg interview?

There is that!

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IN THE SAM HILL A "TBPF" IS BEFORE MY HEAD EXPLODES LIKE THE GUY FROM SCANNERS

dan otm, alex & I are actually talking about univers zero but our code is impetuous

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IN THE SAM HILL A "TBPF" IS BEFORE MY HEAD EXPLODES LIKE THE GUY FROM SCANNERS

To Be Peter Frampton

It's about teal deers oh wait.

tbpf = to be perfectly frank
tbqf = to be quite frank

Etc.

ned your contempt for fun has marked you for death tbua

I nominate "tib poof" and "tib queef" as the new phrases for those, btw.

(also "btw" means "Bite The Wang")

Do you guys remember a couple days ago when this thread was still stupid but maybe a little more entertaining than it is now?

all these years i thought tbf was "to be fair"

xpost no because I have amnesia, thanks for rubbing it in

What does SB mean?

OK, then. That supply teacher from New Orleans writing about Lil Wayne. That piece was fucking ace.

ned your contempt for fun has marked you for death tbua

I know ;_;

SB is an abbrevation for Sbarro; when someone is SBing you it means they are virtually shoving awful pizza down your throat.

sb is my initials. it is a reference to me, cad

I nominate "tib poof" and "tib queef" as the new phrases for those, btw.

Seconded, carried by voice vote, adjourned.

SB = (the feeling of the) Sublime and Beautiful

sb is a reference to antimony. it is a popular element.

(poor Mordy)

Haven't we damaged this thread enough, guys? Won't someone think of the lurkers?

bernard killin it on this thread & deserves to be acknowledged as its king

ned your contempt for fun has marked you for death tbua

what does "tbua" stand for or are we making fun of Jordan and his 'tuba bands' again

I cried so many tearz / and lost so many peerz.

Tuba Bands Ultimate Acknowledgement

to be unnecessarily aggressive

It's a proper laugh when it's on fire this board.

(Don't need to think *too* hard about this lurker tbqh, I have been hanging around occasionally since 2003.)

figured that one would be self-evident, tbuc

to be uncomfortably close

Torborg Builders Under Construction?

the tragedy of this thread's lost potential is downright shakespearean tbontb

this thread is a pretty good snapshot of music criticism in the 2000s tb;dl

Torborg Builders Under Construction?

seriously didn't think anybody would get this one but isce

that blog post is fucking horrible.

why did you people make me read it.

i wonder what else we can make you do

Peter Shapiro - Turn the beat around, a secret history of disco

not to mention you motherfuckers made me think about Animal fucking Collective

it builds character, and we thought you needed some

the last 5 paragraphs aren't that bad, to be fair

thanks ilx for the character

Mike Powell's nice piece on Lovely Music, Ltd

it was good to re-read those farewell Stylus pieces. i'd say a fair amount of the best music writing of the 2000s is in those archives.

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Thursday, July 30, 2009 9:57 PM (Yesterday

def seconded, this is by far and away the best piece of music writing I have ever read.

tib poof

no no no obviously this should be TUBE POOF

whoever brought up the sylvester thing was surely taking the piss

no mention of hypnagogic thus far...

"tib poof" and "tib queef" were typos; it should have been "tub poof" and "tub queef"

tubby perfectly frank i don't believe you

tubby perfectly frank

http://www.topnews.in/files/Frank-Lampard101.jpg

Weingarten on Twitter, rock crit, etc.: http://blip.tv/file/2250992

fyi we talked about that a bit on this thread, before i derailed it by talking about my seed: IS ROCK CRITICISM DEAD?

Your seed killed rock criticism.

duh

Congratulations are in order, I think.

An excellent book: Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth by David Browne

Here's a link to the book's page on the Da Capo site: http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/dacapo/book_detail.jsp?isbn=030681515X

y'know, i remember when Browne mentioned the book on ILM once, and I've been dying to read it but couldn't remember the author or title ever since, so thanks!

