Pitchfork's silliest moment?

i'll admit i thought the intro was a bit formless too (see: cliche about poorly written high school essays inevitably starting with "since the dawn of time"), but i haven't gotten a chance to read the entire thing yet therefore my jury = out

it wd probably have been less irritating if the pitchforker had written "rock" rather than "rock'n'roll", but if you claiming that brits have no shaping input in "rock'n'roll" in say its post-1970 form, then yr just wrong

And I know we've had this "we thought of it first so nyah I'm taking my ball and going home!" sorta dialogue before - that's not really my point either. Obviously the Brit contribution to "rock n roll" begins with the British Invasion and subsequently extended way beyond that. But to say that rock n roll is a product of the British adapting black American blues styles is just... come on, it's wrong. You know it is. Otherwise, what do you call all the '50s music of Bill Haley and Ike Turner and Chuck Berry and Little Richard et al prior to the Brit Invasion circa 1963?

What blatant historical misrepresentation? How much does the rock music of today owe to Little Richard, Chubby Checker and Chuck Berry as opposed to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Sex Pistols?

Also, Harold Bloom to thread!

OK I still haven't read any of the rest of this review and I didn't realise I was jumping in to defend "our kid" who I think can make a much better job of defending himself (and also of beating himself up, if true to form). I just thought, if you're going to jump on a claim as world-historically stupid and lazy writing, then you should at least read it properly first.

Haha hush clover

I think I know what he was *trying* to say (let's give him the benefit of the doubt), but even so, because its worded so awkwardly, how can I be sure? Is he referring to music "since" rock n roll (which would make his claim slightly more valid), or is he referring to rock n roll itself (in which case he's obviously wrong)? If you break down the grammar of the sentence, it just doesn't work. Which is something an editor should catch.

"How much does the rock music of today owe to Little Richard, Chubby Checker and Chuck Berry as opposed to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Sex Pistols? "

Are you fucking kidding me? Maybe you should backtrack that sentence and think about what the Rolling Stones and the Beatles owe to Chuck Berry... or maybe you should consider how much someone like, oh, say, current media wet dream the White Stripes, owes to black, AMERICAN blues-rock roots. Or how much any garage revival act owes to the old-school of American rock. As for the Sex Pistols - where do you think punk got its goddamn backbeat from? Is it that difficult to draw a line from the Pistols' covering Roadrunner to Jonathan Richman's Chuck Berry riffs? All those Red Hot Chili Peppers records must be plugging those ears of yours...

hey dan, put those chilli peppers records, you fake black man!

now go and read dan's post again properly

agreed. how painfully self-reflexive was THAT thing?

Maybe you should backtrack that sentence and think about what the Rolling Stones and the Beatles owe to Chuck Berry...

This goes double for music since 'rock and roll,' a form shaped mainly by British kids trying to channel the African-American south

It's a very novel approach to restate an argument in slightly different terms and then use it to attack the person who made it in the first place. Fuck off.

Holy wizard's caps, Batman!

uk garaage? wuzzat??

This goes double for music since 'rock and roll,' a form shaped mainly by British kids trying to channel the African-American south

It's a very novel approach to restate an argument in slightly different terms and then use it to attack the person who made it in the first place."

I'm not restating his "argument" (if you can call lack of clarity an argument), I was responding to your argument that all those moldy oldies don't have any bearing on the "rock" music of today - which they clearly do, if you properly trace the history of it. Obviously Brits are involved - clearly the phenomenon of Brits adapting the blues is significant - but it is not what "mainly shaped" the form. That's a misrepresentation. The form was already pretty well shaped before the Brits got it. I think the review improperly places the emphasis on the Brits recycling black America, which is a perspective that discounts vast sections of the rock "canon" (eg, the ILM-hated Dylan, Velvets, Beach Boys, etc.)

(also cf. "Smoke" by Cornelius for a different DFA feel)

Thank you, ninja of the obvious.

ILM hates the Velvets and Beach Boys? OK........

Okay, I was making a leap of faith there that anything regarded as the "traditional rock canon" is routinely derided by numerous ILM denizens, just seems to be the pattern.

