Elitism in Pop Music

i) I can't personally separate liking a record and thinking it's 'cool'. If I like a record, or the idea of a record, I tend to feel cool and smug about liking it, but the liking comes first.

ii) If somebody visits my house and starts looking through my record collection I make a mental note not to invite them back. It's boring.

That said there was a moment recently when I felt like a smug white post-liberal twat when listening to DJ Assault. But then the next time I played him I didn't, so that's OK.

I'm really interested in this whole elitism thing that's cropped up. What makes FT elitist? Do people really think we are? What does being elitist mean anyway? If you're buying records you don't actually like that strikes me as more 'foolish' than 'elitist'. I sometimes buy records which I think might be 'difficult' - is that what you're talking about? But that's not to show off, that's more to try and expand what I'm into, challenge my ears a bit. It's for me, not anyone else.

Two further points: This means that everyone is to some extent an elitist, in a weak sense, simply by virtue of liking the records they like and not other records (or even by listening to some records, not other records) -- ie. 'taste' or 'preference' is a kind of a priori elitism. In other words, I don't think it's possible to not think the records you like aren't better than other records, because if you didn't, you wouldn't listen to them. QED. That said, it would also be important to distinguish this kind of passive or systemic elitism from an active elitism as suggested above.

Secondly, there is sometimes an assumption that liking 'Difficult Records' or 'Obscure Records' rather than (or as well as) 'Popular Records' makes someone an elitist per se. This seems to be a far more elitist argument, since it implies that 'Difficult Records' cannot be popular because most people cannot understand them. (Usually excepting the person making the assumption, who understands the records, but claims not to like them in order to make the other person appear elitist...)

*tsk* David Byrne... Duh... *tsk*

And I just kept walking away shaking my head.

About that Britney Spears / Travis thing: I see what you mean, it's a lot of glib statements, generally. "Britney Spears new single beats the shit out of Travis's" is about the gist of it. So let me try to explain why *I'D* rather listen to Britney Spears. Travis are, to me, unconcionably dull. Dreadfully dull. They always sound like Oasis, a few years too late, gone through a complete dad-rock blender (maybe an Ocean Colour Scene blender? I haven't worked out which band it is yet). It's all very predictable and unsurprising and just not very good. Now, mind you, that being said, I can still grin at All I Wanna Do Is Rock (or whatever that song is called) because it's quite goofy. More of that, less of the dirgeyness...Also, keep in mind that I have a VERY UNFAIRLY PUT UPON label as anti-rock around here ;)

I'd really sooner listen to most any of the Britrock bands before Travis. At least Kula Shaker have some vaguely interesting touches. Travis is just very...oh. To me at least. They sound like every other English rock band. It's something that seems bland to my ears. Now someone else might come on and explain to me why it's not bland, and that's fair - different things for different people, etc. At least they're not Coldplay ;)

Britney, on the other hand, is equally unsurprising in terms of songwriting (though she does tend to have cleverer writers than her competitors), but it's the other little things in her songs: her vocal tics, the odd production values. Those make her songs interesting. Plus, her songs, while unsurprising, are generally a lot more "fun" to my ears plus I can dance to them, so I'd generally rather hear that. It's sort of like Eminem, if you don't like the voice, you won't like the song.

From what I've read about Travis, I get the impression that they would sound a little like Manic Street Preachers' This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours: very sincere in a U2 kind of way, anthemic and kinda dull.

i) Travis did a cover of "...Baby One More Time" so a lot of the comparisons are based on the two approaches to the one song.

ii) Elitism of this kind is often based on a kind of oh, you listen to X and you've not even heard Y model. So for instance how can you like Elastica when you have not heard Wire. How can you think Green Day are good when there is the (unheard) Fugazi to contend with. Nu- Metal fans are fools who do not like old metal. etc. etc. It's a non- obscure trumped by more obscure model.

The Britney/Travis thing reverses this. There are likely to be very few people who haven't heard or formed an opinion on Britney, and so attacking people for not liking Britney is more attacking them for their tastes (which I think is an OK form of elitism if it is one at all) than for their ignorance (which I think is not).

Having said all that, if you want to appear elitist without getting a music collection of expensive rarities and non-entities, here's how to do it. Get yourself a friend who had a very sheltered and secluded childhood where they rarely got to see Top of the Pops, went to church a lot, and heard little more than Mozart and Beethoven. They'll take one look at your record collection, and think that your Travis CD is 'elitist' and the height of musical experimentation. You will then get to introduce them to stuff you consider to be mainstream, they'll be introduced to new music, and you'll feel very superior. Simple.

I kind of liked the 'analytic' approach of the geezer Thomson. His sentences above are like tweezers.

Except not made of metal.

nothing but eyerolls for all the people who championed musicians like Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake suddenly collectively determining that they're terrible people who make terrible music

i dont even care about whether or not someone likes or hates their shit, on a personal level; i just hate the clear opportunism in their willingness to roll completely with the flow for their social media posts & "criticism," its just flat reflection of the status quo for handclap emoji praise

It's unreal

like w so many of the people getting "angry" at justin on prince's behalf i just think i dont believe you. They clearly don't actually care! there's just no way. these ppl weren't buying prince albums before he died; even his beef w jt, while it made for a strange super bowl choice in some sense...Prince spent over a decade basically saying rap was not music, hes not infallible

i know there are ppl who are authentically feeling opprobrium and ppl who are feeling validated but 99% of what i see online feels more like ppl bending like a reed as trend winds shift

Imagine what Twitter would do if Justin performed a halftime show in Minneapolis not even two years after his death and just didn't acknowledge it at all?!

