the elite gymnastics thread

idk if the song isnt actually intended to represent a woman's POV then the argument is wrong inherently right?

if female critics are reacting a certain way to a song about rape culture written by a man, the inherent problem is with the song, not the interpretations

except that some female critics are not interpreting it that way, and the artist is maintaining that he was not writing from the POV of a woman.

It might be a failure of communication if this type of misunderstanding is happening, because an artist shouldnt have to explain his piece in a tumblr post. But you don't think that the artist's intent matters at all?

except that some female critics are not interpreting it that way

every female critic i've seen writing about this w/ the exception of pelly has had a problem with the song

that said, i don't think artists are owed correct interpretations of their songs by the general public. obviously for critics, interpreting something "correctly" is important but there's a strength in numbers thing here imo, especially when we're talking about how women are hearing a song written by a man about rape culture and the patriarchy.

if you're an artist, it matters if your execution is so clumsy that your true intent becomes muddled

you're talking 'strength in numbers' off the myopic world of a few writers and twitter friends. that isnt representative.

clumsy execution is totally correct—i think the song sucks & don't want to waste time defending it. But blatantly misinterpreting a song as being written from a woman's POV when the artist is saying explicitly that it wasn't is jumping to a conclusion that doesn't seem to have an apparent basis.

this spring i was djing at a cool bar here and while i was setting up, before the bar had gotten very busy, the female bartender and her bf were gossiping about this dude that they (and i) knew whos a reasonably successful visual artist. he had just been arrested for beating up his gf and the way they were talking about it was intensely gross, blaming her for instigating the violence and expressing incredulity that she would ever press charges 'why does she want to ruin his life' all this stuff. and like, i feel like i hear stuff like that too frequently from ostensibly progressive people in art/music circles, like theres a p pervasive misogyny which whiney kinda jokingly points out, and that jb has spoken out against on his tumblr. and so i kinda read 'on fraternity' as being about like post-hipster culture and not 'rape culture' explicitly, or how the two interact or something.

and im not really sure how as a dude you would talk about that or make songs or w/e about it because being like 'this is something i've noticed, and i find it really upsetting' risks seeming condescending or worse, and so i admire jb for risking that, although all his explanations have been sort of embarrassing and sad. like i think the only real response to that first tumblr is just 'ok', because that seems like an obv reaction for some women to have, and it was offered with such a shrug in the first place. and the misogyny that exists in these circles is something that i find upsetting, that bothers me, that i would appreciate people talking about and arguing over. idk

also i wish the song was actually good, i think it would get a lot more slack if that were the case

you're talking 'strength in numbers' off the myopic world of a few writers and twitter friends. that isnt representative.

who exactly do you think is the audience for dead girlfriends?

at a certain point, a reality has to set in, which is that someone misinterpreted a lyric as if it was trying to do something it expressly was not trying to do.

that may be a failure of the artist, but it is not the particular failure the critics are pointing to.

well i think this is a unique case because of the subject matter of the song, where he's writing about such a sensitive topic that "misinterpretations" are his burden and not that of (female) critics

contrast this with something like "blurred lines," where some writers latched onto a few phrases and extrapolated out wildly to a conclusion that was incorrect.

i guess it's sort of noble for him to even approach the topic but if you're gonna do it you better nail it

But you don't think that the artist's intent matters at all?

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:54 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

youve been a music crit long enough deej to know that this is a perfectly valid position to take

It is not valid inasmuch as it directly contradicts the criticism being leveled at the artist

say more?

remove bookmark until conversation is about cool lil songs

I’m so tired of people jumping on every possible controversy they can conjure because they need web traffic.

Grimes tumblr otm

https://twitter.com/elite_gz/status/363402960954339328

link to the site he's talking about?

good point. here you go: http://www.spin.com/articles/dead-girlfriends-on-fraternity-controversy-grimes-fugazi/

That's a good discussion, they're not just all dumping on him. controversy's good for yr career, James!

if i was a woman i would think chillwave hates me

― Does the RS Tsarnaev Cover Offend You, Yeah? (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, July 29, 2013 11:00 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

thanking u

Wait was that tweet actually the petulant bs it reads like? Jesus Christ dude you are so lucky* to have their thoughtful attention.