"I'll pretty much guarantee you that you can't take Chuck Berry-style rock and come up with something like Green Day without taking into account The Rolling Stones and The Sex Pistols."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me your point with these statements is to place a primacy on the influence (*gasp* I know, forbidden concept) of the Brits as opposed to the Americans in this equation. Simply because you couldn't get to, say, Green Day via Buddy Holly without taking into account someone like the Buzzcocks.

Whereas I would say the American roots are more important in "shaping" rock and roll because they were first. I place a higher historical import on what is older. Although if you take this argument to its extreme, you would end up saying the first cro-magnon man who banged a rock has had more of an impact on modern music than the Beatles, which... hmm, well, waitaminit, maybe that is true...

If you were going through Billy Joe's CD collection, would you be more surprised to find stuff by The Fall, The Sex Pistols and The Buzzcocks or Richie Valens, Buffy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis?

Okay, so the Offspring's percussion is inventive enough for the album to be erroneously labeled as 'rock' in the critic's bible All Music Guide.

AMG def. of electronica: "A suitably vague term used to describe the emergence of electronic dance music increasingly geared to listening instead of strictly dancing... The word was later appropriated by the American press as an easy catch-all for practically any young artist using electronic equipment and/or instruments... Electronica serves to describe techno-based music that can be used for home listening as well as on the dance floor (since many electronica artists are club DJs as well)."

Anyway I agree that yes, it would have been a lot clearer of me to say "rock" as opposed to "rock and roll." Although if we want to get so terribly Talmudic about it then this "rock and roll" thing doesn't exist anyway, Chuck Berry et al being more "rock 'n' roll." I really don't think it's worth parsing so carefully, though. The sentence wasn't meant to say anything about the quality or worth of any of the stuff it refers to, and if you're reading it that way it's probably just the fault of shoddy last-minute syntax. My only point, which Gris Gris has agreed with repeatedly, is that these days our basic common-knowledge perception of what "rock" is was shaped and molded mainly by British kids who thought Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters were way cool and wanted to do something in the same spirit. I would hope that how that functions in the article is pretty obvious: that lots of perfectly wonderful and worthwhile things come out of someone idolizing something else that they're not able to "actually" be a part of, often because it went on a long time ago.

But yeah, sorry, read "rock" for "rock and roll," terribly silly of me.

Shh! You're ruining it!

hstencil = defying expectations since 1975.

Not that I mind the publicity or the excuse to talk about myself!

The Streets' percussion is inventive enough for the album to be erroneously labeled as 'electronica' in the critic's bible All Music Guide

a-fucking-hem. could someone please tell this guy that (a) Skinner's beats are directly descended as much from 2step garage asifnotmorethan hip-hop and (b) his vocal style is as much post-ragga/jungle/2step MC patter as hip-hop storytelling? I was waiting for someone to commit these falsehoods to print, and it would figure that it's Pitchfork....

Much better! I blame your editor.

I'm aware of the difference you're talking about, but surely the two approaches have a close relation (or close enough that I'm not too surprised that the review would read that way).

An old Japanese man walking along sees another man, dressed in black, holding a twig in front of him. The twig has only a few puny leaves on it. The old Japanese man sighs in exasperation...
Old Japanese Man: "Well, I've heard of 'hiding in plain sight, Hidioshi...but you're sticking out like a sore thumb...."
Hidioshi, Ninja of the Obvious: "There are no ninjas here. I am a shrub. Move along please."

I'm posting this cuz "Super Secret" amuses me, but construe it however you wish.

Ha what is sort of funny though is that I half-agree with him but for all the wrong reasons - I love the Skinner's grooves because of their frequently blockish, crude takes on garage (eg. "Same Old Thing", "Too Much Brandy"), not because of their "metallic" take on hip hop.

There were just too many things wrong with that review too hate it - I'd be tempted to send a sympathetic letter and a garage comp. to the writer if I thought he'd actually listen to it.

A highly valued reminder of the need for traditionalism in modern music, Hope stands strong as one of the year's best records.

ps. it's the first bit that troubles me.