Sasha Frere-Jones: Really?????

"I first encountered the Fancy Chords when I was a young boy, studying Elvis Costello’s music."

Baaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrffffffffffff

sasha frere jones gets on my nerves sometimes

the still young Lerche has learned that you can grow a permanent beret if your songs don’t justify all the recondite fingerings with intensity or wit.

lol

didn't know u were in steely dan matt, that's cool

I usually insist on Mr. Baxter, but you can call me Skunk.

http://www.melbay.com/bigcovers/9789655050400.jpg

http://z.hubpages.com/u/543810_f260.jpg

http://www.complex.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/jcrew-lead-smal11l.jpg

I can't stop laughing at that first line. Everything I hate about the New Yorker in one sentence.

http://www.gaudela.net/gar/img/The_League_of_Crafty_Guitar-02b.jpg

"Hey guys, not to be a bother but I would really like to get everyone's fantasy league fees in before noon on Sunday....also Robert said we can hold our next meeting at his place, his wife is out of town that weekend."

hahahahahahha

"For a long time, I went to bed early, so I could fall asleep studying Elvis Costello's complicated chord system."

Don't know what is so terrible about this little blurb, though I have no opinion on Sondre Lerche, not sure if I've heard him. But otherwise, all artists mentioned here use fancy chords. It's a fact! I think all songwriters should check out Steely Dan chord progressions -- they give you lots of ideas that would never occur to you otherwise.

Sondre Lerche's African-American Influences

i know that--i think it is the smugness, the way he capitalizes fancy chords, the unwavering brutality of the "permanent beret" quote, etc. etc.

xp

Well, I first encountered the chords of Elvis Costello's music when I was a young fancy studying boys.

The important thing is: How many rap albums does Lerche own?

sasha frere jones gets on my nerves sometimes

― surm, Friday, September 11, 2009 2:29 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u aint like that new piece or what

i think he was trolling ilx poster deej by not mentioning the big rapping elephant in the room tbh

When you got funky albums by Neko Case and St. Vincent in your top 10 who needs hiphop. They clearly took lessons from the SFJ article on white folks and rhythm from a few years back. Ugh.

Note the substitution of a major second in place of a conventional tonic in the chord structure (in the case of a µ major, B natural for an A natural in the right hand). Of course, this chord can be built on each of the twelve root pitches found in most western music. Some of our more harmonically sophisticated readers may know this chord by one of several other names such as "deus de musica (1st expansion)", "major triad avec neoplastic distension", or "'M' Lords Consonance". Used only sporadically in most contemporary popular music, we have found this little honey to be a sine qua non in almost every song we have written to date. All the members of Steely Dan, past and present, have come to believe, as we do, that the luminous, mystic quality of the µ major chord is capable of greatly enriching the musical vocabulary of our otherwise discordant era. Virtually any piano owner can experience this sonority in the privacy of his or her own home if she or he is willing to take the trouble, when confronted with a major triad, to come down on the keyboard with his or her thumb just slightly to the right of where it would normally land. Once you become accustomed to this wholesome harmonic mindbath, you'll soon find yourself sneaking seconds into minor seventh chords and stacking fourths like a Hindemith gone haywire in Harlem.

i think he was trolling ilx poster deej by not mentioning the big rapping elephant in the room tbh

― i got nothin (deej), Tuesday, October 20, 2009 3:55 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i would like to think you're kidding when you say you're personally being trolled if someone not on this board fails to mention gucci mane in something, but at this point i don't even know anymore

classic first posts: Sasha Frere-Jones' Radiohead review

xp. to be fair some dude I believe deej is referring to Fat Joe

was talking about the triple c's album al & im offended at yr assumption

Jesus christ, that "fancy chord" thing is egregious - what would we think of a book critic who wrote about the "big word club"?

Results 1 - 10 of about 5,660,000 for big word literary analysis

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200107/myers

lol @ fagen

words are hard xp

that myers reader's manifesto piece is one of the dumbest things ever written by anyone

I thought this thread had been revived because of this:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2009/10/26/091026crmu_music_frerejones

3000 new posts before quittin time is the o/u

pretty sure that is the reason deej revived this thread

Myers piece reminds me of Dale Peck but without the zings. I like close reading but he gets high on his own pedantry, his sacred cow-slaying, his evident beef with the critical establishment. You can pick apart McCarthy and DeLillo all you like but you can't say it's objectively bad prose when you seem to miss the whole point of it. I know that DeLillo's dialogue is phony, that McCarthy's prose is sometimes an end in itself which obscures rather than reveals - that's part of why I like them. They only "fail" according to Myer's false definitions.

That said, did Michiko Kakutani really call DeLillo "laugh-out-loud funny"? I can't imagine anyone genuinely lolling at a DeLillo line. Maybe a wry smile.

Regarding SFJ, I don't mind the piece but I can now add "Fancy Chords" to "Sophisti-pop" as a sure sign I should avoid the music in question. Steely Dan AND Elvis Costello? Yick.

White Noise is a lol riot.

Great Jones Street brings lols too

It's a bit of a bugbear of mine. Wry, amusing novels are routinely described as "hilarious" on the jacket as if nothing less will do. There are many gradations of funny that don't need to be oversold. But I guess "made me smirk knowingly" doesn't blurb as well.

i chuckled. once.

"bursts with that sort of dry wit that'll make you wonder if the shit you laugh at is actually pretty fucking juvenile tbqf"

^^^ would read

I need to write a book worthy of such a blurb.

I'll be the only person to agree with Myers. Sick of reading lit fiction that takes it upon itself to obfuscate. Lit crit establishment needs taking apart, since it's the most corrupt of all crit establishments: friends reviewing friends; writers refusing to say bad words about heroic figures (as Amis admitted after Updike died: crucial line in his panning of posthumous clunker: "This piece would have gone unwritten if its subject were still alive"). I suspect there's a link between endless critical indulgence and endless literary self-indulgence.

The silliness of that piece, though, is that there are tons of books published each year that fit Myers qualifications for correctness in literature. He seems to be mad that writers he doesn't like are getting attention from critics he doesn't like.

Kinda agree with significant parts of the Myers, and I think he sounds like a Dale Peck who actually knows what the hell he's talking about- but, while I'm glad someone else agrees with me that Paul Auster is a terrible writer, I think he just misses the point of McCarthy's style, and probably Delillo's (who I haven't read enough of). The whole thing seems undercut by a kind of paranoid, me-against-the-cultural-East-Coast-elites-cue-scary-music ethos the makes wish I disagreed with his tastes more than I do. That said, the best parts, as they often are in these kinds of things, are where he picks up on the awful, cliché-ridden prose of aforementioned "Lit crit establishment" types, a fish in the barrel target if there ever was one, but one in terrible need of frequent, harsh drubbings. What really hurts the piece though is that as he's raking writers over the coals for their overly flashy prose, I find my interest flagging because Myer's own writing is a little too dry and "workman like."

This kind of thing needs either relish (Dale Peck) or generosity (James Wood) and Myers has neither. He's also too scattershot - McCarthy and DeLillo are too different from each other (let alone Auster or Proulx) to yield any kind of coherent argument. And like Mumbles says, the self-aggrandising "Only I have the balls to challenge the pointy heads" tone galls pretty quickly.

the second anybody sees the scarequotes around "literary" in the first line is the last second anybody has any excuse for taking that guy & his reactionary & also politically v. v. v. suspect shit seriously

I'd be interested to see a UK version of this piece. Not aware enough of US lit crit to know whether the big problem with the UK – that the lit crit establishment and the lit writing estabishment are, by and large, the same people, resulting in outright corruption of the critical process - is the same across the Atlantic.

for example

t has become fashionable, especially among female novelists, to exploit the license of poetry while claiming exemption from poetry's rigorous standards of precision and polish.

fuckin despise this dude and hope he starves to death tbh

I remember reading the piece when it first ran and goin "oh great, my Dad has a job writing for the Atlantic now, soon we'll hear how free verse has ruined poetry"

John, why is it "reactionary" and "politically vvv suspect" to think that the lit crit establishment have got their heads up their arses? Surely the reactionary line is to accept that what is dictated to be literature must in and of itself be literature?

Or are you saying that he is reactionary because he is demanding content over form? In which case, would someone be reactionary for - to pick an example not entirely at random - preferring to listen to narrative songs based on personal experience, played on acoustic guitars, instead of wonky dubstep?

ok, one, false claim, I didn't say he's "reactionary to think that the lit rit establishment have got their heads up their asses." he's reactionary because clearly what he means throughout the piece is "ahh for the good old days when there was only one way to write & it was mainly done by my kinda ppl" (vide his conclusions w/his big-upping on Mervyn fucking Peake"

also CAN YOU FUCKING PEOPLE ALSO PLEASE LEARN TO LEAVE MY FUCKING DAY JOB AT THE DOOR PLEASE, also? instead of being fucking assholes in every discussion I try to join? thanking you. alternately, send me a precis on everything you do in your own life so I can be a bore and drag that in every time you speak.

swear to fuckin God it is the weakest fucking shit the way some of you guys pull this shit every fucking time instead of actually formulating an argt.

J0hn, apologies: couldn't work out at the time I was writing my post which part of his argument you were decrying as reactionary. And was referring to listeners, rather than players of music.

yep, as a former acoustic gtr. droning bore, i too must take issue with your constant unwarranted taunts, ithappens.

it's really only the beginning of what's wrong with that piece though which is a triumph of hyperconservative grandpa-ing - take for example

This one works beautifully, and with none of the "evocative" metaphor hunting or postmodern snickering that tends to accompany such scenes today.

which is just ultimate strawman dance party, or from the beginning of the same graf

Older fiction also serves to remind us of the power of unaffected English.

lol really herr myers? tell that to THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. tell it to Melville, whom you attempt to champion elsewhere in your essay when in fact the Myerses of Melville's day were exactly the dudes keeping Melville down.

and so on. sorry to get all lit up but I remember when this piece ran and being especially pissed because when he dismisses some writers I don't like, I totally feel this guy, but then I realize he's being dishonest; all he really means, to quote my favorite ilx post in recent memory, is "I remember it were all fields around here"

Er. there are no constant taunts: that's the first time I've ever replied to J0hn, or mentioned acoustic guitars, and I apologised immediately. I think you must be confusing me with someone else.

*shakes fist*

not even a big deal ithappens I'm just hypersensitive 1) generally and 2) to the idea that because I'm a singer-songwriter I'm somehow a champion of the form, when y'know I listen to more metal & ambient than dudes who sound like me/whom I sound like etc

God that fuckin piece is the worst thing ever

it the 1999 National Book Awards ceremony Oprah Winfrey told of calling Toni Morrison to say that she had had to puzzle over many of the latter's sentences. According to Oprah, Morrison's reply was "That, my dear, is called reading." Sorry, my dear Toni, but it's actually called bad writing.

oh cool I'll just throw this copy of Ulysses in the garbage then you reactionary prick

This is what the cultural elite wants us to believe: if our writers don't make sense, or bore us to tears, that can only mean that we aren't worthy of them.

THE CULTURAL ELITE

off to Fox News w/you Mr Myers

ok I'll stop now

"This is what the cultural elite wants us to believe: if our writers don't make sense, or bore us to tears, that can only mean that we aren't worthy of them.

THE CULTURAL ELITE"

Okay, take out cultural elite - which is an idiot phrase to use - and that's a commonplace of critical reaction, and especially in music blog criticism, where the inability to enjoy certain acts does appear to mark the listener out as a cretin. Not an uncommon trend on some threads round here. With books, it took me years to convince myself it was okay not to finish them if I was bored - precisely because of the reactions Myers writes about. Though maybe that suggests more that I was unsure of my own opinions than anything else. But, yes, "cultural elite" would certainly take us into Fox News territory if prefaced by "liberal".

i blame jaymc for all of this.

it's the same thing. it means, "anybody who says he likes this must be lying, he can't like this thing that I'm ridiculing!" myers should be left outside overnight in Chicago in January imo

I blame the parents.

"it's the same thing. it means, "anybody who says he likes this must be lying, he can't like this thing that I'm ridiculing!" myers should be left outside overnight in Chicago in January imo"
Okay, but "you're a poser" doesn't exist without "you're a cretin".

Oh, why can't we all just love one another?

Back to SFJ ---

Jay-Z’s new album, “The Blueprint 3,” and some self-released mixtapes by Freddie Gibbs are demonstrating, in almost opposite ways, that hip-hop is no longer the avant-garde, or even the timekeeper, for pop music. Hip-hop has relinquished the controls and splintered into a variety of forms. The top spot is not a particularly safe perch, and every vital genre eventually finds shelter lower down, with an organic audience, or moves horizontally into combination with other, sturdier forms. Disco, it turns out, is always a good default move.

