National Review (Still) Loves Music

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...as long as it isn't cheapened by "rhythm or expressions of passion".

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 30 December 2002 20:22 (twenty-two years ago)

God he's my favorite music writer. I love how the piece begins by talking about some bands that meet his approval (all of whom aren't new at all -- Moby, Weezer, Wilco [of course!!!], Jagger, Bryan Ferry, Bowie, George Harrison, etc.) and then it just turns into one big round up of the year in progressive rock.

― Aaron W, Monday, 30 December 2002 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

You've got to give him credit for completely ducking the expected critical pablum (save for the first two or three paragraphs) and writing about things that most critics would consider irrelevant.

But: is this what people who read the National Review listen to?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 30 December 2002 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

"Lex Rex has all of Glass Hammer's great virtues in one neat package"

I don't know if this is a challenge to ILM or to this article, but can someone come forward with the "great virtues" of Glass Hammer?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 30 December 2002 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

ha ha! this is great! i wonder how one gets the job of being the national review's music critic

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 30 December 2002 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Speaking of: Norm Podhoretz's son writes film criticism now. He mostly had it in for Far from Heaven.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 30 December 2002 21:00 (twenty-two years ago)

music and lyrics commonly evoked primal passions such as anger, lust, and the will to power among rappers

That was my favorite line, because the only other time Ive hear a critic use (or anybody for that matter) the term "will to power," was on the back of my copy of War and Peace.

― David Allen, Monday, 30 December 2002 21:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I like how a conservative magazine would classify the "will to power" as a primal passion. You'd never see that in the New Yorker, no sir.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 30 December 2002 21:22 (twenty-two years ago)

wow. I would DEFINE the music I like as rhythms and expressions of passion.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 30 December 2002 21:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyone remember that Frampton/Skynyrd medley from the late '80s?

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 30 December 2002 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

One day you may be lucky enough to graduate to the conceptual grandiosity and instrumental virtuosity of contemporary progressive rock.

― Sean (Sean), Monday, 30 December 2002 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Ditto, Anthony. Exactly what I was thinking.

Plus, reading through that, this line particularly pissed me off...

"...on the whole the 1990s were, from a point of view that places beauty among the top aesthetic considerations, the only truly depressing and largely uncreative decade in American music during the past century."

To that, I can only reply "HA!" And, even when I try to pick out one of the many arguments to the contrary from the top of my head, I still just get a really loud "HA!" in my mind's ear. Then I just feel sorry for this guy.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 30 December 2002 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre000/e013/e01369ufkod.jpg

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 30 December 2002 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

A concept album telling the story of the Roman centurion whose spear pierced Christ's side on the cross, Lex Rex has all of Glass Hammer's great virtues in one neat package. It combines a strong, moving story with redemption as a central theme; interesting, complex, compositions; extraordinary musicianship; and a large dose of Chesterton-like good cheer.

ha ha ha!!

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 30 December 2002 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I like how he starts a paragraph with "in the progressive rock world, there was a huge amount of excellent music released in the past year," as if he hadn't already been talking about it for five paragraphs.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Tuesday, 31 December 2002 02:47 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

Karnick on 2003

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 13:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow - that's the weirdest year-end roundup I've read yet. Who knew that Christian prog was the answer to all of the music world's ills?

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

wow, xtian prog, the sea and cake, and blink 182!

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Karnick is even more wacky than Geir and Glenn Mcdonald combined
http://www.furia.com/twas/twas0466.html

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

3
Jewel: 0304
All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted.

*head explodes*

― ModJ (ModJ), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I love these guys. I have very little crossover with them in terms of taste, but I have great respect for them writing passionately about music that almost everyone else does not care about at all. Somebody's got to love these things right? I don't see any reason why an obsession with Christian prog should be so different than having an obsession with dancehall raggae or microhouse. I mean, it's a lot less cool, but that shouldn't matter so much.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 16:49 (twenty-one years ago)

an obsession with christian prog is definitely more cool than an obsession with microhouse.

― artiste, Tuesday, 6 January 2004 17:36 (twenty-one years ago)

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