Is that book really excellent? A lot of people were pretty down on it for focusing on the bands most conventional aspects and consequently I never picked it up even though it's now a $10 remainder.

if you're interested in the band, it's a good read, but it's a pretty straightforward rock bio in most respects. don't know if it really fits as "criticism" ...

Just saw a few minutes ago that that guy is doing a reading and conversation with Lee Ranaldo at Tribeca Barnes and Noble in two weeks.

Yeah, you're right tylerw, it probably isn't criticism. But it is an excellent book, especially if you want a good, deep history of the band.

yeah, i liked it! a lot of stuff I didn't know about, but it wasn't the sort of thing that made me reconsider the band musically or anything.

dunno if there's a thread on the "best music bios" of the 2000s ...

(Don't need to think *too* hard about this lurker tbqh, I have been hanging around occasionally since 2003.)

THIS is the thread you decided to come out on???

angry young men

young??

anyhoo, thanx for the lolz, esp. unintentional ones like this:

ned your contempt for fun has marked you for death tbua

I read this as "death tuba" too but assumed it was some arcane bit of trivia j0hn d learned from heavy metal records (the method of calling medieval townsfolk to the square for a round of heretic burning?) and moved on.

I wouldn't say the point I called you on, namely putting "Drew's TG book", is a small thing. It assumes everyone knows who and what you're talking about and it makes the place seem excessively insular and "in the know".

I should point out that Throbbing Gristle themselves have perpetuated this insularity:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/ThrobbingGristleTGNowVinylPictureDiscFace.jpg

Anyway ks, if you're looking for great music criticism from the first half of the decade, have you searched thru the alt-weeklies -- pre-NT Voice/ City Pages, Matos-era Seattle Weekly, Chicago Reader? Also SFJ's Slate stuff was better than his New Yorker stuff (and better than Jody Rosen's too).

Not to ruin acronym fun, but a couple notes:

NS's piece, like most of his pieces, is hobbled by his utter lack of self-awareness and, in particular, class prerogatives. "Let the kids be kids" is in this case more of a "let the upper middle class white kids be ridiculous" sort of thing. It's a shame that he's got those blinders, because I honestly think he can be really insightful about things, except as they apply/relate to himself.

His note on Maura is a misfire because he implies that she takes the HRO post literally rather than as a meta-analysis of AC's popularity.

Also I thought his Idolator ire had to do with when he posted a riff about "all the great NYC dance music that wasn't being recognized in the year-end polls like no one knew it existed" basically, and jess called him on it (jess's response post has since been removed from his blog i think). NS likes to make grand statements and doesn't really know what to do when someone points out all the holes in them.

NB I like reading NS's stuff, actually, despite these recurring flaws.

Mordy: Not quite. I've turned up here and there over the last few years to occasionally take the piss out of Dom Passantino. Although he seems to have vanished now.

was gonna say "pretty sure Doran has posted before"

Due to my complete technoidiocy I've posted under various names before, usually a variation on my name. Or Carcass. After the Liverpudlian vegan grindcore act.

In fact I'd actually like to nominate a different NS piece: The Same That Burn Crosses. He really concisely gets at why people who love Ed Banger love Ed Banger and why people who hate Ed Banger hate Ed Banger. It's actually not that far off from any of the poptimist sort of stuff, in particular Carl's book and Eric Weisbard's and others' analyses of adult contemporary, except that NS seems to think it's particularly noble or laudatory of himself to admit to liking Rage Against the Machine.

Anyway enough about NS; here are two other pieces I'm fond of:

Brian Howe on Devin the Dude and misogyny in hip-hop (moistworks.com, August 6, 2007)
Jess on the Misfits and New Jersey (idolator.com, July 28, 2009)*

*I know this is from three days ago, so I may just still be riding high on it, but I thought it was really wonderful, and if I can ever put into words why I think Chris Carrabba, John Mayer and Rivers Cuomo could only have grown up in Connecticut, I hope it's even half this good.

