simon reynolds: classic or dud

Lex is an internet mentalist who doesn't read Simon Reynolds and doesn't listen to Micachu & The Shapes. So of course he's all over the thread where we discuss Simon Reynolds' writings on that band.

So it's not really musical inability (unless you mean an inability to make pop music?), it's an aesthetic choice.

This prompts the question, is it rockist to dislike faux-primitivism?

i am a bit surprised by this article TBH. didn't Simon coin the phrase "record collection rock"? nowadays, indie record collections are that much broader. doesn't mean much has changed on a fundamental level, does it?

i feel like a lot of indie bands seem to get a pass for trying things they are not as good at as the people they are borrowing from. its not a question of talent or the scope of what is being attempted... but something else I cant put into words...

i havent heard micachu's music. cant you still try and make a virtue of inability (which is really the sound of inability) even if you are able?

While maybe it's a discussion worth having on a general level, Micachu doesn't try and make a virtue of inability. That was something which Lex said upthread which was wrong.

For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvuNIQO1Zrg

ah ok

at work - i will listen at home tonight

thanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4OhRVn_b80

Vocally, the only thing I'd ping her for is the super-strong accent and even that is more a stylistic thing than an actual negative.

The song itself is a melange of minimalist ideas with the idea of DIY punk-pop mixed in with some of the sonic harshness of industrial music, in and of itself not really hateworthy but not super enticing, either.

xp: re: "Golden Phones", that's riffing on similar themes and kind of seems to be riding the "what if Gang of Four was fronted by a woman" idea

yeah, but does it have grime-shaped windowsills?

'Golden Phones' sounds kinda like Stump to me.

Lex would fucking hate Stump.

the 'untalented' point is obv deadwrong: her guitar is out of tune on purpose, dontchaknow! also the band is really tight, fancy compositions, interplay etc. i get why this would sound shitty to a lot of people, but it's not like she was trying to make anything different than what she's playing. all the micachu haters should at least admit that she's very good at making music that you don't like rather than acting like she's some poor child struggling to play gang of four tunes on an out of tune ukelele.

some poor child struggling to play gang of four tunes on an out of tune ukelele.

YSI?

j/k

xpost. The Stump comparison is a decent one. Even more like The Mackenzies or the Dog Faced Hermans at times. But with wacky keyboards and hoover sounds chucked in too.

did i or did i not make it clear that 1) i was not just referring to micachu 2) i was aware that the description was lazy and probably inaccurate because i found her so unlistenable that i couldn't get to the end of any of her songs, and as such really have no interest in whether i describe her accurately?

Apparently you didn't! (just saying, otherwise half of the most recent posts wouldn't have happened)

(oh who am I kidding, of course they would have)

I've heard promising things about Micachu. Am I led to believe I might rather like her output?

You could try clicking either of the two Youtube links posted almost directly above you and find out...

haha i actually scrolled back up to check that i did

but yeah ilx is full off cunts like "everything", whom i have never knowingly interacted with or noticed before, who think they know me and can call me out. lol.

xps

Calling me a cunt is about the most accurate thing you've said on this thread so far.

lex, chill. some people might regard everything as a valuable and knowledgeable poster too. and yeah, passions have run high, but you're taking it too far.

Even more like ... the Dog Faced Hermans at times.

OK I'm sold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNSpLqmY6K0

ok one track in on spotify and i am sold like sex in amsterdam

could we wind up with both of my favourite albums of 2009 written by female artists? take that, my masculonormative taste! :D

Cheers for leaping to my defence LJ. I shouldn't have called Lex an internet mentalist (even though he obviously is one).

there is a place for lex and a place for you, although if he'd not leap in and fuck around badmouthing music that isn't of interest to him that'd be nice. i don't suppose you or i spent our sweet time trashing paris hilton's album. and if we did, we shouldn't have. her movie otoh

anyway this album is utterly awesome and i am a joyful ball of joy. well, as much as i can be while slumped around in pyjamas with no motivation to leave the house or do my MA course.

i was going to do another point-and-laugh-at-lazy-journo moments because these two things re: micachu are the basic any-fule-kno facts that even a casual music fan like myself had gleaned from one plan b interview: 1. micachu is classically trained 2. micachu was/is a grime dj and feel quite smug because i was better informed than two published music journos but i'm not going to do that because it brought up another question which is

how much does ones aforeknowledge affect ones listening to and interpretation of music

that is because i knew these two facts in advance i 1. detected a grime influence and 2. thought there was more depth to her than quirky girlhood

while perhaps tim f and lex didn't because reading press releases before reviewing an album makes you a tool of the man or something

perhaps it's down to expectations having been primed? i've been told to expect grime and classical influences so i look at the windowsills and see them there while our valiant music critics were not so hoodwinked!

