thread to dis hyped releases that you don't get/don't like/wanna complain about

The Beths, what are you all thinking?

going to studiously avoid pomenitul's excellent baiting and second boxedjoy. or at least...the beths are fine, but the way some of you go on about them it's like they're more than an extremely basic indie outfit with wholly unremarkable songs

I know right, how could anyone enjoy these intricate, joyous, technically proficient pop songs?!

I usually give most albums a full play to decide if I like them or not but I couldn't finish The Beths one. I like a lot of retro-leaning jangly indie but it sounded so flat and lifeless and the exact moment I gave up was when some harmonies crept in and nobody in the studio sounded remotely like they were doing anything beyond fulfilling an obligation

if you have recent power-pop you'd like to recommend in its place I'd love to hear it

^^Have you heard the Courtneys? (They don’t have a release as “recent” as the Beths, granted)

Bring back Vivian Girls etc

Poptimism refers to like a really specific opposition to a boring and homogenous canon that rock critics had built up in the US and UK. And I am for it—there was no small amount of misogyny and homophobia underneath the “disco sucks” attitude of the 70s and how that filtered down to critical consensus in the 90s. I’m proud of ILM to the extent that ILM helped undermine this specific kind of aesthetic bigotry.

However, as a general attitude, “poptimism” is a disaster because popular taste more often than not props up popular prejudices. Is anyone here a poptimist of sitcoms? Of cable news? Of course not. Even like, with pop music, it’s idiotic to say the highest charting stuff is the best out of democratic solidarity is dumb. All this music might tell you is what the common denominators are among a vast swath of listeners. It doesn’t tell you much about what really drives any one of these listeners, because “the masses,” to quote another poster, is just an abstraction. Championing “the masses” seems at odds with being interested in people, even.

I like the Courtneys but they're a cut below the Beths on a craft/songwriting level imho

I love a few Vivian Girls songs but if you're gonna dis someone for rote songwriting... xps

I know its not the same thing really but when I listen to the grace of the new Belly album or the cathartic new Hop Along, the Beths just felt so anaemic and scrappy

Obvz the correct answer is Charly Bliss

You're right, none of those bands are doing even remotely the same thing.

matt dc's post on the beths' thread sums it up for me:

This is like the least challenging album ever recorded but it's really addictive. I dunno, sometimes, more occasionally than is claimed, when you've got the tunes that's really all that matters.

Interesting to hear they've got a jazz background though, it does SOUND much tighter and more muscular than records like this usually do. Like usually you listen to a straightforward indie rock record and it feels like aesthetic decisions had been made because the band weren't capable of doing much more, or couldn't think of anything else to do. Here, it feels like they've arranged things this way because that's what the song NEEDS.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 11 October 2018 12:28 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I only mention the Courtneys, b/c when I read a Beths review they were mentioned as a comparison (and I love the Courtneys) — so I checked out the Beths and was like, uhh this ain’t at all on the same level for me.

(The Beths seem fine, I wouldn’t “complain” about them; just not my thing, I guess)

I mean if they weren't getting so this buzz - i wouldn't notice or bother. But I'm genuinely curious - a lot of posters whose taste I normally look to for recommendations and feel alignment with are really into it and I dont hear what there is to hear in it, which makes me wonder what I'm missing

I'm glad this thread reminded me to listen to the Beths again, anyway.

Agree with everything Pomeniful said, and some others as well. Sorry to continue that conversation / tired debate (indeed) but:
Have people come up with a term for the belief that all things hip hop (pop rap, trap etc) are the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism ? Because I hear that a lot, while Poptimism seems to have reduced to a narrow obsession over a few exaggerated / delirious / ecstatic pop qualities (that can only be found on records that explicitly go for them and which seem forced to me).

@boxedjoy, I think you might be listening too hard.