No need to apologize for liking it, that piece by Jess really is that good. Sums up the end of this idiot decade all too well.

Another vote for Mike Powell on Lovely Music.

Dave Queen rules supreme here. His Virgin Killer essay/Scorpions discography/genreless rage at the USA Empire from Marooned is my favorite slab of music crit of the decade. And I wouldn't even know where first to guide someone with his ILM posts. Probably his parallax view of New Order's greatest song. Or maybe his faux AMG entries. Or TS: Smiths vs Anal Cunt. And I wish I was a millionaire so I could pay him $1000 to review all of Asia's (the group) live albums.

My second fave is Scott Seward on prog rap.

Other greats:

Xgau on Sarah Vaughan and Lucille Bogan
john d on Roto (who?) and j0hn d on Warwick in Marooned
Michael Freedberg on darkwave although gawd knows I'm missing mountains of other great(er) stuff
Kandia Crazy Horse on Bubba Sparxxx and Kentucky Headhunters
Dylan Hicks' Man in Love: Barbra Streisand, Barry Gibb, and the Autobiographical Criticism of Doug Belknap
Katy St. Clair on Huey Lewis and his very special fans
Kogan on crappy retro girlpunk
Jason King's Luther obit
So much greatness chez Simon Reynolds to choose something representative but I've always adored his takedown of trance and progressive (scroll down towards the end, starts with "At the end of the day, I can't hate trance too much...")
Our Lord of The Soto on The Immaculate Collection
Yancey Strickler on The A Frames
Stewart Voegtlin's Disconnecting the Dots: Getting Critical with Music Critics (And their Readers)
Barry Walters on Alcazar, Scooter, and shameless Eurocheese

In terms of consistency and breadth of knowledge, Matos is my fave music crit of the decade. He's the maypole around which the radical fairies above prance and mince (this is a compliment). I'm not quite sure what piece I'd single out but I love his 2004 rewind, esp. the chunk on Sonic Nurse.

Books. Too many. But Peter Shapiro's Turn The Beat Around and the late Scott McMillin's masterpiece The Musical as Drama stand out. The latter is academic but much easier to grasp than Dave Queen or Seward.

Speaking of which, I have tons of suggestions for great academic music writing but that's probably for another thread.

As for ILM (apart from DQ), Tim F rules the roost easily (esp. since I don't see much of his non-ILM writing). Still cooking up a John Leland-inspired response to his Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and a Taxonomy of Vacuous Pop.

I keep a file of great ILM quotes and one moley shows up the most. Who is this moley? That's what I'd like to know. Here's a fave from Supposedly momentous concerts you were at, that you didn't find momentous at all.:

Kraftwerk, Sydney, a couple of years ago. BORING. If I wanted to watch four well dressed Germans stare at laptops for an hour, I'd employ a small Munich architecture firm to build me an unusual house.

― moley, Monday, May 19, 2008 11:12 PM

-30-

Oh! Also, here's moley's response to that Xgau review I linked to above:

I will not forgive him the picture he has created in my mind: hairy rock Dean buttocks; skinny frame pumping away with the avidity of the almost dead; white, beskidmarked underpants at half mast on his aging liverspotted legs. With many bookshelves in the background, many books.

-- moley, Thursday, 30 August 2007 09:08

Was all that an old moley post, KJB?

LOL. No. That's all me. That's why I put the -30- at the end (which I learned not from journalism but from the end of Sam Fuller's Park Row).

Dylan Hicks' Man in Love: Barbra Streisand, Barry Gibb, and the Autobiographical Criticism of Doug Belknap

whoah this is kinda mindblowing, the Belknap piece is nutsssss

also really funny and genuinely sad

Thanks, Kevin. The SY bit is a piece from City Pages. (http://www.citypages.com/2004-07-28/music/building-nothing-out-of-something/)

And I wouldn't even know where first to guide someone with his ILM posts.

