ILM is an embarrassment
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:32 (two years ago) link
dead-eyed corporate pop behemoth queen billion the focus-grouped merely has to twitch her signet ring and the fanboys & girls slaver for more, even mocking an actual artist-of-consequence for having announced the same release date first. repugnant and unseemly
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:36 (two years ago) link
why yes I would love a stan war
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:37 (two years ago) link
Which is the artist of consequence?
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:40 (two years ago) link
CRJ, of course
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:42 (two years ago) link
I don't think I saw any CRJ mocking on the thread, not that I read it very closely
It is definitely a lot of posts for something that barely exists yet. I'm in the perpetual idgi camp re TS, but tbf I find her extremely easy to ignore outside of ILM these days.
But cheer up! there's a new Dawn Richard album out 10/21 as well
― rob, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:43 (two years ago) link
I heard the preview tracks! Feels like it is one extended piece, so hard to judge it on the opening stretch alone, but intrigued to hear it all, yes
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:49 (two years ago) link
soft pink truth double-lp too
― comedy khadafi (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:49 (two years ago) link
Usually post-rocky ambient classical isn't my bag, but DR writing and arranging vocals could easily alchemise that into something marvellous
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:50 (two years ago) link
new arctic monkeys is also apparently coming out on 10/21 lol
― comedy khadafi (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:55 (two years ago) link
lmao oh shit
did quite like the new single
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:56 (two years ago) link
you heard it here first, october 21 is ilm day
― comedy khadafi (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:58 (two years ago) link
if taytay had named her new album 'the car' i might have cut the hype parade some slack, but it's some hallmark bs as usual
― imago, Tuesday, 30 August 2022 16:58 (two years ago) link
ppl care about this way less but the new tegan & sara also comes out 10/21. literally gonna be the stupidest day of the year for me
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 30 August 2022 17:24 (two years ago) link
No one mocked CRJ in that thread, wth“ILM is a disgrace, allow me to manufacture a grievance against my fellow posters to illustrate this point”
― Porcine-lina of the Pig Oceans (morrisp), Tuesday, 30 August 2022 18:42 (two years ago) link
I'm already sick of hearing about the new Arctic Monkeys. I haven't heard it but I know I won't like it, because curmudgeon.
― The Ghost Club, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 01:19 (two years ago) link
Wow, can't wait to dis the living crap outta a couple of these
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 31 August 2022 01:34 (two years ago) link
imo muna are extremely corny
― flamenco drop (BradNelson)
Couldn't agree more. As a queer woman I felt obliged to give the new album a chance but it's just so painful. Silk Chiffon is a terrible single too. Yuck.
― The Ghost Club, Wednesday, 31 August 2022 01:45 (two years ago) link
I’m kind of with imago here— I feel like there’s an entire realm of ILM that I cannot access because I read these reviews and listen to the songs and can’t figure out why everyone loves trash. (I do love CRJ tho mostly because of one or two songs, I don’t “follow” or “stan” her).it’s fine tho— we don’t all need to love the same stuff! however, i sort of do think it would be nice to have EOTY polls for music that isn’t pop— or maybe exclude certain things from our 77. last year’s album and tracks rollout left me depressed as hell.
― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Saturday, 3 September 2022 11:30 (two years ago) link
(I think) I love pop music, but find both CRJ and Taylor just leave me cold. There's something about them that's so mainstream AOR-radio ready, there's nothing wrong there but no edge to it, nothing that hooks me.
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 3 September 2022 12:01 (two years ago) link
crj isn't exactly known for her radio success in the last decade to be fair
― ufo, Saturday, 3 September 2022 12:12 (two years ago) link
yeah I know nothing about what is actually played on the radio tbh
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 3 September 2022 12:16 (two years ago) link
ilm is still a treasure but yeah the overall year best of playlists sound like something Starbucks would release. i think they key is appreciating pop qua craft rather than art: that’s been the poptimist slide during the 10s
― Vapor waif (uptown churl), Saturday, 3 September 2022 12:52 (two years ago) link
looking back, it was Akeelah and the Bee OST taking AOTY in 2006
― look like Farley smoke like Marley (Sufjan Grafton), Saturday, 3 September 2022 13:34 (two years ago) link
I will never not have difficulty imagining the middle aged people on here who used to post about Mobb Deep, Archers of Loaf and / or Ornette Coleman sitting at home by themselves listening to CRJ
― Paul Ponzi, Saturday, 3 September 2022 13:47 (two years ago) link
There's something endearingly hilarious about a decade and a half of voracious listening and critical discussion on ILM culminating in devotion to polite pseudo-pop by white Northern women. xp!
