things that you read about music that make you absolutely sure you're never going to (intentionally) listen to whatever is being described

Anything that uses the word "twee"

i think mine could be pared down to the appearance of 'tambourine' and 'rape' in the same sentence

Anything eulogised over by L.Jagger

"subtle"

minimal: it might be okay, it's just that everyone who writes about it makes it sound terrible.

"midtempo"

i thought louis had written that actually

(tom xposts)

i think mine could be pared down to the appearance of 'tambourine' and 'rape' in the same sentence
Not even out of morbid curiosity?

For me... "Isis"

"emocore"

"post-Soft Bulletin Flaming Lips"

"Brian Wilson"

Death Cab For Cutie"

I agree with the last four.

"Amerindie electronica pop"

Krautrock-inspired

"Stately guitars" always refers to something utterly prosaic like Snow Patrol or something, where 'stately' actually means 'devoid of character, colour or rhythmic interest'.

agit-pop

i hate that phrase

The MP3 bloggers, they say "good old scuzzy, sweaty, overdriven rave and roll that will have any dancefloor going crazy". They mean "third rate Justice knockoff."

'four guys from *insert provincial town here*'

Pretty much everything listed above, plus almost everything Christgau raves about.

Christgau raves unto the joy fantastic.

"earnest"

"funky"

I was hoping this didnt devolve into single words or genre names, but actually, I think 'dirty' has become one for me

Anything that uses the word "twee"

OTM ^^^^^

Twee house?

Anything that gets compared to Radiohead. It's bound to be way shitter than Radiohead.

twee is a boring answer. people should aspire more to the hilarity of the tambourine and rape in the same sentence thing.

Agitpop (the band) was kinda okay for run of the mill early 80s indie stuff, kind of like a weird middleground between the minutemen and REM.

ha i had no idea there was a band with that name.

also, "precious"

it's more like "M.I.A. delivers a fiery brand of globe-trotting anti-capitalist agit-pop" that bothers me. the root word "agitprop" even bothers me too.

this is probably meant for the "critic-speak that annoys you thread" though - I've got nothing against MIA or her music and I have actually intentionally listened to it.

"Precious" possibly true, except for E. Bloom's quote about BOC circa '73 "Precious is not a word you would use for our image at this time".

"drummer for Gay Dad"

"One of Ned Raggett's favourite artists..."

"melodic"

... only kidding! (xp)

"Symphonic"

... about anything other than a symphony

... only kidding! (xp)

No, that's usually a good sign.

"NME-approved"

^^
Lord yes.

i've never even read NME and i know to give 'nme approved' bands a wide berth

"the craven sound of friend-fucking"

XXXX + XXXX on acid

' Hauntological'

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THAT'S RIGHT, YA BURNT
WE GOIN SIZZLER, WE GOIN SIZZLER

Nowt wrong with Sarah McLachlan as far as I can tell.

It's actually difficult to think of another area of relatively-well-known popular music where lazy thinking by critics is so entrenched as to be near-compulsory. At least people who do this about metal, R&B or hip hop tend to get called out more often.

x-post - anagram, I agree! At least w/r/t Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. I'm talking about how crit treats these artists generally.

Lol I kinda like Bat For Lashes but she really does sound like late 90s Tori Amos a lot.

It's denied only so crits can square their ilxor-like dilemma.

Not true. I personally hear a lot more Kate Bush, as well as goth-y stuff like Siouxsie and weird shit like Bjork, than I do Tori Amos of any era.

Plz listen to Tori's "Spark", "Siren", "Hotel", "Caught A Lite Sneeze" et. al. and report back. It's basically the exact same aesthetic plot of land.

otoh i doubt there's a Tori Amos that sounds like BFL's 'Two Planets'

I agree with Tim F. Natasha's constantly whining about how everyone compares her to Tori, but well... she kinda DOES blatantly rip T off. I've said it before, but "Pearl's Dream" is kinda Tori's "Raspberry Swirl" mixed with parts of "Girl."

You guys are nuts, I know all those Tori songs well enough and it's not a huge resemblance at all.

Not so huge as to make me dismiss Bat For Lashes as a facsimile, no, but certainly much greater than Kate Bush (?), Bjork (???) or Siouxsie (???????).

"epic"

Huh?

See thread title..... its a word that puts me off is all

I hear Kate Bush more than Tori.