“The Blueprint 3” falls in line with other recent mass-market successes in hip-hop. Compare it to Kanye West’s “Glow in the Dark” tour, or Kid Cudi’s breakout hit “Day ’n’ Nite,” and you will notice that this is hip-hop by virtue of rapping more than sound. The tempos and sonics of disco’s various children—techno, rave, whatever your particular neighborhood made of a four-on-the-floor thump—are slowly replacing hip-hop’s blues-based swing. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the rudimentary digital sound of New Orleans bounce or the crusty samples of New York hip-hop: this music wants to swing and syncopate. On major commercial releases, this impulse is giving way to a European pulse, simpler and faster and more explicitly designed for clubs.

Oh no, hiphop hits are using disco beats in 2009.

In the past he whined that indie-rockers didn't have syncopation (and by the looks of his top 10 albums he has moved on from that) and now its the rappers who don't have it.

i don't think there's anything wrong with preferring bounce beats to eurodisco, tho postulating it as anything other than a constant need for new (or recycled) rhythmic fuel is probably a mistake.

on the myers piece, i'm always happy to see that dead horse dragged back out for another beating.

the real problem with the sfj piece is that he appears to only be capable of listening to like 3 hip-hop albums a year.

Hip-hop is in a state of permanent decline because Jay-Z continues to make mediocre to awful albums, says SFJ.

there was a good album released in 2008, but that will be the last one.

Does Mary J. Blige really have more personality than Rihanna? I like Rihanna precisely because she has a very specific (and admittedly very limited) vocal persona. I also thought this was more or less the standard critical take on Rihanna. Blige I always have problems with because despite the autobiographical bent of much of her material, she can sometimes seem a little anonymous as a singer - I don't tend to remember specific details of her phrasing like I do Rihannna (or Nina Simone for that matter). Or is the swipe really just the opportunity for Frere-Jones to get in the polemical pairing of Blige and Simone, evoking them as artists of equal stature and importance as a kind of rhetorical tweaking of people otherwise not paying attention?

As far as the overall argument, I think it only holds water if you maintain a very limited notion of what hip-hop is. A certain model and ideal of hip-hop, as represented by Jay-Z or Raekwon, might be on the wane, but hip-hop as represented by the Black Eyed Peas (though I guess they're "pop" now, not hip-hop) is doing just fine. Which might spell the end of civilization, but not the end of hip-hop.

This Myers lad is quite the douche.

He wants 'unaffected English prose' yet he stans for Mervyn Peake?!?! I love Mervyn Peake but, um...

And LOLOLOL @ 19th century literature showing us the 'unaffected'.

tbqf i think some of u guys are totally misreading what hes saying -- hes still rong tho

i have a very limited notion of what hip hop is.

The common reader be damned.

Plain reader too.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer be damned.

hip hop's been dead - insofar as it is neither a vanguard for experimentation nor the template for pop chart success - since at least the early part of this decade

If hip-hop is dead can someone please pry R&B from its cold dead hand?

it has become fashionable, especially among female novelists, to exploit the license of poetry while claiming exemption from poetry's rigorous standards of precision and polish.

h8 these dum sluts

yes very good Lamp I'm quite outraged

hip hop is dead women write poetry think about it

I can't read think about it

and now it turns out roxanne shante isn't even a PhD.

It has become fashionable, especially amongst female rappers, to exploit the licence of ho'etry while claiming exemption from ho'etry's rigorous standards of precision and polish.

hip hop is dead women write poetry think about it

all time HOF post imo

Reptilian overlords keepin' Theodore Dreiser down

i blame floetry

just curious but who's who is misreading, deej? i don't get why hip hop "atomizing" and wandering away from it's original form marks the end of it as thrilling new music. seems that's exactly the sort of thing it should be doing in order to keep from growing stale. he sure is reading a whole lot into a few hip hop albums sounding a bit more dancey; but as call all destroyer said above the albums mentioned in the article are probably the only ones he's listened to all year.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33566

also ew he likes DOA

Reptilian overlords keepin' Theodore Dreiser down

LOL I'm actually reading Dreiser now, reptiles can't stop me

http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/admissions/v_l.jpg

why is that picture a the yale law admissions blog

but as call all destroyer said above the albums mentioned in the article are probably the only ones he's listened to all year.

just a q btw, do you guys seriously believe this or is it a job requirement to say stuff like it

why is that picture a the yale law admissions blog

who do u think is running this country????

john it's just the way the article reads

otm

yeah no I get that but it's one thing to say "weird to me how a guy who clearly hears a lot of [genre] can come away w/those opinions" and another to actually get extend that to fantasy-land conceptions of who's more/less informed

(sorry, the whole "I disagree with someone, therefore he's clearly not in possession of the same information as me" style is a big irritant for me) (LOL along w/lots of other stuff today it seems)

dude i probably listen to <10 new hip-hop albums a year but i would never write something that was pre-framed w/"ever year has ONE BIG RAP ALBUM" which is what he basically does.

i think weve probably talked in the past about how when sf-j writes for the new yorker there's a sense that he dumbs things down a bit but to say that the blueprint 3 can be subbed in for "the state of hip-hop" in 2009 is pretty wack--if anything he should be telling that readership that just like every genre there's a bunch of interesting shit happening year in and year out.

my bad I'm just really contrary today sorry

naw man it's cool :)

SONGS
1. Shuttle “Tunnel (High Rankin Remix)” (Ninja Tune)
2. The Streets “Blinded By The Lights (Nero remix)”
3. Pet Shop Boys “Love Etc.” (EMI)
4. 16 Bit “Chainsaw Calligraphy” (Boka)
5. Miike Snow “Animal” (Fake Blood remix) (RCRD LBL)
6. Jesse McCartney “How Do You Sleep?” f/Ludacris (Hollywood)
7. Maxwell “Pretty Wings” (Sony)
8. Major Lazer “Keep It Going Louder” (Downtown)
9. The Streets “See If They Salute”
10. Miranda Lambert “Dead Flowers” (Sony)
11. FaltyDL “Party/Alpafun” (Ramp)
12. Jason Aldean “This I Gotta See” (Broken Bow Records)
13. Kate Voegele “Inside Out” (Interscope)
14. Tonéx “Fiyah” (Battery/Verity/Zomba)
15. Holly Williams “Mama”
16. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart “Come Saturday” (Slumberland)
17. Metric “Help, I’m Alive” (Metric Music International)
18. Kelly Clarkson “I Do Not Hook Up” (Sony/BMG)

ALBUMS
1. Mastodon “Crack The Skye” (Reprise)
2. Sonic Youth “The Eternal” (Matador)
3. Dirty Projectors “Bitte Orca” (Domino)
4. Sunn O))) “Monoliths & Dimensions” (Southern Lord)
5. Neko Case “Middle Cyclone” (Anti-)
6. Sleigh Bells
7. Grizzly Bear “Veckatimest” (Warp)
8. St. Vincent “Actor” (4AD)
9. Raekwon “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Pt. 2” (Ice H20)
10. Prefuse 73 “Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian” (Warp)
11. Fever Ray (Rabid/Mute)
12. Micachu & The Shapes “Jewellery” (Rough Trade)
13. Harmonia & Eno ’76 “Tracks & Traces” (Grönland)
14. Yeah Yeah Yeahs “It’s Blitz!” (Interscope)
15. DJ Sega “Live at The Bowery Ballroom”
16. Freddie Gibbs “midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik”
17. The-Dream “Love vs. Money” (Def Jam)
18. Lady Gaga “The Fame” (Interscope)
19. Lily Allen “It’s Not Me, It’s You” (EMI/Capitol)
20. Joker “Purple Wow Sound”
21. Vowels “The Pattern Prism” (LOAF)
22. Kleerup (Astralwerks)
23. Miracle Condition (Tizona)
24. Del Marquis “Runaround” (Embryoroom)
25. Here We Go Magic (Western Vinyl)
26. Kate Miller-Heidke “Curioser” (Sony BMG Australia)
27. The Arch Cupcake “Box of Bees” (Patriarch)
28. Brad Paisley “American Saturday Night” (Arista)
29. Mokira “Persona” (Type)
30. Erin McCarley “Love, Save The Empty” (Universal Republic)
31. Vladislav Delay “Tummaa” (Leaf)
32. Udachi & Jubilee “Paypur” EP (Nightshifters)
33. Mika “The Boy Who Knew Too Much” (Casablanca)
34. Esser “Braveface” (Chocolate Industries)
35. Modeselektor “Body Language Vol. 08” (Get Physical Music)

http://www.frontiernet.net/~shirleydelfino/DollPhotos/VeryContraryMary20.jpg

my bad I'm just really contrary today sorry

no you aren't

Now what's this.

(xpost to deej)

i just think it's dumb how this whole trend is based off a couple songs and of all the things the new jay z album. he's calling 2009 the end of hip hop over something it seems he's been noticing a bit in the past few months. if he's heard a lot of other hip hop this year, and i don't doubt he has, it's not like he's figuring any of that into the argument.

wait deej are year end lists supposed to be lists of everything a person has heard? fuck I have been doin it wrong for years

that #1 song is exactly why i dont get dubstep.

im just pointing out his year end list doesnt exactly suggest hes particularly immersed in rap music that the rest of the country is listening to

well, or it suggests, as he is saying outright, that he's not that taken with what he's hearing

I mean this is exactly what I'm talking about - "he doesn't like what I like! he must not have heard what I've heard!" lol wut, if I don't see something on somebody's list I don't assume they're ignorant to its glories

has anyone here listened to that dude from gary indiana? is he any good?

hes good & constructs good albums but as a rapper hes a pretty plain trad-gangster rap dude being pushed by a guy w a day job @ stones throw who apparently knows how to market to the white boy crit market

this is just a really shortsighted article - the jay-z album isnt a barometer or indicator of anything beyond an aging artist attempting to tighten his grip on the ability to feel in touch - the freddie gibbs tangent is really disconnected & gibbs in general is good but is not anything special in terms of trend. the type of thing that gibbs is doing with mixtape-as-album has been going on for two or three years now. the piece just makes it look like SFJ is skimming what all rap fans & sorta rap fans are talking about - jay & rae - and what the 'right' tastemaking blogs are talking up - gibbs, who is a good rapper in a looooooooooong line of unsigned rappers putting out fully formed albums for free .

yeah, if your perfect consumer is the white boy crit market you are gonna go hungry. they never pay for anything. he should market the album to critical 12 year old white boys. they got money.

x-post

has anyone here listened to that dude from gary indiana? is he any good?

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, October 21, 2009 8:12 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes and yes he is very very good IMO

as soon as i noticed that this thread had been updated, i knew exactly why

because sasha frere-jones recently wrote an article?

http://stuhasic.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/psychic.jpg

as soon as i noticed that this thread had been updated, i knew exactly why

rip sfj

rock crit died today. along with rap.

people still listen to prefuse 73 rekkerds?

rip people

rip black people and their music

rip...everyone (tiny tim voice)

women writing poetry itt

http://www.kidsuki.com/Images/scooby-doo.jpeg

rip rop?

i looked up joker from that list. joker is a dubstep artist.

because sfj wrote a "hip hop is 'dead'" article, folks.

i don't know if i really feel like looking up the arch cupcake though. i will just assume that they are a dubstep artist as well.

http://www.myspace.com/thearchcupcake

spoofed link to lemonparty, do not click

would read a well written article on canonical shock images

rap = dead, dubstep = best music out

got it

not that big on the song, but i'm digging the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGAP15CT3X4

rap = dead, dubstep = best music out

got it

were rock stans this belligerent when the genre was 25 years old and people didn't think it was still some radical new force for shakin up the charts and started lookin around for other shit to get excited about?

wait lol don't answer that

well basically that's why we ended up with punk rock; if hip-hop's version is snap/jerk, I can only wait with bated breath for the awesome post-jerk hip-hop that should be rolling out this decade

xpost disco-burning stadium rallies etc etc.

they were enraged! they killed disco cuz they were so mad.

x-post

hahahaha, yeah, what he said.

were rock stans this belligerent when the genre was 25 years old and people didn't think it was still some radical new force for shakin up the charts and started lookin around for other shit to get excited about?

wait lol don't answer that

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:02 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

who's being belligerent? is dubstep a radical new force?

So I was really enjoying Arch Cupcake's "Box of Bees" (wow that sounds dirty) until it got to the bit with the pitchshifted chanting of his name which reaffirmed that, no matter what the music actually sounds like, seriously fuck anyone who thinks calling themselves "The Arch Cupcake" is a good idea.

i am excited about new rap. a bunch of us have been transcribing, in detail, one popular rapper's verses in another thread every time a successive tape comes out. & hes the one huge artist this article really seems to overlook

"who's being belligerent?"