How would he know?

I also love someone who was on Star Search at age 11, was groomed and trained by both Disney and Lou Pearlman, and has a music career that spans nearly 20 years is now being held up as an example of "white mediocrity"

Like even if you think his music sucks Fatone's fat ones, it's pretty undeniable that he can, like, sing and dance on a purely technical level.

I was actually just thinking earlier that back in like 2011-2013 Justin Timberlake was seen as this amazing, forward-thinking pop star by mainstream critics hopping on the poptimism bandwagon and overrating the shit out of futuresex/lovesounds. now he gets dragged all the time

(For the record fs/ls is really good but come on people it falls off in its second half)

its not FS/LS that was overrated circa 2013 it was 2020 experience which was EVERYWHERE and overrated

justin, taylor... they're no mark e smith

p4k review is hilarious

How much of his career should we chalk up to fortune, privilege, and an essential malleability?

Instead of surging forward with a new vision for pop music, it leans on the sounds and genres that have become American comfort food: country, soul, funk, disco, gospel.

"What's the deal with this pop life and when is it gonna fade out?" –poptimists

When you skate through your life unscathed, you accumulate hubris.

Elitism in reactions to reactions to celebrities

can you please find a better album to wage your displaced /pol/ ethics in music journalism campaign over than this one

Real poptimists don't change their opinions on anything.

Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between poptimistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of poptimism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.

your displaced /pol/ ethics in music journalism campaign

fuck off with this shit

sorry. that was rude of me. but I don't appreciate being called a fascist/gamergater. i don't give a fuck about the new JT or TS albums, it just doesn't seem to me like their music or personalities have actually gotten worse. deej is otm re: the clear opportunism in their willingness to roll completely with the flow for their social media posts & "criticism"

deej otm, this whole thing has been v depressing

yep

haters gonna say it's 'gate

crut otm

sorry. that was rude of me. but I don't appreciate being called a fascist/gamergater.

I don't appreciate thinly-veiled "music criticism was great when only reasonable men like me did it and terrible now that the SJWs who don't care about music have taken over" commentary, so I guess we're even

I don't know if I'm helping, but it sucked then too

1. I am not a music critic 2. the exact same people who propped up these artists are the ones who are suddenly jumping ship 3. I support social justice; you are apparently confusing me with someone else

and Whiney otm, rockist music critics suck too

i just like how buying Tortoise on Warp apparently made you a top tier savant in 2001

People are jumping ship. Hmm, let's see herE:

People dislike the new Taylor Swift album. Which is the most likely explanation?

A) Taylor Swift has radically changed her sound in the past decade and fully embraced the most purposefully dislikable tabloid version of her personality.
B) They don't care about music, unlike me.

People dislike the new Justin Timberlake album. Which is the most likely explanation?

A) Justin Timberlake has made three albums in a row that are loudly, embarrassingly terrible at worst and retreads at best.
B) They don't care about music, unlike me. And they're not REAL Prince fans. I bet they can't name three of Prince's albums.

point taken.

Yeah Katherine ... that’s not at all what’s happening here.

i dont even care about whether or not someone likes or hates their shit, on a personal level; i just hate the clear opportunism

Taylor Swift embracing her tabloid persona in that one video really affects how the music sounds

I don’t like the Timberlake albums either! This is selective amplification of what a lot of ppl see as the new woke, not some new genuine engagement w politics

I'm definitely not a music critic, and I don't seek out music criticism anymore, but I follow the big pop event album threads on ILM and the discourse surrounding the Swift album at least was hostile from the moment the first single was released. As katherine put it on the Swift thread:

the near-unanimous hatred for this is baffling and if this were by anyone but this pop season's designated critical villain I suspect people would love it

― sick, fucking funny, and well tasty (katherine), Friday, August 25, 2017 5:58 AM (five months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

& that is how it's turned out. I find it baffling. & at least that thread let me know who on ILM should be ignored (that def doesn't mean you, katherine, who got it right from the start)

if there is an explanation of the following that is not "they're not real Prince fans," please enlighten me:

like w so many of the people getting "angry" at justin on prince's behalf i just think i dont believe you. They clearly don't actually care! there's just no way. these ppl weren't buying prince albums before he died

xp -- embracing her tabloid persona to the point of making an entire quasi-concept album affects the songwriting and the lyrics, which are what most people who hyper-praised country Taylor Swift praised her for

Like I’ve never in my life cared about Taylor and got super annoyed circa 20/20 experience at how many of my peers were gassing mediocre records (cf “mirrors” at 11 on Paz’s and jop). If anything I should be feeling validated. But I don’t, because this newly “critical” approach feels like ppl responding to buffeting trend winds not some new “realer” engagement with politics

just wow @ g@mergater k@therine stanning for taylor's white mediocrity, she's cancelled

xp

what if i don’t like reputation because i find jack antonoff’s production work claustrophobia inducing and find taylor’s vocal shortcomings way too prominent and think the mba lyrics of “endgame” are depressing? the last track is nice though.

also isn’t part of the problem here the way The Discourse coalesces/is forced to coalesce around single albums because of the general narrowing of all cultural talking points (thanks trump, thanks google and facebook)? and so bad reviews are in a way pushback against that

the difference there is that the Taylor Swift single is not terrible, and the Justin Timberlake record is; if anyone but Justin Timberlake released "Man of the Woods" (I don't know who the most likely candidate would be -- Shawn Mendes or Charlie Puth?) people would probably still find it bad.

i think it’s pretty terrible! i heard it in a cab after reputation had faded from my memory and i was pretty appalled

My senior production students seem to love Jack Antonoff, ugh.

i wonder if it’s generational

I think it’s bad but not substantially worse than 20/20 exp which again ....

