OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

but only from their husband's stupid record collections

me and Hurting at the same place age- and interest-wise it sounds like

do you like your husband's stupid record collection?

well I was referring to this part in particular:

I also just don't feel as much desire to force myself to consider music that doesn't appeal to me. I mean I still have curiosity and will still give almost anything at least one listen, but I just don't have the time and energy for the sophisticated, all-embracing tolerance she suggests. I'm perfectly willing to concede that I might be missing something interesting about the way Miley Cyrus's presence alters the meaning of a song written for Rihanna, I just don't have a reason to care.

esp when the particulars in question (in this case Miley and Rihanna) are clearly not designed to speak to me or anything I care about.

right, I mean if you want me to think about the fact that they're out to sell records, well they're not out to sell records to me!

to be clear I'm not complaining that there's not enough cultural media out there catering to the tastes of aging straight white dudes, it's just that in general pop music is not really aimed at me. that's cool, I don't have a problem with it, but don't expect me to care about it or strawman me with various accusations of prejudice if I'm not interested.

so i was right. cool.

katherine is really a great poster and I really hope one day she stops with the passive aggressive god-SORRY-i-guess-i-should-just-jump-off-a-CLIFF schtick

No amount of intellectualizing is ever going to make me enjoy MC. Lots of the point people bring up also have to do with authenticity, but a pop authenticity. The idea that she is "Doing whatever she wants" is some form of pop authenticity. The idea that the process of manufacturing pop product in itself somehow lends validity to it is another instance of pop authenticity. Dividing the audience into a binary of "Haters" and an un-labelled group encompassing fans, casual mainstream music listeners, and sophisticated/post-rockist pop critics alike is pop authenticity.

so i was right. cool.

I'd say the odds are against it but I have no idea what you're referring to so whatever

dnftt

please keep feeding the troll, it's kind of funny

apologies for being passive-aggressive, it wasn't intended that way but obviously intention isn't really the thing

anyway anyone who claims there is no longer a critical mass of people who are worried about drum machines/rap/Beyonce in 2014 should spend the next year or two telling people they write about miley cyrus and really liked her album (doesn't matter if you did or not) and see what kind of reactions you get

The problem with that thought experiment is that there are a myriad of reasons to dislike the Miley Cyrus album beyond being a rockist.

Like, it's perfectly reasonable to be a fan of hip-hop influenced pop music and think "We Can't Stop" is braying, misshapen garbage; disliking that song and its album does not actually mean that all you want to listen to is Neil Young.

katherine OTM, frustrated with this entire discussion, most non-writers I know have no idea about these terms and what they are, and a NYT article is gonna be many people's entry point, it's important to comment and rebut etc. etc. instead of assuming that everybody in the world is on a page, up to date-- you can't assume those who aren't aware of these terms are "old" and/or not into music writing.

But disliking this album sometimes meant that you wanted to listen to Imagine Dragons.

xpost

Well... no. I wanted to listen to Kelly Rowland.

(also: Lorde)

brb gonna listen to "Kisses Down Low" for the 15,345th time.

this spectacle of people (mostly straight white men of a certain age) angry that we treat music made with drum machines, or for dance floors, or with rapping (unless it's 'political'), or by Beyoncé with the same respect and depth of thought we'd devote to anthems sung by bands of guys with guitars.

this feels pretty strawmanny especially on ILM where a lot of the anti-orthodoxy views wrt to pop vs. rockism are pretty distinctly influenced by white guys and sometimes and former posters of a certain age like xhuxk and kogan etc etc

Dear flamboyant goon tie which Lorde song were you talking abt being abt REAL ROCK being REAL MUSIC

her seger cover

i am totally listening to the Steve Miller Band right now. and the BC bud has really kicked in. shout out to the Hudson's Bay Company.

Well, jokes on me for wading in here, but "rockism" doesn't need to only apply to rock music, obv. Rockism imo is the dead puppy borne out of performative music practice, i.e. "people playing things", oldest trick in the book, you've got tonnes of people walking away from "learning instruments" with a taste for music that is visibly performed, and an appreciation for apparent skill in that performance. If you think that this is out-of-style, you just need to check out I dunno Imagine Dragons or Clean Bandit or Youtube videos of people playing things-- and rockism happens when some twisted/young/dumb/frustrated individuals (many-of-them powerful) will take this taste for performed music and twist it into "Miley sucks and is for children". Discussions about "the authenticity of a performance" are going to always exist while people enjoy performed music. Many of Lorde's artistic decisions, i.e. the format of her live instrumentation (stripped down, all sound sources visibly "performed"), the monologues she delivers onstage, the lyrics of "Royals", suggest that she comes from a background in performative arts and values things like authenticity. Same goes for The XX. Would never accuse either act of fetishizing anything but think they value many of the same things that so-called rockists do.

Ok that makes sense, thanks. Authenticity/honesty of some kind's p universally valued tho, isn't it? Like, how many beloved/critically discussed performers don't give a shit abt it (Dean Martin? The guy frm Limp Bizkit, maybe?), and do their audiences know?

Sure sure but I'm looking for some Germanic extended version of the word that is the "implied evidence of authorship and/or musicianship" flavour of authenticity

Well, Miley sucks and is for children. No one ever actually refutes this statement.

Oh no, as opposed to Serious music for adult men

metal is for children

Oh no, as opposed to Serious music for adult men

― brimstead, Tuesday, April 15, 2014 10:20 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait a second, you are expanding my mind here

my gosh, ten years on ILM and now thanks to you I finally get it

adults listen to the news on the way in to work, the rest of us are children, thank god

Serious music for adult men

perfect Nick Lowe sequel

Adulthood is a social construct. I listen to Raffi on the way to work.

The guy frm Limp Bizkit, maybe?

no the dudes from bizkit are serious abt what they do and Wes is a big nerd ass guitar mag zappa type dude they probably would talk yr fuckin ear off about how Tool are the greatest musicians that ever walked the earth and shit

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away cyrusish things.

basically ppl holding up bores like the black keys as some ideal of real music and ppl write about some crappy miley song like it's fuckin ulysses are both equally annoying

the only other thing i have to say is that in that one thing the writer says that everyone should have an assignment to have an opinion about a jason derulo album that came out this week and if it's all the same to you i think i'll drink a bottle of scotch with a fistful of ambien and wait for the sweet relief of death instead

Urghhh otm

m@tt is relentlessly OTM

even if i disagree, an article about miley like joyce would be way more entertaining (or at least potentially so) than some dad-rock cruft

Matt otm. Although I never feel like I even see people writing seriously about bands like the black keys anymore. Maybe it's because I don't read paste - does that even exist still?

No, mainly because it only contained terrible copy

they keep emailing me

http://www.pastemagazine.com/

ppl write about some crappy miley song like it's fuckin ulysses

this is great

Oh you mean serious literature for serious adult men? Burrrrrrn

That'd be like DeLillo

The way we tend to define this issue as revanchist rock music vs raunchy pop music kinda gets in the way, and makes it seem like the tension of ideas only exists in this extreme strawman form, as if the choice is between only Black Keys or Miley, or only one kind of value system or the other, in fixed opposition. Whereas in truth we're all pretty discriminatory in a multitude of different ways.

I think Wilson gets at this when he talks about his distaste for The Libertines, and the fact that often what we dislike most is stuff that we can project our own self-loathing onto.

I find the semi-articulated value systems behind (e.g.) both celebrations and criticisms of tumblr&b more interesting than those of Miley fans vs Miley haters or etc.