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

someone like Ariana Grande who strikes me as very much a curated product - like, Ariana writes a tweet about a relationship, and her team of songwriters writes a song about the tweet which is then seen as intensely personal and autobiographical

Even a trenchant dis like this fails get the chronology right (the song was written & recorded long before the tweet).

Oops! I should really research my trenchant disses more carefully. Thanks for correcting me.

would be really interested to hear which male artists are viewed as “insincere” though!!

No idea whether the critical discourse bears this out at all, but a name that spontaneously springs to mind is… Kenny G.

I wonder if the discussion would be different if we were using the word "affected" rather than "insincere."

I almost wrote 'Jeff Koons' before I remembered which board this is.

xp

I don't believe he would have wanted people to hear every version of every song. I certainly wouldn't be thrilled to have the first drafts of my writing or my music published before I've revised and improved them.

― boxedjoy, Sunday, December 13, 2020 6:54 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would say that Arthur Russell's best stuff almost pointedly defies the concepts of master performances or final drafts.

The most incidental things are actually notated a lot of the time, like the little "oh, good" in soon to be innocent fun

every time I see people fawning over a new Arthur Russell thing that has been unearthed, I wanna scream we get it. you like your music fags to be dead. it makes the music so much more meaningful. thank you for reminding me. I feel like you're just rubbing it in my face at this point. "oh, haven't you heard the new Arthur? also, why don't you die? die, die, die."

I legit can't tell if you're joking

i enjoyed calling out of context a lot when it came out but I did feel uneasy because the tracks were obviously rough and incomplete and I’m just not thrilled about doing that shit after the artist is dead, unless they give it the ok before dying or something, ugh now i feel bad

I was always frustrated by the apparently premature fadeout on the WoE version of let's go swimming, but now that we have the full performance i actually think it's smartly edited.

It's not that kind of refinement isn't part of his approach, but his pieces clearly aren't meant to ve fixed either

Steve Knudson knew the guy IRL and I believe he is well qualified to deal w/ the archives

I wish Neil Young had someone 10% as competent

also:

This thread is like the ghost of ILM circa 2001, wandering around moaning and being wrong.

― Soundslike

You are misunderstanding the point of this thread, it is to provide a safe space where you can come here and say "wtf is this garbage that ILM likes now" and then somebody else can say "omg I thought I was the only person who felt that way"

ITT: reaction >>> analysis
|

No idea whether the critical discourse bears this out at all, but a name that spontaneously springs to mind is… Kenny G.

Metheny certainly thought so.

I think male artists in a lot of critically derided genres were criticized on grounds of sincerity or authenticity, at least historically. Christgau's review of Yes's Fragile ends "But isn't there supposed to be more to art than great contrivance?" Lester Bangs said of Black Sabbath's first album: "The whole album is a shuck – despite the murky song titles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés that sound like the musicians learned them out of a book, grinding on and on with dogged persistence. "

Open Up and Say . . . Ahh! [Enigma/Capitol, 1988]
Hard rock trash as radio readymades, these cheerful young phonies earn their Gene Simmons cover art.

https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=2399

The constant unearthing of Arthur Russell out-takes and demos and rarities feels more like opportunistic cash-ins than anything, even when the stuff is good the status of it makes me feel a bit uneasy

― boxedjoy, Monday, December 14, 2020 12:18 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Citation needed. While I agree with your latter argument that Russell wouldn't have put out all this stuff (no living artist opens up the vault like those opened by people looking after a dead artists' estate), but "opportunistic cash-in", man, I don't know... While rightly much lauded and praised, do you really think a live recording of yore rakes in the cash? Need a citation myself but I highly doubt it makes them a lot of money.

His estate is run by his partner fwiw

yeah I think with Russel there's a hunger to understand a guy with a pretty unique view about music and its uses -- he had a singular vision, visionaries tend to inspire (and reward) exhaustive archive digging

Absolutely. Most of what's being released by him still contributes new, unexpected pieces of the puzzle.