My senior production students seem to love Jack Antonoff, ugh.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Monday, February 5, 2018 12:47 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wonder if it’s generational

― maura, Monday, February 5, 2018

Draaaaakke

my 17 yr old daughter loves antonoff's stuff, fun, bleachers, the Lorde album, etc

I’m not mad consensus swung one way or another I’m mad at how few people I believe, and how opportunistic the perspectives feel, how non-genuine. Saying that I’m wrong or presumptuous to find them not genuine ... feels like beside the point if I’m saying they’re doing a bad job convincing me

totally fair to dislike Reputation or Jack Antonoff! a lot of people do. but I regret to inform you that according to today's discourse this means you are not a music fan, just a reed blowing in the wind and accumulating emoji handclaps

i guess discourse is where you find it.

(that was not an opinion I share, in case it wasn't clear)

Actually, I find Man in the Woods better than 20/20 Experience because two songs ("Breeze Off the Lake" and "Montana"), maybe a couple others, are enjoyable pieces of music that will sound good on the radio if the album cycle makes it that far. He's never made a front-to-back banger, although it's not like I expect him to.

To me The Justin Experience since 2003 has required us in a fractured pop culture era to accept his indomitability across all media; you have to believe by studying his self-promotion that JT can make good music. Except for his okay debut he's made attenuated shitty albums. In this new cultural moment suddenly the internet acts as if it wasn't aware of his weaknesses.

how can you like "out of the woods" but hate "man of the woods" think abt it

makes sense if you don't enjoy being of the woods imo

can we just go back to liking cool alternative guitar rock

I was really trying not to say "I only like Taylor Swift when she still played guitar".

*liked

totally fair to dislike Reputation or Jack Antonoff! a lot of people do. but I regret to inform you that according to today's discourse this means you are not a music fan, just a reed blowing in the wind and accumulating emoji handclaps

― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, February 5, 2018 11:51 AM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is literally not what I’m saying but since you’ve decided I’m a Gamergater what I’m saying no longer actually matters

can we just go back to liking cool alternative guitar rock

― j., Monday, February 5, 2018 6:07 PM (five minutes ago)

we've come full circle!

enjoying Timberlake during the actual period when he actually irritated Prince only turn on Timberlake during a random Super Bowl years later is classic Twitter incoherence, god save the haters

— 🌺JUSTIN CHARITY (@justincharity) February 5, 2018

If JT had done a Grant Hart tribute instead he could have solved this mess

yeah and come out fucking loaded like bob stinson

The status quo, with any pop artist, is for a critic (the word used generally)'s opinions to align perfectly with an artist's commercial success and/or PR campaign. So with Justin Timberlake, the status quo opinion would be to maintain that Justin was innately incredibly talented and destined to succeed, because he succeeded -- unlike, say, JC, who was destined to flop, because he flopped. The status quo on Justin Timberlake around The 20/20 Experience was that he was an auteur making high art; the status quo is currently that he's an icon, as American as the Super Bowl and the frontier. With Taylor Swift, the status quo would be to maintain that she is the most famous person in the music industry and thus the best. Et cetera.

This is not how "status quo" is used here. How it seems to be used here, and in all of the last 100 times this has played out, is "talking about social justice," a stance that happens to align nicely with the tide of reactionary backlash the world's seen in the past couple years. (The reason I brought up /pol/ is because an incredibly common accusation from that camp is that people are just "virtue signaling.") There are also undertones of "being a person of color with an opinion" -- I don't think it's a coincidence that this argument comes out in its fullest force whenever the criticisms have to do with race, and that the greatest outrage is reserved for people using handclap emojis (a Black Twitter thing) or using the phrase "white mediocrity."

(Also, it's possible to have a genuine opinion about an album that happens to align with the most popular opinion. Always going against received opinion every single time without fail isn't authenticity, it's deliberate contrarianism, which is just as fake as the "status quo"-ing people decry.)

if you agree with *most* but not *every* "social justice" thing people on Twitter say, you are basically 4chan, which is why I'm taking a stand against the nigel the pedo seabird

Like, I think everyone except like four people on ILX are down with the basic tenets of social justice and representation and equal rights and making all the proper adjustments after years of white cis male dominated critical discourse and a white cis male dominated industry. It's sucked for a long time and there are great strides being made every day.

