Best Music Criticism of the 2000s

I've seen a bunch of threads of the type "best ______ of the 2000s," but somewhat surprisingly I haven't seen a thread dedicated to the best music criticism of the 200s.* So, feel free to discuss and post links (if available) to some of your favorite pieces from the decade, addressing anything having to do with any aspect of music.

I'll start:

Erik Davis, "Nearer the Heart of Things" (Arthur Magazine, No. 25)
http://www.arthurmag.com/2006/12/23/nearer-the-heart-of-things-erik-davis-on-joanna-newsom-from-arthur-no-25winter-02006/
-- Davis on Joanna Newsom right around the time Ys came out. An excellent example of how music criticism itself can be art.

Nick Southall, "Imperfect Sound Forever" (Stylus Magazine, 2006/05/01)
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/imperfect-sound-forever.htm
-- Southall on the "loudness" wars in music production, and why so many records from the past twenty years sound horrible.

* I already searched to see if this thread has been done, but I couldn't find anything. If there's already a similar thread out there, feel free to bury this one.

That would be "the best music criticism of the 2000s," not 200s.

Didn't have the same admiration for Davis's piece, though I know you're not alone in your affection.

Carl Wilson's Let's Talk About Love book for 33 1/3 definitely qualifies.

John Darnielle's Amnesiac series for Last Plane To Jakarta.

Plan B magazine's Dan Deacon cover story this year.

Bloggy stuff is faster to go in one pair of eyes and out the other, I find - lots of amazing things but hard to remember!

Yeah, almost too much out there to recall. Excellent choices so far!

Also from the 33 1/3 series: Amanda Petrusich on Nick Drake's Pink Moon and John Darnielle on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality.

I wasn't even thinking of books when I started this thread, but there are a bunch of great ones: Simon Reynolds's Rip It Up and Start Again, Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, and The Pitchfork 500.

John Darnielle's Amnesiac series for Last Plane To Jakarta.

<3

Mark Prindle's Miles Davis reviews, including the reader comments.

Robert Forster's piece from Australia's The Monthly on Dylan.

Douglas Wolk's piece from The Believer on The Fall.

Drew Daniel's TG book.

Scott Seward's Caina review for Decibel, which is no longer on the web.

dave q on The Clash and Joy Division vs Flipper.

sinker on Joan Jett.

Kulkarni.

padgett's baltimore city paper review of the lil wayne/birdman album

http://www.citypaper.com/arts/review.asp?rid=11175

Really? The best of the decade on that review?

Yes indeed.

And speaking of Yes, Dave Q on same ranks up there.

Hmm, alright then. That Dave Q. one is great though.

padgett's baltimore city paper review of the lil wayne/birdman album

Wooooooooow.

Da Capo needs to get on that shit imo, it's a classic review

loooolz

Oh man I haven't looked at that Yes piece in ages. I'm so fucking happy about that one still.

"Don't Kill the Whale" would be remembered only as the fifth-best Disco-Sucks-disco (Dahldisco?) record ever (after "Miss You," "Another One Bites the Dust," "I Was Made for Lovin' You," and Don Felder's "Heavy Metal") if not for Rick Wakeman's surrealist/intoxicated subversion of the material.

tonnes of penis jokes in that like father like son review.

A rapper with this much spunk coming out his mouth doesn't need to spend any more time boning up on his skills or trying to impress people with his stamina ... to the point that Birdman often gets the shaft ... And he'll still bend over backward for a hot line, fleshing out his long narrative arcs with violent thrusts ... Wayne dishes out the white stuff uncut on the crack rap of "Over Here Hustlin," while Birdman goes harder than ever on "Leather so Soft" before cocking and squeezing on "Army Gunz."

but uh, why exactly do you find this review so good? i'm curious.

wait, what? penis jokes? uh... project much?

The entire Freaky Trigger Popular series

oh weird...yeah i guess if you read that birdman review from a certain perspective you could read a lot of homoerotic imagery into it....

it's almost as though it's intentional

Really? I didn't notice. Just seemed like a positive review of a solid 12-inch to me.

not a 12" NV, a long player

Oh sorry, I cocked up there.

its ok, weve all had weird stuff come out of our mouths

the main thrust of the piece, when you get to the bottom of it, is really tight

I know nothing about Lil Wayne. Is he rumoured to be in the closet? unusually homophobic?
Who's the joke on?

guys is it true that birdman is secretly made of bird corpses like a young money frankenstein

it is true, yes

Just seemed like a positive review of a solid 12-inch cock to me.

― General Pubic (Noodle Vague), Thursday, July 23, 2009 3:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can someone ban this vulgar reprobate... enough with the dirty dick jokes

OK, it was pretty clever stuff, It's not that I mind the odd gay reference, It just felt like he was ramming it down our throats by the end.

yeah don't beat me over the head with it

You guys, can we stop gushing all over this review now?

