klosterman at it again!

examining how punk and disco have swapped in terms of their cultural and political impact could've made for a pretty interesting piece, instead of burying that point in a dumb thought experiment.

no wonder he and Bill Simmons get on so well, I could totally see Simmons drawing out this kind of tortured thinking to conclude that in 300 years the only basketball player anyone will remember is Bill Russell.

ha yeah and the way they largely populated Grantland with their "intellectual" heirs...

this is the dullest story I've read all year. When I got to reading the Beatles portion the grass outside the building started to die.

Did I daydream it, or is there a point where he claims the same people who were claiming "disco sucks" were into Daft Punk?

Lol, Alfred.

disco has almost totally been rehabilitated.

Klosterman's a typist, not a writer.

Man, Chuck and SFJ both back in the "New Answers" queue. Now we just need a reason to revive the DeRo thread.

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/a2fcd4ee-e9bc-4a22-b661-cc884121ad86.jpg?width=206&height=206&mode=FILL&threshold=0

"Let's do this!"

i remember reading one piece by him where he said that he and his roommate in college never went in their kitchen but just threw garbage in there from the living area. so it was just a giant trash pit. the worst part of this story was that i didn't believe it; it was clearly part of his branding

― Treeship, Tuesday, May 24, 2016 8:38 AM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"the kitchen" here is a metaphor for chuck k's critical lens

“Right now, electronic dance music probably outsells hip‑hop. This is identical to the punk‑versus‑disco trade‑off of the 1970s. My prediction: edgy hip‑hop music will win the fame game in the long run, while E.D.M. will be seen as another mindless dance craze.”

What.

probably, not sure if there's a way to tell

The fact that Dylan does not have a conventionally “good” singing voice becomes retrospective proof that rock audiences prioritized substance over style

yes what could be less stylish than bob dylan's singing voice, a put-on of a put-on in which every other syllable is emphasized into a wail

also you could (probably) cut any fuck klusterman piece in half by just excising all the places where he (might) concede that everything he's saying (may be) unsupported bullshit

ok, it's a weakness of mine. i had to know: is there anyone who really thinks that sousa's ubiquity comes at the expense of lesser known, greater talents? is anybody out there championing any of the other american march composers?

and of course there is! jeff yaeger would like to tell you ALL ABOUT how james m. fulton has been unfairly forgotten by history, and to rectify this oversight he's put together a band and recorded NINE VOLUMES of his marches, all sight-read with no rehearsal, for the sake of "authenticity". you can listen to them all on his website at www.forgottenamericanmusic.com! he should start hanging out with klosterman. i think they'd get along great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsTZ0eFJMLY

haha, Brad. I was tempted to post the exact same clip.

Mind numbing. It reads like a prison letter from the guy who no one wants to be pen pals with.

well reading this was incredibly satisfying:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/books/review/chuck-klosterman-but-what-if-were-wrong.html

say what you will about his nonexistent intellect and awful prose, klosterman writing a book posited on the theory that everyone is a dumbass is an incredibly canny move

Nice kicker at the end of that.

so this is like an expanded version of that horrible thing he wrote about tune-yards, where he was weirdly concerned with how our future selves would feel about the music?

lol :(

chuck is so bad that, if someone wants me to explain why he's terrible, i'd just rather not

in a certain way, he reminds me of alain de botton

The Facebook algorithm is advertising Klosterman’s new novel to me. It says the book is “wise and funny,” and I’m like, are we talking about the same guy?

He could arguably be funny now and then, but the "wise" part clearly has him confused with another Klosterman.

Gotta say, love him or hate him, ol Klosty's house style is key to surviving as a culture writer in 2021.

What would you even call it? Kind of a folksy Gen X Ted Talk vibe?