Yeah I wouldn't characterize deej as belligerent. Ridiculously whiny hits the mark, I think.

my cousin Arch Cupcake Darn13113 is going to beat your ass btw Dan

wait so john d. isn't darn1elle? but he is also a singer/songwriter. i'm confused.

are "state of the genre" essays that make big pronouncements EVER satisfying? i have yet to read one that doesn't sound foolish.

john d's real name is Cupcake Jones

john D is actually John Dean

is he related to persecution smith?

xpost

QUE, GOOGLEPROOF

shit my bad SLutc@ke J0nes

i mean Cupc@ake J0nes

i don't think it's that whiny to think that sfj piece seems to pick three pretty odd albums to hang it's "state of hip hop" thesis on...i mean i'm no gucci stan but it seems like as much noise as he's made in the last two years he should be mentioned.

no but "lol rap is important fuckin dubstep what are you nerds on about" is kinda the '09 version of "punk rock, pshaw, that's not even music"

I find deej to be generally pretty shrill and whiny (and this "why do people care about I don't, I don't get it" thing is part and parcel of that). I have no interest in SFJ's particular (weak) thesis cuz whether or not he thinks "hip-hop is dead" will affect how I listen to music not one bit.

so dubstep is the new punk rock

QED, lock thread

too many u.s. rap fans burned by grime. and then ilm made them buy a big & rich album. they are understandably suspicious about this so called "dubstep".

I love deej a lot & actually especially love that if you suggest that rap's kind of an established genre experiencing the same sort of pertinence-slump that all pop genres experience after a few decades, he will unload on you as the out-of-touch ancient fossil u are

reviewer in oversimplification shockah

The future is here, Foghat fans. Embrace it or fuck off.

personally i'm loving all the stuff in the margins of rap right now...like all the stuff that will never be big and doesn't seem to care, like sean price or dj quik or that dj paul album or marco polo & torae or prodigy mixtapes or freddie gibbs or trae or killer mike or the new raekwon etc etc etc

foghat had some pretty tasty grooves

is burial "real" dubstep or like fake dubstep for suckas, cuz i thought that album was pretty neat

He's a little of both.

i dont think i ever disagreed that raps relevance to wider pop music was at a low(er) ebb but i cant help but feel like his pursuit of the "the avant-garde, or even the timekeeper, for pop music" is part of the reason i dont think he really understands what the genre has ever really been about, or that him being drawn to it feels like this endless quest for superficially "avant-garde" "timekeepers" that ignores what is actually fundamentally shaping ppl's engagement w/ music ... basically the whole "any rap song that sounds like 'grinding' is a crazy avant garde classic" writ large

okay, i looked this one up too from that list. i dunno how i feel about it. can we ban robot fartz in 2010?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-a0YirtI-M

Hmm, saw Jimmy Fallon recently, and of all things Eve was on and felt the need to mention that she was currently working with some Dubstep artists, which she then qualified as some underground music from England.

I still don't know how to tell if something's dubstep unless someone tells me it's dubstep tbh.

Tbh, anyone watching Fallon is probably stoned enough that the clarification was warranted.

^^^ misread that as 'Falcon' and envisioned dudes re-watching Balloon Boy youtubes and doing bong hits.

Well, yeah.

heres the thing -- im fine w/ dubstep existing in its own world & 'continuum' (that i mostly ignore) but it really does feel like every time theres a new microgenre of triphop in the uk everyone starts shitting themselves about how its the next big thing & wow this totally avant garde timekeeper zeitgeist music is blowing my fuckin mind man. then i go to a party here where someone's playing dubstep & it looks like an IT dude with a ponytail is playing Quake while he DJs this generation's IDM to some stoned hippies in hoodies.

one of the reasons ive really been drawn to funky house is that it feels like a genre so unconcerned w/ hitting some linear PROGRESS OF MUSIC narrative & instead is simultaneously "not doing anything new" but more accurately doing something very very new, w/out lazy signifier of THIS IS THAT NEXT SHIT-type acid squelches or grinding basslines or ridiculous dissensus narratives imposed & overdone (i.e. is anyone gonna pretend that the concept of Burial doing ghostly versions of two step is a concept deserving of more than a couple songs?)

this is also how i feel about gucci, its w/in a traditional rap framework, sure, no autotune, hes not feeling to disco, instead hes subtly & quietly doing a whole bunch of shit w/ his music that i havent heard an artist do before ... its not advertising itself as NEXT LEVEL PROGRESSIVE CRIT MUSIC but its basically the freshest sounding rap music out right now (ties in w/ what matt is saying about quik & kurupt etc too -- altho dude that marco polo / torae album is super dry)

nstead hes subtly & quietly doing a whole bunch of shit w/ his music that i havent heard an artist do before

Really? Like what?

should say "fleeing to disco" not feeling

trying to decide what's a worse name - Arch Cupcake or Porcupine Tree

^^^totally feelin deej on dubstep, I gotta say. I hate that whole forced "music must move FORWARD" narrative. load of bullshit.

I AM FEELING TO DISCO TONITE, MY SWEET FOXES...

the band is called "fleet foxes" jon

were rock stans this belligerent when the genre was 25 years old and people didn't think it was still some radical new force for shakin up the charts and started lookin around for other shit to get excited about?

wait lol don't answer that

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 5:02 PM (39 minutes ago)

nah

http://dkpresents.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/2503394061_e13334a22a_o.jpg

was my "don't answer that" joak at the end of the post there really so opaque

altho dude that marco polo / torae album is super dry

ah man it's nothin' new for sure, but that shits like pizza to me. just what i want sometimes you know?

nstead hes subtly & quietly doing a whole bunch of shit w/ his music that i havent heard an artist do before

Really? Like what?

― the blackest thing ever seen (HI DERE), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 9:39 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i mean...i'm not near as big on him, but i think deej is right in a way, he's definitely...eccentric i guess seems like the right word...like his words and flow is eccentric in a way that's not instantly going to hit you like "weird" like a doom or kool keith but IS really weird in a way...but you gotta kinda dig to hear it.

Dubstep is probably the most backward looking "continuum" genre ever though. It's a new genre name, but anyone pretending its anything outside a refinement of existing genres is fooling themselves.

i read that as "deej please don't bring gucci into this" :(

xxp

"(i.e. is anyone gonna pretend that the concept of Burial doing ghostly versions of two step is a concept deserving of more than a couple songs?)"

1) this is a pretty vast oversimplication of Burial and 2) you could make the claim that virtually nothing is conceptually deserving of more than a couple of songs.

Really? Like what?

― the blackest thing ever seen (HI DERE), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:39 PM (5 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol @ this turning into deej on gucci again but:

hes sorta found a way out that balances the whole 'character' narrative of southern/gangsta rap with lyricism, basically becoming like this venn diagram intersection for ppl who want rappers lyrical & ppl who want rappers gangster & ppl who want rappers-playing-interesting-characters, hes come up with a way to adapt to an era where an artist needs to release lots & lots of music & his audience expects it for free, by setting up maybe fifty to a hundred individual ideas & basically mix-and-matching variations on each as he freestyles much of his lyrics, so each song is fresh because hes doing a totally new flip of a joke he already made. hes also really good at coming up w/ evocative images for these jokes. (the one i always talk about is his drop top/missing roof jokes: "panoramic roof clearer than a cup of water" "eazy e drop top call the car roofless" ((eazy e was with ruthless records, get it??)) & then just combines them in different orders, making new jokes, i.e. combing gucci concept of 'killing the parking lot' w/ aforementioned missing roofs: "got a murda one, i just killed the parkin lot / decapitated bmw, i cut off the top"
& he does this all w/in a framework of being entertaining, un-intellectualized regular southern pot-bellied backwoods character w/ a sense of humor & really good taste in beats

i mean...i'm not near as big on him, but i think deej is right in a way, he's definitely...eccentric i guess seems like the right word...like his words and flow is eccentric in a way that's not instantly going to hit you like "weird" like a doom or kool keith but IS really weird in a way...but you gotta kinda dig to hear it.

― hotel coral essex (M@tt He1ges0n), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 5:44 PM (17 seconds ago)

i'm a gucci fan but havent put nearly as much thought into him as, say, deej or sarge. i don't think you have to get all masters thesis to get to the point w/ him, which is that he's an excellent technical rapper & lyricist and great personality. it's that simple for me

what I hear you saying is "he is writing interesting rhymes w/in an interesting persona" which, good on him, but it doesn't sound like he's breaking down any doors the way these radical dubstep pioneers are every night tbh

lol @ this circling back to gucci mane but it's actually pertinent to the discussion of the sasha frere jones article that is being discussed itt.

lol what doors are these j0hn d.

yeah i'm just saying though cuzza his voice and style it's not like ppl are going to instantly notice "hey he's saying really weird/funny/cool punchlines" the way that like MF Doom really says HEY CRITICS LOOK AT ME I AM A WEIRDO IN A MASK you know?

like i'm sure you could just hear it and have it pass by you like another club rap song and not notice that shit

(i love doom btw)

deej if that doesn't parse instantly as elbowing deej in ribs I don't know what I'm doin wrong

Apparently not elbowing him hard enough.

burial may have only played to a hundred stoned hippies in hoodies but all of those stoned hippies went home and started dubstep message boards

if louis was alive i bet he'd make a dubstep remix of Elbow

RIP LJ ;_;

gucci mane: big and rich for '09?

hahahahahahahahahahaha omar

doom is great

tbh tho, SFJ was on the lil wayne bandwagon like a lot of people & it's pretty irresponsible for him to have recognized what wayne did and write the article that he did now w/o mentioning gucci mane

Totally irresponsible.

Was there already a clusterfuck thread about the Doom article in the NYer?

what a disaster for responsibility

i guess if u 'love the game' of indie re: omar's indie-nfl parallel then yah gucci could be yr big n rich

Totally irresponsible.

― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:57 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

ha, well. if you're gonna write an article about the state of the rap game!!

"...gangsta rap's "are you ready for some football?" has finally arrived"
- GQ Magazine

http://resources.mygen.co.uk/contacttables/BigandRich2.jpg

bigucci & rich

If you don't appreciate advanced chord changes, you have no taste in music. Stop making fun of this guy because he has more taste than you.

Sondre Lerche is amazing, btw, but his first two albums were his best, and he hasn't managed to follow them. Partly because the production has been too "rough" on the followers. The first two were more polished-sounding, which suited him better.

...

lol geir droppin' the lerche bomb

this shit is on like donkey kong

A) I too miss hip-hop’s blues-based swing.
B) I really like the myers article, and am pretty sure that for the most part formal innovation lost its way sometime in the last 20-30 years or so.

Was there already a clusterfuck thread about the Doom article in the NYer?

dunno if there's been a thread. I didn't even read that thing, I was surprised they published that piece after SFJ wrote a big Madvillainy article not that long ago.

Geir I hate to break this to you but there's no such thing as an "advanced chord change"

Pretty sure the bard class was able to play an "advanced chord change" once it got to 12th level.

</http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/x0/x446.jpg>

saving throw against Gm7b5

i've been aug'n all my chords lately, shit sounds so smart

but then i might just throw in a diminished, keep it fresh you know?

my thing on piano right now is anchoring the chord on the 6 - instant fake bill evans

i like to use a sus4, really give it that BREAKING NEWS feel

oh man I am seriously feeling that, like to add the sus4 passing from tonic to either 4 or minor 6th

woah bust the scientifical j0hn, i'm feelin' that shit.

burial may have only played to a hundred stoned hippies in hoodies but all of those stoned hippies went home and started dubstep message boards

i know this is like 100 posts ago but its only been an hour and i just wanted to drop an appreciative "lol"

no you see, it's kind of like a knock knock joke, so it's not funny

Geir I hate to break this to you but there's no such thing as an "advanced chord change"

Yes, there is, and the middle eight in "Two Way Monologue" - Lerches best song - is a perfect example of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjALLCRCn6U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8dK0iEzi1M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fxQ_AzwuWg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh6IwFhG8G8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlYt8tvuB64

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

No, Geir. You like the chords. No chord change is "advanced." They're all one chord to another chord. What passes for theory in your concept of music is a total joke. Don't talk about things you don't know about, thanks, yr buddy, jd

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22advanced%20chord%20change%22&sourceid=mozilla2&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

in your defense there does seem to be one other person on the internet who believes the term "advanced chord change" has meaning

Some chord changes are more advanced than others. The most boring and unimaginative variant there is is various incarnations of Major I - Major IV - Major V. Typically found in musically inferior genres like country, folk, 50s rock'n'roll and R&B.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=no&q=%22advanced+chord+changes%22&btnG=S%C3%B8k&lr=&aq=f&oq=

(Advances chord changes most be plural to give any meaning, as it is the combination of changes and not just one change that gives meaning to the term)

The typical clever type of chord changes - like the examples above - is changing key all the time, confusing the listener, and sort of requiring some sort of musicological schooling to really be able to appreciate it. Quality music is about the mind, not the body!

http://photobucket.com/albums/v178/H-B-K19/Funny%20junk/th_oh_snap.gif

yo fuck some sort of musicological schooling, i got ears they work fine

moonship if I can't find out what that image was going to be I am going to bust some advanced chord changes of sorrow

The typical clever type of chord changes - like the examples above - is changing key all the time, confusing the listener, and sort of requiring some sort of musicological schooling to really be able to appreciate it.

lol Geir you troll you, anybody with any schooling knows better than to make sweeping claims like the ones you speciaize in, back under the bridge with you now

frank gambale and geir are the only two people with enough musicological schooling to understand advanced chord changes

it's not just me right? I mean my dad played jazz piano for 40 years and I can't conceive of him talking about "advanced chord changes"

"yes, son, I-IV is very simple. IIm-VIaugb5, that's a very complex chord change."

