T/S: Chris Ott vs. The Decemberists/Carson Ellis

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http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0646,ott,75004,22.html

So dramatic! Carson Ellis, Colin Meloy's girlfriend, replies in the 2nd comment, Chris Ott, replies to her, she replies again. Pretty odd in general, I think.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 04:02 (nineteen years ago)

I don't care if you're Slowdive or Sigue Sigue Sputnik

A nation of emo kids goes "Who?"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 04:12 (nineteen years ago)

Chris Ott gets called out for being a dickhead; nu-Voice trying for snark at any cost; what else is new?

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 04:37 (nineteen years ago)

t/s. do i really have to be on one of these sides?

― like murderinging (modestmickey), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 04:47 (nineteen years ago)

well, i'll give ott this: the decemberists fucking blow.

― DRAGON BONG Z (teenagequiet), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 05:27 (nineteen years ago)

Man uses shotgun to shoot fish in a barrel, complains when barrel starts leaking.

― mh. (mike h.), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 05:38 (nineteen years ago)

Carson may be right, but that's still not a great reason to respond to the review. It was poorly written and I think things would have been better if she had ignored it.

― Nathan P1p (hoyanathan), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 05:44 (nineteen years ago)

Pretty odd in general, I think.

pretty odd vs. pretty otter

http://vdov.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/otter%20small.jpg

(watercolor by carson ellis)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 05:47 (nineteen years ago)

Dragon OTM

― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 05:47 (nineteen years ago)

if articles like this changed anyone's mind music crit might matter. but they don't.

― killa bee (killabee), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 06:06 (nineteen years ago)

Was anything he said in te article not 100% OTM? Because I'm thinking he was right. Love seeing the reader comments where people get all twisted up when someone attacks a band so precious to them!

― roc u like a § (ex machina), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 06:14 (nineteen years ago)

I don't generally side with Ott on much, but he was given the opportunity to bitchslap the Decemberists (an enviable position) and knocked their lights out instead. Bravo!

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 06:26 (nineteen years ago)

Sad little world you guys (and Ott) live in, when you think the role of a critic is to "bitchslap" someone.

(And no, I don't really care about the Decemberists one way or the other. I liked a couple songs on the last record but I like the Beautiful South better.)

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 06:57 (nineteen years ago)

T/S Ott calling someone someone pathetic for being in a crap pompous band vs you calling ott sad for writing a mean article vs. me calling you sad for being an internet save a ho vs. ETC

― roc u like a § (ex machina), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 07:06 (nineteen years ago)

Well naturally the role of the critic isn't to bitchslap everyone and I don't recommend this type of thing become the new norm. However, the Decemberists have been setting themselves up to be taken down this way for years. When the whole existence of a band depends on such a precious and totally manufactured aesthetic, they instantly become targets.

In a sense, the only difference between the Decemberists and Insane Clown Posse is the makeup.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 07:09 (nineteen years ago)

When the whole existence of a band depends on such a precious and totally manufactured aesthetic, they instantly become targets.

You would rather they actually be from 17th Century England?

I mean, Meloy writing lyrics around his love of Dickens isn't too much different than, say, Robert Plant writing lyrics around his love of Tolkien. It's taking your extracurricular interests and using them to create metaphors for the things you experience as a human. If people didn't sometimes write songs like this, everyone would be either Bob Dylan or Dashboard Confessional.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 08:00 (nineteen years ago)

would be either Bob Dylan

I don't think he really hung out with Judas Priest or poor immigrants, or knew a guy with contacts with the lumberjacks, but that's just a guess.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 08:09 (nineteen years ago)

Still trying to figure out why this guy's writing for the Village Voice. Not particularly well put together. Whiny.

― maria b (maria b), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 08:27 (nineteen years ago)

Hey, as much as I love Zep, I'll freely admit that they're deserving of ridicule in about 100 different ways.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

"the familiar world of self-pitying white people looking for reasons to be unhappy, or at least suspicious, despite incalculable birthright advantages." - Ott's a prick.