But that doesn't make it not corny when sites do a total 180 on pretty innocuous music by Justin Timberlake

Especially when the ca. 2012-2013 indie rock writers gushing over giant pop albums scanned as try-hard in the first place

with major websites in particular, oart of it is that, now that these major pop stars have basically shut down access to everyone but the New York Times once every few years -- the only interview with Timberlake himself, as opposed to Justin Timberlake Has a Cold-ing, that I've found this album cycle was iHeartMedia -- people can criticize them because they're not going to get the Justin Timberlake interview anyway. but again, that has nothing to do with people on Twitter

*whispers* butwhatifyouwereneveraJTfananyway

#ifitaintwokedontfixit

The most high profile examples of what I’m talking about are by white male critics at major newspapers. I understand that there are legitimate and authentically felt reasons for disliking Justin Timberlake (as I’ve mentioned repeatedly throughout this thread). It’s not any one position that makes me roll my eyes, it’s the disingenuous opportunism of people in our field

And fwiw the way I used handclap emoji in that instance was *applause* sense that is pretty universal not *emphasis on every word* sense which I generally see credited to black women

But moreover I think you’re looking at this conversation through tunnel vision if you think cynicism about the conversation is purely a white reactionary thing. This has not been my experience, and it feels like you’re universalizing your own

I guess if it helps us reach some consensus it does feel sometimes like Whiney leans a little heavy on clowning tropes of social justice than I’d be comfortable with

RIP real name shit got heated thread

Oops thnx for the fix

I mean, when I think of popular people on Twitter, I don't think of legacy newspaper critics

I guess if it helps us reach some consensus it does feel sometimes like Whiney leans a little heavy on clowning tropes of social justice than I’d be comfortable with

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, February 5, 2018 2:25 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to be perfectly clear, social justice is necessary, but tropes can be funny, ymmv

like this was published at least by the 4th quarter last night, you can't tell me he didn't know what he was gonna write then just fill in the details of songs, etc

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/arts/music/justin-timberlake-super-bowl-halftime-review.html

professional

“popular on twitter” often means “followed by the same self reinforcing group of 800-900 people” though. who on twitter who thinks about music is actually popular aside from musicians?

that bald MRA dude

Fwiw I am glad there’s been a correction to some extent, Timberlake was getting mega overvalued by 20/20. But it’s like the Eminem thing too, there’s ppl talking about the glowing praise at the time that made him the new Elvis, but then there’s like ppl deciding he was never good ??

I think it was Vince Staples who said if Eminem was black he’d be redman. The wild vascillations are like 🙄

Lmao Lefsetz being republished in DJ booth is *chef kissing fingers motion*

http://djbooth.net/mobile/feature/2018-02-05-justin-timberlake-super-bowl-performance

Like Katherine, look at who is lining up to parrot this new consensus. How can you not feel some skepticism?

fuckin lefsetz whyyy

tweeted about it and got this smarmy reverse ageist response lol

Ha. We often repost Bob's newsletter on DJBooth (with his permission). If you aren't familiar with Bob's work (he has been a music critic for longer than you've been alive), you should subscribe to his newsletter.

— DJBooth (@DJBooth) February 5, 2018

something tells me lefsetz is not taking his cues from twitter

amazing

bob lefsetz, noted twitter personality and social justice warrior

also a "music critic" apparently

basically at this point I assume lefsetz comes to his musical opinions by tarot card drawing or random number generator

he's not a true music fan, like you

he's a true something, that's for sure

This is pretty much to a large extent about context, isn't it? Pop-music got very political for a few years, and under Obama it could really seem as if things were getting better. So Taylor Swifts 'squad' was not perfect, but a step in the right direction? But now small steps aren't enough, and people are turning on those who they deem to not measure up,

idk where he gets it from specifically, but hes not getting this randomly hes just reflecting the generic received wisdom

i just dont think we're in some new woke utopia just bc mainstream pundit class is scared to be on the wrong side of twitter, and saying so isn't the same as being a reactionary

I think it was Vince Staples who said if Eminem was black he’d be redman. The wild vascillations are like 🙄

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, February 5, 2018 2:20 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did he mean that as a diss because Redman is classic as hell

no i think he just was talking about the way white rappers get blown out of proportion but that eminem was still a dope rapper (i agree w vince i'm saying hes a voice of reason, the vascillations are more pundit class ish ...)

Lmao Lefsetz being republished in DJ booth is *chef kissing fingers motion*

brothers and sisters...i don't know what this world is coming to

no i think he just was talking about the way white rappers get blown out of proportion but that eminem was still a dope rapper (i agree w vince i'm saying hes a voice of reason, the vascillations are more pundit class ish ...)

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, February 5, 2018 3:31 PM (seventeen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh i get it basically like they were both dope but red doesn't get mentioned on all time top 10 lists like em and obv doesn't have near the sales/$$$$, i agree w/that

and fwiw im also not saying any individual pundit is *per se* just following consensus ... i know caramanica's been panning JT since at least 20/20. (that said the idea that he wasn't an essential pop star seems counter to my experience of his nsync through FS/LS peak)

"he's been around for a while so he's worth listening to" is some real rank shit

I’ve been worrying at this general issue a lot. Like how to square the following propositions all of which I agree with:

1. Taylor Swift’s handling of issues of race / gender / politics has been tonedeaf.

2. At least some of the prior broad support for Taylor probably has been due to her perceived status as a white “all American girl”, which probably has benefited her critically and commercially (at least in some ways or in some contexts) at the expense of other artists.

3. The music she made up until 2014 was (with some variation) largely excellent.

4. Her most recent album is her worst by some distance.

5. The critical pile-on against her in response has frequently irritated me for its lack of nuance, and in particular the way that propositions 1, 2 and 4 above are collapsed into each other.

This is not even an erroneous cause and effect issue for me, or not specifically (“Taylor’s new album is awful because she is the face of white feminism” is a proposition that one sees often enough, of course, but in truth these arguments rarely bother to actually spell out that presumed causal relationship - it’s more often presented as a kind of cluster of badness), and it’s certainly not about the invasion of social justice considerations onto the field of pop music criticism.