I just made up that 2nd chord btw hope everybody enjoys it

dont be mean john u know that only frank gambale and geir will understand your joke about advanced chord changes

Vlaugb5 was used alot by Arnold Schönberg. It's advanced, but it sounds horrible....

I do love how you can't have an advanced chord change, but in the plural, the new world of Gambale's Advancement kicks in

Advanced Chord Changes sounds like some kind of horrific textbook they use at Hongro University

http://www.melbay.com/bigcovers/21714DVD.jpg

The guy on the right looks super familiar . . .

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Music/Pix/pictures/2007/07/02/markesmith460.jpg

"learning to fire people who hear chord changes"

"if it's me and your grandma playing banjo, it's the Fall"

geir making with the funny login names is kinda diluting his essential geirness for me.

i mean his posts here are classic material but the cop to the human emotion called humor feels like the curtain's been pulled back a little.

yea srsly geir has a self-awareness that takes away from the geirbot aspect imo

it makes perfect sense to me, just the way he attempts humour is always robotic and stiff and perfectly in-character. you can just imagine a computer program "search: phrase ending with word rhymes with geir"

this thread = serious LOLs, but this took the cake: "then i go to a party here where someone's playing dubstep & it looks like an IT dude with a ponytail is playing Quake while he DJs this generation's IDM to some stoned hippies in hoodies".

I didn't really appreciate dubstep until I heard Mala dj and what he played was pretty much anti-IDM, which is what a lot of the best dubstep is IMO. Not to say that I think it is formally against IDM (if that is even possible), just that for me the best of the genre pushes the opposite kind of buttons: basically extremely swung unfussy tough beats and bass lines that are simultaneously quiet storm and jungle tear-outs. It grooves. His mixing style was totally fresh, too. He created a build and tension using techniques like silence or near-silence between tracks, melodic and rhythmic juxtapositions with ultra-short blends, drop-ins of vintage reggae. All vinyl, too.

breaking down ald0us huxley's DOORS OF PERCEPTION right?

then i go to a party here where someone's playing dubstep & it looks like an IT dude with a ponytail is playing Quake while he DJs this generation's IDM to some stoned hippies in hoodies.

Just popping in to say that doing this would have been my dream at about age 19, although it'd probably have been something even dorkier than dubstep at the time.

Ha!

I seriously love this thread. Well here comes one of the dubstep bloggers, and not even Martin Clark, one of the annoying little autists! Jesus Christ, that shit pisses me off. Do you know how hard you have to grind to get indie rock kids into dubstep? That's some supremely intelligent marketing, Kode 9 really is quite the master of manipulation. Between Burial and this Wonky farce he's unleashed, god I love the man's music.

Seriously his deep tunes have pull to them, they've investigated sound as violence. Rhythm war.

He's a fucking recording engineer! Some of these beats learned from riot squad techniques!

The thing about Dubstep is that while most of the rest of Europe was listening to boom time Minimal and Electrohouse, Dubstep is recession music. For the ones who felt it earliest! The mentally ill and the poor!

It stole away some of the best producers in Grime's day, and saw them take the combination of Dancehall and House farther than its paranoid electro. The aforementioned Mala is one part Larry Heard and one part riddim maker, and Coki was a fuckin rudeboy! He went from making some of the subtlest digital reggae this side of Rhythm and Sound to making Digital Fart Noise for Chavs! Fucking Sponge Bob is more punk than its heavy metal, and retarded gutter punk for that measure. This stuff is more abrasive than Justice!

Its so weird to have every single producer you love be really deeply obscure while the worst is on public display. It'll shut you up, make you second guess yourself. And then there's the wonderful house thats coming from some of my fellow IT looking nerds (I've worked in factories for years, I didn't eat at times to listen to this music on vinyl) who used to be into dubstep. Pangaea, Pearsall Sound, all the Funky Dilettantes.

I know that this argument is more about inverted elitism than the music, but still it bothers me to see something I love so much get used as a critical football. Deej, I respect your opinions, especially regarding Chart Rap and Funky. I just dont see why if you can love Gucci Mane, why you can't be interested in maybe digging a little to understand Dubstep. Even as a social phenomenon? I know its very Coast, San Francisco and New York mostly, but its got some really deep roots in now. It already seems to have aroused your intellectual curiosity at the very least, those early nights in Chicago were pretty bad.

If you listen to some Burial (Portishead for the 09 hipster), some Caspa and Rusko (dubstep's Smack My Bitch Up), and then some annoyingly limp minimal crossover. What is there to like?

Respect to John D, you should start recording black metal.

If you've already done so, I'd like to hear it.

"requiring some sort of musicological schooling to really be able to appreciate it. Quality music is about the mind, not the body!"

Just when I think Geir can amaze me no more than he already has.

Btw, that Steely Dan song he linked suuuuuuuucks, advanced chord change and all.

"Advanced chord changes"? LOL

Geir studied music, right? How come he knows so little about it?

looool @ everything in here

Some chord changes are more advanced than others.

http://farectification.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/animal-farm.jpg

The most boring and unimaginative variant there is is various incarnations of Major I - Major IV - Major V

Oh hey btw Mr. Musical Sophistication, capital-letter Roman numerals implies "major" already. If you want minor you use the lowercase letters.

geir half the british fart rock bands u rep for like travis and coldplay use super boring chord changes, i'm curious as to why you think they are good?

Melody!

Geir only likes "advanced chord changes" that don't involve any improvisation, otherwise Giant Steps would be his favorite song of all time

geir you're doing an A+ job as always, please don't ever change!

Jesus christ, that "fancy chord" thing is egregious - what would we think of a book critic who wrote about the "big word club"?

Hurting OTM.

Btw, that Steely Dan song he linked suuuuuuuucks

Can't believe this nearly flew under the SB radar.

I wish Burial albums were as good as Portishead's, frankly.

how on earth has whiney been SB'd but geir hasnt

http://www.momgoesgreen.com/wp-content//wwf.jpg

X-post to Alex in SF

It wasn't meant as a quality indicator, just that the slot reserved for "weird not quite dance music" in your average straw man hipster's (whatever that is) Ipod is taken by this.

And slowing down Bomb Squad style production work does not an auteur make re: Portishead.

Vocals are pure miserabilist, one folk step away from Goth. Talent aside, that is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i8fqo_YrFE

How is this not Trip Hop influenced, its Maxinquaye mixed with Dem 2.

Or even Nearly God, the deeply paranoid Tricky that thought acting was a good idea.

Its so weird how everyone forgot about early Tricky, like the Lee Perry-esque caricature he became changes it.

Massive Attack still get play in Fact and at Resident Advisor (mostly because they're getting remixed by Burial) and Portishead releases a Kraut Rock record to raves. And Tricky, I don't even know what his last three albums were called. Last one I remember the name on was Blowback? The critical community went from fellating the man to dropping him like he was radioactive. Story of a lot of criticism I read, people believe in hype.

Even critics, especially critics. Deejays remember this shit.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/B0000247P4/sr=8-5/qid=1256282375/ref=dp_image_text_0?ie=UTF8&n=229816&s=music&qid=1256282375&sr=8-5

bloody hell!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ypgjh4cfL._SS500_.jpg

Who me?

Just a fucking loser. Didn't go to class, Beuler.

no, seriously, you've posted here under a different display name, right?

Just under Siah Alan mostly, posting dubstep mixes back in the day.

Stuck to the ultra friendly dance threads and was tolerated (mostly) by moonship and Tim F.

I've been posting here at least 4-5 years. Just very slowly.

So I kind of know everyone, even if they don't remember me or where I live.

ok, cool--i never pay attention to the dance threads, for the most part (lol, i'm old).

Really not looking to make enemies here BTW.

It just irks me when I see people mouthing party lines. Or lazy half thought out crit.

Time to sleep, I think. I get cranky when I'm this tired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59NNupminV8

geir half the british fart rock bands u rep for like travis and coldplay use super boring chord changes

Actually, if you look further at it, they don't. For starters, they use a lot of minor and not only major. They use a lot of the same tricks that Paul McCartney used, and his harmonic work was always genius (except when he did boring I-IV-V rock'n'roll songs like "I'm Down" and "She's a Woman").

"Stand By Me" may sound very straightforward at first glance, but its chords, throughout verse, bridge and chorus, do actually visit every single of the possible seven steps.

Geir only likes "advanced chord changes" that don't involve any improvisation, otherwise Giant Steps would be his favorite song of all time

I have a lot of respect for the harmonic work done by jazz musicians. But I think the really genius thing in music is to make something that sounds straightforward on the surface, and which is actually quite harmonically complex when you look into it. "Giant Steps" sounds complex from the first moment you listen to it, and has no straightforward surface at all.

Massive Attack still get play in Fact and at Resident Advisor (mostly because they're getting remixed by Burial) and Portishead releases a Kraut Rock record to raves. And Tricky, I don't even know what his last three albums were called. Last one I remember the name on was Blowback? The critical community went from fellating the man to dropping him like he was radioactive. Story of a lot of criticism I read, people believe in hype.

Fact et al reported on the expanded edition of Maxinquaye though. Tricky's problem was being both super-inconsistent after the first couple of albums and a massive cock. One of the two would probably have been fine.

I remember this article on the making of Maxingquaye being really great (for anyone interested in any music prod): http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun07/articles/classictracks_0607.htm

The news we've all been waiting for:

http://flavorwire.com/45316/das-racist-to-sasha-frere-jones-stop-trying-to-kill-rap

And commentary on that reaction (with comments on that)

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/general/2009/10/23/das-racist-goes-after-sasha-frere-jones-for-being-white-n-educated/

das racist are pretty otm i think

i mean the swing vs thump thing was the part of the essay where i *smh* because of all the reasons vasquez lists--regardless of the elephant mane in the room, which is whatever 2 me cause i dont dig gucci all that hard, hes just kind of rong about what constitutes hip-hop musically, both (imo) factually and ideologically

ESPECIALLY because i think sfj kind of ignores the way "swing" gets coded as black and "thump" gets coded as white vis-a-vis blues/jazz vs. euro dance music

SFJ is basically doing high-end google bait where "hits" equals "angry letters to the New Yorker"...but at least I don't have to keep building a straw man when I get all pissy about the myth of disco somehow being emblematic "white" music. Not that I plan on actually reading the SFJ bait so perhaps it's a moot point.

i don't know das racist but i like their thing! both things. even the haikus. might be the most interesting music-related thing i've read in a while! and i agree with them too. and my maria went to wesleyan and she is dope as hell! and so did santogold.

That part might be correct but other part I 'm not so sure about (says this white, college educated guy. Ha). And I did not like the SFJ premise or think it was well stated either.

But notice how SFJ then immediately undermines that credibility: while he could just say “Nas called it three years ago,” he instead claims that while Nas’s sentiment was correct, the proclamation was three years premature, as if to say “Nice try, Nas, but leave it to the professional (white, college-educated) music journalist to make sweeping statements about (black, ghetto-originated) music.”

