New Pornographers fans: Join me in anticipating A.C. Newman - "The Slow Wonder"

although, I'm not that enamoured with the early mp3. Goin Through Changes took about a week too, though.

The cover is lovely.

I don't know about that.. the same criticism is leveled at each Destroyer album now, and it's not the case. I guess.. I think if Newman, et al really viewed the New Porn as their main vehicle, sure, but they all still consider it a fun side gig. More likely, these are songs that were destined for the long-in-not-coming third Zumpano record.

anyways, Ben you need to find the emo-tastic song titled "there goes helen" from hit songs for girls from 92 or 93... it is still one of my favorite songs, maybe the best song Carl ever wrote.

I'm attracted to the New Pornographers as a super Joycore pop band, and I think that project is much more exciting than what any of them do on their own, even though they are all capable of doing great work by themselves and with other collaborators.

I wish New Pornos would put out a stop-gap E.P. with all the covers they've done (The Sweet, The Shocking Blue, Shoes, etc.).

(ben, i will keep my eyes open for you)

And that's not a good analogy. The Travelling Willburies were never as critically successful or as popular as its individual members were as solo artists. The New Pornographers is significantly more successful and popular than any of its members previous projects, and was the vehicle that made them all modest indie stars. It's pretty clear that The New Pornographers is now the main gig and the other bands are the side projects - at least for Newman, anyway.

I remember reading some interview where Newman said that the songs that he wrote for Neko Case were songs that he wanted to do but just couldn't sing (that is not to prove or disprove anyone's point, just an interesting bit).

you're off my christmas card list now

p.s. is "joycore" an ILM word or does it exist in the real world?

matthew, you sound like a creepy fanboy. these folx have been in lots of bands other than new porn, regardless of "success" or "fame", two attributes you're weighing far too heavily on. familiarize yourself with carl's music, i think you're giving him short shrift here.

For all the attention Newman and Bejar and Case get, I think John Collins is the real force behind the group. He's the one who actually produces everything.

I have all of Carl's records, and I like them, but I love the New Pornographers records. Those are the ones that I come back to. I get something for the NP albums that the other previous Newman records just don't give me.

because "indie rock" is much more applicable?

As I see it, almost all "indie rock" is in philisophical opposition to joycore. Most "indie rock" is in fact borecore.

Was I really writing Carl off? All I suggested was that this record was probably going to be the music that wouldn't work on a New Pornographers album. (I added the value judgement "not good enough," but that's how I see it.) I think Carl is a pop genius. I'm not writing him off!

besides, i'll take mark szabo over newman any day of the week.

i second gygax0r's claim. and as jack cole points out, there's nothing especially joyful about NP's lyrics. if a particular artist makes you laugh, it's not an aesthetic intention, or at least you can't *make* it one. of course, keeping it at the idea/concept level, you get a free pass.

It seems to me the band is an obvious attempt by a bunch of musicians who are otherwise usually engaged in more somber and serious (albeit playful in their own way) endeavors to have some FUN.

amateur hour! i distinctly remember them covering sparks' "amateur hour" at warsaw whatever december or january that was.

Something does not have to purely joyful and happy to be joycore - it's a philosophical thing, not a strict mandate for nonstop happy lyrics.

as for the nps' videos being goofy, carl newman has always been a goofball. need i remind people of thee crusaders? still, being a goofball doesn't not take away from the fact that mr. newman's lyrics are hardly joyous at all -- witty, funny, but not happy happy.

it may be a "philosophical thing" but only if you consider Daniel Quinn philosophical.

you've argued this for R.E.M. as well on your blog. the problem with the notion of joycore is that it isn't an idea that the artists have themselves, but something you've applied to the artist. there's a fundamental difference between a label and an artist's intent.

moreover, why is this idea so important, and how can you explain a category when even its main proponents (taking f.ex. R.E.M. and NP's) violate its "principle", viz. being joyful, etc.?

jack cole wrote: it may be a "philosophical thing" but only if you consider Daniel Quinn philosophical.

yeah, this is like alain de botton in an frankfurt school chatroom.

this is not "more accurate". and "ur-genre"? that would mean it would be something already accepted as received wisdom, and a root of let's just say rock music generally. it's not. whether it's teen angst or existential malaise, neither submit to the tenets of "joycore" as an Ur-genre.

i totally shoulda used Ur-genre in that Blechdom review. that would've really made it popular.

