Any reason why ILM is so quiet these days?

I think ILM lost some of its utility, through no fault of its own, as the wider music world grew more tolerant of niche interests and dissenting opinions. I joined in 2009 because this was the only community where critics seemed really into R&B. Nowadays even NPR covers it. Similarly you can easily find pockets of critics into emo, boy bands, Steely Dan, etc on Twitter or elsewhere. We're able to have the conversations we used to have to come here for elsewhere.

steely dan are not as bad as hitler, i will give you that.

van the man and dan with can and max sharam

Scott- Growing up, most music coverage I looked at was uk publications and BBC shows which despite Mojo and Uncut's holy canon of acceptable dadrock, the scathing hatred towards lots of older rock used to seem like it was everywhere. Seems kind of nightmarish in retrospect.
I think some people still carry the consensus from an earlier time because they didn't read in the places where the shifts happened.

I used my real name to get work. Totally worked too.

― scott seward, Wednesday, February 8, 2017 9:47 AM (one hour ago)

I figured I was the only person in the world with my name (still seems to be the case), and I'd been just posting as me since 1993 on Usenet so hey. Guess it helped!

if any given ilm thread runs long enough will it eventually be about steely dan

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Wednesday, February 8, 2017 12:12 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or R@di0h3@d

Also:

chest hair histrionics

This should be the new fake genre reclaiming. The modern 'junkshop glam' et al.

What does the name "Raggett" mean?

R is for relish, you seek a challenge.

A is for able, for you surely are.

G is for genial, a pleasing personality.

G is for golden, memories you share.

E is for extra, those little things you do!

T is for treasure, of your friendship.

T is for treasure, of your friendship.

http://www.names.org/n/raggett/about

chest hair histrionics
This should be the new fake genre reclaiming. The modern 'junkshop glam' et al.

― Ned Raggett

finders keepers already did this in 2012!

i was listening to the famous kim carnes album the other day because i had an MFSL pressing of it and i wanted to hear Bette Davis Eyes in sparkling audiophile sound and i kept listening to it and i thought wow this is better than a lot of later rod stewart albums probably and i thought that there must be an ILX In Praise Of...Mistaken Identity and then i looked and saw that kim carnes has FOURTEEN albums and i had a vision of a future ILX thread devoted to listening to all `14 of them. then i played something else. #ILXTHINKING

pretty sure I tried do start a Carnes conversation once; pretty sure I'm responsible for every Carnes thread.

finders keepers already did this in 2012!

Then it is time for the ironic revival.

wait, i'm confused. dickhole dads who hate steely dan in real life or here? i thought they were dad rock.

I like that Dad Rock is a constant no matter how many years pass. Dads these days were in college in the 90s or 00s. Dad Rock is Radiohead and Arcade Fire.

dying @ the Ned's name post.

i love you all

Because I don't use it & don't see the functional purpose

Because it's way easier to put on a playlist of songs at work while reading a rolling thread than it is to click individual youtube links.

dying @ the Ned's name post.

Double the treasure seems apt, really.

I was thinking of stuff i had written over the years for various ILXors - I never gave Matos a really good review, I still feel kinda bad about that - and I remembered something I had written for Whiney TEN years ago when he had a music website. I always liked it. AND it predicts the rise of Trumpism! I'm a prophet.