How would they react to Greg Tate criticism?

well greg tates not white so the power dynamics are a a little bit different

That's kinda my point. Is SFJ not correct because of the combination of factors--white and college-educated and based at the New Yorker versus Nas and his background or versus Greg Tate --black, college-educated and at the V. Voice. I just think they should address SFJ's arguments rather than his power and authority and where it derives from.

but they do address his arguments--theyre just critiquing the power dynamics at play as well

i mean i agree that its the weaker part of the response but that sort of critique is (imo rightfully) par for the course with this kind of thing

on the one hand yeah agree w/this

I just think they should address SFJ's arguments rather than his power and authority and where it derives from.

but OTOH it's helpful & illuminating to raise race/power/class dynamics in these discussions, like I come from a pretty undergrad place with respect to that: always keep pointing out these things, there's not going to be a day when they're not important

but then back on the other hand the way people immediately go for the sneering gotcha! undergrad tone of voice when they engage stuff like this is just very wearying & depressing

if "stuff like this" means stances both intentionally provocative and poorly thought out, i get why immediate sneering would be wearying (i don't need to read 90 pieces on why rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot), but i don't know why its depressing (i get why people want to respond when he's poking them with a stick, and why should they be respectful).

in fairness tho da croupier you have a fondness for the sneering-undergrad tone rite - I know you'll take this as an attack but that's kind of what you're into, right: engagement with something caustic & aggro/"provocative"/"bold" to it - to me, it seems like if a matter's worth discussing, it's worth attempting to do in a productive manner instead of going for the political-blog run-up-the-score style

we have fundamental aesthetic/ethical disagreement on this issue tho I think

what was the issue again?

there are several

sorry, i'm a little slow.

i can see why you'd see it that way, john, but most of the time I just don't like going on about something without throwing in some humor. and when the thing i'm responding to is a rock critic saying "why isn't the arcade fire black like mick jagger?" or "blueprint 3 done and killed rap" i'm comfortable with letting that humor be sardonic. bad link-bait is also noogie-bait.

i used to think sasha was a bright guy. i don't know anymore. or maybe he's still a bright guy, but its not coming through in pieces like this last one. hoo boy. i swear i read stuff like that and all i hear is: "i liked the rap when it went like this. now it goes like this. and i don't like it." in dana carvey's old man character voice.

also john i know dang well you're not above flip dismissal

yeah I mean I think the main issues in these discourses are actually a little less race-oriented than they appear, both from the stance of the author (s/fj) & the designated responders (das racist) - I think issues of youth/maturity-age & control of discursive paradigms are heavily in play. i.e. scott's right: I think s/fj doesn't dig the state of play in rap, a genre which at one point he dug a lot, and for a lot of people, if you don't like the way something changes in art (also in business but that's a diff world), that codes as reactionary, as having aged past the right to comment - "if you don't like [x], it's clear that you don't get the whole deal" has been a popular strategy of dismissing critical claims on popular music for 30+ years, more if you look at jazz crit even in the early bop age. and this is partly the latest iteration of same: "gtfo grandpa, make room for new ways of thinking" which has validity to it, the calcification of a critical stance is just a fact of growth & trying to stay young!!! is a bit worse in my mind than accepting that the growth of your aesthetic will eventually mean actually arriving at an aesthetic, which, like any arrived-at thing, will age & become comfortable. but the hint of a reactionary stance near a question as racially loaded as white critics commenting on the state of play in rap, that's a quick ticket to some lovely unproductive and to-me-incredibly-boring fireworks.

xpost yeah I know anthony but I keep hoping I'll grow out of it & spotting how unproductive it looks in others is a part of that

I remember reading the piece when it first ran and goin "oh great, my Dad has a job writing for the Atlantic now, soon we'll hear how free verse has ruined poetry"

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 12:25 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

xpost!

"my dad" isn't a random "I am young!" stand-in for "age" there, it's my actual dad the english professor who thinks free verse has ruined poetry

i put xpost in there to clarify i wasn't responding to your post above it, you know

i could have just has easily linked to the "fuck this guy" post

I think the bigger issue is that SASHA keeps on race-coding this shit in unproductive ways. "Rap isn't as good" is not the same thing as "rap isn't as BLACK." Well, as much as this paragraph could actually mean that (it's insinuated but not stated):

"The tempos and sonics of disco’s various children—techno, rave, whatever your particular neighborhood made of a four-on-the-floor thump—are slowly replacing hip-hop’s blues-based swing. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the rudimentary digital sound of New Orleans bounce or the crusty samples of New York hip-hop: this music wants to swing and syncopate. On major commercial releases, this impulse is giving way to a European pulse, simpler and faster and more explicitly designed for clubs."

But I do think there's a slight misreading of Sasha's thesis here, which seems to be more this:

"hip-hop is no longer the avant-garde, or even the timekeeper, for pop music. Hip-hop has relinquished the controls and splintered into a variety of forms. The top spot is not a particularly safe perch, and every vital genre eventually finds shelter lower down, with an organic audience, or moves horizontally into combination with other, sturdier forms."

I mean, I don't think this is 100% untrue, there's an impulse or something there, but he doesn't explore it in a very interesting or thoughtful way, starting with the second sentence. I guess he thinks "organic audience" means something self-evident that I'm not understanding (is this those STREETS that teh rappers are always going on about??), or why absorbing new styles is "horizontal" while finding a niche audience is "vertical," or why these things seem mutually exclusive, or or or...

also john, if your goal on sfj-hate threads is to have us respond productively, calling out the inconsistencies of haters is probably less effective in doing so than if you read the piece yourself and productively engaged with it - admitted flaws, pointed out what you liked, etc.

anthony you could always just say "john I refuse to let you post to this thread w/o being a total dick to you," it'd save you some effort

(I mean the real issue, I suspect, is that words like "avant-garde" and "time-keeper" are more useless than usual in pop at the moment; it's not something that's changed in hip-hop but something that's changed in, e.g., how pop music quantified, sold, etc. but then he'd be writing a boring "music is fragmenting!" think piece that not as many people would link to.)

wtg j0hn for shifting the power dynamics by using "undergrad" as an insult

anthony you could always just say "john I refuse to let you post to this thread w/o being a total dick to you," it'd save you some effort

not sure if it was my reaffirmation of the xpost or the acknowledgment that you don't actually talk much about the pieces themselves so much as the nature of people's complaints on these threads that brought this out, but it wasn't my intent to cross a line.

I think we're giving undergrads too much credit here, btw. The pejorative "grad student" would probably be better. xpost

i used to think sasha was a bright guy. i don't know anymore. or maybe he's still a bright guy, but its not coming through in pieces like this last one. hoo boy. i swear i read stuff like that and all i hear is: "i liked the rap when it went like this. now it goes like this. and i don't like it." in dana carvey's old man character voice.

― scott seward, Saturday, October 24, 2009 11:50 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cos3ve.gif

"The tempos and sonics of disco’s various children—techno, rave, whatever your particular neighborhood made of a four-on-the-floor thump—are slowly replacing hip-hop’s blues-based swing. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the rudimentary digital sound of New Orleans bounce or the crusty samples of New York hip-hop: this music wants to swing and syncopate. On major commercial releases, this impulse is giving way to a European pulse, simpler and faster and more explicitly designed for clubs."

to my non-musician ears, racial politics aside, this is a crock. hip-hop's blues-based swing????

(That Sasha piece is an A- by undergrad standards! Has a thesis and well-stated/organized evidence, but evidence doesn't seem to fully support thesis. It would just get a lot of comments in the margins and like a 2-page caveat response at the end talking about why he has to be careful on future papers.)

j0hn i'm sorry that we're dumping on a guy you know IRL to some degree, but honestly i had a lot of respect for him as a critic 5-10 years ago that has been substantially diminished mainly by the trifecta of the "DJ Shadow and minstrelsy" piece, the "Arcade Fire and miscegenation" piece, and now this one. if you'd like to put up a rigorous defense of any of those articles and why they're well thought out arguments and not at all easy to poke holes in, go for it, but if you're willing admit that they're extremely problematic maybe you should let those of us who don't know him have at it.

wtg j0hn for shifting the power dynamics by using "undergrad" as an insult

I'm glad somebody appreciates my work

(some dude: yeah no I mean seriously I'm not actually that into what he's saying, it's the weird timbre of the response that's interesting to me, and this is kind of always the case with "stuff like this" i.e. critics in high positions making broad claims - note that da croupier's xgau singles poll isn't "best" but "which is the WORST" - there's this to-me-really-odd kill-the-king impulse that I'd assume most people had grown out of. it's impossible to get anybody to accept that I'm interested in this as a music fan & reader of these pieces rather than as the recipient of a lovely press-kit-pullable new yorker article five years ago, but that's actually not where I'm coming from, but try telling that to da croupier, who has faithfully come at me every time I've joined an sfj clusterfuck thread since 2005.)

i think the problem with the internet is its easy to read a friar's roast as a teabagger's party. and i made that poll the worst because i was more curious what people's least favorite xgau quirk was than what people's most favorite old-school hip-hop joint was.

and since you went there, i'll just note that you were the one that "productively engaged" me on the subject back in 2005. my request for full disclosure was pretty clearly a defensive gesture if you go back.

one of the things i like about the kid sister album is how much euro-ness there is on it. it works perfectly next to the southern/u.s./chicago juke beats and sounds on it. (i'd love to play sasha some of my favorite nu-beat-derived hip-house and technorap tracks from the 80's. american stuff soaked in german and belgian flavors. guess he's not a big miami bass fan. there was some straight-up teutonic shit coming out of florida way back when. i mean was electro blues-based??? so weird. ain't nothing more american or funky or hip hop than european robots with bad accents.)

sorry to belabor a point but here's a helpful link to jess noting "john and mr. que's weird pile-up" on my ass for hating on the miscegenation piece. you're welcome, ilx drama fans.

I don't know if calling it a kill-the-king impulse is right -- people who care about music can be pretty savage when a great or important band makes a bad record, and even though among a lot of people on this board there might be issues of decorum or professional courtesy at stake, at its root I don't see why people who care about music criticism shouldn't be just as rough when a great or important critic writes a bad piece or takes a questionable position.

i didn't even think it was that rough! worst is just in all-caps to make clear i'm asking for "i'll be missing you" vs. "kim" than "that's the joint" vs. "rock box."

to-me-really-odd kill-the-king impulse

are you really shocked that when a particular critic gets a really well-regarded forum with a wide audience to write for and proceeds to make weird, lazy, and/or intellectually dishonest points people get pretty frustrated?

no, but you know me, kind of permanently naive, I am really shocked that the weapons chosen to combat these weird, lazy and/or intellectually dishonest points are themselves quite weird, lazy and/or intellectually dishonest

resisting urge to faithfully come at you

lol noted

The thing that strikes me odd about the Sasha Frere-Jones piece is he starts off with this seemingly well-thought out thesis about how he has seen the end and he will tell us of the mind fires that led him to this belief, but he ends up somewhere so muddled talking about Freddie Gibbs (who is righteous, so I'm a lot more willing to let SFJ ride this train than I would normally be), basically saying, in short, "Hip-hop is dead because this Jay-Z record is okay, oh but there's this Raekwon record, and this Freddie Gibbs dude, he is the real." Or, to appropriate John: Why The New Yorker Sometimes Reads Like an Undergrad's Blog.

xp i dunno i mean it just feels like we all agree--like other than that one thing the das racist guy said i'm not sure what you are objecting to

btw i just listened to that freddie gibbs mixtape and i'd say it's the slightest bit boring

at this point I'm just killing time until the saw vi showing tbh

anthony should i not go to this movie btw

i just can't believe that there are already six saw movies.

i'm not anthony but i don't like movies like that so i say no

yeah but in this one evidently the villains are HMO dudes

also I only & exclusively like horror movies & dislike all the other movies so when there's one in the theaters I feel like I need to support the scene

the saw movies are creating a view askew universe for horror geeks w/poor taste

up until a couple years ago i never even noticed violence in movies and now i really hate it

i'm busy selling tapes. thus, i have all the time in the world. dude in my store is buying kool g rap, pharcyde, fight, omen, and sacrifice cassettes. sacrifice and kool g rap combo kinda awesome in my book.

i checked out of the series half-way through Saw IV when I learned I was supposed to remember the first and last names of characters from previous sequels. Would like to think they'd just drop the byzantine plot by now for torture traps nothing but torture traps but I can't say.

i did enjoy paranormal activity if you haven't seen that yet

i've only seen the first saw movie and i'm a huge horror fan. i'd better catch up. i liked the first one.

Would like to think they'd just drop the byzantine plot by now for torture traps nothing but torture traps but I can't say.

Apparently they are still mining backstory. Which, how much can there be.

I only saw lol SAW the first one, didn't really see a need to see any sequels before now but the ad campaign for the new one is getting to me. btw I spent most of this week listening to 4,5,6 that there is a solid album imo

dude in my store also bought vhs copies of jailbait babysitter and young einstein.

Was it Sasha Frere-Jones?

he might have been in disguise.

also bummed that despite making millions upon millions they've hired COSTAS MANDYLOR as the new jigsaw.

puttin on shoes and socks now but should I know who costas mandaylor is? you gotta admit as screen names go it's got a lot to recommend it

his main claim to fame was playing the cute bailiff on picket fences. kind of guy who does 5-week stints on CW dramas, should not be playing the chosen heir of a nefariously brutal vigilante.

at least if Saw VI is playing in 1,000s of screens. He'd be fine for the SyFy original movie, maybe

he's sort of a low-impact keanu

or chris noth with less going on upstairs

max u should listen to more gucci mane

although you should probably listen to dam-funk first, he has a ponytail

i kind of think the das racist response is 'more right' but also not entirely thought out & backhanded towards what its defending:
"Interstitial material, skits and even songs that are obviously recorded as filler do not have to be seen as less valid art but can be seen as part of the tradition (often enough, “filler” and skits contain truly avant-garde and surreal moments)."

filler is a part of the 'tradition of hip-hop'?? ahh yes & the 'truly avant-garde and surreal moments' of filler & skits .... not condescending at all.

