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

dissing is a relay sport

I understand why Thundercat can be hard to take - his songs never sound finished to me, and his lyrics are sometimes the wrong kind of dumb/quotidian - but if you like '70s funk and fusion (Bootsy Collins solo albums, Slave, George Duke) there's enough there to enjoy.

I like Thundercat, but his music, as well as music that features him like Flying Lotus, tends to start sounding very samey very quickly.

I really like the new Fiona Apple album and I think there are dozens of other albums over the past five years that are as good as it and wished they'd all gotten as close a listen as this one has. Idler Wheel is better by a country mile, production-wise, so much more space and interest, but Bolt Cutters has got so many great zingers that I can't help but love it

Apple has always had one little toe dipped in the dirty sink of cabaret but it's in the harmonic choices, not the affect, and it's never bothered me in the least

And when I listen to Thundercat I feel like I'm enjoying Zappa the way other people have enjoyed Zappa and I've never myself been able to

people who think any woman making art on her own terms = "Kate Bush" are a big part of why I can't stand Kate fucking Bush

i only mentioned kate bush because in the title track of this album she goes on about 'running up that hill' very blatantly, and then a dog barks

the Pitchfork review also mentions Kate Bush

Speaking of which — one more point about the Fiery Furnaces is that P-fork slapped down Rehearsing My Choir with a 4.0 and a pan review; while this one garnered a 10.0 and “No music has ever sounded quite like it” (...although apparently the Slits, Yoko Ono, Meredith Monk, and Steve Reich have come close, according to the review).

None of this is the album’s or the artist’s fault, but it’s the albatross that a “hyped release” has to bear, I guess.

i used to dabble in backlash myself but i have gotten very tired of it over the years. i often hear people complaining about a record when what they are really complaining about is the relative popularity of that record. there are times and places this sort of complaint is appropriate - i wasn't there, but i feel like i broadly agree with people in the '50s who were disappointed that pat boone got more chart action than little richard - but how is it fair or helpful to shit talk fiona apple because pitchfork rated her record higher than the latest fiery furnaces record? even granting that pitchfork's editorial ratings are grossly unfair and arbitrary, i don't see how it's of any more benefit than claiming that "outdoor miner" is a shit song because the record company used payola to promote it.

I’m more just making an observation about “hyped releases”... if I’m shot-taking anything, it’s more Pfork than the album.

It does seem like the uniqueness of the approach to percussion on the album is being overstated and over-celebrated as if y'all didn't join in on dunking on like, Tilly and the Wall. Different times I guess.

This release has definitely triggered my tendency towards aggressive knee-jerk contrarianism when I feel as though I'm left out of something and not really getting it, so I'll try to be restrained and just say that there's just not a lot about this music that does it for me. There are small moments of melody or lyricism where I feel "ooh, I quite like that", but they either then go for too long, or not long enough to make them turn into a satisfying song. Some tracks sound like they came together after a bunch of sing-song melodies were captured in Voice Memos and then shoehorned into one song together. I can see why this messy/stitches showing approach might have appeal for some, but it just hits me as ineffective songwriting.

I don't really give a shit what Pitchfork thinks. My view on Fiona Apple is that she has a thing that she does and she does it very well, but it's just not the thing I like to spend a lot of time listening to, with the exception of "Ladies" and maybe a few other tracks. I'll just go and listen to the new The Garden album again (6.4 on Pitchfork).

Full disclosure: I’ve never really “gotten” Tom Waits either, who seems to me one of Apple’s spiritual forebears.

disappointed in this revival -- in my FB feed, people are being accused of having bad politics if they don't freak completely out about Bolt Cutters. nag more plz

"It's not even the best homemade album by a long-standing American indie singer-songwriter released in the last ten days!"

idk I mean I really *don't* hate the music, and as I said, I thought two of the songs were great. framed only slightly differently I'd be focusing on the positives (those two songs), but it is so damnably easy to be drawn into the heightened Narrative, or at least, make the Narrative the issue, even above the Art. while I said some mean things about Apple, these are all personal aesthetic differences and I'd certainly not want to deny her her truth and her expression, nor be so arrogant as to suggest how she should be. but my vitriol & momentum is aimed, not even so much at the fans who love the album, but at those who have proclaimed together as one that music as a competition is over for now - not so much on ILM either but across the internet

& maybe I do view music as a competition myself too much. it is so easy to do and such a trap

This tweet was kind of a positive (because Powers is almost always positive, something I like sometimes and hate others) gloss on my initial skepticism:

To all loving the brilliant new Fiona Apple album #FetchTheBoltCutters: I'm excited for you if you don't know out jazz or new classical music, there's a whole world for you to discover that's redolent of what you're loving, not to mention Afro-Cuban and Afro-Haitian rhythms

— Feeling Distant (@annkpowers) April 17, 2020

When I actually listened to the record, though, I was won over by it on its own merits and stopped giving a shit whether the people raving about it had heard all the music I'd heard that caused it to resonate for me.

Is that whole world redolent of the lyrics and the singing and the melodies too, or just the rhythms/percussion? Because that’s just one piece of Bolt Cutters’ appeal imho

is powers subtweeting that p4k 'no music has ever sounded like this' review?

kind of a passive-aggressive tweet, lol

tweeting is a relay sport

i have twitter blocked on my computer and therefore in my head the "powers" y'all are talking about is the renegade doctor with some interesting and novel ideas about hormone replacement therapy

please don't spoil the illusion by correcting me

It’s Kenny powers actually. And you’re fucking out.

i don't even know what that means!

It’s Kenny powers actually. And you’re fucking out.

actually, fiona came through and reminded everyone what an actual good album sounds like.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Wednesday, 6 May 2020 17:37 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this

is why i dis(s)

Not super hyped on the release of Grimes' new baby tbh

truth hurts innit

It doesn’t hurt, you’re just being a 🤡

okay, insult time!

uhm. . .takes one to know one.

imagine if someone were to adore not the music of his great friend, fiona

lol ikr

Wait -- you were being sarcastic?

i don't even know anymore, dude.

hold on, i mean: well the jerk store called and they're runnin outta you.

(also: me sarcastic when talking about grimes? well i never!)

I thought you were being serious about piping up in the Grimes thread and saying "Fiona reminded everyone" etc. But maybe you were actually clowning on the Fiona hype? Idk anymore either, lol

i thought my shamelessly opportunistic grimes dissing was well known in that topic.

guess i'll have to try harder!

going slightly off topic but ppl write some real hyperbolic nonsense abt kraftwerk eh? makes you never want to read a word about influence again

its true tho

im p sure I've posted in this thread before so I'm being hypocritical here but i haven't heard the Fiona Apple or Grimes album, and will never have to, and if you don't like Grimes or Fiona Apple you can do likewise

kraftwerk are gr8 but ppl make absurd claims abt influence which cld not possibly be true of anyone, it's the maverick isolated auteur thing

kraftwerk are really that band tho

ha! yes, was going to say, if anyone is. a radio documentary on kraftwerk's influence on early hip hop was very illuminating on this.

the zeitgeist finds a way

*awakens from rip van winkle sleep* yeah, fuck parquet courts

hahaha otm

kraftwerk are really that band tho

otm

every post about what the music sounds like is so intriguing and yet every post about the lyrics is so cringe :o

sorry, I mean the lyrics themselves are cringe imo not the posts about them!

Is this about the MCMLXXV?