What do we think about the Onion A.V. Club's music section?

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I think they publish some great music interviews, but the Hall of Fame and Inventory features can be wearisome. I'm still not sure what the aim of the former is. It would be more effective if the tone was more "Here's an album that you might not think to listen to, but it has some really worthwhile qualities," and less "This album rules. Always has. Duh." I think the staff members are, in general, intelligent, capable writers that know a whole lot about pop culture, but the records reviews can come off pedestrian, like a local news channel cutting to their music correspondent. Here's a sample from this week's issue.

When Jimmy Tamborello asked his pal Ben Gibbard to add vocals to a song on Dntel's 2001 disc Life Is Full Of Possibilities, he surely had no idea that he was launching an electro-pop powerhouse whose debut would sell nearly a million copies and become an advertising-agency staple. But The Postal Service's Give Up—which combined Tamborello's catchy, glitchy electronic beds with the Death Cab frontman's ingratiating, fey vocals—hit pop paydirt. After just one American tour to support the disc, though, Gibbard felt the pull back to his main band, and Tamborello returned to his own slightly less pop-oriented electronic world, releasing an album as James Figurine and wrangling a gang of guest singers for Dumb Luck, his third album as Dntel.

Tamborello addresses his fluke success on the disc's title track, but that's the only place he sings or writes lyrics here: He's mostly content to provide clicky beds for other singers to luxuriate in, and he does an excellent job of pairing voices and sounds. Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear gets arid, meandering atmospheres and pretty acoustic guitar; Jenny Lewis gets the 78 RPM crackle and what sound like distorted slot machines for the sweet "Roll On"; Conor Oberst sounds terrific with spooky warbles and distorted slide guitar. With a different singer on each track—others include members of Lali Puna and singer-songwriter Mia Doi Todd—Dumb Luck can't help but sound like a compilation, with peaks and valleys directly correlating to a taste for the vocals. Luckily, Tamborello picked some solid friends. No Gibbard this time around, though, but fear not: The duo is apparently hard at work—again via mail—on a second album.

It's not a BAD review, but for a major media publication, isn't it kind of slight? I'm not asking for some Stylus pedantry interpreting the album Hermeneutically, but couldn't there be a little more, er, original thought? What separates the review from a 'Borders Recommends' blurb? Overall, I think it's a great for browsing, but it's not my first pick for edification.

― poortheatre, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:25 (eighteen years ago)

the onion is a humor newspaper, I don't even know why they bother trying to do this

― akm, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:38 (eighteen years ago)

lots of people try new things!

― strgn, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:42 (eighteen years ago)

i don't know about the music section, but scott tobias in film is ok sometimes.

― strgn, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:42 (eighteen years ago)

yea, so is nathan rabin. they're definitely better with Film/Television. Book reviews are ichkckchchhhchkkhh

― poortheatre, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:44 (eighteen years ago)

They're definitely sharper and more vital-sounding about film, which I think matches the readership. The music section doesn't have quite that quality, but to be honest it does a good job of delivering what people tend to want from the music section of a non-music publication -- a weekly round-up of a few things that suit the audience, with a fairly straightforward encapsulation of what they are and what they sound like.

What impresses me is how much they've been able to control the style! There's a really recognizable style and pacing and format to an AV Club review (of everything except Games), and it's really tight, interesting to read, gets a lot of information and "what's at stake" analysis done with in way less words than you'd think -- they keep that going on a level that's gotta be requiring a lot of hard work on someone's part.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:58 (eighteen years ago)

to quote scripture - nabisco OTM :-)

― BleepBot, Thursday, 26 April 2007 01:22 (eighteen years ago)

Their film critics are my favorite...I always seem to agree. But their music section is never OTM.

― Tape Store, Thursday, 26 April 2007 01:24 (eighteen years ago)

God that Ghostface interview is GREAT!

AVC: The Pretty Toney Album was credited to Ghostface, and Fishscale is credited to Ghostface Killah. What's the difference?

GK: It don't even matter. It's just names. People always get it twisted, you know, "Is this the Ghostface Killah?" Man, it's whatever-whatever, you can name me Shithead if you want. I don't give a fuck about all that. It's real, man. A name is a name, and I make music. My niggas know my voice even without the name. That's what it is

― Z S, Thursday, 26 April 2007 01:27 (eighteen years ago)

I quite enjoy the Random Rules section, it's always fun to judge someone based on a random sample of what's on their DAP.

Seriously. It is.