I think really the broader issue I have is the collapse of all critique of pop music into polarised debates over the status and intentions of the creator (typically considered first and foremost by reference to their social media presence), and a marginalisation of any other prism through which a given piece of pop music may be considered. The social justice gloss is at least in part something that we as critics use to make ourselves feel better about our interest in policing celebrities - is Taylor woke (2017) seeming like a rather more worthy topic than is Britney a talent-devoid sexbot (1999). But the structure of these arguments haven’t really changed from 1999 to 2017, which is maybe why a lot of white male critics are happy enough to adopt these new arguments - it allows the continued conflation of popular music criticism with prurient celebrity gossip culture.

I think really the broader issue I have is the collapse of all critique of pop music into polarised debates over the status and intentions of the creator (typically considered first and foremost by reference to their social media presence), and a marginalisation of any other prism through which a given piece of pop music may be considered.

Or: confusing a Facebook acquaintance's disgust with Swift or Timberlake with a useful prism through which to look at their work.

I don't see how it's surprising for the consensus to "change" on Timberlake from wherever it was five years ago around the time the last albums were released, when his most recent moment of pop culture ubiquity was actually not The 20/20 Experience but that horribly peppy song he provided to the Trolls film, which even now still continues to haunt pop radio, and he's then presented us with the cognitive dissonance of appearing on a red carpet wearing a "#TimesUp" pin while appearing in a forthcoming Woody Allen film (and then, in the pièce de résistance, asking Twitter for clarification as to the meaning of the phrase "have one's cake and eat it too" (

The saying means, for example, you can’t support #TIMESUP and praise sexual predators at the same time. You can’t retain your credibility as an activist (i.e. - retain the cake) and, at the same time, praise a sexual predator (i.e. - eating the cake).

— Dylan Farrow (@RealDylanFarrow) January 23, 2018

Add to that the context of being invited back to the Superbowl stage after what happened the last time he was there, the Grammy awards ceremony last week where barely any non-male pop artists were given any notable recognition, and the ugly nature of the music he's just released, and you have everything required to provoke a lot of people into getting mad online and letting themselves quickly forget about "My Love" or whatever.

"Can't Stop the Feeling!" is one of the decade's biggest recurrent hits. I hear it on the radio at least three or four times a week.

(and then, in the pièce de résistance, asking Twitter for clarification as to the meaning of the phrase "have one's cake and eat it too" (

this was a powerful scene in Good Time

Add to that the context of being invited back to the Superbowl stage after what happened the last time he was there, the Grammy awards ceremony last week where barely any non-male pop artists were given any notable recognition, and the ugly nature of the music he's just released, and you have everything required to provoke a lot of people into getting mad online and letting themselves quickly forget about "My Love" or whatever.

― monotony, Monday, February 5, 2018 5:06 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont think anyone is saying its happening for no reason but its not like hes more of an idiot now than he was when he was younger, people just care more. like half the shit you're complaining about is super "who gives a fuck" when people like the music, or if he was on the upswing ... cardi b said transphobic shit but its not slowing her roll

are these sorts of critical pile-ons knocking previously respected artists down a peg even that unprecedented, or is the unusual thing here that we've had ~two in a fairly short period? (the 'pile-on' for taylor was also not nearly as uniformly negative as this conversation would suggest.)

has the nature of #content changed so fundamentally that this is something to remain worried about for the foreseeable future? like yes, i would say there are certainly worrisome recent developments in how information in general, including criticism, reaches its audience and is expected to resonate in a manner that induces shares/virality/etc., so while i do get the sense that things are not quite right i am also failing to understand what is specifically objectionable about the situation discussed here. i would not guess it's especially related to 'elitism'.

given the context of reactionary backlash that katherine has patiently* delineated i am not eager to add to the chorus of " ______ otm"s, as lovely as it feels to do that here on the ilx.

* and gently too btw, despite the 'omg you're calling me a fascist/4chan' pushback

oh and also were the 'poptimists' of the stylus mag era even that uniformly supportive of jt's work at the time? i seem to recall some scathing reaction to "sexyback"

xps: the tolerance for Timberlake's brand from pop culture critics was always going to turn south when the songs became as unpalatable as they now have - without any distraction all the corniness is much harder to ignore. His conventional presentation of manhood is also all so dull and wearying, at least to me personally. This is something I felt lex explained well in his review of the album:

In some ways, Timberlake is a victim of the rapidly changing zeitgeist – though surely it is a pop star’s job to have their finger on its pulse, if not actually create it. His aspirational masculinity is the same story he has been peddling for his whole career – and when he and his collaborators were young and fresh, it resulted in genius. It is also the narrative that pop culture as a whole has sold us for a good half-century – which is why it is increasingly feeling so familiar and so tiresome.

Cardi B's circumstances are not really analogous here so I don't know that she provides a helpful comparison, though I certainly wouldn't say that her comments have passed unnoticed by the same people who have recently piled on Timberlake.

are we man of the woods yet are we man of the woods yet are we man of the woods

what is the 'aspirational masculinity' he is describing there? does he go into more depth than those two words?

though I certainly wouldn't say that her comments have passed unnoticed by the same people who have recently piled on Timberlake.

― monotony, Monday, February 5, 2018 6:11 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmmmmmm isn't the difference between those who *did* notice them and those who (appeared to) not notice them exactly where the me vs. katherine argument is breaking down here

I missed the Super Bowl and halftime show and showed up at my friend's party late. My friend showed me the clip of the half-time show, and we both responded similarly ("that was bad!") and then he made a show of playing "Cry Me A River" one last night before deleting it from his iTunes.

