It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

What's the most pressing aspect of all this?

i don't care if he likes PE bigger problem is that he seems pretty inarticulate about the CURRENT hip hop he likes other than the fact that he likes it

also if you can write this sentence and not think "man i'm gonna get clowned for this" you're pretty fucking dense, i mean c'mon

I remember the first time I really cared about a rap song. It was the spring of 2010 and "Over" by Drake had just come out.

literally laughed out loud at lex's headline "Surely such youthful individuality should be applauded?"

― Barack 2 Chainz Obama (some dude), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:00 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the individuality of liking one of the top 4 or 5 the most popular artist among young people instead of liking an old rap group no young ppl like??

Maybe every half-formed thought that comes into an intern's tiny developing mind doesn't need to be blasted out to the worlds largest public radio audience

Quest's comment was also good, but this was a different one.

― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 12:53 PM Bookmark

oh, my bad. I should have doublechecked.

my main takeaway is that NPR really, really hates its interns

he's so brave tho whiney

surviving the halls of his high school hounded by mobs of burly teen christgaus beating him about the head with used CD copies of apocalypse 91

Sounds like the sequel to Streets of Fire right there.

19 year old acts like 19 year old, thirtysomethings respond like thirtysomethings

DJP OTM this is like an exercise in soliciting public ridicule

thirtysomethings?

19 year old acts like 19 year old,

most 19 year olds don't have a national in which to air their views!

national platform that is

npr has given a lot of adults play talking about what college rock and teen pop is good, only fair to let a teen in college speak

get a tumblr, 19 year olds

sure they'll have someone on npr talking about whatever young band reminds them of the 90s soon enough

maybe they should let the teen speak about music they actually like tho, rather then hectoring them into listening to some arcane artifact they're unlikely to understand

altho tbh I find his "listen to something made 3 years before I was born!? that's crazy!" schtick sort of weird. this is hardly a universal sentiment among teenagers ime.

Yeah, I really liked lex's resopnse and appreciated his main thrust, but, this...

the individuality of liking one of the top 4 or 5 the most popular artist among young people instead of liking an old rap group no young ppl like??

is exactly what I was thinking.

if this kid had said Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was trash NPR would've had to fire and publicly admonish him

i just think it's hilarious when guys who looooove to be irreverent are all pissed at this whippersnapper getting the mic

"let's tear down the canon! which canon? let's start with the most popular genre we cover the least" (xpost)

who's pissed?

it's trollbait, but no one seems pissed

you

i really sincerely do hope this all results in this kid having a one-on-one debate/interview with whiney

"brother intern, in order to shatter the canon first you must memorize it"

like i'll totally give him a pass on being as venomous as he wants to be since this is the album he literally wrote the book on (xpost)

i'm having a happy day i'm not pissed

also i do think lex's thing was pretty good but that line is just funny because it's soooo indicative of lex's own personal persecution complex about the burden of Liking Super Popular Pop Music But In A Smart Way Not The Regular Way

altho tbh I find his "listen to something made 3 years before I was born!? that's crazy!" schtick sort of weird. this is hardly a universal sentiment among teenagers ime.

― the alternate vision continues his vision quest! (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 1:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, the other day I was talking to a girl around the same age who insisted everything made after the 70s ("...maaaaaybe the 80s") was trash. I felt way more sad for her than this kid.

it's soooo indicative of lex's own personal persecution complex about the burden of Liking Super Popular Pop Music But In A Smart Way Not The Regular Way

very OTM

nah 60s/70s fetishists, while misguided, have way more good music to be smug about than Clams Casino stans (xpost)

I felt way more sad for her than this kid.

yeah this has been my reaction too when I've encountered this sentiment. it's not an either/or proposition! You can like it all! except for clams casino.

that guy is a fucking moron

i work with a lot of people around 10 years younger than me and am consistently surprised at the degree to which there is almost no generation gap and how many of them listen to music that was either popular more from my college years or stuff that was popular before BOTH of our times

you can like it all, but you don't have to

She seemed to have no idea that modern music exists beyond the top 40, tho. Also she asked me if I was familiar with the White Stripes as if they were an obscure act. xps

the funny thing is the NPR writer's completely right about the way PE sound -- chuck's rapping is harsh and 'strange' in a way that most contemporary rap isn't, the sampling is often weird and jarring, and they're often very funny (or, as the guy puts it, 'i find myself more inclined to laugh than dance'). personally, i find myself drawn to those sounds and i hate dancing in public, but it doesn't surprise me that someone who uses 'perfect for post-club comedowns' as praise wouldn't like PE. (his co-workers pointed him toward the wrong album, too -- he'd probably enjoy 'fear of a black planet' more.)

in a way, i'm kind of impressed that a 19-year-old is so articulate and confident about the kind of music he likes -- i sure as hell wasn't, which is probably why i wasted all that money on neil young albums and other shit i never actually enjoyed.

She seemed to have no idea that modern music exists beyond the top 40, tho. Also she asked me if I was familiar with the White Stripes as if they were an obscure act. xps

haha okay, people like that are among those whom I fondly think of as "the worst"

infectiously triumphant mp3s

i work with a lot of people around 10 years younger than me and am consistently surprised at the degree to which there is almost no generation gap and how many of them listen to music that was either popular more from my college years or stuff that was popular before BOTH of our times

i'd love it if this was a boss saying "man, my employees LOVE that my iPod plays through the office."

PE are very danceable tho!

Or at least were when they were good.

if you have problems dancing to "Bring the Noise" or "Don't Believe the Hype", you can't dance

(I stopped there because I don't really need to list every track on Millions and also "Black Steel..." is much more danceable form in Tricky's cover of it)

btw i do think this kid's a tool and that it's hilarious some NPR staffer is squeezing Onion pieces out of the interns, but eh what music nerd at 19 wouldn't have said something ridiculous and flip about a classic if given the shot.

so points to questlove for fighting a candle and lol to web trolls who curse the intern's darkness

oh man, if I'd reviewed a Dylan album at 19...

lol i mean lighting a candle xpost

lol @ fighting a candle