I usually give most albums a full play to decide if I like them or not but I couldn't finish The Beths one. I like a lot of retro-leaning jangly indie but it sounded so flat and lifeless and the exact moment I gave up was when some harmonies crept in and nobody in the studio sounded remotely like they were doing anything beyond fulfilling an obligation

― boxedjoy

If you gave up half way through the album Boxedjoy, you missed some of the very best songs. I really can't see where you're coming from with it sounding flat and lifeless, that's exactly the opposite of how it comes across to me. And the harmonies are like the best part. Really shocked you dislike them so much.

Oh and Imago, every time you go on about your crusade against boring indie music or whatever it is, I always smile to myself about how you liked some of that Paul Draper album from last year even nominating a song from it for the end of year poll. I heard that album, it was as dull as music can possibly be.

man, sonned

I like this Beths thing. Nice vocals and as Matt DC, it's easy to listen to while still having plenty of oomph

what i will say for the beths album is that it ends strong

However, as a general attitude, “poptimism” is a disaster because popular taste more often than not props up popular prejudices. Is anyone here a poptimist of sitcoms? Of cable news? Of course not. Even like, with pop music, it’s idiotic to say the highest charting stuff is the best out of democratic solidarity is dumb. All this music might tell you is what the common denominators are among a vast swath of listeners. It doesn’t tell you much about what really drives any one of these listeners, because “the masses,” to quote another poster, is just an abstraction. Championing “the masses” seems at odds with being interested in people, even.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 5:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gonna ignore all the silly strawmanning upthread but the reference to TV here is interesting because TV is probably more like music than at any time in the past owing to the sheer explosion of content on streaming networks, meaning that rockism/poptimism ideas possibly "map" onto TV better now than they used to. I mean, they always did to some extent, but I think that the increase in choice between cultural products has meant that the dynamics of stratification, popularity and critical consensus are more similar now.

And you do see "poptimism of sitcoms" - see e.g. this piece on The Good Place: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/04/magazine/good-place-michael-schur-philosophy.html. "Poptimism of sitcoms" is not saying "this sitcom is the most popular and therefore is the best" or "sitcoms are popular therefore we should talk about them and not Scandanavian crime dramas", it's saying "this sitcom is doing things that are worth paying attention to, and part of that is about the rules and functions of the sitcom format and how the show utilises them in new and interesting ways."

Good sitcoms have always been worth taking/writing about, same with pop music, what’s different now?

I agree, the only difference is that industry-wide comparisons between popular music and popular television are probably easier to make without necessitating so many wildly misleading conflations and analogies.

"this sitcom is the most popular and therefore is the best" or "sitcoms are popular therefore we should talk about them and not Scandanavian crime dramas"

i feel like we've been slacking and now the idiot strawman poptimism is the definition of poptimism to a new generation

disappointed in Treeship for falling for it

he’s definitely not the only one

i mean i also said this

Poptimism refers to like a really specific opposition to a boring and homogenous canon that rock critics had built up in the US and UK. And I am for it—there was no small amount of misogyny and homophobia underneath the “disco sucks” attitude of the 70s and how that filtered down to critical consensus in the 90s. I’m proud of ILM to the extent that ILM helped undermine this specific kind of aesthetic bigotry.

if poptimism means keepings an open mind and not falling for facile "high/art low art" or "serious/trivial" binaries, then i definitely support it. but i think most people support this view. that is, unless you're someone who is all in for the avant garde, but then again, this kind of person wouldn't be a "rockist" in the first place. if i understand it correctly, the rockists were incurious chauvinists who had a very banal understanding of what "greatness" was.

in the field of sitcoms you don't need a poptimism because there is no dominant rockism of sitcom criticism. the critical consensus in the world of sitcoms is that "the good place" is good. in this field, if you were to talk about "poptimism" it just sounds like populism--championing the viewers over the critics.

poptimism needs a corresponding rockism to make sense as a concept, imo.