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, 3 September 2022 13:48 (two years ago) link
For me I can’t shake the hang up I have believing every meticulous detail of major pop records is coldly orchestrated by a team of marketers. I work in CPG package design for corporate snack brands and 100% of the brand and product is crafted with the intent to appeal to the broadest demographic possible. Similarly, the pop star’s story or album context reads like the romance copy on a box of crackers to me, and the music is produced in such a way that it sounds like it is pitching to be used in a TV commercial. So there’s something soulless about it. Hopefully this doesn’t just sound like a repackaging of the tired “authenticity” complaint, it’s more like that feeling where an advertisement is trying to trick me or something. Idk.
― Evan, Saturday, 3 September 2022 13:54 (two years ago) link
(Me xp barging in being a chart bore): TS vs AM will be an interesting UK sales week. AM have sadly never not had a number one album but will this be their Robbie vs JLS moment!! (probably I'm thinking)
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Saturday, 3 September 2022 13:57 (two years ago) link
lol whoops just read this thread
yes imago, I was mocking CRJ by bringing her up in the other thread
give it a fucking rest
― Murgatroid, Saturday, 3 September 2022 14:08 (two years ago) link
I think the deal is that, as even Adorno recognized, you can't literally mass produce songs in the same way that you can mass produce bags of salt and vinegar potato chips - they still have to be distinct creative works that need to stand out and are heard as expressive or at least affective on some authentic level by listeners. (Obv you can mass produce CDs or mass distribute digital files but not the songs themselves. Ofc new flavours of chips or new packaging ideas are also developed but generally not as quickly as the number of songs released in a week.) 'Song factories' are ultimately only really factories in a metaphorical sense. So the tension between the industry's desire to control the product and market as you describe vs the nature of the product itself is what I think leads to the weird breakthroughs and surprises (even to the industry itself) and makes pop music interesting to the people who are interested in it. That said, it certainly still operates within limits and formulae and represents a narrow slice of the music that is out there, one that I think diminishes in interest for some of us as we get older.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, 3 September 2022 14:50 (two years ago) link
It's increased in interest for me as I get older, but I also think it's "better" now than it has been in a while (or at least the narrow slice of it that I connect with) (or maybe there are other reasons, I dunno)
Anyway, isn't it natural for folks who listen to a variety of music throughout their lives (as ppl here do) to ebb in flow in what they're into?
― Porcine-lina of the Pig Oceans (morrisp), Saturday, 3 September 2022 16:33 (two years ago) link
I don't know if it's "natural" but that certainly describes my musical life! My interest in pop* has dwindled somewhat in my 40s, but so has my interest in what other people listen to when they're home by themselves.
* Whatever that means—I suspect we're all using different definitions.
There's something endearingly hilarious about a decade and a half of voracious listening and critical discussion on ILM culminating in devotion to polite pseudo-pop by white Northern women. xp!― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, September 3, 2022 9:48 AM (three hours ago)
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, September 3, 2022 9:48 AM (three hours ago)
this is a direct hit though
― rob, Saturday, 3 September 2022 17:01 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbo317IbmAc
― big movers, hot steppers + long shaker intros (breastcrawl), Saturday, 3 September 2022 17:14 (two years ago) link
why Tracey Thorn getting dragged into this?
― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Saturday, 3 September 2022 17:24 (two years ago) link
I really want to like the Charlotte Adigéry album, Topical Dancer, because the production sounds amazing, but I am just not finding the wit in these songs that others are. The lyrics are kind of like annoying tweets and for me they reduce the songs to novelty. Take a track like "Thank You," which I listened to again this weekend, where the sarcasm is extremely drawn out and you get the point immediately.