― Bidfurd (Bidfurd), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 10:43 (nineteen years ago)

As a fellow music critic I am disgusted and embarrased., says GirLoveWarrior

― dommy p is alright WHICH IS A LOT MORE THAN I CAN SAY ABOUT A LOT OF PEOPLE (Dom, Wednesday, 15 November 2006 11:00 (nineteen years ago)

It's just the same old 'authenticity' rubbish.

― Bidfurd (Bidfurd), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 11:24 (nineteen years ago)

The time between each number's final strum and Meloy's roadie handing him a different guitar for the next was subatomic. The world has not known a concert this economic and slick since Genesis in the mid 1980s

Hmm.

― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 11:33 (nineteen years ago)

T/S Ott calling someone someone pathetic for being in a crap pompous band vs you calling ott sad for writing a mean article vs. me calling you sad for being an internet save a ho vs. ETC

how about me NOT calling you out because I really don't give a fuck about your opinion, I'll take that

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 12:32 (nineteen years ago)

oh that was a shitty thing to say, just a bad reaction due to lack of sleep, lack of coffee, and lack of caring anymore

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 12:46 (nineteen years ago)

would be either Bob Dylan

I don't think he really hung out with Judas Priest or poor immigrants, or knew a guy with contacts with the lumberjacks, but that's just a guess.

Ah, you got me backwards. I'm saying he would be either really oblique (Dylan) or really naked (Dashboard). Literary references provide clues to the dudes who play in the middle of those two extremes

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 12:49 (nineteen years ago)

It's worth pointing out once again that Chris Ott puts the following words next to each other at the beginning this review (which should in and of itself nullify anything that gets said afterwards): 'the familiar world of self-pitying white people'.

I very strongly dislike The Decemberists' music, but Ott's terrible writing, miserable research (see his fuckups re: the nationality of the show's emcee and the Decemberists singer's Montana heritage), and UTTERLY CLASSLESS response to the singer's girlfriend's comment (questionable itself, but still) - has me feeling for the band.

It's got to be extra frustrating to have a loud and noisy hate-piece
written about you by someone who isn't even a good writer. (Again, seriously, I think there's PLENTY of room for trashing this band, but Ott clearly doesn't have the class or talent to handle the job).

Is he still a regular Ilxor?

― Tiki Theater Xymposium (Bent Over at the Arclight), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

the underlying assumption of much of Ott's schtick here ("everything must be fun, especially if people are making money in which case it is immoral and hypocritical for them to act sad about anything") is kinda What Are You Fucking Talking About

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

People who are too far opinionated in one direction are just as boring and pointless as people who are too far opinionated in the other direction. Dialogue is what really matters about any subject, especially music because it is such an ephemeral, imperceptible, taste based thing.

Ott's rabble rousing is insulting, not because I'm a fan of The Decemberists, but because he writes a mouthful of shit and expects us to swallow it and then gets pissed because we want to talk to him about it

thats not just a bad writer, thats maladjustment.

― Digestion is Easy (Digestion is Easy!), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not a fan of the way it's written at all - not my thing - but a lot of the fleeting substance of that review ( the critical stuff, not the polemic stuff) struck me as being semi-OTM and very similar to how I felt when I saw/reviewed them last week. See also (in a different way) the current Pitchfork review of the Philly show, which leads a 'graf with the observation that "none of this seemed scripted," when in fact the writer's review more or less described the exact show I saw as well as the show in New York.

I really love the new Decemberists' new record, by the way, more than any of their other records. But this marks the third or fourth time I've seen them, and the third or fourth time that, even giving them the benefit of the doubt and for the first time going in a proud fan of the band, they rubbed me the wrong way. Smug, I thought.

