simon reynolds: classic or dud

*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?

And here I though Simon liked them because he was feeling nostalgic about the Woodentops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hK30XBC3lc&feature=related

Actually it occurs to me that on a purely sonic level I would trace the relationship of Micachu's most electronic tracks (basically the last two tracks on the album) to grime as being that they sound like a more indie version of Lady Sovereign's rip of the dancehall rip of The Cure's "Close To Me".

i LOVE this one. reminds me of my old band The Chronic Masturbators:

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

that's the only one i know by her though. i'd probably like a whole album. i like teedra moses too though. and the woodentops.

Don't be too alarmed scott, I'm pretty sure those things aren't mutually exclusive!

finally listened.

feel the same way about this as i have about most records in the last year or so:
not bad but what is all the fuss about?

Funnily enough "riot grrrl with production from herbert" conveys the sound of the album much better.

so glad those youtubes were posted before I ran out to buy this based on this sentence!

yeah the issue is "which Herbert album am I talking about" - obv not 'Around The House', 'Bodily Functions' or 'Secondhand Sounds'.

Just got here but I guess it's not surprising but Simon seems to have no conception of the fact that not everybody's route to beats/electronic music was the same as his. I mean, he assumes in practically every sentence that every single person is his age, initially liked post-punk rock etc, then converted to dance music/pop etc.

There are other huge "we all did this" sentences, I don't know anyone who thought "oh the white stripes are shit, wait they're okay, OH WAIT THEY'RE AMAZING." In fact that whole thought process sounds a bit weird...why did he think they were shit initially? What changed his mind? Did he not actually listen to the record the first time around?

He always writes well but the conclusions are kind of shonky, if he's going to write from so far inside his own experiences he should personalise the pieces more. "Simon Reynolds likes rock music again" is no wider musical story, in fact the piece reads like an apology/justification for him deciding he likes boring mainstream music.

Or at least..music he knows the vast majority of people who like his writing consider to be boring/mainstream.

Reynolds is moving to Los Angeles. His wife, writer/editor Joy Press, got an editor job with the L.A. Times.

And he just had a article in the L.A. Times....

The Energy Flash blog has had some amazing stuff on it of late.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gu5C4bPIXw&feature=player_embedded#!

already posted that in the "blissed out" thread. i like his "effing hipster" glasses.

10:11 - so tired of austere postpunk vibes, just wanna "wail out" and "grow my hair" y'all.

classic haircuts all around

I recall seeing him on some VH-1 chat segment back in the day, touting (well, maybe not touting so much as recommending) Omni Trio as "one to watch" in the coming year...I don't think too many casual VH-1 viewers rushed out to pick up Music For The Next Millenium forthwith, but what a wonderful world it would be if they had!

http://www.nndb.com/people/340/000022274/poundstone-9930-pic.jpg

Interesting to see that clip, 'cause when I read Reynolds' writing I always picture Andrew Sullivan. And in the video, their speech patterns are somewhat similar.

I think on the video he resembles Patrick Marber playing a weird character on The Day Today.

Do u feel 'saddled with' chillwave?

hi piece in the current issue of the wire about the digital revolution repurposing music is just about the most on point, on the money thing i have read all year. classic all the way.

I'm guessing that's not online? He's been obsessed with the varying definitions of "boogie" on his Blissblog blog.

Is it taster of his new book?

yeah, looked for it, couldn't find it. wire seems to keep the latest issue out of the archives, for good reason, i suppose.

the boogie thing is in reference to the delta swamp rock compilation that defines itself as "boogie rock".

we were talking about the book (extensively!) over here. is the Wire piece an actual extract can anyone say?
Retromania: Pop culture's Addiction to its Own Past. (New Simon Reynolds book).

I've only read half the article and none of the book, but The Wire describes the former as "a sequel to his new book".

the boogie thing is in reference to the delta swamp rock compilation that defines itself as "boogie rock".

― broodje kroket (dog latin), Monday, May 16, 2011

But he then references other uses of the term with videos and more---in disco, etc.

Had no idea he'd moved to LA until I read the hypnagogic pop thing in Frieze. Welcome, Simon!

Archived interview w/ him on Domino Radio pop-up station, recorded earlier this past week:
http://dominorad.io/show/all_things_reconsidered_richard_king_simon_reynolds

x-post-- he's been in LA for about a year

Reynolds is moving to Los Angeles. His wife, writer/editor Joy Press, got an editor job with the L.A. Times.

― curmudgeon, Monday, June 7, 2010

he shouldnt do radio interviews. he comes off too imperious/unimpressed/unbothered. like he thinks hes too smart to field questions from anyone else. then again he comes off like that a lot of the time on his blog, but at least there i dont have to hear his voice.

wow, I don't get that impression at all.

Yeah, kind of strange... I've seen him speak a few times and he's been unusually personable and polite - especially given the field he works in and the amount of bile a lot of people seem to have for him. Likewise when I've spoken to him.

about done with rip it up and start again. good read.

tho i kinda wish he would have just cut out america altogether if he was gonna do such a halfass job on the non-devo/pere ubu stuff

sandwiching B52s into the NYC chapter with liquid liquid and etc was weird enough but having it be the only oral history style chapter just seemed to be an admission of "oh fuck it, here ya go"

the New Pop stuff was fascinating, didn't know much about that, outside of hearing those hits

It's an excellent book, rip it up. Don't know why it was decided to have the whole mutant disco bit done in interview format, but if you get the outtakes/bsides book Totally Wired, it has a prose chapter devoted to that stuff.

The US published version of Rip It Up is shorter than the Brit published version. Someone wrote on amazon.com:

Three chapters have been cut in their entirety and portions of other chapters have been cut or shortened. In total, the US version of the book is nearly 200 pages shorter.

yeah i'm reading the Brit one i think? not 100% but i thought that what my friend said...it has an SST chapter...

i dunno, anyway i've really loved the book.