You've got some good ones there, Kevin -- feel free to rummage through my fanpage, though. The ILX section relies on older, no longer valid URLs so I should get around to that; however, the thread titles can be searched for.

Oh, and thanks for the mention, Kev!

Over in this thread (Most ridiculous "news" item on Pitchfork regarding the horribly overhyped crapfest known as Wavves), we've been talking a little about P4K, so I wanted to know what sites people think produced some of the best rock criticism of the 2000s.

For me, it's definitely Pitchfork and Stylus (RIP).

As I said in that other thread re P4K:

There is no better website out there that covers the indie music sphere than Pitchfork right now. Period. And that's not to say Pitchfork does a slightly less shitty job than all of the other shitty sites out there, no: Pitchfork has, for the most part, relevant news & tour updates, excellent record reviews, and well-researched and thoughtful features.

As far as Stylus goes, if you haven't read it, check out the archives immediately: www.stylusmagazine.com

Almost two years later, and nothing has emerged that has even come close to attaining the greatness that was Stylus.

For blogs, it'd have to be Simon Reynolds's Blissblog (http://blissout.blogspot.com) and Idolator circa 2008.

I'd say I probably get my info from a combination of Pitchfork/The Wire/Here/Blogs

Blogs I'm currently really digging on are Disco Horror/5starHipHop/TheStaticFanatic/Beat Electric/20jfg

The writing on 20jfg is really annoying

I know, right?: Is The Wire worth subscribing to? Unfortunately, because I live in the US, it's like $10/$11 dollars per issue newstand...

And thanks for the blog titles - I'm going to check those out!

i liked nick sylvester's piece & dont get the h8. Its not some shit id rank as BEST MUSIC WRITING ... EVER but i dont get why ppl on here were so hurt in the butt about it.

I subscribe. I quit for a while, but I ended up buying enough issues that I decided it was worth it to do it again (esp. cuz the pound got weaker--although it's back up a little bit since then.)

How could I forgot Marooned?

http://books.google.com/books?id=FhGhMWOQk-MC&lpg=RA1-PA153&ots=sU4G52dgj9&dq=john%20darnielle%20marooned&pg=RA1-PA153#v=onepage&q=john%20darnielle%20marooned&f=false

The first ILX book not published on cafepress!

*forget

I subscribed to the wire for a year once, and by the end, I felt a bit like "why are they still sending me this," but I can be pretty faddy and go through phases with things pretty easily, still, this last year I've bought it off the newsstand and woulda saved a bunch if I hadn't (also, they send you some pretty kickass cds you can't get otherwise) I think they're the only place that covers what they cover that you can take with you on the bus (I do a good bit of travelling and I don't like taking the laptop with me so a little light non-internet reading is v. imp) I dunno, YMMV, but in the last year the big names in Electronic Music they've had on their covers have consistently enticed me to buy, more so than back when it was all Phil Minton.

Disco Horror is written by ilxors I think and has been consistently awesome lately. Also, the R. Kelly piece John D did that started out as an ILM thread is A+!

http://lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/ignition.html

thanks ikr!

hey no prob, Tokyo disco scene = unexpected greatness imo

and thank u

What Was It Anyway?, which unfortunately closed its doors in January after a short, one-year run.

You are quite the Stylus stan, aren't you? Next thing I know you'll be telling me you're cwperry or meatbreak.

nothin wrong with a little stannin

Yeah, I am jaymc! Unfortunately, I'm not associated with Stylus. Back in the day, I was an avid reader and am still just a huge, huge fan with massive respect for everything the site accomplished.

I don't mind the groupies.

Hahahaha! Thanks, Alfred!

Again, interviews might not be "rock criticism" strictly speaking, but this one is excellent and deserves to be in this thread.