I remarked that I had a soft spot for that song and the 'dialogue' it held with "Everytime" by Britney, and he said "oh no, I don't fuck with Britney. Let me show you how much I don't fuck with Britney," and began playing "Toxic". It was the instrumental version. He had four Britney songs and they were all instrumental. "I don't need Britney when I got this," he said.

Anyway I disagree with most of the sentiments of this thread's revival

Timberlake had mega-bangers

That half-time performance felt like literal erasure of Prince and Prince's own legendary halftime show

I googled "Prince halftime show" after it was over to cleanse my brain from Justin's bullshit and all that came up was "Justin performs with Prince at the halftime show"-- it was literal, functional erasure

Here's lex's full review for context. At least for me, the aspirational masculinity Timberlake presents on this new album is one which conflates manliness with working on the land, having your woman wear your shirt so she feels like she's yours, serving as protector to wife and child, etc etc. Whether it's an overly dramatic shift from his previous work is up for debate I guess. IMO he's probably just been looking at some different Pinterest boards for inspiration as to aesthetic.

I'm not too sure what the argument is anymore and haven't been keeping a list of who has and has not called out Cardi B, but I can understand why people are less willing to disparage her personally when there are other factors like race, gender and class to consider that aren't relevant to Timberlake or, say, Ed Sheeran when he writes songs like "New Man", or Charlie Puth when he favourites Mark Dice tweets.

And a big congratulations to Britney on one year with her hunky instathot boyfriend. https://www.instagram.com/p/Be1Ht6wF4Lj/?taken-by=britneyspears

Ugh, instahot?

uh insta-not

the way ~algorithms~ engage in the erasure of the past fgti outlined is very upsetting

* and gently too btw, despite the 'omg you're calling me a fascist/4chan' pushback

― dyl, Monday, February 5, 2018 7:03 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it was shitty of me to react the way i did to that b/c i revived this thread with inflammatory and flippant commentary and katherine was only responding in kind. i'm glad the popism 2.0 thread got started because, even though i harbor so much irrational bitterness towards the post-max martin/lou pearlman/iheart/livenation pop landscape, i was basically raised by ILM so seeing people talk out why this evolution in thinking happened is genuinely interesting and insightful to me. it was stupid for me to broach the subject in such a hostile way.

i got pretty shook by the 4chan reference because i think i do have that bitter-white-guy-who-got-bullied-in-middle-school thing going on. in my case the bullying was soundtracked by *NSYNC and Britney, so there u have it, katherine otm

i'm sorry i got all "fuck you!!!" about it

Ugh, instahot?

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Tuesday, February 6, 2018 11:44 AM (five hours ago)

no, instathot

Well, I never!

I remarked that I had a soft spot for that song and the 'dialogue' it held with "Everytime" by Britney, and he said "oh no, I don't fuck with Britney. Let me show you how much I don't fuck with Britney," and began playing "Toxic". It was the instrumental version. He had four Britney songs and they were all instrumental. "I don't need Britney when I got this," he said.

― flamboyant goon tie included, Monday, February 5, 2018 7:25 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

with friends like this etc

xp: apology accepted.

I think what bothers me the most about this discussion, every time it comes up, is the constant sense of talking about one group of people while meaning another. When I think of legacy media critics -- the few remaining who haven't gotten laid off -- I don't think of people writing hot takes for Twitter likes. I don't generally think of politics being mentioned at all unless they're absolutely unavoidable. These are all things I associate with writers in their 20s, who given the shifting demographics of media* are more likely to be women and more likely to be people of color. The most derided piece of the Justin Timberlake album cycle thus far ("Justin Timberlake is Rebranding as a White Man") was not written by a white male critic for legacy media, but written by a woman of color for a startup (The Outline). The pieces I've seen most praised, among my followers at least (a non-representative sample, but fairly representative of ILX probably) are by legacy media critics: the WaPo review, Lex's piece, etc.

I'm not saying the former pieces are beyond critique (although I do think the former piece is not as bad as many people thought, and that if you're commissioned to write a piece on the trailer for an album that, AFAIK, isn't getting promo copies widely distributed, you are inherently gambling on its sound). But it often feels like what is being criticized is not the substance of the piece but its existence, the very temerity that someone we haven't vetted** is allowed to write! and write about racism! And now they're hiring people from Twitter instead of people we vetted! Whatever will become of real music journalism? And then those exact criticisms get transplanted onto legacy media writers, and the arguments no longer make sense, because that's not who they were originally about.

* there's definitely a glass-cliff component to this, but that's for another thread. what's the analogous term to "glass cliff" for non-executive roles? glass floor?

** I haven't seen it here, but I have seen elsewhere an underlying bitterness: why are *those* people getting hired, and not me? Which, of course, also mirrors reactionary "they're taking our jobs" sentiment exactly.

The Outline piece was (rightly) criticized for being a piece of fan fiction. Or anti-fan fiction, so it assumed the worst motivations on behalf of the artist. That type of criticism – what I refer to as stone soup – is endemic to the internet because of the ever-growing need for "content," endemic to younger writers because they are in less of a position to push back at editors with bad ideas, and endemic to this age because things like promo trailers for albums that didn't even have a single attached barely existed in the old days. (Not to mention that The Outline's self-branding as "So smart, we've made ourselves downright impossible to navigate" should have killed that piece before it ever got drafted, and the editor who looked it over should have probably looked past their own biases during the process of reworking it.) Obviously the lockdown of promos, particularly for writers at non-name outlets, hasn't helped much on that front, either.