More like identifying decent songs as filler is part of the tradition of rock crit, & sometimes filler is just filler

saw vi was dumb but I liked it anyway kind of because it was dumb & unambitious - kinda charming like a lot of late 80s horror flix, like "we have to make a movie but there's this nagging issue of a storyline so umm ok how about REVENGE for ok revenge for what SHITTY INSURANCE COMPANIES fuck yeah, that's awesome, now we're brainstorming right? cool, hey can we sort of shade the whole thing a sickly blue? always wanted to do that - why? idk just seems cool"

that is the update on saw vi

"filler is a part of the 'tradition of hip-hop'??"

well, to be fair, in the olden days you would have people put out albums with a single and 3 or 4 strong tracks and then, um, stuff to fill up two sides of a record. and then when everyone decided that they HAD to fill 79 minutes of a cd you saw the rise of skitdom. so....

disco could get around this problem by just having 4 ten minute songs make up an album.

yeah but thats more like 'tradition of making lps for major labels' -- the way he puts it -- esp in a race-conscious piece like this -- is that sfj is stepping on cultural norms or not being relativist enough or something

anyone who doesn't love "beats for the listeners" hates rap, full stop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syRNvn4kF4

we're really not taking advantage of the real LOL here, which is that someone read a controversial statement about hip hop and thought "you know who needs to weigh in on this? Das Racist!"

ive lold @ delillo many times def - guy is hilarious - also the saw movies are great but have been steadily declining in quality since the 1st one - although 3 is prob better than 2 - so maybe not so steadily - and honesty i havent seen 5 or 6 yet - anyway saws 1-3 are pretty great - saws 5 and 6 are potentially great - saw 4 i feel like forgot what the whole "saw franchise" is all about - tho it did come through w/a good twist at the end which imo is what the saw franchise is all about - that and employing donnie wahlberg - must be somewhat disheartening to have the guy on tv satirizing you be doin better than you

we're really not taking advantage of the real LOL here, which is that someone read a controversial statement about hip hop and thought "you know who needs to weigh in on this? Das Racist!"

― wein blockas (some dude), Saturday, October 24, 2009 5:57 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

or the further LOL that i basically agreed with them

When we read Sasha Frere-Jones‘ recent piece on the death of hip-hop, we didn’t have a witty comeback. What we did have was one name on the brain: Das Racist. A favorite here at Flavorpill HQ thanks to their single “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” the Brooklyn-based rap duo is one of the more exciting new acts on the scene. And as the New York Times recently said, “Das Racist’s lack of piety has become an aesthetic of its own, with songs that are as much commentary on hip-hop as rigorous practice of it.”

rigorous practice lol

SFJ follow-up posts:

For anybody who thought this week’s column on rap was just coconuts, this rebuttal from Victor Vazquez and Himanshu Suri of Das Racist will be a satisfying read. Theirs is a serious response, and, aside from dragging a relative I never knew into the fray, it advances the conversation instead of simply throwing it into the flames. And it’s nice to know we all like haikus.

“D.O.J.: When Jay-Z Was Good" ... “Kevin Casey Presents Live From New York: 1994-2001” ... Peanut Butter Wolf has a new mix CD called “Live 45,” which chooses most of my favorite early eighties rap records,...
These mixes are only three of many ways to curate hip-hop’s best years and regional triumphs. If you know of a mixtape that sums up your idea of hip-hop’s peak, send it to sfjcomme✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧. And by all means, if you think there is a “Best of 2009” mixtape that can make current hip-hop sound groundbreaking and world-cracking, bring it on. The arc of any genre is going to be contended, and the length of this particular arc won’t be agreed upon without a fair amount of dissent (and neither resolution nor consensus is necessary).

What bothers me most about this article is the automatic critical shorthand of "disco = white soulless music".

Makes me feel like mailing him Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody.

Which he will promptly tell me is not disco, but Philly Soul.

I see dabug feels the same way, one of the great tragedies of the late 1970s was the way disco was marketed.

Which is why I have to listen to "That Old Time Rock'n'Roll", 6 times a shift for the rest of my life.

In between the worst Chic songs, and the two or three Sister Sledge songs I'm bored of.

Basically Sasha's argument boils down to: "I want some blues and some funky old soul".

And thus it maps syncopation with intuition, and adds the racially flavored: black = intuitive, syncopated, soulful valuation into the mix. Which is a yawning chasm of a debate, one that I'm not interested in having.

Reminds me of all those Chicago kids dancing to EBM in 89. Or the hiphouse skot was talking about.

What's odd about Sasha's anti-disco take here is that he clearly knows the history-- Here's an excerpt of his from 2005 that I googled:

In 1977, the steely, intentionally robotic German electronic group Kraftwerk released “Trans-Europe Express,” a song that became a hit in black clubs in New York. In 1981, Kraftwerk released a song with an unusually heavy and thumping drum-machine beat called “Numbers,” which became an even bigger hit on black radio. The following year, a group from the Bronx called Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force released “Planet Rock,” a track that combined the music from “Trans-Europe Express” and “Numbers” with acrobatic ensemble rapping. “Planet Rock” moves at a hundred and twenty-eight beats a minute—a little quicker than your basic disco song—and its urgent sound inspired a genre in New York and London called “electro,” and a genre in Miami called “bass,” which is distinguished by lyrics that are exclusively sexual and occasionally pornographic.

He also knows Chic's "Good Times." I guess he's splitting hairs and saying that these current hiphop hits are using uh, current European disco beats, that he does not like versus the European and African-American ones he does like.

And by all means, if you think there is a “Best of 2009” mixtape that can make current hip-hop sound groundbreaking and world-cracking, bring it on

Is he applying these same criteria to other genres? Do his top albums and singles meet this criteria?

yeah thats called moving the goalposts

honestly if Tha Carter 3 is the standard he's holding up for "groundbreaking and world-cracking" it shouldn't be that hard to find something that measures up.

what level of entitlement/self-aggrandization do you have to reach to commend those who "advance the conversation" rather than "simply throwing" your provocative work "to the flames"?

"i just don't like what it says about our culture when people don't take my lazy link-bait seriously."

ya a bit weird to pat them on the head and not respond to anything they're saying haha

to be fair he did the same thing after the miscegenation piece. kept promising to respond, cherry-picked a few quotes from people who gave his piece the proper respect (though not that impudent carl wilson, obv) and left us with little beyond "good, good, inspiring thought and debate, twas the plan all along." wish that guy who asked ilx why black people don't want to rock used a similar tack.

wait a minute, i thought he replied to the Wilson piece directly, somewhere or other.

didn't see anything on his new yorker blog in response, and didn't hear about anything elsewhere

i could be mistaken, natch, but that was my impression. maybe he commented on the Slate article page itself (it was Slate, right)? i dunno.

slate doesn't have a comments box, just a password-only discussion forum. i'm guessing if sfj responded it'd be easy to find, considering it was the highest profile response he received (and since it made the da capo 2008 best music writing book, wilson's piece arguably has a higher profile than the original)

according to professional music critic sasha-frere jones, dance music has killed hip hop through years of calculated infiltration by way of assimilation. the overthrow was first set in motion by electro pioneer afrikaa bambataa in the 1980s who introduced the white, soulless throb of the german-born genre "techno" to hip hop beats. although it took over twenty years, white dance music consumed hip hop once and for all in 2009-an event marked by a distinct shift in beat-selection on jay-z's eleventh studio album "the blueprint 3."

what wikipedia entry are you adding that to

i dont think that sfj is actually dumb enough to think that disco is soulless

Basically Sasha's argument boils down to: "I want some blues and some funky old soul"

Ha ha, I'll probably never get around to reading this thread, but see my review here:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=814

disco could get around this problem by just having 4 ten minute songs make up an album

So could hip-hop, almost! First (and maybe only?) Treacherous Three album has six songs, checking in at 7:29, 5:36, 7:34, 7:39, 6:58, and 5:46. It's great!

ysi?

I have never heard of Das Racist before, but those two have a publicist? Someone gets paid to run media interference for hipsters?

sigh

i dont think that sfj is actually dumb enough to think that disco is soulless

― Bobby Wo (max), Monday, October 26, 2009 3:32 PM (3 days ago)

Neither do I, I think he's being facetious. I think he's dumbing down his opinions for his market.

I don't think much of the New Yorker's readership when it comes to their appreciation of Pop.

I'm sure they're very picky when it comes to chamber music.

its true because i read the new yorker and im very picky re: chamber music

I read the NYer and am also picky about chamber music. Pickier than the NYer, really.

i read the NEW POOPER and im picky about CHAMBER POTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I write critiques of the NEW POOPER's chamber pot criticism in my monthly column in SHIT FANCY.

The tempos and sonics of disco’s various children—techno, rave, whatever your particular neighborhood made of a four-on-the-floor thump—are slowly replacing hip-hop’s blues-based swing. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the rudimentary digital sound of New Orleans bounce or the crusty samples of New York hip-hop: this music wants to swing and syncopate. On major commercial releases, this impulse is giving way to a European pulse

Four-on-the-floor thump is European??!!??

That darned evil Moroder.

Hello?

http://funkmusic.co.cc/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/hamilton-bohannon-bohannon-1.jpg

He was doing four-on-the-floor thump when Moroder was doing Chicory Tip

you could make a lot of interesting points about the gradual loss of swing in hip hop production over the years and the move toward more rigidly quantized drums, but SFJ shoots straight past any of them to some really bizarre whole other imaginary argument

Correct me if I'm wrong here but 4X4 thump in 2009 really seems like more of an R&B trend which hip hop is exposed to by association (hence Black Eyed Peas, Timbaland etc). I haven't noticed a terribly large amount of recent rap on a 4X4 beat, but maybe I just haven't heard what Sasha's thinking of?

Certainly it's not the first time R&B has gone 4X4 before.

new orleans bounce drums are pretty fucking rigid.

ha yeah i raised an eyebrow at that

SFJ trying to rewrite his article? Or at least one sentence of it?

SFJ-October 26 from "“Wrapping Up – A genre ages out”
“If I had to pick a year for hip-hop’s demise, though, I would choose 2009, not 2006.”

SFJ -November 25-from "End Times" blog post
“Some people thought that my recent column about hip-hop was actually an assertion that hip-hop was dead. In fact, my argument was that hip-hop is not ending but rather going through a transitional moment and atomizing.” http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2009/11/end-times.html

Does "demise" mean "atomizing"? Not sure why he had the "demise" sentence if he meant that club beats and Freddie Gibbs were a sign of hiphop "atomizing"

this fucking guy

Conversely. the whole Pill/Freddie Gibbs/Juiceman axis is basically just the rap version of nitpicking over chillwave and glo-fi and, again, has little to no bearing on hip-hop at large.

― eatin' spaghett' (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 27 November 2009 21:04 (Yesterday) Permalink

juiceman is nothing like pill/freddie gibbs and is yes "actually popular"

lol oops rong thread

What's weird is that of the probable hundreds of legit responses/critiques/counterblogs to the his article that he's gotten, he addresses a single vague response in his blog and asks for clarification, nothing more. This guy's the king of critical dialogue.

My uh, source, reports he's going to address part of this again "after the holidays"('somebody' e-mailed him his "demise" sentence from October and his "atomizing" sentence from November and asked him to explain)

Or maybe not.

December 15, 2009
I Cannot Stop Until I Get Enough
Posted by Sasha Frere-JonesI won’t be back in this space until May of 2010. I need to focus on writing a book, and the Internet is awfully distracting. You will see my byline in the magazine made of paper, and in relevant links placed here.

The New Yorker LCD Soundsystem piece has some pretty bad moments, but is not fully online for mockage. It's actually not so much that it's overall a bad piece as that he tends to be clumsy and ignorant at a number of moments.

bought the NYer just for this article. which parts did you find clumsy?

What is this thread about? Shockah? I have no idea.

― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones)

Why is the New Yorker so popular? The writing?

the pictures

the HTML code on their internet site?

Sasha's got the album at the top his 2010 list. He's got a tumblr now

http://sashafrerejones.tumblr.com/

SFJ's 2010 list: http://www.sashafrerejones.com/2009/11/best_of_2010_1.html

There are posts in this thread that I do not remember writing.

Also, SFJ's Tumblr is pretty great. Real Enjoyable Prose + images with Real Enjoyable Captions.

Why is the New Yorker so popular? The writing?

i think the new yorker's writing is v. good.

hahaha, yeah. i had a subscription for a year or two in high school. i was just referring to the following exchange from the Awl thread:

Why is Gawker so popular? The writing?

― kshighway (ksh), Monday, January 11, 2010 11:02 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no, the pictures

― max, Monday, January 11, 2010 11:03 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think it's the HTML coding actually

― fella, cutie (s1ocki), Monday, January 11, 2010 11:13 AM (3 months ago)

wkiw sfj

article was great, needed a little more funk in it though

why is nicki minaj his ninth favorite album of the year?

i was thinking the same thing

Are you wondering why it's so high or so low?

Wikipedia says she doesn't have an album of her own out yet

so, probably the fact that she's just listed there?

well, unless he's talking about barbie world or has got secret new yorker privileges, it isn't out or leaked yet, and no concrete info about is has been released or anything. assuming he just means nicki minaj disparate output of 2010 so far.

iirc he had Carter 3 listed as one of his favorite albums of the year way before its release based mixtape(s) full of leaks that ended up having nothing to do with the album it eventually ended up being.

haha yeah I was wondering why a person was #9 on a list of albums. had no idea she even had an album coming out, no way i'd be able to get through a whole 2010 minaj album anyway

ok just checked out dude's 2009 album list and he's got sleigh bells at number one, and their debut still isn't out. either a weirdly desperate attempt at getting there first or dude is really loose with his definition of the word album.

well, Ring Ring was streaming on Myspace so, you know, album!

bought the NYer just for this article. which parts did you find clumsy?