Nah, you gotta make sure it sticks with you.

I'm just tired of having it thrust in my face repeatedly, you know?

i don't know, frankly i'm just not swallowing the argument that this article was intentionally homoerotic

haha, anyway, to get this thread slightly back on track, I think that Frere Jones's Arthur Russell piece is great http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/03/08/040308crmu_music I know SFJ is a controversial figure round these parts, and I definitely don't like everything he writes, but this one is a keeper. (no double entendres in there, right? phew! thought i was going to cock up and blow it)

I think SFJ has written some (deliberately) controversial pieces, but I don't think there is any doubt that he's a very good writer.

yeah -- i think I just wish sometimes that he wasn't writing for the New Yorker. It's sort of a weird audience he's trying to write for, I think, sometimes over-explaining things, sometimes under-explaining them. But since we're on the New Yorker tip, has anyone mentioned The Rest Is Noise here? Best book on music I've read this decade, I think.

more like SFGay

Sasha Frere Bones right?

the only thing i have read by sasha frere jones were the new yorker animal collective and bon iver speads, which were just usual fine and boring, and this which is pretty awful. not even because i disagree with what is being said, but just a silly way of proving a really obvious point (indie rock is not groovy).

Rockcritics.com's Rockcritics Music Blogger Symposium from October 2007, where five music critics discussed the state of the music blogosphere, was excellent. Wish there were more pieces like that one!

Thanks, Kevin. The SY bit is a piece from City Pages. (http://www.citypages.com/2004-07-28/music/building-nothing-out-of-something/)

And I wouldn't even know where first to guide someone with his ILM posts.

You've got some good ones there, Kevin -- feel free to rummage through my fanpage, though. The ILX section relies on older, no longer valid URLs so I should get around to that; however, the thread titles can be searched for.

Oh, and thanks for the mention, Kev!

Over in this thread (Most ridiculous "news" item on Pitchfork regarding the horribly overhyped crapfest known as Wavves), we've been talking a little about P4K, so I wanted to know what sites people think produced some of the best rock criticism of the 2000s.

For me, it's definitely Pitchfork and Stylus (RIP).

As I said in that other thread re P4K:

There is no better website out there that covers the indie music sphere than Pitchfork right now. Period. And that's not to say Pitchfork does a slightly less shitty job than all of the other shitty sites out there, no: Pitchfork has, for the most part, relevant news & tour updates, excellent record reviews, and well-researched and thoughtful features.

As far as Stylus goes, if you haven't read it, check out the archives immediately: www.stylusmagazine.com

Almost two years later, and nothing has emerged that has even come close to attaining the greatness that was Stylus.

For blogs, it'd have to be Simon Reynolds's Blissblog (http://blissout.blogspot.com) and Idolator circa 2008.

I'd say I probably get my info from a combination of Pitchfork/The Wire/Here/Blogs

Blogs I'm currently really digging on are Disco Horror/5starHipHop/TheStaticFanatic/Beat Electric/20jfg

The writing on 20jfg is really annoying

I know, right?: Is The Wire worth subscribing to? Unfortunately, because I live in the US, it's like $10/$11 dollars per issue newstand...

And thanks for the blog titles - I'm going to check those out!

i liked nick sylvester's piece & dont get the h8. Its not some shit id rank as BEST MUSIC WRITING ... EVER but i dont get why ppl on here were so hurt in the butt about it.

I subscribe. I quit for a while, but I ended up buying enough issues that I decided it was worth it to do it again (esp. cuz the pound got weaker--although it's back up a little bit since then.)

How could I forgot Marooned?

http://books.google.com/books?id=FhGhMWOQk-MC&lpg=RA1-PA153&ots=sU4G52dgj9&dq=john%20darnielle%20marooned&pg=RA1-PA153#v=onepage&q=john%20darnielle%20marooned&f=false

The first ILX book not published on cafepress!

*forget

I subscribed to the wire for a year once, and by the end, I felt a bit like "why are they still sending me this," but I can be pretty faddy and go through phases with things pretty easily, still, this last year I've bought it off the newsstand and woulda saved a bunch if I hadn't (also, they send you some pretty kickass cds you can't get otherwise) I think they're the only place that covers what they cover that you can take with you on the bus (I do a good bit of travelling and I don't like taking the laptop with me so a little light non-internet reading is v. imp) I dunno, YMMV, but in the last year the big names in Electronic Music they've had on their covers have consistently enticed me to buy, more so than back when it was all Phil Minton.