"Stunning return to form"

From the BBC describing their tip for 2010 Ellie Goulding:

'"If Kate Bush, Bjork and Stevie Nicks shared a flat in trendy Shoreditch in 2010, this noise would emerge"'

:-(

lol

did they really say "trendy Shoreditch"

The worst thing about that sort of writing is that female musicians are always compared only to other female musicians. Apparently women musicians only listen to music by other women, and none of them have ever been influenced by a male musician. Also, the points of comparison tend to be as lazy and obvious as possible... She's a bit kooky and artsy? She's like Björk! She's introspective and plays the keyboards? Like Tori Amos! She's aggressive and brash? The new Courtney Love!

because quite obviously it's the job of a critic to say what a musician SOUNDS LIKE as opposed to what they're influenced by as we found out on the s.reynolds thread

and girls can only ever sound like other girls!

because all girls ever do is sing and look pretty on the album cover natch

presumably by the same token male musicians should be comparable to female musicians. that ain't gonna happen either.

The worst thing about that sort of writing is that female musicians are always compared only to other female musicians.

TBF though, are male muscians ever compared to female ones? This is at least part of the reason why Joni/ Laura Nyro/ Judee Sill are under- recognised in comparison to their male contemporaries because the influence is not acknowledged except on female musicians. We just don't notice because maleness remains the default location of creativity.

x-post

Well yeah, but there are like 85% more male musicians than female ones. So it's much more likely that a female musician has been influenced by male ones, yet no writer ever seems to think this is possible.

(x-post)

don't be ridiculous. female musicians never influenced anyone!

I still remember an interview with Mark Eitzel somewhere from years back where he talked about Joni Mitchell and how much he admired her and was influenced by her: and how unusual it seemed. Apart from the celebration by some gay male singers of Judy G, and her ilk, it's hard to think of other instances.

Todd Rundgren is quite clear about the influence Laura Nyro had on his music. There's a quote of his along the lines of "hearing Laura Nyro made me want to stop writing songs that sounded like The Who and writing ones that sounded like Laura."

Good one. Any more examples?

I dunno if anyone noticed the Judee Sill tribute album that came out a few months ago but it's about an equal gender split in terms of participants, which was mildly pleasing

i'd be hard pressed to think of techno/electronic producers worth their salt esp. in the early days who didn't namecheck delia derbyshire as a massive influence. the first place a load of british musicians heard electronic music in the first place being doctor who

Anything eulogised over by L.Jagger

― Tom D., Thursday, January 10, 2008 4:00 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

no offence like

Um, would yr average knobtwiddler outside of the UK have even seen Doctor Who let alone know about DD?

doctor who was widely broadcast in the us on pbs exactly the kind of geeky network that knob twiddlers would be likely to watch

I've never read any interview of an electronic musician where the musician (let alone the journalist) would namecheck Delia Derbyshire.

I'd always assumed the Doctor Who theme was one of those themes that was more famous than the programme itself - see also Miami Vice.

toumas have you ever read an interview with aphex twin or orbital just to name two off the top of my head?

or the klf?

The first two yes, KLF no.

I'd always assumed the Doctor Who theme was one of those themes that was more famous than the programme itself

Outside the UK, possibly. However the programme has always been very popular in the UK.

aphex twin loves delia derbyshire so much that he got his record label to release her back catalogue

p.s. i am not the aphex twin, just saying

it's about an equal gender split in terms of participants, which was mildly pleasing

Not sure I like the sound of that, or indeed of any Judee Sill song being sung by a man

pretty sure Derrick May was a Doctor Who fan - called his label Transmat

also he used to eat jelly babies and ponce around the streets of Detroit in a really long scarf

Not sure I like the sound of that, or indeed of any Judee Sill song being sung by a man

Don't see the problem personally - she wasn't innately focused on ~women's issues~ was she? - but it's not bad as these things go

I guess it's just that she inhabits those songs so totally that they sound like they're sung from a female point of view. I wouldn't be convinced by a man trying to impart the same thoughts and emotions.

OK let's see if I have this straight: judee sill shouldn't be compared to other women singers yet her songs can't be sung by men either.

Like a late-night jam involivng Johnny Cash, The Velvet Underground and The Everley Brothers at 3 in the morning, trying not to wake the neighbours, the songs all following the same lost-love theme.

And, presumably the same 2-chord structure. Kill me, just kill me please.

(though perhaps it was the "him out of Adorable and him out of House of Love" before it that tipped me over)

"A truly experimental and groundbreaking piece of avante gard art that completely recects the idea of melody and harmony".

garde even.

The album's also very sensual and not just because of the American Apparel-lite album cover.

"Sade but a bit more shy," or "Trip-hop intended for making love rather than fucking" kinda describes what's going on here.

a declaration to snarky ironists that there is nothing to be ashamed of with this sound.

(guess who)

gonna guess it's washed out

^^^^ otm

listened to it yesterday, finally

glad you made it out alive!