Defcon 4

You ever see the movie Defcon 4? Yeah, me neither. Or wait, did I? Eh, probably. Who knows anymore. I’m so jaded when it comes to kitschy apocalyptica. And my memory is poor. And I’ve seen a million movies. Today at work I was emptying one of those big outdoor ashtrays. You know the ones. A Rubbermaid. Jesus, Rubbermaid, there’s a movie for you. Thousands of Ohioans living and dead could tell the whole dirty story while gritting their teeth at the memory of the loss and the misplaced pride. What, like the end of the world hasn’t actually come yet? You need futuristic neon dystopias to tell the tale of man’s folly? Take a look around, buddy. Anyway, this big-ass plastic ashtray with the gaping metal mouth was beyond full. The butts crammed to the top formed a single tube of soggy and yet hardened nic fit. It took forever to get them out of there. And I couldn’t help but feel like I had seen this movie before. And I had. In a way. When I was 16 and wiping shit off of supermarket bathroom walls. When I was 26 and on my hands and knees cleaning mouse shit off of dirty deli floors. And when I was 36 and changing stinky diapers by myself in a small damp house far from everyone and everything that I knew and trying to embrace the love I felt for my son, while, at the same time, ducking dark storm clouds of isolation and fear.
Which is just another way of saying that Defcon 4 are a decent Boston punk band that mixes doom and crust and sharpened Eyehategod teeth all in the service of…what? I don’t know. Another pennant? Hatred of Ben Affleck’s street cred? All I know is, from the area of the universe that gave me SSD and Converge, I expect MORE pain. And MORE convincing wails of torment. Their stylistic twists and turns aren’t as compelling as the more advanced cosmic crust moves of Kylesa or Baroness either. But, hey, they are young, right? I have no idea, are they? Well, they sound young. And kinda peppy even. And hanging out with Steve Austin was a good move too. Their record sounds smooth. I’m just not feeling very smooth. I give any young band the same advice I gave a guy I met last week who only has two months to live (gallbladder): It’s never too late to become a reader. You might not want to start with War & Peace though.

apparently i just hang out on this thread now. i'm moving in. if you still want to bitch about Spotify and toxicity feel free to work around me. I'll be hanging curtains.

I'm blocking everyone else in order to listen to the prophet

very belated because I've been sick all day (which was still more enjoyable than taking part in this thread): I'm not sure how much more clearly I have to put the argument "if you're concerned about the lack of newcomers, consider that newcomers are likely turned off by the prospect of vicious-to-semi-vicious callout posts over what almost everyone considers so trivial it wouldn't even be worth mentioning)"

i can't even remember who is concerned about the lack of newcomers. i think you really have to want to be here. it's like when i played laughing stock by talk talk to my kid and i asked him what he thought and he said "you really have to want to listen to that music".

it's just easy to see that there are less people than there used to be. but maybe that's okay.

at one point that was the idea of this thread, I don't know when it became about steely dan

(I dislike steely dan and find the pressure among music critic types to take them [of all people!] seriously is suffocating, does that make me a dad)

gotta love the dan!*

*i have never called them the dan.

I only call them The Dan to friends who hate Steely Dan.

(Makes u think why they are friends in the first place tbh)

i think, aside from perhaps generational/historical shifts in taste and sensibility, there is just a rough limit on the scope of what there is to get / not get about music, and collectively ilm has arrived at it (it's not hard to do), so lacking an infusion of people committed to not getting / figuring out how to get anything (who are often young people for obvious reasons), it does not really meet the conditions necessary for motivating energetic conflicts about whether or how to get things anymore.

I'm not sure I agree with the Hegelian epistemology (?) behind the idea that ilm has arrived at what there is to get abt music, but all the same this seems otm - and as an addendum to the sticky post explaining abbreviations, often referenced anecdotes, anti-harassment policies etc. it might be nice to feature some kind of... well, obv not a manifest or anything, but maybe a collection of choice posts (not necessarily in agreement) that would give newcomers (or old timers) an idea of what set of aesthetics are generally accepted at ilm, or used for discussion purposes...

(so not gonna happen)

Steely Dan poll was great btw

keepin it mediocre dickhole dan posse

xxp lol i don't mean -the historical truth-, tho i did mean to reserve the possibility that we are all on the way to being doddering old cranks who are deaf to the kids of tomorrow's crazy weedilleywoos. it's just that once a person's / group's tastes (etc) become catholic enough, it's hard to think there's anywhere to expand.

"Defcon 4

You ever see the movie Defcon 4? Yeah, me neither. Or wait, did I? Eh, probably. Who knows anymore.

― scott seward"

i saw that movie! it was terrible!

"at one point that was the idea of this thread, I don't know when it became about steely dan

(I dislike steely dan and find the pressure among music critic types to take them [of all people!] seriously is suffocating, does that make me a dad)

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine)"

it just kind of drifted. i don't think there's anybody here seriously stanning for being a complete asshole to random people on aesthetic matters of little to no consequence (though i could be wrong on this!) so eventually we hit steely dan and name acrostics.