Anyway, the writer's response in the comments section is kind of unprofessional. Way to counter accusations of starting/continuing a mean, personal feud with posts that sound personal and mean and in a lot of ways confirm the (posted) suspicions of the band.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

His review now has its own thread here: he must have done something wrong.

― StanM (StanM), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

er, RIGHT! (damn)

― StanM (StanM), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

chris "ever feel like you've been cheated?" ott

nobody is gonna pull the wool sweater over HIS eyes!

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:52 (nineteen years ago)

Ott just seems to completely miss the point of the Decemberists (or maybe I have); I see a lot of humor in their work, it's hardly a load of po-faced whining.

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

The Decemberists strike me as the kind of band that would not enjoy getting pies in the face while onstage and for that I hate them.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

humor? dude, an excelsior thread is funnier than the decemberists.

― DRAGON BONG Z (teenagequiet), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

It's pretty clear that this piece isn't about the Decemberists at all; it's about Chris Ott.

― mcd (mcd), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

If the Decemberists were funny they'd be even more like They Might Be Giants.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

scott otm.

I almost feel sorry for the fan who says that "..it was without a doubt the most entertaining concert I have ever been to." I mean, outside of the band, isn't that the only person who's going to really care about the hand-crafted bile thrown into this review? Maybe people who suddenly feel validated because someone shares their views. Guess what guys, lots of members of the general public find indie rockers pretentious even when they don't wear costumes or write sea shantys or whatever!

As a side note, is The Knife good live? I couldn't tell from that aside Ott tossed in, it seemed like he just isn't so hot on performance art outside of the music and the comment kind of detracted from his Meloy criticisms.

― mh. (mike h.), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:20 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, that comment on The Knife seemed totally snide and absolutely gratuitous, with the intention of saying "while I'm exposing the Decembrists for the frauds they are, I will also slay another sacred cow, look at how independent minded I am, marvel at my critical daring!" Pretty irksome.

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:26 (nineteen years ago)

They're really good. And Ott is a douchebag and a hack. Yeah, the decembersists are shitty. But please write about that in a way that doesn't make me want to shoot you in the face.

― struttin' with some barbecue (jimnaseum), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:30 (nineteen years ago)

ott's prose is always heavily doused in Massengil, BUT:

the Decemberists' 17th-century laments were merely soaked in solecism—coy cunning from a clever aesthete with a woodcut fetish who'd seen Rushmore too many times.

it's funny cos it's true

― songs and ballads of the bituminous miners (sanskrit), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:33 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking of douchebaggery and hackiness, I'm sorry but this is the lamest band introduction in the history of the world.

At the Ballroom, the Decemberists walked onstage to a behind-the-curtain introduction by someone with a faux-British accent almost as bad as Meloy's, asking the audience to "imagine you are standing atop a vast canyon wall, staring miles down as six figures walk into view, the wind whipping at their clothes."

― Guy In Accounting Who Just E-mails Around YouTube Links (Mr.Que), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:33 (nineteen years ago)

MR QUE OTM

― songs and ballads of the bituminous miners (sanskrit), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:36 (nineteen years ago)

Most of what I think has been said. Now, I've been a fan of the Decemberists for a couple of years - I've seen them live 5 times. I do think there were some nuggets of truth hiding in Ott's poorly-composed rant. And I just read the pitchfork live review and thought it was pretty dumb - of course that stuff is scripted, and of course the audience is going to obey; people who go to Decemberists shows are just dying to do that kind of corny shit.

But it was so embarassing to read. Like watching someone rip into some Democrat that I vote for despite thinkng he's an asshole politician, except the writer rips into him for mostly the wrong reasons and comes off looking like an even bigger ass hole. And that bit about white privelege was soo stupid. And then Carson Ellis just made it descend into melodrama, at which point it became pretty funny.

