Hmm, I wouldn't put dick-wrench art past John Zorn (inc. cohort Frith and/or Mike Patton).
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:13 (five years ago) link
lol i remember the first tool song i ever heard was "hooker with a penis," you could not pay me to listen to a song with that title in 2019
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:15 (five years ago) link
The first two tool albums are lyrically the worst but musically my faves. Very frustrating.
― Simon H., Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:16 (five years ago) link
i kinda think maynard in dick joke mode and maynard in new age bullshit mode are both very bad lyricists. i also think "prison sex" is a p incredible lyric about child abuse that is for some reason called "prison sex"
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:18 (five years ago) link
His lyrics relative to the songs are often very "Lick My Love Pump."
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:24 (five years ago) link
I will say I hadn't noticed the lyrics cited in the Pfork review and in context they do creep me out
― Simon H., Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:26 (five years ago) link
it's pretty much only that "caligula would grin" lyric though, right? everything else keenan sings is nonsensical mush like "free fall through our own midnight"
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:28 (five years ago) link
Yeah just that, but it's enough
― Simon H., Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:30 (five years ago) link
The lyrics to "Culling Voices" could hypothetically be about being #metoo'd but they also could have been written 10 years ago
Judge, condemn, and banish any and everyoneWithout evidenceOnly the whispers from within
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:32 (five years ago) link
oh yeah lol that one is definitely... yep
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:36 (five years ago) link
that’s a long-winded way of saying #fakenews
― omar little, Thursday, 5 September 2019 16:37 (five years ago) link
Heyyyyyy maaaaaan / #faaaaaake newwwws
Oh nvm that’s Filter
― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 5 September 2019 17:11 (five years ago) link
Tool are pretty terrible to me so that review was fun to read
― flopson, Thursday, 5 September 2019 19:16 (five years ago) link
I had listened to that new tool album yesterday and found it boring, but Brad's description upthread makes me feel like I need to go back and try again at double the volume.
― enochroot, Friday, 6 September 2019 14:22 (five years ago) link
it's what worked for me
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 6 September 2019 14:30 (five years ago) link
hooker with a penisI know, I know, it’s serious
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Friday, 6 September 2019 14:34 (five years ago) link
lmao goddammit
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 6 September 2019 14:55 (five years ago) link
was a huge pretentious stan for them when i was 17, as is the way of things. been relistening to them for the first time in 15-20 years, and will echo what others have said that:
a) Maynard is by far the weak linkb) the records actually stand up far better than they should *c) they still need to edit
* except Opiate, thats nearly all awful.
― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Friday, 6 September 2019 15:02 (five years ago) link
like i was expecting to laugh at how bad these albums were, but its mostly that I was an awful teenager and took them way too seriously. now i can look past that, and hey, these doods are pretty rockin if you block out the lyrics.
Wow, the rare 1st person/autobiographical perspective in a contemporary pfork reviewhttps://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/boy-scouts-free-company/
I thought the Tool review covered all the angles well btw, and I like the record (against my own expectations!).
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 6 September 2019 15:06 (five years ago) link
now i can look past that, and hey, these doods are pretty rockin if you block out the lyrics.
No, you mustn't ignore lyrics! Lyrics are incredibly important, probably the most important thing of all, and any critic who chooses to look past them is failing themselves and the reader!
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Friday, 6 September 2019 15:09 (five years ago) link
well maynard is no joni mitchell
― j., Friday, 6 September 2019 15:20 (five years ago) link
"hooker with a penis" is a great bait and switch - you expect its lyrics are probably going to be centred around some gross transphobic joke, but instead its terrible in a completely different way by just being an embarrassing ramble responding to claims of selling out
― ufo, Friday, 6 September 2019 15:26 (five years ago) link
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/boy-scouts-free-company/
another review that gives you zero idea what the album sounds like
― Οὖτις, Friday, 6 September 2019 15:30 (five years ago) link
hazy and dreamlike, calling to mind tour mate Jay Som,
there ya go
― normal fucking rockman (voodoo chili), Friday, 6 September 2019 15:35 (five years ago) link
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Friday, September 6, 2019 10:09 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
im of the opinion that lyrics are much less important than the music unless they're extremely good or extremely bad. you can guess which category tool falls under.
― normal fucking rockman (voodoo chili), Friday, 6 September 2019 15:37 (five years ago) link
That Tropical Fuck Storm is maybe my favorite album of the year so far, which lines up with Pitchfork giving it a 6. They seem to do that with most of my favorites.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Friday, 6 September 2019 16:01 (five years ago) link
There should be more (& longer) twitter apology threads for all of Pitchfork's terrible takes. It would be a massive undertaking but it would be helpful (for them).