― ksh, Sunday, 9 May 2010 23:15 (Yesterday)

E.g.:

"In discussions of rock recordings, there is often great reverence for the live room, where the instruments are recorded.... Musicians believe that the air in these spaces and the ambience of these buildings are an integral part of what makes the recordings special."

I mean "the air"? Really? Not, say, the particular acoustics of the room? He makes it sound like it's something purely superstitious.

air can hurt you too.

I'm guessing he just means air. It was humid in the French basement where the Stones made Exile on Main St., for example.

the last time there was a major "no air" recording was like, 2007/2008 or something O_O

i'm not being a smartass, this is literally the only possible interpretation i can think of for the above post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pL6fK1iNIQ

Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord

Or: "Murphy leaped about, singing into a small Sennheiser mike, a type of mike that, though Pink Floyd used it for vocals, is usually used to record guitar."

Sennheiser is a brand of microphone - they make vocal mics as well as guitar mics. I mean maybe it would be too nerdy for the New Yorker to put in an actual model number, but it sounds off this way.

Also, there's a description of him composing Losing My Edge by "turning on the [toy rhythm box he was given], and singing and drumming at the same time." -- Not only is this an awkward way to describe it (turning on the rhythm box is not really a notable part of the process) but he doesn't really sing in that song.

Also, "For someone coming from a performance-based background -- like jazz or classical music -- Murphy's approach can be puzzling. But he is more concerned with the sonic qualities of the equipment than with those of the physical space they are recorded in." Wow, holy shit, you mean he uses the recording process as his instrument? Coming from a performance-based background, I am somewhat puzzled by this novel approach.

Also: "LCD shows draw a mixture of teenagers, fashion plates, and older fans who can probably identify exactly what kind of bass Murphy uses just by listening."

some dude: *high-five*

abbreviating microphone as "mike" is by far the greatest offense there imo

ksh does that mean i accurately understood your joke or what? i'm still somewhat confused

yep, that was the joke -- you got it

oh ok -- i srsly thought you were on some crazy tech jargon ish

hahaha!! :-D nope, you were OTM

koritfw

if you told me you could identify what kind of bass james murphy uses just by listening i wouldn't believe you even if you are an older fan

Listen, I've heard a few basses in my day.

ashamed to say, i didn't even realize murphy was using a bass. i thought it was all programmed sounds. and i like lcd soundsystem -- a lot.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060807213258/uncyclopedia/images/6/6c/Bass_player.JPG

old school, i see

live bass

havent read yet, quotes are infuriating

sfj is a very skilled writer who does stuff like that that pisses me off pretty frequently. his review of the sade album hit the mark so correctly and then ... he complained about the sax solos on her classic records. its like ... thefuck?? how can you like sade and complain about the sax. thats, like, central to the appeal. its like "im feeling this bob dylan record, but i wish he sang like aretha." not the point bro

if the quotes hurting has upthread are really conflating all sennheisers together w/out realizing that they make both guitar & vocal mics, then i basically am 100% in the camp w/ albini about music 'journalism' today

if on the other hand its the same model but hes implying all sennheisers are the same, then its just bad writing

what's albini's take?

Sorry, that should be

Wow, holy shit, you mean he uses the recording process as his instrument makes largely electronic music? Coming from a performance-based background, I am somewhat puzzled by this novel approach.

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49129&sid=bf28f1bde7d7dd2f755bc7bd8623ced0

The quotes that Hurting 2 posted are all great examples of this thing that critics sometimes do that really irritates me. Basically these are attempts to discuss the technical aspects of a recording in layman's terms, but the details are completely fudged and don't make any real sense.

I appreciate it when a critic can engage in technical talk and get it right and add something interesting to the discussion, but it grates on me when they make obvious errors.

sfj is a very skilled writer who does stuff like that that pisses me off pretty frequently. his review of the sade album hit the mark so correctly and then ... he complained about the sax solos on her classic records. its like ... thefuck?? how can you like sade and complain about the sax. thats, like, central to the appeal. its like "im feeling this bob dylan record, but i wish he sang like aretha." not the point bro

in fairness tho deej if anybody ever says anything less than glowing about any aspect of a sade record yr take is gonna be "omg heretic" mais non

Exactly. And I think it's better writing to go slightly over people's heads with accurate technical detail (if he is in fact capable of that, which I'm not sure) then to dumb-down inaccurately.

(xpost)

sfj really seems to be in a rock/hard place sitch trying to describe contemporary music to lame nyer readers but he doesn't do himself any favors either--he's a musician and should know that all that "can tell the type of bass" stuff is complete bullshit

deej is right in this case tho

it's true, i've just been hittin the wine again tbh

was gonna say ... are u hating on smooth operator sax now???

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49129&sid=bf28f1bde7d7dd2f755bc7bd8623ced0

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

I like SFJ a lot but this piece fell flat for me. James Murphy is an odd, interesting character who's not shy about discussing personal stuff in immense detail but most of the psychology was quickly brushed past in favour of talking about microphones, etc. I come to a profile to learn more about how a person thinks, not to have vast swathes of crit which would work equally well, if not better, in a review or essay with no access to Murphy at all. I wonder if that was the New Yorker's brief - explain this guy to people who haven't heard of him - but there comes a point when you just have to accept that anyone reading past the first page or so has enough prior knowledge, or is sufficiently hooked, to want to know more about the man himself.

His new piece is about Noise. Focuses about Sightings, Yellow swans, Wolf Eyes and HEALTH. Seems kind of late to be writing about this. Four years ago might have been more appropriate?

another piece that's like omg they aren't using notes but sounds and then trots out merzbow and your criticism is this-is-so-2006

Donald Fagan:
NOTES ON CRAP By Sascha Frere-Jacque

On a sweltering night last August, the bored, sticky crowd in Webster Hall had started to drift toward the exits when the quartet, CapGras, took the stage. CapGras is named after a delusional syndrome which is, in turn, named after it's discoverer, the French psychiatrist Jean Marie Joseph Capgras. Their debut album on the U.K. label, Q'CAM Music, " You're Not Jack" , has just gone gold and spawned a wickedly addictive hit single, " Concealed Tattoo" .

http://donaldfagen.com/writing_items.php?itemID=96

omg

Of course, no cure is absolute, and there are still hurtles to be overcome out in the big, bad world. The band's latest crisis occurred at the playback party for their sophomore album "Art Is Uncool" at Bar Z Bar, when each band member independently accused producer Billy Dotcom of being " not himself", and the album, which was being played at high volume on Bar Z Bar's powerful speaker system, of being not itself.

Nevertheless, D'Von says that, at this juncture, everything is copacetic. " Let's face it, Sascha - if that's really who you are - the bottom line is, art really is uncool. It's going to be a big relief to put this nightmare behind us and move on".

they should fire Sascha and just hire Don

amazing

any bass could sound a lot different depending on how it was recorded, what amp you were using, if you were using any effects pedals, whether it was DI'd or mic'd or, like a zillion different factors

This cracks me up:
Lead singer Dolorous Von Bronx, (formerly Sue Ratour of the short-lived Sue Ratour and the Eradicons) is drop-dead gorgeous. Whipping across the stage in her vintage 1930s roller skating outfit (silver-buttoned blouse, short pleated skirt) with her long, silky legs askew, she was a truly rapturous vision: sensuous and scary, like Veronica Lake on a methedrine binge.

here's a link to the SFJ noise article: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2010/05/24/100524crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=all

every time I read one of these awesome Fagen/Becker takedowns, it makes me angry that they aren't putting out albums more often. I'm sure they could shit out a good one every year or two if they wanted, and I'd probably buy it.

holllllllllllllllllllllly fuck

@ fagen

i like the noise piece. it's well written, if redundant and several years late from where i sit. it's not aimed at people like me, though. it's aimed at new yorker readers in general, and if i didn't know anything about noise music, i'm sure i'd find it interesting, curious, even somewhat funny.

This noise music just doesn't have any swing to it.

the whole "this crazy new music is emulating the noisy dischord of our modern technological society" has been floating around since like when the 20s or something?

since at least Ok Computer

i'm glad radiohead invented the future, i plan on living my whole life there

Freed from songs, the sounds draw attention to how odd machines can feel, and how powerful. Abstract noise sends the mind searching for concrete comparisons: clunking hard drives, breaking wires, muffled phones, turnstiles.

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2010/05/24/p233/100524_r19653_p233.jpg

^^^^ illustration of 2 bros making noize

Man, SFJ's reputation has really changed, huh? I feel like six or seven years ago, he (along with K. Sanneh) was routinely held up by ILX as a paragon of smart music criticism.

I was just going to say, flashing back to when he replaced Hornby and how stoked ILM was (granted he was an occasional poster then, if I remember right.)

Rereading this, I don't think it's a particularly mean-spirited parody; we'd like to think so because it's by Donald Fagen.

who's "we"? pretty sure most of "us" were omg-ing at how pitch-perfect and next-level it is

You need to reread what I wrote.

The bassist Richard Hoffman, of the New York trio Sightings, said, “We are too noisy for the rock bills and too rock for the noise bills.”

lol bullfuckingshit richard hoffman

hahah tbf if some dork from the nyer interviewed me i'd be tempted to say shit like that too

Man, SFJ's reputation has really changed, huh? I feel like six or seven years ago, he (along with K. Sanneh) was routinely held up by ILX as a paragon of smart music criticism.

― jaymc, Wednesday, May 19, 2010 9:19 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah...as I said somewhere upthread, there's basically a trifecta of facepalm pieces that really shook my confidence in the guy (the DJ Shadow/minstrelsy thing, the Arcade Fire/miscenegation thing, and the Blueprint 3/omg hip hop is dead thing). plus in addition to all that ridiculous controversy baiting, he hasn't really moved forward much in a lot of ways -- like he might've been one of the only big critics at one point writing well about why Timbaland is important, but he seems to rewrite the same 'why Timbaland is important' article every couple years.

After a piece on reggaeton years back I thought he was going to continue to cover Latin sounds and maybe other international non/Western ones, but other than mentioning a panel on Haitian music he was somehow involved with, he has mostly ignored such sounds.

unless dj rupture played them

"Akita’s tools are usually electronic, sometimes just a laptop, and he has produced some of the harshest and most punishing music around. (His long-standing interest in physically demanding forms of sexuality, like bondage, is probably related.)"

Probably.

Other forms:

Sprinting Reacharound
Tit Wrestling
Steeplechase
The Jerk-and-Lift

Don't really get what's wrong with that bit you quoted

It's dumb. It's drive-by, intended to do nothing more than make the reader cock an eyebrow. "Bondage, you say?" If he thought it was important he'd have mentioned early releases that featured bondage photos in the art, the fact that Merzbow actually put out a CD called Music for Bondage Performance, and then maybe talked about how why and when he moved away from that into his current nature-fixated area.

word

Would sacrifice my NYer subscription for one more Dan album with a song on it called 'concealed tattoo'.

like he might've been one of the only big critics at one point writing well about why Timbaland is important, but he seems to rewrite the same 'why Timbaland is important' article every couple years

agreed

I still like reading him most times though. the noise piece is pretty good except for the goofy lede paragraph about the post-it note

I read that lede as his way of saying 'hi ILX, I know this seems 4 years late to you but this is the NYer'

haha I guess so

seems a little bit beneath a big critic to attempt to play that card

Are post-it notes really still sticky after four years? If so that's kind of incredible stickiness technology at work.

I kind of wish Malcolm Gladwell would do a connect-the-dots piece on Merzbow rather than SFJ. I think he did one on people who make chart-topping hits according to some dubious mathematics that was pretty interesting.

Gladwell would have taken the article more in the sticky-note direction.

whenever i see sasha's name i start singing "sasha frere jones! sasha frere jones!" to the tune of basketball jones. every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIbp5C-5WXM

in my head though. not out loud.

lol

unless dj rupture played them

do you actually dislike dj rupture's mixes or just the people who rep for them because if the latter then wtf, dude is solid

I believe there was a positive reaction to his arrival at the New Yorker because, um, he was replacing Nick Hornby. As for K., he's at the New Yorker, too, right? But all I can remember reading is his gay gospel piece and the (toothlessly fair) profile of ... Savage, right?

Anyway, that LCD piece read like it was written several months months ago.

somewhat off/on-topic, Alec Wilkinson's the Los Tigres article this week is really good.

Los Tigres Del Norte?!?

abstract: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/24/100524fa_fact_wilkinson

that's kinda cool. I can't think of a music that is more widely reviled/ignored/dismissed by white music fans. which is weird considering that its musical roots (polka) is like the whitest shit in the world. but polkas aren't cool anymore, much less polkas sung in a language that they don't understand, and blasted at top volume out of Mexicans' cars. I find it kinda fascinating, if impenetrable (since I don't speak spanish)

But all I can remember reading is his gay gospel piece and the (toothlessly fair) profile of ... Savage, right?