Disco Horror is written by ilxors I think and has been consistently awesome lately. Also, the R. Kelly piece John D did that started out as an ILM thread is A+!

http://lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/ignition.html

thanks ikr!

hey no prob, Tokyo disco scene = unexpected greatness imo

and thank u

What Was It Anyway?, which unfortunately closed its doors in January after a short, one-year run.

You are quite the Stylus stan, aren't you? Next thing I know you'll be telling me you're cwperry or meatbreak.

nothin wrong with a little stannin

Yeah, I am jaymc! Unfortunately, I'm not associated with Stylus. Back in the day, I was an avid reader and am still just a huge, huge fan with massive respect for everything the site accomplished.

I don't mind the groupies.

Hahahaha! Thanks, Alfred!

Again, interviews might not be "rock criticism" strictly speaking, but this one is excellent and deserves to be in this thread.

THE WIRE interviews Burial (2007): http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/347/

They also have a Joanna Newsom interview I recall liking a lot: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/56/

Ott on The Decemberists in the VV: http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-11-07/music/taynted-love/

Not one of the best pieces of the decade, but it deserves to be here for the shitstorm it caused.

Nabisco's review of Vampire Weekend for P4K, which is both OTM and a sterling example of what a good record review should look like: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11058-vampire-weekend/

lol maybe you should just cough up for the subscription.

I should probably just link to Pitchfork, Stylus, and then stop posting for a few years, right? This is what happens when you are young and know relatively little about any music that wouldn't be classified as indie. Ah, well.

I bought a record by The Focus Group the other week. Would that enable me to do anything beyond becoming a lowest-tier member of Dissensus?

It will get better, promise! I will find something weirder than Grizzly Bear to discuss with y'all eventually.

dude, i'm pretty sure that you can stan for whatever you like on this thing and as long as you believe what you're saying and make an effort to get across what you mean, then ppl will not look down on whatever you like. Broadening your taste is great, but don't fall into the indie guilt trap if you really like it.

Hahaha, this is what I was just going to post:

And I may be an indie kid, but dammit I care about this shit, and I care about rock crit! :-)

: )

Hate to be a hater, but when did this thread turn into the opposite of what it's called?

chris ott's decemberists piece is akin to some tmaz dbag chasing after a c-list celeb on sunset blvd with a video camera, baiting him until he snaps and then turning it into a "get"

tmz*

this thread is kind of adorable.

o_O

chris ott, more like chris "Over The Top," am i right?

more like chris NOT.

musta notta gotta otta

Kogan on barr (so glad he reposted this):
http://koganbot.livejournal.com/154851.html

Came right when I just about stopped caring about new music or music criticism, and sums up that feeling of loss perfectly.

(and sums up how i feel about this thread too, actually)

How did you start caring about new music/criticism again?

That Kogan blurb IS great. I'm usually pretty skeptical of criticism that flies into poetics like that, but he executed it so well.

The Creations of Sound

If the poetry of X was music,
So that it came to him of its own,
Without understanding, out of the wall

Or in the ceiling, in sounds not chosen,
Or chosen quickly, in a freedom
That was their element, we should not know

That X is an obstruction, a man
Too exactly himself, and that there are words
Better without an author, without a poet,

Or having a separate author, a different poet,
An accretion from ourselves, intelligent
Beyond intelligence, an artificial man

A distance, a secondary expositor,
A being of sound, whom one does not approach
Through any exaggeration. From him, we collect.

Tell X that speech is not dirty silence
Clarified. It is silence made dirtier.
It is more than an imitation for the ear.

He lacks this venerable complication.
His poems are not of the second part of life.
They do not make the visible a little hard

To see nor, reverberating, eke out the mind
On peculiar horns, themselves eked out
By the spontaneous particulars of sound.

We do not say ourselves like that in poems.
We say ourselves in syllables that rise
From the floor, rising in speech we do not speak.

kshighway: i didn't.

Wallace Stevens, rip.

The whole song pivots on these four words, teetering momentarily, then shifting irrevocably. For what Reed has just said is that “other peoples they have to work.” So when he says “Just watch me now,” what we are invited to watch is the singer at work. But wait a minute! It seemed a second ago that it was Jack and Jane who had to work, while the singer was part of the group that went out dancing. Reed has effectively just dropped the veil he was hiding behind. Up till this point Reed has gone to every extreme imaginable to give us the impression he was playing, extemporizing, involved in nothing more than casual conversation — now, suddenly, he lets us know that there is an underlying structure and intent, that this has been a performance. These four words also focus attention on the work he is about to do, again revealing that he has a destination in mind, that he knows what is coming next, that this is more than idle conversation.

He says "Other people like us, we gotta work." The song never implies that the singer is part of the group that goes out dancing.

As evidenced later in his career by the I Love You Suzanne video.