poptimism means keepings an open mind and not falling for facile "high/art low art" or "serious/trivial" binaries

imo this is p much it

poptimism needs a corresponding rockism to make sense as a concept, imo.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:38 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why? just define poptimism as above, then define rockism as the opposite of that

bc what is the "pop" in poptimism if it doesn't mean affirming popular taste over the critics? in the instance of early 2000s music criticism, this was the progressive attitude. it's not always.

it's not progressive and probably never was (and that was never the point anyway), it's just correct

There is no dominant rockism of "sitcom" criticism because there isn't really a discourse of sitcom criticism as a standalone thing, but there certainly is / has been a dominant rockism of tv criticism, and the "poptimism" of tv criticism would be e.g. critics who point out that we shouldn't automatically assume that the "prestige" television shows are more important or more worthy of consideration than, say, a trashy sitcom or drama.

A more on-point example (though not relating to sitcoms) would be this Nussbaum piece on why she prefers (preferred?) 'Scandal' to 'House of Cards': https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/02/25/shark-week

that's a fair point

the "poptimism" of tv criticism would be e.g. critics who point out that we shouldn't automatically assume that the "prestige" television shows are more important or more worthy of consideration than, say, a trashy sitcom or drama.

Any critic who would think or practice the *opposite* POV is a v poor TV critic... just sayin’.

rockism of sitcoms is like, knee-jerkedly asserting that the british version is better or something

i guess so. that doesn't seem like a privileged position though, just an ignorant one. i don't feel like it's oppressive in any way.

whereas as a high school student i definitely felt like there was some kind of hazy consensus that pink floyd was important in a way madonna wasn't, or whatever. so that kind of attitude was worth challenging.

I listen to a podcast where the guys are sort of sitcom “rockists”; they make fun of The Golden Girls (of all things) and think that Married With Children was “dumb, lowbrow” humor, or something.

To return the topic: in high school, I read the NY Times Arts & Leisure section religiously; and I feel like Pareles and that crew treated the big new pop releases just as “seriously” as they did rock releases. Maybe it’s a newspaper thing in general (as opposed to the “music press”), but they definitely didn’t “privilege” rock, from what I can remember.

bc what is the "pop" in poptimism if it doesn't mean affirming popular taste over the critics? in the instance of early 2000s music criticism, this was the progressive attitude. it's not always.

FFS this was never what poptimism was about.

Please read the following articles from the Poptimist column before condescending to explain to everyone what the term means:

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/6608-poptimist-4/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/6772-poptimist-11/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7189-poptimist-18/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7549-poptimist-19/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7681-poptimist-23/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7760-poptimist-25/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7836-poptimist-31/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7848-poptimist-32/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/8724-take-me-to-the-river/

Read all of them actually (and as much of 'Popular' as you can) but these are the ones that provide the broadest sense of what I would consider a 'poptimist' approach to music taste from the critic who arguably best exemplified the approach.

Tom's column was really the best thing ever wasn't it

i guess so. that doesn't seem like a privileged position though, just an ignorant one. i don't feel like it's oppressive in any way.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:57 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not about "oppressive" though. i feel like ur anachronistically trying to re-write history where poptimism is a direct precedent to late '10s online woketivism, when it really wasn't about that and there's no direct line to be drawn between the two

feels inconceivable that something at the level of quality of Tom and Nabisco's columns a decade ago could exist on the internet today, when they were for largely taken for granted at the time

I wish Tom Ewing had never stopped writing those.

Does he write any variation of that column nowadays? I think he retired from music criticism a long time ago but I’m not sure.

it's not about "oppressive" though. i feel like ur anachronistically trying to re-write history where poptimism is a direct precedent to late '10s online woketivism, when it really wasn't about that and there's no direct line to be drawn between the two

― flopson, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:21 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not saying that, but definitely for its advocates poptimism was a more cosmopolitan attitude and it was supposed to shake off the scleroticism of how people had been thinking about music and culture. so it targeted a certain set of critical prejudices.

it just seems like it's a concept that makes sense within a particular dialectic and outside of that things get messy

i'll read some of those tom ewing columns. i have enjoyed his writing in the past but it's been a while since i read his work.