I'm not really sure why Gygax and Jack Cole are so ANGRY about it. Matthew, I think you're right that the core suffix is hard to swallow. Is that it?

i'm guessing the theme's "joycore". what's the class song?

scott ce: the amorphous aspect reeks of "cop out".

the absolutely killer sparks cover that they used to do -- maybe they still do it, i don't know -- was "thrown her away (and get a new one)."

JOYCORE IS BIGGER THAN MUSIC ITSELF!

everything else is a sub-genre, although chubby checker is def joycore.

cuz: i swear i remember "amateur hour" too. rilly. i wasn't drunk for that show. promise.

but "thrown her away" i know because they announced it before they did it, and it's a title and a chorus that you don't easily forget after you've heard it rocked so well.

anyway, this was way way back in the day when they first started touring, so for all i know they've added dozens of sparks covers since then. maybe they're a sparks cover band now. maybe they were a sparks cover band then and i didn't know it! (are sparks joycore??)

How about joycore = klezmer music, everything else = indie, except loud guitars, which, OBVIOUSLY = heavy metal.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000000M5M.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

When I most recently saw them, they covered "Action" by the Sweet. I have heard they also covered a Nick Lowe song, but can't remember which one.

Oh, and what's Thee Crusaders?! Off to Google that one...

This, along with misleading -core suffix probably is part of what's turning off some people. Or maybe it's because I've been sloppy and somewhat inarticulate in this thread. Or it could be that Gygax and Jack Cole just dislike me. Which probably isn't untrue.

the problem with the notion of joycore is that it isn't an idea that the artists have themselves, but something you've applied to the artist. there's a fundamental difference between a label and an artist's intent.

Is it really a problem though? Part of the idea is to be able to identify things in life and in art that can be prescribed as being Joycore - Joycore being more of an adjective than a genre classification. It really doesn't matter what the artist's intentions were in this context - part of the idea is to define things for yourself, to take back some power in how you understand things. This is where the difference between genre and idea comes in - I suppose that it's most similar to identifying something/someone as being 'punk' even if they aren't actually punk rock because the concepts and ideas of punk are bigger than the music.

Joycore is just a word. It's a word that I use because it's useful to me, and other people have started using it too. It's something that's always been in the world and in art. For me, Joycore is an idea that is in opposition to Borecore, and the tension between those two things is interesting to me. It's about rejecting negative impulses about art , culture, and life and embracing the positive, the joyous, the sublime.

joycore, however you may define it, comes off like bad early 90s genre-typing (cf: slowcore, homocore, dykecore).

That's exactly how I feel about you!

Let's (virtually) shake hands and have this go back to being about The Slow Wonder.

i'm sorry but what power have you lost in how you understand things. i know this rhetoric was spawned directly by mid/late nineties gender studies discourse, and at the time it seemed to describe something. turned out to be wrong. it fails only because power is something that actually exists and can be defined, and what power are you taking back? are you taking the power from matador? from the new pornographers? from carl newman?

i see what you're about, but it doesn't seem to make much difference musically. is manet "joycore"?

Another smashing cover I've seen them do live: the Shocking Blue's "Send Me a Postcard." God, they've gotta do a covers EP one of these days.

http://www.justconcerts.com/concerts/concert.cfm?Concert_Id=343

The trick is to download the .ram file and open it as text, and you get things like this:
rtsp://aural1.justconcerts.com/justconcerts/sessions/ac_newman/041025/ac_newman.rm

pnm://aural1.justconcerts.com/justconcerts/sessions/ac_newman/041025/ac_newman.rm

Enter one of those url's in NetTransport, and it will download them. To split it into tracks, you have to decompress it first and use an audio editor.

A little background here -- I learned a few years ago that my sis was the one who took the cat photo that's on the cover of the album, thus:

http://i.imgur.com/XBS12.jpg

Just today, I discovered that last year someone had a conspiracy theory about this cover and specifically that photo. It's not a very good conspiracy. Do read all three pages:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=430337