Anyway, I still like The Decemberists, but they can also be pretty lame, and that article mostly sucked.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:36 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.uncabaret.com/images/pftCLARK.jpg
"They Might Be Giants, the Soft Boys and Wes Anderson couldn't be here tonight... but they've fucked and we bring you their six-headed love child."

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

ie, what wack band has someone introduce them anyway?

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:42 (nineteen years ago)

Guns'n'roses.

― struttin' with some barbecue (jimnaseum), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:43 (nineteen years ago)

YOU WANTED THE BEST

YOU GOT THE BEST

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:44 (nineteen years ago)

Hush now, Daver, we all know that rock and roll started in 1981 with REM.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:46 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 253 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

i never saw guadalcanal diary or fetchin' bones but i did see the connells and material issue.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:12 (nineteen years ago)

i remember when the moldy peaches were cool.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

they were cool?

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:15 (nineteen years ago)

for real!

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:17 (nineteen years ago)

what was that girl guitar band from the u.k. that xgau loved so much afew years back? not kenickie, the other one. they put out an ep, and no not northern state haha very funny...um, i can't think of their name...

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:18 (nineteen years ago)

At 13, Mike Mills was my favorite member of R.E.M., so I guess we know who my Decemberists were.

― Erroneous Botch (joseph cotten), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:24 (nineteen years ago)

what was that girl guitar band from the u.k. that xgau loved so much afew years back?

kaito

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

but there were 2 dudes in that band!

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:40 (nineteen years ago)

kaito's great!

― gear (gear), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:41 (nineteen years ago)

but there were 2 dudes in that band!

but nobody cares about the dudes.

i like kaito, they're lots of fun live. the last album was kind of meh. why are we talking about them again?

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:46 (nineteen years ago)

they were pretty good tho not necessarily my thing. nice people tho.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

kaito wasn't the name, was it?

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:54 (nineteen years ago)

no? xgau talked them up a bunch and they did have an ep. but there might have been another one.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 17 November 2006 23:56 (nineteen years ago)

ah, it doesn't matter. 95% of the stuff he loves i would never listen to. unless i found it free at the dump. helluva writer though.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:04 (nineteen years ago)

it's cool in this case, dude. even a stopped clock etc.

― gear (gear), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:05 (nineteen years ago)

you're not thinking of Fluffy, are you Scott?

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:06 (nineteen years ago)

i've never heard the decemberists. or the wrens. i will look them up on youtube. i saw the new my chemical romance video though.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:06 (nineteen years ago)

YES FLUFFY THANK YOO MATOS

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:07 (nineteen years ago)

they were no Lung Leg amirite?

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:07 (nineteen years ago)

i kept thinking of kittie and that should have reminded me to think of fluffy but it didn't...

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

who my chemical romance? no they are not as sexy as lung leg. tho the singer is awfully cute in a pocket monster sorta way.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

i love the chemical romance dudes who are not cool looking cuz they are just childhood drummer friends and not rockstars or whatever they look out of place every emo band has one or two dudes who can't make his hair go like that

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

i didn't like fluffy so much but i like that album cover with the cat.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, and they were cool looking.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:14 (nineteen years ago)

like my chem rom

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:14 (nineteen years ago)

i love to se my chem rom on the cover of things like ap they must be big in japan but the video for the new one left me chilly sub marilyn intro/outros bookending their blink182isms they need more dickensian structures

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:15 (nineteen years ago)

amen to that, brother!

― Good-Time Slim, Uncle Doobie, and the Great 'Frisco Freak-Out (sixteen sergeants, Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:17 (nineteen years ago)

okay watching decemeloy on youtube i get the generational talk on here everyone needs a belle& s to call their own a bright eyes something like that and the video for 16 siamese sailors or whatever is rushmoreania and/or braffian enough to make me understand the spit takes from grizzled grumpy guses like ott but ott what's yer alternative what's worth listening to what are ott's 10.2's? i only ever see the stinkers

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:31 (nineteen years ago)

awesome

― gear (gear), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:54 (nineteen years ago)

i guess Rush was my Decemberists, in a wierd way.

i was from a little town and they were sort of the 10,000 maniacs/they might be giants of the metal-ish stuff we knew about. we didn't have MTV for awhile, so didn't get exposed to a lot of stuff like college rock...some punk rock from the couple skater kidz, but they didn't like any faggy type stuff.