1/ I tremendously enjoyed this interview with @PhizLair, which has given me cause to reflect on the condescending and cringey 0.0 review I wrote way back when. https://t.co/NsraIm6TTR— Matt LeMay (@mattlemay) September 5, 2019
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 6 September 2019 16:28 (five years ago) link
that interview was indeed terrific and is making me really excited about her book
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Friday, 6 September 2019 16:31 (five years ago) link
I like that Boy Scouts review and I like Matt LeMay’s tweet
― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, 6 September 2019 16:38 (five years ago) link
Screw revisionist history, that Liz Phair album fucking sucked.
― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 6 September 2019 17:24 (five years ago) link
good ol' Snrub
― brigadier pudding (DJP), Friday, 6 September 2019 17:25 (five years ago) link
I interviewed her around that time, and she told me in the end she just wanted to record an album that had a chance of getting played at the gym when she worked out.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 6 September 2019 17:33 (five years ago) link
Hah, my college roommate would see her at their gym during this timeframe (Manhattan Beach 24 Hour Fitness).
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 6 September 2019 17:35 (five years ago) link
Every time I try to think of something off of that Liz Phair album in general, the song that leaps into mind is Jewel's "Intuition"
― brigadier pudding (DJP), Friday, 6 September 2019 17:37 (five years ago) link
(I forget how many indie luminaries went to Oberlin. Phair, Seam/Bitch Magnet guys, incl. John McEntire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Songs:Ohia folks, Jon Theodore ...)
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 6 September 2019 17:40 (five years ago) link
I suppose that album with “Bollywood” and “U Hate It” is also a 10.0 all-time classic?
― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 6 September 2019 18:52 (five years ago) link
i once put a track from that liz phair album on a mixtape for someone and they were still annoyed at me about it years later
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 6 September 2019 19:04 (five years ago) link
(I forget how many indie luminaries went to Oberlin. Phair, Seam/Bitch Magnet guys, incl. John McEntire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Songs:Ohia folks, Jon Theodore ...)― Josh in Chicago, Friday, September 6, 2019 10:40 AM (two hours ago)
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, September 6, 2019 10:40 AM (two hours ago)
Greg Saunier of deerhoof...
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 6 September 2019 20:02 (five years ago) link
Guess it's cool for that writer to learn that he dissed Liz Phair for the wrong reasons, but it's still a bad album.
― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, 6 September 2019 20:09 (five years ago) link
If memory serves, part of the reaction stemmed from her specific choice of the Matrix as writing partner. At the time they were best known for working with Avril Lavigne, who of course was dogged by calls of inauthenticity. The silly "sell out" call hit Phair before the self titled album, but the self titled album felt pretty desperate and cynical, like she gave up trying to be successful the other way and instead tried to buy her way in. Again, this is from memory.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 6 September 2019 20:22 (five years ago) link
Yeah, I mean, I personally was a big Liz Phair fan who also loved the Avril album, so I was psyched for the S/T — and it turned out to be such a disappointing letdown.
― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, 6 September 2019 20:27 (five years ago) link
dont like the album but I always thought it was cool how she owned it, just being like "i've got a kid, I'm trying to make some money, idgaf."
― “Hakuna Matata,” a nihilist philosophy (One Eye Open), Friday, 6 September 2019 20:33 (five years ago) link
Also, she released a really good song online, six months or so before the album came out — I think it may have been one of the tracks she worked on with Michael Penn? — but neither that song, nor anything like it, ended up on the album. If anyone knows what that track was, I’d love to hear it again; I recall the video had her walking around Chinatown (paper lanterns, etc.), with kind of a stop-motion effect.
― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, 6 September 2019 20:34 (five years ago) link
(Not stop motion, more like “freeze frames” — a series of stills instead of smooth video.)
― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, 6 September 2019 20:36 (five years ago) link
Yeah the album she made with Penn was rejected
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Friday, 6 September 2019 21:04 (five years ago) link
Found a ref online to the song I was talking about:
Phair recorded a song called "Down" in response to her divorce. A quasi-stop-motion animation video using photographs was created for it by filmmaker Rodney Ascher (he shot fifty rolls of still photographs in L.A.'s Chinatown), and posted on her official website LizPhair.com. The song was never officially released on any of her albums.
...and here's the video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqgRbo9NAFM
― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, 6 September 2019 21:34 (five years ago) link
Thanks, wikipedia, for teaching me that Phair sings backup on Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun."
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 6 September 2019 21:37 (five years ago) link
I've been away for a few days and just read that Tool review and sorry if dude posts here or whatever but that was some of the most condescending bullshit I've read in a while
― Paul Ponzi, Saturday, 7 September 2019 19:55 (five years ago) link
why don't you say it to my face, paul
― I am also Harl (Karl Malone), Saturday, 7 September 2019 21:16 (five years ago) link