*privileged

women, man. can't they just listen to a guy who's trying to help

haha yeah I love how this guy follows up his weak garbled male appropriation of women's experiences by asking "why do I have no voice in this discussion?" to a group of women who have actual insightful things to say

maybe we should send him a link to our "death of the author" discussion so he gets that interpretation doesn't mean the lyricist telling you exactly what the lyrics are supposed to mean

obviously cant speak for the guy (of whose music i am a big fan so, idk, im biased i guess!) but the post he made immediately after the first 'wave' of controversy more or less seemed to imply that the song was about his own experience of (being) sexual(ly) assault(ed). he didnt come out and say that, so if youre really cynical maybe you assume hes just trying to imply that, or hes trying to weasel out or whatever. but id be wary at least for now of saying hes appropriating womens experiences.

other than that, idk, i have nothing to say really besides, huh.

I liked the noisy bit

http://defaultgenders.tumblr.com/post/57247050954/name-change

In two weeks: PostHuman

Two weeks after that: "Surprise! I was Hugo Schwyzer all along!"

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121031153246/community-sitcom/images/1/1a/Human_Being.jpeg

I'm glad he changed the name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAocvKHUidg

http://www.spin.com/articles/default-genders-james-brooks-on-fraternity-controversy-response/

this guy and grimes are frustrating because they're on point a lot of the time and obviously have a lot of shit to say, much of which is really important and timely, but when i read their tumblr posts they're so rambling and ill-thought-through (or overthought) and when i listen to their music i just want to turn it off because it str8-up sucks so much (elite gymnastics even more than grimes b/c i hear nothing of note going on there at all)

^ otm

they're too tumblr-y for me.

irl kmt @

There's lot of stuff that maybe when I'm 60 and I don't give a shit, I'll write the Tumblr post to end all Tumblr posts and completely out everybody

the Tumblr post to end all Tumblr posts
the Tumblr post to end all Tumblr posts
the Tumblr post to end all Tumblr posts
the Tumblr post to end all Tumblr posts
the Tumblr post to end all Tumblr posts

That would just be a self-reblogged selfie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbling_%28gymnastics%29

haha he seems so sure that Tumblr will still be everywhere in the 2040s or w/e

I'll send you a telegraph

guess dude was too young for geocities

seems like people aren't really trying to give this guy any benefit of the doubt because stuff like this i think comes off pretty well:

And so, "On Fraternity" — it's called "On Fraternity." I don't want women to hear it and not be able to relate to it. I don't want to tell any of the women who are listening to it that your reaction to it, positive or negative, is not valid. But the purpose of "On Fraternity," in the context of the EP especially, is to call out my male peers for creating a situation where other people are victimized. I totally failed to do that. I guess if there was any reaction I was expecting, it was that the people, especially in the music industry, who are doing this stuff that's upsetting me would have a problem with it.

How else could it be framed?
Even just singing about the rape experience, that's another weird thing that's hard to talk about. Obviously women are much more vulnerable, and it's perpetrated against them much more than other demographics, but the rape experience doesn't belong to women. It's my place as a survivor of sexual assault to sing about that if I want to. I don't want to make that a big issue, because the point of "On Fraternity," like I said before, was to call out other men for creating a situation where victimization is enabled, and the silence that allows victimizers to run around and act with impunity is also something that my peers in the music industry perpetuate. So I don't want to make it about me, like, "Oh, it's about my rape experience." But it's not like I wrote those lines from a place of complete ignorance. The fact that so many people assumed that, based on my race and my gender or whatever minimal biographic information people know about me? That was the roughest part of it.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/b77f4dab70a2db5a61a486363c0cd0c5/tumblr_mprff1dVGa1r67k03o1_500.jpg

I didn't like his last few singles, but the new Default Genders album is okay imo: http://magicalpessimism.bandcamp.com/album/magical-pessimism-2014

Last year he posted about making a conscious decision to place his vocals higher in the mix and not process them as much, but I think that was a mistake cause his voice sounds like fucking Owl City to me lol

'on fraternity' is probably the only good indie rock song in years

i actually blieve that

wasn't sure if I should bump this one or start a new thread, but the new Default Genders is really doing it for me. Springsteen + breakbeats is something I never knew I needed. I also want way more music that uses Air France/Sincerely Yours stuff as a jumping off point and ends up somewhere else entirely.

https://magicalpessimism.bandcamp.com/album/main-pop-girl-2019

^yeah that's so good. early aoty contender for me tbh.

I'm bad at articulating my thoughts on music (and I mostly lurk here as a result), but I feel like this is really special.

It is actually an amazing album. It reminds me of The Russian Futurists except with the best lyrics I've ever heard