― Mr. Odd, Thursday, 26 April 2007 01:28 (eighteen years ago)

it is!

i liked their recent redman interview. they don't usually review anything i care about, though. but i look forward to the av club more each week than the onion these days.

― GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ, Thursday, 26 April 2007 07:17 (eighteen years ago)

I never even look at the onion, I just read AV Club. I like Random Rules but wish they didn't need every single feature to be in a list format (couldn't they have just written an essay on Kurt Vonnegut instead of trying to shoehorn his quotes into an awkward list?). Ask the AV Club is good too, as well as interviews. The music section, as well as their overall perception of music can be bothersome insofar as it leans towards "smart" "pop" music with no edge or funk or anything I like really, but I have ILM for music.

― filthy dylan, Thursday, 26 April 2007 08:29 (eighteen years ago)

i never trust anyone that likes the Hold Steady, anyway..

― poortheatre, Thursday, 26 April 2007 08:44 (eighteen years ago)

two years pass...

Their best-of-the-decade list is out.

― Nuyorican oatmeal (jaymc), Thursday, 19 November 2009 20:05 (sixteen years ago)

It looks like no r'n'b unless you count Justin Timberlake, and no token jazz, reggae, Afropop, country or other. Some good rock and rap selections though.

― curmudgeon, Friday, 20 November 2009 05:21 (sixteen years ago)

ya my theory is that the people who voted in that poll mostly like rock and rap music

― iatee, Friday, 20 November 2009 05:28 (sixteen years ago)

I love how some of these albums, The Coup's Party Music for instance, are only there because of Nathan Rabin

― killah priest, Friday, 20 November 2009 05:42 (sixteen years ago)

they have a decent interview with hall and oates this week

― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Friday, 20 November 2009 05:43 (sixteen years ago)

The Killers haven’t aged well—never has a band’s artistic development been so crippled by the decision to wear bolo ties—but that’s pretty ’80s, too. Still, we probably won’t fully appreciate the reach of Hot Fuss for another five years, when the generation of kids who drank, screwed, and did drugs for the first time to this record start forming bands and performing semi-ironic covers of “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine.”

The idea of bands like the Killers being "lol ironically awesome" so soon is campfire stories scary to me.

x-post

Hall and Oates are always doing interviews with sites like this it seems.

― Cunga, Friday, 20 November 2009 05:46 (sixteen years ago)

i'm sort of shocked that i've actually heard 20 of these 50 albums.

― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Friday, 20 November 2009 05:49 (sixteen years ago)

not that any of them are obscure, just that i've paid so little attention to rock music this decade.

― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Friday, 20 November 2009 05:50 (sixteen years ago)

I love how some of these albums, The Coup's Party Music for instance, are only there because of Nathan Rabin

― killah priest, Friday, November 20, 2009 12:42 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i've never heard that album or even met anyone that owns it but fwiw it placed 8th in Pazz & Jop its year of release

― dan me, perryhole (some dude), Friday, 20 November 2009 05:51 (sixteen years ago)

What I find funny is that there are so many albums I've heard out of order, or only pieces of, on an iPod or on a computer that I don't know if I can say I've really "heard it," in the traditional sense. But then how many non-great albums do you truly remember from beginning to end anyway?

― Cunga, Friday, 20 November 2009 05:54 (sixteen years ago)

White Blood Cells is starting to gain a consensus as the best rock album of the 2000s. That's as good a choice as any.

― kornrulez6969, Friday, 20 November 2009 06:11 (sixteen years ago)

much more interesting picks in their 'orphans' list: http://www.avclub.com/articles/music-the-orphans,35572/

― dan me, perryhole (some dude), Friday, 20 November 2009 06:46 (sixteen years ago)

i haven't really paid much attention to the site since they redesigned their front page to look like some sort of URL placeholder site or something. i mean i'm not a snob about these things but i just HATE browsing that ish.

― 311 is a joek (s1ocki), Friday, 20 November 2009 07:35 (sixteen years ago)

party music is a pretty dope album imo

― ice cr?m hand job (deej), Friday, 20 November 2009 07:48 (sixteen years ago)

YES

― Danny Duberstein (hmmmm), Friday, 20 November 2009 07:50 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xnTW-4SVeE

― ice cr?m hand job (deej), Friday, 20 November 2009 07:53 (sixteen years ago)

this track is a total subwoofer test

― ice cr?m hand job (deej), Friday, 20 November 2009 07:53 (sixteen years ago)

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