THE WIRE interviews Burial (2007): http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/347/

They also have a Joanna Newsom interview I recall liking a lot: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/56/

Ott on The Decemberists in the VV: http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-11-07/music/taynted-love/

Not one of the best pieces of the decade, but it deserves to be here for the shitstorm it caused.

Nabisco's review of Vampire Weekend for P4K, which is both OTM and a sterling example of what a good record review should look like: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11058-vampire-weekend/

lol maybe you should just cough up for the subscription.

I should probably just link to Pitchfork, Stylus, and then stop posting for a few years, right? This is what happens when you are young and know relatively little about any music that wouldn't be classified as indie. Ah, well.

I bought a record by The Focus Group the other week. Would that enable me to do anything beyond becoming a lowest-tier member of Dissensus?

It will get better, promise! I will find something weirder than Grizzly Bear to discuss with y'all eventually.

dude, i'm pretty sure that you can stan for whatever you like on this thing and as long as you believe what you're saying and make an effort to get across what you mean, then ppl will not look down on whatever you like. Broadening your taste is great, but don't fall into the indie guilt trap if you really like it.

Hahaha, this is what I was just going to post:

And I may be an indie kid, but dammit I care about this shit, and I care about rock crit! :-)

: )

Hate to be a hater, but when did this thread turn into the opposite of what it's called?

chris ott's decemberists piece is akin to some tmaz dbag chasing after a c-list celeb on sunset blvd with a video camera, baiting him until he snaps and then turning it into a "get"

tmz*

this thread is kind of adorable.

o_O

chris ott, more like chris "Over The Top," am i right?

more like chris NOT.

musta notta gotta otta

Kogan on barr (so glad he reposted this):
http://koganbot.livejournal.com/154851.html

Came right when I just about stopped caring about new music or music criticism, and sums up that feeling of loss perfectly.

(and sums up how i feel about this thread too, actually)

How did you start caring about new music/criticism again?

That Kogan blurb IS great. I'm usually pretty skeptical of criticism that flies into poetics like that, but he executed it so well.

The Creations of Sound

If the poetry of X was music,
So that it came to him of its own,
Without understanding, out of the wall

Or in the ceiling, in sounds not chosen,
Or chosen quickly, in a freedom
That was their element, we should not know

That X is an obstruction, a man
Too exactly himself, and that there are words
Better without an author, without a poet,

Or having a separate author, a different poet,
An accretion from ourselves, intelligent
Beyond intelligence, an artificial man

A distance, a secondary expositor,
A being of sound, whom one does not approach
Through any exaggeration. From him, we collect.

Tell X that speech is not dirty silence
Clarified. It is silence made dirtier.
It is more than an imitation for the ear.

He lacks this venerable complication.
His poems are not of the second part of life.
They do not make the visible a little hard

To see nor, reverberating, eke out the mind
On peculiar horns, themselves eked out
By the spontaneous particulars of sound.

We do not say ourselves like that in poems.
We say ourselves in syllables that rise
From the floor, rising in speech we do not speak.

kshighway: i didn't.

Wallace Stevens, rip.

The whole song pivots on these four words, teetering momentarily, then shifting irrevocably. For what Reed has just said is that “other peoples they have to work.” So when he says “Just watch me now,” what we are invited to watch is the singer at work. But wait a minute! It seemed a second ago that it was Jack and Jane who had to work, while the singer was part of the group that went out dancing. Reed has effectively just dropped the veil he was hiding behind. Up till this point Reed has gone to every extreme imaginable to give us the impression he was playing, extemporizing, involved in nothing more than casual conversation — now, suddenly, he lets us know that there is an underlying structure and intent, that this has been a performance. These four words also focus attention on the work he is about to do, again revealing that he has a destination in mind, that he knows what is coming next, that this is more than idle conversation.

He says "Other people like us, we gotta work." The song never implies that the singer is part of the group that goes out dancing.

As evidenced later in his career by the I Love You Suzanne video.