The same critiques would be, and have been, made to pieces that posit how awesome something is going to be based on bread crumbs as well.

legacy media critics: the WaPo review, Lex's piece, etc.

damn lex is a legacy music critic now
*dies of old age*

the thing about the piece is absolutely none of this is incorrect, or "fanfiction"; the closest is "heavy country influences," but the album does in fact have that; the latest single (and, it looks like, its highest-charting song) has Chris Stapleton on it! the marketing of the album also absolutely plays into the whole "Younger Now"/"Joanne"/"Rainbow" narrative, by design.

White colonialist fantasies aside, there’s something very familiar about this pivot in Timberlake’s style. We saw it from Miley Cyrus in her hasty rebranding around her 2017 pop country album Younger Now, as well as from Lady Gaga who took to wearing cowboy hats with the release of her 2016 album Joanne. Authenticity is quite marketable now, and for white pop stars that means shifting away from the hip-hop and R&B-influenced sounds that made them famous, and toward the sounds of Southern and country rock. For Timberlake, the pivot should be sonically natural: Originally hailing from Tennessee, Timberlake has never been shy about celebrating his Southern origins. And considering Pharrell and Timbaland are both producers on the album, Man of the Woods is likely to retain some familiar influences. But with his insistence in the video that this album will be his most personal yet, Timberlake is indulging in the inexplicably popular fallacy that music with heavy country influences is somehow more profound or emotionally acute than music that is electronic, lyrics that are rapped, or songs that inspire listeners to shake their asses. Most recently, hip-hop artist Post Malone pushed this narrative in an interview where he said, “If you’re looking for lyrics, if you’re looking to cry, if you’re looking to think about life, don’t listen to Hip Hop.”

Timberlake has a long history with hip-hop and R&B, genres invented and dominated by black people. (And to be clear, without African-Americans, there would be no rock or country music as we know it either — but I digress.) His first single as a solo artist featured legendary hip-hop duo Clipse and was co-written by The Neptunes. The success of his second studio album FutureSex/LoveSounds was in no small part due to hip-hop producers like Timbaland and Rick Rubin. There’s nothing wrong with a white artist expressing black influences in his music; still, the ease with which Timberlake can pivot to and away from blackness certainly raises some questions. Pop music is about reinvention, but only white artists are allowed the freedom to leap between racialized identities, depending on the whims of the market. Timberlake can escape his past much more easily than Janet Jackson, whose nude breast at the 2004 Super Bowl — which popped out thanks to Timberlake’s planned pull — directly kicked off the decline of her career, which has yet to recover. (Timberlake, for his part, has never fully atoned in public, though his upcoming performance would be a good place to start.)

xp -- by "legacy music critic" I'm using it a bit broadly here, as is everybody else, to refer to "people who started writing before 2010 or so"

no i figured, and it's true! just crazy to me to think of lex like that but time moves on

it's still fanfiction because it was not based on a listen. that it was correct is a (happy?) accident.

I mean, if you're going to complain about writers "who started writing before 2010 or so" being held up as more important than others, you have to talk about how most of them have have held onto their staff positions at big-name outlets, while other similarly big-name outlets that would also be taken seriously because of their URLs being reflective of some sort of legacy* have ditched full-time music critics because of budget cuts and attrition and layoffs. (the new york daily news, the boston globe, etc.) christgau is an exception to the "people take outlets more seriously than writers" argument but probably the only one.

*i am convinced this is why examiner.com was taken seriously at all; its name had the air of a place where copyeditors and fact-checkers were at least thought about, if not employed.

I'm not complaining about their being held up as more important (although virtually every big-name music outlet has seen a lot of turnover at basically every level of the editorial ladder, voluntary or otherwise). What I'm pointing out is this thing, which happens like clockwork, of displacing one's complaints about one class of writers by attributing them to a different class, about whom those complaints don't make sense. And the more of the following exist, the more likely this is to happen: women writers, writers of color, writers taking progressive stances.

also, "you're right, but you still shouldn't have written anything" is a stance I'm never going to be on board with, sorry. The piece isn't pretending to be an album review.

sorry accepted, and sorry back, but i'm not going to be on board with pieces that are making a lot of assumptions about art based on a too-small-to-even-be-thought-of-as-cursory sample. wait it out or look for cheap bumper-sticker traffic elsewhere.

Authenticity is quite marketable now, and for white pop stars that means shifting away from the hip-hop and R&B-influenced sounds that made them famous, and toward the sounds of Southern and country rock

Katherine... this is NOT accurate. He didn’t shift away from hip hop and r&b sounds. And he worked with the same black songwriters and producers he has for ages.

my sense lately is that whole of popular cultural criticism, which includes pop music criticism, has changed in the past several years (imo paralleling the rise of twitter, but this is conjecture) to more clearly foreground issues of social justice, anti-racism, intersectionality, etc... for people who look like me (white guys, which includes many of the initial posters in this revive), we're probably a little more likely to see the gears moving, so to speak, in some of the lazier essays (that much-discussed outline article on JT being an obvious example) the new movement produces, because unlike the women and POC who are doing more and more of the writing (a good thing), these ways of thinking do not come as naturally to us. but I think it's important for me, and other white guys, to consider that this is probably how music criticism read to non-white guys for basically the entire history of the craft, and, you know, open our minds to new ways of looking at the world

so I'm not really mad at that outline essay because while it's bad, a certain percentage of essays are always going to be bad, and this is just what bad essays are going to look like increasingly now I guess.

part of me is also just glad that I am at the point in my life when I have the least use for pop music criticism, so I feel very uninvested in any of this

I mean, it isn't a sneak preview of one track off a tracklist, it's an album trailer, conceived and released as a deliberate piece of marketing meant to convey a particular message, and conveying it with the subtlety of a lumberjack's axe. (I can't find anything about who directed it, what agency, etc., but given the caliber of personnel Justin Timberlake got for every other video this cycle, I doubt it was done on the cheap.) It's valid to write criticism about what that message might be, the same way it's valid to write criticism about any other type of advertisement.