― M@tt He1geson: Sassy and I Don't Care Who Knows It (Matt Helgeson), Saturday, 18 November 2006 00:59 (nineteen years ago)

what are ott's 10.2's?

r-a-d-i-o-h-e-a-d

― Erroneous Botch (joseph cotten), Saturday, 18 November 2006 02:36 (nineteen years ago)

songs about robots vs. songs about whales

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 18 November 2006 02:40 (nineteen years ago)

the supposedly rushmore video is really a lot more belle and sebastianish. also it's a lot better than the song, kinda redeems it.

― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 18 November 2006 22:54 (nineteen years ago)

i like the decemberists' visual aesthetic as found on their album covers more than i like their music.

― gear (gear), Saturday, 18 November 2006 23:16 (nineteen years ago)

Scott, you've made the point I was alluding to: if music's a click away, New and Old become less important qualities. Now was very important once upon a time, but there is so much more Then today that you can spend a lifetime in the racks and never bother about whether you Listen to Music Made By People That You Can Go Look At. Not that I'm advocating that kind of stasis, just that we can be a lot more discerning now, there's less pressure and argument coming from listeners/kids for New bands to come along and fix things, or even freshen the landscape (and God, the landscape, that's a book). Added to that, the growing tail of pop's past makes it increasingly harder to establish yourself as a unique or even not-obviously-referential act. It's tough all over.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Sunday, 19 November 2006 01:33 (nineteen years ago)

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Sunday, 19 November 2006 01:41 (nineteen years ago)

the growing tail of pop's past makes it increasingly harder to establish yourself as a unique or even not-obviously-referential act. It's tough all over.

When was it ever anyone's major artistic intention "to establish themselves as a unique or even not-obviously-referential act??" Generally speaking, I am sure that inspiration has had more to do with the desire to do something good, do something creative within a particular aesthetic context that has some sort of personal significance for an artist. It's one thing to argue that the great availability of music and information about music creates, as you say, less impetus to "fix things or freshen the landscape - not sure that I agree with that or if it's true. But it's another to cook up this argument about an alleged artistic crisis resulting from the situation. Do painters experience this crisis when they look at a 1500 page history of painting book?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 19 November 2006 02:46 (nineteen years ago)

Tim, doesn't this:

When was it ever anyone's major artistic intention "to establish themselves as a unique or even not-obviously-referential act??"

contradict this:

the desire to do something good, do something creative?

At least insofar as "creative" indicates (to me) "original" a.k.a. "unique"? Not that I don't see yr larger point, but

Do painters experience this crisis when they look at a 1500 page history of painting book?

I think that answer there might be "yes"--and it might indicate why we see a general move away from painting as the major form of "high art" over the past 25-50 years (not that painting is dead, obv., but compared to 1906 or 1806 or fuckit even 1606, the percentage of "recognized" "unique" "creative" artists who are painting is smaller). In fact I'd think that painting/high art is a much better example of "the weight of history" changing the nature of an artist's aspiration than pop music (c.f. Eliot & other literary Modernists, obv., whose hyperawareness of the "history" [or whatever] of literature led to the creation of some of the more starkly interesting and original pieces of writing [for their time] ["these fragments I have shored against my ruins" &c.])

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 19 November 2006 03:31 (nineteen years ago)

i like the decemberists' visual aesthetic as found on their album covers more than i like their music.

-- gear (speed.to.roa...) (webmail), November 18th, 2006. (gear)

otm. in a thread full of boring crap i don't care to read about, thanks for saying something completely off-topic that i agree with.