I feel like there's more pressure to like Fleetwood Mac than Steely Dan on ILM (imho)

good thing I'm a dad who likes both of these popular FM classic rock groups!

i can't even remember who is concerned about the lack of newcomers. i think you really have to want to be here. it's like when i played laughing stock by talk talk to my kid and i asked him what he thought and he said "you really have to want to listen to that music".

prophet jr.

xp not only did they record great albums, they're also top shelf material for showing off your new hifi setup

if any given ilm thread runs long enough will it eventually be about steely dan

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Wednesday, February 8, 2017 2:12 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is funny i was listening to Traffic's "The low spark of high heeled boys" and side A kept reminding me of Steely Dan.

My neighborhood pizza joint has a sign establishing their opposition to racism, sexism, ageism, body-shaming etc.; when I put that against something like the Barenaked Ladies album cover thread, I think it's hard to sustain the idea that whatever its pros and cons ILX is basically as inclusive and anti-toxicity as you can possibly ask for.

― tales of a scorched-earth nothing (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, February 8, 2017 8:48 AM (thirteen hours ago)

no, that would be a retarded conclusion to draw.

I feel like there's more pressure to like Fleetwood Mac than Steely Dan on ILM (imho)

good thing I'm a dad who likes both of these popular FM classic rock groups!

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, February 8, 2017 5:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no one dislikes fleetwood mac in society either.

You say you want the younger people in here but I've been subscribed to some music subreddits seemingly filled with people below 20s like r/music, r/indieheads, r/hiphopheads, r/listentothis and r/futurebeats and while the music being shared is sometimes nice I think they'd run in tears if they spent an hour in ILM. They can't stand a single critique about anything in there even if it's not a mean one.

isn't that the nature of reddit being a terrible place to have a serious discussion about anything? with those sort of genre-segregated boards + very large readership + reddit's upvote system you generally get boring hivemind consensuses that downvote anything critical of it rather than interesting and critical discussions.

wait, people dont like abba?

*raises hand*

*raises it higher*

I think that Steely Dan is like cilantro -- there are people that just aren't into it, no matter how much someone that loves it can try and convince someone that it's awesome, it just tastes like soap or whatever people who don't like cilantro think it tastes like -- whatever that taste is, that is how I feel about Steely Dan. And as a lover of cilantro, I can accept that people have different tastes: people that love Steely Dan can just shake their heads and believe I am missing out, just like I do about people who dislike cilantro, one of the most delicious herbs known to humanity.

I don't really like Fleetwood Mac, Van Morrison, Steely Dan OR Eric Clapton, AMA.

ABBA were critically rehabilitated more than 20 years ago, you would have to be the most unreconstructed classical rockist mojo reader to not consider them canon now (for better or for worse - I like them, not as much as some though)

Not sure what Eric Clapton is doing in there, no-one likes him.

I think that Steely Dan is like cilantro -- there are people that just aren't into it, no matter how much someone that loves it can try and convince someone that it's awesome, it just tastes like soap or whatever people who don't like cilantro think it tastes like -- whatever that taste is, that is how I feel about Steely Dan. And as a lover of cilantro, I can accept that people have different tastes: people that love Steely Dan can just shake their heads and believe I am missing out, just like I do about people who dislike cilantro, one of the most delicious herbs known to humanity.

for Steely Dan insert any artist in any sphere of art and this is true, which is why certain kinds of opinion - those that seek to prove cilantro tastes great/horrible by algebra, or those that just repeat over and over "I love/hate cilantro and there's nothing you can do to stop me", or those furrow-browed "why the hell does anybody like the taste of cilantro?" comments - are stupid and mockworthy and to be chased away if you feel like it on any given day

xp Fair enough. Sure there is someone out there though.

Steely Dan seem to be all-time-favourite-artists of pretty much everyone at the AV Club

Have Steely Dan got anything with this yacht rock thing? Something of which I have no knowledge whatsoever beyond the fact that there's a thread about it on ILM... I think.

I think all this bloody Steely Dan talk is a deterrent for younger music nerds far more than the fighting.

xxp - we haven't polled the best food products that contain cilantro

Steely Dan are Yacht Rock-adjacent iirc

As a young person I can confirm I made fun of a middle aged customer in front of his mates for liking Steely Dan within the last year.