(Trailers are also increasingly large parts of album roll-outs in general, with as much if not more deliberate label and creative attention paid to them as the album itself. Where is the line beyond which something becomes superficial and not worth commenting upon? Would it be inappropriate to write about Kanye West's 20-odd minute "Runaway" film, for instance?)

It is valid is an argument / backpedal I can agree with, I suppose

I can’t help but feel like part of what people are reacting to is a white tendency to treat certain ideological positions as inherently fixed, as authentically representative of say young black women without acknowledging the multiplicity and contradictory perspectives generated by a group that is *not monolithic*. And what ends up happening is white people and sometimes nonblack POC jump on board to one POV without realizing how by parroting the arguments of say a black woman there’s a big context shift, and that it does not mean the same thing coming from them that it did for the people who first drew attention to it. And also do not realize that one person’s perspective is not a stand in for all the perspectives of the wider group. That amplification effect is unavoidable of course, but it still has a distortive effect on conversations around lots of subjects.

Katherine... this is NOT accurate. He didn’t shift away from hip hop and r&b sounds. And he worked with the same black songwriters and producers he has for ages.

It'd be inaccurate if it said he completely abandoned it. He did not completely abandon it. He shifted toward it. Even if you discount the general Americana influence as present in Timberlake's music all along -- I don't particularly agree with that, but just discounting it for argument's sake -- putting the most critically acclaimed person in country music, Chris Stapleton, on an album where, previously, your albums did not have Chris Stapleton (emphasis on "albums," I know he cut tracks/live performances) constitutes a shift to country. The fact that "Say Something" is likely the next "official" single (AFAIK it hasn't been officially sent to radio yet, or at least doesn't show up on the list of upcoming pop radio songs, but given that it's charting so well, the one he's performing on TV, etc., I would be surprised if it weren't) corroborates that shift. (Stapleton also co-wrote more than one track on the album, so it's not some isolated gimmick.)

s/"it"/"hip-hop" and "country" respectively

putting the most critically acclaimed person in country music, Chris Stapleton, on an album where, previously, your albums did not have Chris Stapleton (emphasis on "albums," I know he cut tracks/live performances) constitutes a shift to country

What kind of shift did Tim McGraw putting Nelly on his album constitute? What kind of shift did Brad Paisley putting LL Cool J on his album constitute?

I agree there was an overlay of country but the premise everyone is mad at is the idea that he shifted away from r&b. It’s a damn r&b album. Aren’t most of the Songs are written by James Fauntleroy? Cmon. It was a premise that reflected a broad twitter consensus. I’ve liked other things that writer has done and don’t think I’m above having bought into some bs consensus at one time or another but the article was a good example of what happens when we let the script in our heads write our pieces for us

tim mcgraw wanted to be an honorary st. lunatic

A) A shift from reality into fantasy, because Tim McGraw never put that single on his albums
B) A shift into the following: genre crossover appeal of the sort he did a lot during that album cycle; accidental racism

Putting a cowboy hat on is not the discursive equivalent of Miley Cyrus shitting on rap music in the press after exploiting it for an album cycle. The piece’s thesis was frustrating for drawing that comparison. Justin Timberlake has made r&b for two decades and one album cycle ago he was cast among hip hop royalty, performing songs about wearing suits and ties with jay z. The comparison was silly and lightweight even if the writer is not

the cowboy hat was a reference to Lady Gaga, whose album cycle included more than cowboy hats

I didn’t follow that at all but replace it with stood next to a tree or whatever superficial marketing led everyone to believe justin was abandoning the genre that made him

If the album is mediocre it’s mediocre we don’t need to invent objective reasons it was mediocre... I do not think this is he main reason politics has come back to the forefront (generally speaking I think it was overdue, fwiw) but I do get that feeling that some of the leaning on politics is that it creates a more objective lens through which to view an artist’s success or failure, a sense of certitude in a world slowly recognizing the subjective nature of its interactions

I guess (to me) Gaga -- though she def had elements of modern r&b and hip hop -- felt pretty apart from that? (much moreso than JT or Miley), like she's so jazz hands drama kid at heart, she always had a sort of old school showbiz thing to me

(so i guess her playing with whatever dressup she's doing on a particular album always feels subservient to her Lady Gaga pop, kind of like Madonna could embrace house music or w/e but it's still Madonna music)

yeah Gaga was more disowning dance-pop than disowning R&B; "Rainbow" is Kesha doing the same thing (her case is a lot more complicated for the obvious reasons, one of which being she genuinely did hate some of the music she was making). It's the same sort of authenticity move, however -- and to the people they're aiming that authenticity at, dance-pop and hip-hop might as well be interchangeable shitty music, etc.