― like murderinging (modestmickey), Sunday, 19 November 2006 03:34 (nineteen years ago)

Now that I make that claim abt. painting I also realize that certain other factors have contributed to the "move away from painting" such as for example the simple fact that more mediums &c. are available to artists who want to be considered "high art" or whatever (and hey maybe I'm sort of mis-representing yr point w/r/t "high" art vs. "low" art-slash-"classical" music vs. "pop" music--but I do think artistic crises of the kind that Ott describes definitely happen to musicians (whether they actively realize it or not).

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 19 November 2006 03:43 (nineteen years ago)

)

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 19 November 2006 03:46 (nineteen years ago)

seriously, it's like edward gorey-meets-melville. if the band actually created music that fell in line with what the art hints at, they'd be a lot more interesting.

― gear (gear), Sunday, 19 November 2006 03:59 (nineteen years ago)

Max, I think the biggest development in pop music of recent has been the heightening of postmodernism, which has perhaps been proportional to this growing proliferation of recordings from pop music's past (and availability of information about the music). As I see it, there's PLENTY of pop music still being made, much of it within this context and I would be curious to know of any personal testimonies from artists about how the vast sea of music available to people now crushed their creative spirit or confused them as to what they wanted to do.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 19 November 2006 04:14 (nineteen years ago)

"seriously, it's like edward gorey-meets-melville. if the band actually created music that fell in line with what the art hints at, they'd be a lot more interesting."

these dudes totally nail it:

http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/Large/03/943403.jpg

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 19 November 2006 04:27 (nineteen years ago)

No no--maybe I'm mis-representing myself--and maybe I shouldn't be posting while kind of drunk--but for me crisis doesn't necessarily indicate "crushed spirit" or "confusion" (altho it can) and obv. plenty of great, boundary-pushing pop music is still being made all over the place. But that being said--the growing "historical consciousness" of pop music (not that that consciousness wasn't there from the beginning--simply that it's more prevalant and apparent than ever) combined with the increasing availability of past musics seems to me to necessarily lead to a (perhaps subconscious) artistic crisis, which all is to say: how can you be "not-obviously-referential"? Even the more/the most "progressive" acts in pop music are still referential to a v. large extent (and I acknowledge that we can play this game all the way back to the beginning of music, period, but it becomes all the more apparent right now). I suppose maybe the question we should be asking is: is "originality" possible? For me, the answer is... probably not (but I also think it's not a v. important question: maybe "originality" is the wrong standard by which we judge music.)

I get the feeling that I'm not really responding to you directly, though. Are we talking abt. the same thing?

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 19 November 2006 04:35 (nineteen years ago)

I would just very much dispute the idea that artists' inability to avoid being referential constitutes any kind of crisis at all.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 19 November 2006 04:56 (nineteen years ago)

I suppose it depends on yr. definition of "crisis," right? I think we agree but we have different definitions or senses of "crisis."

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 19 November 2006 05:15 (nineteen years ago)

the cover art is done by carson ellis

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 19 November 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

At least in middle school when one kid called another a fag and that kid's girlfriend was all "No, you're a fag!" and they started screaming there was a teacher there to break it up.

― Period period period (Period period period), Sunday, 19 November 2006 21:49 (nineteen years ago)

I could dig the band's posing if they, I dunno, sold it a little better. Like the Arcade Fire, I guess. I found it really interesting and revealing when the Arcade Fire said that their next live incarnation would be nothing or little like the first, or at least not what people may expect, which was a welcome acknowledgement that in a sense it was all an act.

I guess what that means is that when I see a theatrical rock act, I want them to act *well*. The Decemberists are just way too arch, or smug, but not funny or fun enough to justify it. Every time I think I'm starting to like them a lot I see them live and it sets them back a bunch in my estimation.

I know, I know - stop seeing them live, right?

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Monday, 20 November 2006 03:40 (nineteen years ago)

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