― Chris L, Monday, 3 October 2022 13:59 (one year ago) link
sounds like SOMEONE'S volunteering for Thank You 2
― imago, Monday, 3 October 2022 14:01 (one year ago) link
Chris L otm
― big movers, hot steppers + long shaker intros (breastcrawl), Monday, 3 October 2022 15:15 (one year ago) link
Yeah, the lyrics totally turned me off that album. I expect it'll still end up in AOTY lists from people who either don't listen to the lyrics or, worse, actually like them.
― The Ghost Club, Monday, 3 October 2022 18:09 (one year ago) link
I am usually pretty hard to please if lyrics even risk being on the nose, cheap or preachy. Adigery's lyrics on this album are genuinely witty imo, they get away with it with impudence and charm to the forefront. Yeah, 'Thank You' might be a bit much, but I suspect it knows it's a bit much. There are a lot of layers, it isn't just normie tweets. I'd be repulsed if it was
― imago, Monday, 3 October 2022 19:07 (one year ago) link
There are so, so, so many worse lyrical offenders who basically get a free pass on here, so it's kind of staggering how some of you are turning on someone who evinces genuine sly wit and knows how to imply a story
― imago, Monday, 3 October 2022 19:09 (one year ago) link
Don't know what offenders you're talking about but 3 people so far have said they're not into it? Not a huge mutiny from the overall consensus, seems like.
― Chris L, Monday, 3 October 2022 19:28 (one year ago) link
The Ghost Club at 7:09 3 Oct 22Yeah, the lyrics totally turned me off that album. I expect it'll still end up in AOTY lists from people who either don't listen to the lyrics or, worse, actually like them.
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 3 October 2022 19:32 (one year ago) link
I'm not a fan of anything I find preachy and didactic, so I can understand hesitance with the CAxBP album, but I think the appeal is as much the delivery as the lyrics themselves - as a performer she's playful, theatrical and kitschy, all in ways that undercut the seriousness of the politics in the album. Even something as heavy-handed as the we're-being-ironic-do-you-see chorus of "Blenda" is undercut by those chipper "bye bye!" backing vocals. To my ears it's certainly more capital-f Fun than Sault or any of the angry post-Brexit rock bands I'm being nudged towards by algorithms and 6Music.
― boxedjoy, Monday, 3 October 2022 20:32 (one year ago) link
in other news how the fuck has medicore twunk Harry Styles become the biggest star on the planet just now
(I do know the answer to this, sadly)
― boxedjoy, Monday, 3 October 2022 20:33 (one year ago) link
extremely otm and on-point posting x2
― imago, Monday, 3 October 2022 20:42 (one year ago) link
xp
he was the only one bold enough to spit on Chris Pine
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Monday, 3 October 2022 20:59 (one year ago) link
Harry Styles' whole thing is so oily
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Monday, 3 October 2022 21:01 (one year ago) link
Tbh I can't get past the album covers. Something so self-important-seeming about having no text except precious 70s Columbia logo seal of quality blah blah
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Monday, 3 October 2022 21:02 (one year ago) link
Is this a place I can talk about two recent UK no. 1s? LF System's Afraid to Feel and Eliza Rose & Interplanetary Criminal's B.O.T.A (Baddest of Them All). Neither of them is bad, in fact both are easily listenable in their chasing of classic funky house and speed garage modes respectively. But that's my problem - these were multi-week number ones in 2022 yet they sound like a no. 21 2002 hit by Dirty Vegas or someone (Afraid to Feel) or a no. 47 hit from 1997 (B.O.T.A). They're the sort of tracks which wouldn't have been big hits back then because more exciting examples were crossing over.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Monday, 3 October 2022 21:17 (one year ago) link
BOTA basically was a Top Twenty hit twenty years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfp2WSpGHUA
― boxedjoy, Monday, 3 October 2022 21:39 (one year ago) link