There's a macabre amusement in imagining someone stumbling into this thread, seeing all the Arthur Russell posts, and assuming he is the dissee

Nothing a newly unearthed demo tape from '78 can't fix :)

Big And Rich

I don't think these unearthed archives make a lot of money either. I just think it's a bit questionable, there are so many demos and out-takes and alternate versions scattered across the many compilations bearing his name and you have to wonder, are these the versions he would have wanted people to hear? Even with my own enjoyment of them, I think there's something uncomfortable about it. I'm sure anyone who makes music will tell you they have a folder of material that they haven't binned but they don't want anyone to hear for various reasons.

I felt that way about the bonus tracks on the Game Theory reissues. Some of them are sloppy out-of-tune band rehearsals, indifferent live tracks recorded on cassette, etc. I don't think there's any way they would have been released if Scott Miller had lived, and they undermine the quality of the albums they're attached to.

I just put on a popular websites top 100 songs of the year and between like WAP and Phoebe Bridgers there was the most fucking boring SIXTEEN MINUTE Bob Dylan dirge about how he wore an onion on his belt because it was the style of the times

Play Bobby Dylan, play Murder Most Foul
You're still playing it, it takes round an hour

all the posthumous Scott Miller stuff does feel like a bit of a cash-in, but on the other hand, from what I've seen, his widow absolutely feels like he stiffed her + their daughter by tapping out, and is trying to get back something. regardless of whether this is a healthy attitude towards suicide (my opinion is: it's kind of her business), there's certainly more than an element of needing the cash in that case, even if it isn't the art Miller himself would have wanted to release. he probably has some take on the Kafka/Brod thing somewhere in his extensive published readers' q&a website tbh

*daughters plural iirc

I agree with all you've said about Miller, and it's a very painful situation, but I don't think it does his posthumous reputation any good if young people hear about his work, go to stream it and the first thing they encounter is a terrible sounding rehearsal or weak cover recorded in a bar.

Scott did in fact say that one reason why he stopped recording in 2000 was in order to prevent his work from getting diluted by masses of substandard releases. He used Frank Zappa's later career as an example.

well surely that situation would be solved if everyone realised how good his existing albums were and bought them all, but there's not even a Bandcamp

if there was ever a polar opposite to this thread (boost unhyped releases) then Interbabe Concern and Attractive Nuisance would be just about the first two things I'd mention

Play Bobby Dylan, play Murder Most Foul
You're still playing it, it takes round an hour

― loose Orwellian mobs (rob), Tuesday, December 15, 2020 10:09 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is my absolute favorite very specific subgenre of joke (=joke complains about something, often the joke itself, being too long) so I thank you

make a polar opposite thread!!!

OK I'm gonna need a track ref to back up this seemingly very-notm comparison, if you're right then maybe I was listening wrong

― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, December 12, 2020 1:04 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hrJT6SUYX0

????? pretty sure this isn't an instance of hannett iciness but it's certainly made by a group that loves esg

every description of sault itt has made me feel like i'm listening to a different band though

I have yet to hear them but I'm gonna be doing a lot of 2020 listening in the next month

I get much stronger ESG vibes from last year's albums than these new ones.

i agree with that but my example still stands

Oooh interesting

It sounds NOTHING like ESG to me (except the bass tone) but I see how it might sound like that to another

It lacks the dramatic production and "brutal exposure of the individual" of ESG-- this is based on a cyclical drum loop

But: thank you for clarifying and I understand your interpretation, even if I don't myself agree with it!

once again i am like... hm???? but ok

also, directed to other posters itt: i do not find them didactic

For the Sault haters:

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

The first couple Sault albums had more shouty chants and nursery rhyme-like hooks. I think that's where the post-punk comparisons came in, and they've more or less left that mode behind.

Having listened to all four at this point it's definitely Black Is > Rise >>>>> 5/7 for me.

they've more or less left that mode behind

More or less, but like "Free" still feels pretty Tom Tom Club to me.

Which is to say, their influences are wides and are present to greater or lesser degrees on the different albums, but they're all there.

yes and i love the way they make them coexist with each other naturally, like i can get tom tom club from part of one track and imperial-era quincy jokes from another. particularly thinking of "strong" with that latter description

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

like if this is record collection or year-end list music... i like these record collections better than that of most critics!!!! these people like the rotary connection and jam/lewis

Less hype more dis plz.

lol once again sorry