SR is right here -

Given the predominance of recycling across the sonic spectrum, even indie's more conservative operatives seem less culpable than they would have in the early noughties (when there was real futuristic action to contrast them unfavorably with). Regardless what you think of the actual result of the process, how different in essence is what the Horrors do (mashing up Goth, shoegaze, post-punk, late-80s neo-psych in the Loop/Spacemen 3, etc) from what post-dubstep operators like Untold, Jam City or Martyn are doing in relation to their own tradition? Just like the Horrors, they're engaged in assembling a distinctive, fresh-enough style by mix-and-matching elements from all across the last couple of decades.

just depends on whether you look at that as a negative or not.

though thats prob better to discuss cut n pasted in the uk funky or dubstep threads.

this is pretty much SRs new favourite line of argument though - that indie is more fulfilling and interesting than other genres at the mo (eg - that vampire weekend review of his a while back).

while perhaps tim f and lex didn't because reading press releases before reviewing an album makes you a tool of the man or something

i think the actual reason is that because neither tim nor i were reviewing the album

(i don't read most press releases though. badly written and uninformative. i have google.)

the world needs more >35-minute albums tbh

they're engaged in assembling a distinctive, fresh-enough style by mix-and-matching elements from all across the last couple of decades.

"Fresh enough" means they're taking elements that he likes. I don't expect musicians to be creating something completely new, so that approach makes some sense although I though he had also discussed the current time period as being an "inbetween" period. This seems more enthusiastic than that.

perhaps it's down to expectations having been primed? i've been told to expect grime and classical influences so i look at the windowsills and see them there while our valiant music critics were not so hoodwinked!

― Karen Tregaskin, Tuesday, January 5, 2010 9:00 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Would strongly advocate quitting while you're ahead at this point btw

xp acoleuthic- jewellery is painfully short, but i usually listen to it twice in a row and that's awesome in a way.

I'm listening to 'Wrong' now and I hear more of a theme from Muffin The Mule influence than a grime influence. The drums could at a stretch be called a grime beat but then you might as well call them a dancehall beat - after all dancehall is where those rhythms come from in the first place. But arguing that Micachu bridges the gap between dancehall and riot-grrl would sound EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS.

oops

i mean <35-minute

i am saying the length is a good thing

sorry for being a muppet

not sure matt'd say that if he'd written Muffin the Mule, if you were some sort of muleherd looking at a windowsill

but mr karen I agree its significant the way ppl are different sensitized and what they notice, but I don't think the producer/critic camps are a very useful/truthful way of analysing those differences. i'm pretty sure i'm not part of some broader ilx touchy critic crew, I just hate the "i'm simply stating a fact" face.

no mention of "Fisher Price" yet? disgusted by all of you

*differently sensitized

Given the predominance of recycling across the sonic spectrum, even indie's more conservative operatives seem less culpable than they would have in the early noughties (when there was real futuristic action to contrast them unfavorably with). Regardless what you think of the actual result of the process, how different in essence is what the Horrors do (mashing up Goth, shoegaze, post-punk, late-80s neo-psych in the Loop/Spacemen 3, etc) from what post-dubstep operators like Untold, Jam City or Martyn are doing in relation to their own tradition? Just like the Horrors, they're engaged in assembling a distinctive, fresh-enough style by mix-and-matching elements from all across the last couple of decades.

just depends on whether you look at that as a negative or not.

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Tuesday, January 5, 2010 3:03 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

all dubstep fans i know are also indie fans so

btw heres what noz posted in reaction to sfj/simon r on hip hop:

http://www.formspring.me/noz/q/25153873

http://www.ldm.lt/VPG/nuotraukos_2008/Pirosmani_4_m.jpg

"not sure matt'd say that if he'd written Muffin the Mule, if you were some sort of muleherd looking at a windowsill"

http://www.formspring.me/noz/q/25122672

sad lol of recognition

can't wait til SR learns about crabcore...

no 'casual music fans' read interviews in plan b magazine

Titchy saying that Teedra's only good song is "Be Your Girl" is one of the wrongest things you've said!! It's not even top 5 on her album!

Karen I'm glad I can provide a focal-point for your hatred of critics, but I was well aware that Micachu used to be a "grime DJ" (at least to the extent that you might describe Lady Sovereign's second album as a "grime album", which I guess is less egregious than, say, people calling M.I.A. "grime" or Warp's Grime series of compilations - basically this is the foundation of my gripe here, which was a passing gripe and not really interesting enough to form the basis of a long argument with a new poster trying to earn his stripes: "grime" is one of the most commonly mis-attributed genre terms ever). But Micachu's background has nothing to do with whether it's correct to describe her music as "riot grrl meets grime".

This is because the sound of music isn't mechanically determined by its creators' musical experiences, which in the majority of cases are too multiple and varied for every formative experience to concretely express itself as a musical resemblance in the finished product. The fact that The Beatles made "Eleanor Rigby" does not mean that every Beatles album thereafter sounds like a string quartet, the fact that New Order dabbled in electro at the same time does not make "Age of Consent" or "The Love Vigilantes" into electro.

Basically i cosign Matt's post:

I'm listening to 'Wrong' now and I hear more of a theme from Muffin The Mule influence than a grime influence. The drums could at a stretch be called a grime beat but then you might as well call them a dancehall beat - after all dancehall is where those rhythms come from in the first place. But arguing that Micachu bridges the gap between dancehall and riot-grrl would sound EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS.

Also, er, hello post-punk.

Unless I'm totally off-base about this and The Pop Group were secretly a grime crew all along?