Also profiled Jeremiah Wright, reviewed a slate of books about the history of whiteness in America, probably a couple other things I don't recall.

do you actually dislike dj rupture's mixes or just the people who rep for them because if the latter then wtf, dude is solid

― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Thursday, May 20, 2010 5:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i disliked his set when i saw him live. so did the grrls i was with -- i was kind of embarrassed to have recommended it tbh

peaking the set w/ dubstep U_U

shakey, wish the whole thing was online. check the story out at border's or something. he briefly describes the roots (which i'd always wondered about) and some of the...i dunno, reasoning behind the song structures. the descriptions of concert attendees dramatically acting out and singing each line is really wild. What band could play in front of 67,000 people at the Astrodome that I'd never heard before? Wild.

As for K., he's at the New Yorker, too, right? But all I can remember reading is his gay gospel piece and the (toothlessly fair) profile of ... Savage, right?

his first one for the NYer was a profile of the preacher Creflo Dollar I think

x-post

Based On SFJ's Arcade Fire/miscenegation thing, and the hip hop is dead thing, I though SFJ was gonna be highlighting all kinds of interesting worldwide beat-based sounds, but yeah, all he does in this vein is pick up on a few things (mainly UK-based) pushed by DJ Rupture

ha deej ok but his mixes are great

unclear as to why US dudes are so weird & dismissive about dubstep, which is interesting & fun music, but I also understand that the trenches have already been dug on that q & it's too late to say "listen with an open mind maybe?"

most us dudes have been obsessed w/ dubstep -- its totally replaced idm as the thinking man's dance music

us = US not 'us' = me

i didn't fuck with dubstep stuff until purple/wonky cuz they sound more or less like rap beats, but not vinyl digging dilla type ish which i find kind of boring

i've never really tried to love dubstep. i'll get around to it. spritually i might be more aligned with u.k. funky. the dubstep i get in the mail is, like, industrial avant garde dubstep. i wouldn't even know to call it dubstep if i didn't read the descriptions of it. its all clanking of chains and doomy and shit. haven't heard anything GREAT out of that stuff yet, but i'm all for beats & doom.

The dubstep I've heard (and I listened to a whole bunch, not just Burial but several multi-disc compilations and other things, because fuckers kept raving about it) a) reminded me of stuff I'd heard on WordSound Records years earlier, but not as good, and b) seemed to be made by people with a lot of "black people = scary/appropriation of black culture = fast track to badassness" shit going on, to the point that I found all the rhetoric about "darkness" kinda bothersome. Plus it was boring. Like, more boring than minimal techno.

I also downloaded a whole bunch of DJ mixes from Barefiles, in addition to the aforementioned albums and compilations. I really did give it a try.

If only the 'dubstep community' had the same nuanced approach to racial politics as the "Tom Tom Club with a tan" guy

most us dudes have been obsessed w/ dubstep -- its totally replaced idm as the thinking man's dance music

― its like why GROCERY BAG and not saddam? (deej), Friday, May 21, 2010 10:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

weird, dubstep is the go-to music for unwashed hordes of ravers and frat boys here, at least among people my age. iirc the problem with a lot of dubstep was like, there was this sub-scene of innovative beautiful interesting artists who are (now) somewhat hesitant to identify as dubstep, with an ever-increasing and now ubiquitous scene of music for drunk frat dudes to rub crotches to (bass drops, wobbles etc). uk funky is amazing, but isn't really catching on sadly.

Where is dubstep the soundtrack to drunken frat parties???

i live in montreal

my friend who's into dubstep calls it "brostep" though \(o_O)/

This reminds me of how little I know about my neighbor to the north.

There are frats in Montreal?

they must freeze their asses off in those togas.

liberte, egalite, fraternities

Heh, in Ottawa 10 years ago, I mostly seem to remember jockish guys listening to Limp Bizkit or Korn or 311. That's actually kind of awesome if that scene has moved on to stuff like Burial or Shackleton.

haa when gr80 was djing @ the party i had a few weeks ago he told me how earlier in the night one of my friends came up & asked him if he was going to play any dubstep.

Gr80's like "Not really..."
my friend gives gr80 a hi five & goes "MY MAN!!"

sorry if thats fratty

There are frats in Montreal?

― Sundar, Saturday, May 22, 2010 3:11 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

there are, but i'm conflating frats and mcgill residence tbh *blushes*

and i don't think they're into burial, i don't know what producers make this kind of dubstep, like maybe recent benga?

Hahaha 80% of the dubstep crowds at the all-ages events of last year's Decibel Festival in Seattle were hippies. I men, of course: that's who listens to dub in the U.S.

I mean, of course

And granted that's a west coast thing too, obv. That's where hippies flock. I wonder if/how it shakes out in Colorado and large college towns.

xpost to Samosa:

Yes, it is probably more stuff like Rusko, not so much Burial and Shackleton.

There's a whole popular strain of dubstep that has harder hitting, repetitive beats and lots of wobble bass that is geared for big dumb club nights.

Burial and Shackleton are far more atmospheric, closer to IDM. dj/rupture, coming from the IDM world, probably spins more of this artsy atmospheric stuff if he spins any dubstep.

Bike Snob NYC
@bikesnobnyc

Just read a Sasha Frere-Jones article about black metal in the New Yorker. Ugh. Feel like I just ate a gallon of artisanal mayo.
8 hours ago

Haven't read it yet

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2011/10/10/111010crmu_music_frerejones

The tabloid-worthy events centered on a musician named Varg Vikernes, of the one-man band Burzum, who encouraged and participated in the burning of churches. In 1993, while playing bass in a band called Mayhem, he murdered the guitarist, a man known as Euronymous.

Until recently, it was a legacy that the genre couldn’t shake. But now American bands such as Liturgy, Krallice, Absu, Leviathan, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Inquisition have left a fair amount of the pageantry behind—not to mention the violence—and helped to create a community, as well as a musical moment that is rife with activity. Because of what the music does formally, there is little chance that we will see a Top Ten black-metal act.

http://unbornwhiskey.tumblr.com/post/11028687842/but-now-american-bands-such-as-liturgy-krallice

oooopsie daisy!

I finally listened to the new Krallice the other day - not uninteresting & pretty good but...well predictably I have a lot to say about it

Uh Mr. Unborn Whiskey, the article did say a "fair amount" not "all".

what an odd thing to be pedantic about

"he didnt murder her -- ergo, less violence"

not sure if you are talking to me or not, but I was just being trolly pedantic because I'm not sure what the point was behind the Unborn Whiskey thing, other than to prove some weird "metal is bad" point

Like, okay, you picked out an example that disprove a generalized point, good for you?

Oh shit, nvm, I scanned the article too quick and didn't see Leviathan's name in SFJ's original article.

Thats what I get for scanning shit between conference calls. I wasn't going to read all of SFJ's article right now because I have that issue sitting at home waiting, so I skimmed that paragraph and didn't notive Leviathan was listed so I thought that tumblr dude was bringing it up unrelated.

A heavily-bearded and tattooed Whitehead was dressed all in black as he appeared before Judge Israel Desierto Sunday morning.

Wearing a hooded sweater with the words “stop the madness” printed on it, he was ordered held on bail of $350,000.

his hoodie tried to warn him but he didn't listen.

"the violence" is just a weird way to describe the black metal situation in Norway - one murder IIRC? a friends-business-beef murder in point of fact, not really v. genre-related? - and then the church burnings, which are a totally different deal & which haven't crossed over here because the only ppl in the US who might burn churches with the same (ostensible I guess I should add) impetus/rationale as the Norwegian dudes would be Native Americans & there's only one Native American metal band I know of and they play death not black

tbf a native american black metal band would be tres badass

Phil Spector murdered a girl so don't listen to the Beach Boys.

Re: Native American black metal. I live in New Mexico and there's actually a huge scene here, they just hate white people so much it doesn't get off the reservation. I saw Mayhem here and a bunch of native folk treated me like I walked in wearing a klan hood, was a bummer.

they hate white ppl unless they are mayhem?

tbf a native american black metal band would be tres badass

some of the Mexican & Central American bands (Xibalba from Mexico, the Chasm but I forget where they're from) work with mesoamerican mythological stuff

they hate white ppl unless they are mayhem?

I think probably you get a pass if your music kicks ass

btw I read that article and have a lot of fuckin issues with a lot of its claims, the narrative growing around usbm is so fucking irritating - so much of the shit being claimed as a new look by usbm is stuff that the major players in black metal did literally over a decade ago and what writers mean when they attribute newness to it is "I give a shit now that the bands play at the Bell House"

Can't forget the Black Twilight Circle in that vein, shame Ashdautas and them parted ways after this interview

http://thephoenix.com/Blogs/onthedownload/archive/2011/08/25/revered-la-black-metal-collective-black-twilight-circle-gives-first-ever-interview-to-boston-phoenix.aspx

"the violence" is just a weird way to describe the black metal situation in Norway - one murder IIRC

As well as the Varg thing, the drummer from Emperor murdered someone too.

oh right

the epidemic of violence within black metal throughout its history

no one in an indie band has every murdered anyone else--FACT

ever, even

give underrated aerosmith a chance lol

no one in an indie band has every murdered anyone else--FACT

I shot a man in Williamsburg
Just because

that Manson bloke looks like a fucking hipster

so much of the shit being claimed as a new look by usbm is stuff that the major players in black metal did literally over a decade ago and what writers mean when they attribute newness to it is "I give a shit now that the bands play at the Bell House"

isn't this the case for any subgenre of music that eventually garners mainstream/highbrow attention

(imho praising things for their "newness" is always a mug's game that just exposes yr ignorance about predecessors/antecedents)

try saying that next time you're trying to sell dishwashing liquid

well, just speaking of the arts here...

I'm sure the newest dishwashing liquid actually is an amazing breakthrough in soapbubble generation technology

Has anyone in indie rock ever killed anyone though, for real?

besides themselves?

I hear Ryan Adams stabbed Chuck Klosterman once

heard that sufjan killed a dude w/ his bare hands once just for looking at him

Bon Iver eats babies

That Sebastian guy from Belle & Sebastian killed someone sometime, too

Only thing I can come up with is the drummer from the Housemartins:

In 1993, Whitaker was convicted of assault after attacking his former business partner James Hewitt with an axe, and firebombing his house after Hewitt had seemingly cheated him. He served 5 years in prison. After his release, he moved to Leeds. In 2004, he was playing drums with a local band called Percy

Thurston Moore killed Robert Christgau iirc

the hold steady almost killed me

Hoodie should've said STOKED FOR THE MADNESS tbh

Noir Desir anyone?

~think about it~

"the violence" is just a weird way to describe the black metal situation in Norway - one murder IIRC? a friends-business-beef murder in point of fact, not really v. genre-related? - and then the church burnings, which are a totally different deal & which haven't crossed over here because the only ppl in the US who might burn churches with the same (ostensible I guess I should add) impetus/rationale as the Norwegian dudes would be Native Americans & there's only one Native American metal band I know of and they play death not black

fwiw p. 329 of Lords of Chaos, The Electric Hellfire Club has some fans who have vandalized churches and they explicitly encourage fan to burn churches down:

"For them, it's a revolutionary act, it's not an act of vandalism. It's a statement. The church is the legacy of the people that stole their heritage. By all means -- burn, baby burn!"

btw, if that quote isn't clear, he's approving of church burnings in norway. later he says that he'd smile approvingly if there were similar burnings in the US

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu216/le_bateau_ivre/14113m1.gif

the hold steady almost killed me

― mookieproof, Wednesday, October 5, 2011 9:23 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

<3

Uh Mr. Unborn Whiskey, the article did say a "fair amount" not "all".

i definitely realize that but i have been working on a piece about leviathan for a feminist blog, so i was necessarily sensitive about it

Well, please make sure you see my follow-up comments where I realize where it came from, due to my misreading of the original article.

totally did, but you're still kind of otm. i was mad.

also aero otm regarding how "one murder" = "black metal is full of violence" is a kind of casual, irresponsible link.

xpost Well, there was that one Shins guy that beat up his girlfriend, and the Isaac Brock rape charge that went away. But indie murder? Dunno.

why hello mr. unborn whiskey

tbf a native (North) american black metal band would be tres badass

May I introduce you to Gyibaaw...

http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Gyibaaw/3540271446

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=181925428

""the violence" is just a weird way to describe the black metal situation in Norway - one murder IIRC?"

Well the lead singer of the self-same band did kill himself in fairly violent fashion and the soon to be murdered guitarist did photo it for the band's next album, drummer of other famous Norwegian BM act killed a gay man, lead singer of big Swedish BM act involved in murder of another gay man, plus arson is a fairly violent act. Although I guess with the Leviathan thing USBM now has their own monstrous act of violence to unite around. Ick.