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

The writing in that piece made me wince a few times, but for better or worse there seemed to be something human, callow, in it. Like I felt embarrassment for a person rather than a website.

I wasn't expecting Fight to be mentioned only 13 words in

yeah, was gonna say. nothing to do with the writing, but some of the picks are a little... outside of the usual consensus.

(not necessarily bad, just don't think i've ever seen "fight" rated like that. by anybody.)

it's just junk made by someone who googled the cure for a half hour and then wrote it. you get what you pay for.

this, on the other hand, delighted me: https://www.theringer.com/music/2023/5/10/23714711/the-cure-best-songs-ranked-tour

not the worst music writing ever, but who knew that the best albums of 2013 were 25 albums from pitchfork's year-end list in a slightly different order plus 5 albums by huge rock acts?
https://uproxx.com/indie/best-albums-of-2013-ranked-10-years-later/

not the worst but certainly the most mediocre

this is some hilarious head-in-the-sand stuff:

At the time that he put out Southeastern, Jason Isbell was a journeyman Americana artist who many people assumed had already peaked as a songwriter when he was in Drive-By Truckers. For that reason, the love for Southeastern took a while to build, as critics simply weren’t used to paying close attention to this guy. But over time, the narrative of Southeastern proved irresistible.

people just weren't paying enough attention to indie rock music in...*checks notes*...2013

it's not that southeastern proved irresistible, but the narrative of southeastern did.

astonishing ability to craft a paragraph with zero ideas in it

Are we sure Hyden didn’t farm that out to AI?

the chance blurb is funny bcuz he explains the rather obvious context of the whole thing but then doesn't actually say whether he thinks the album holds up artistically or not, when it's, for the reasons he states, prob the most interesting re-evaluation of anything on this list. i guess that would've required actual work, but still...

As we’ll see, this is the year when the 2010s really began in a musical sense, while a lot of the trends that were popular in the previous decade fell away.

still waiting for the 2020s to begin

"Acid Rap was released about three months after Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term. But rather than represent a new beginning, that album now feels like the tail end of the original Obama optimism from his first term."

5. Kurt Vile, Wakin On A Pretty Daze
Just to demonstrate my objectivity: This is my favorite album of 2013. It’s the one I have played the most. It’s the one that makes me happiest when it is on. It’s the one that evokes the happiest memories. But it’s not the best album of the year. It’s among the best, but it’s not the best.

I'm definitely going to listen to this record

"Back then, the political centrism that Obama promoted was still in vogue, which cleared a path in pop culture for feel-good, middle-of-the-road rappers. Musically, this was signified by the old-school ’60s and ’70s soul that Obama adopted as an unofficial soundtrack, most often in the guise of Stevie Wonder, possibly the most universally liked living American musician."

Wait, so the feel-good rappers were not musical?

Here’s a hypothetical that helps to put this album in perspective: If Haim did not exist, would Taylor Swift have made 1989? I honestly don’t think so.

i do agree w/ him that modern vampires of the city is essentially a perfect album tho

this is honestly one of the funniest things i've read recently, just completely smooth brain, vacant and dressed up in quasi academic b.s., truly amazing

https://americansongwriter.com/the-often-overshadowed-meaning-behind-rock-and-roll-hoochie-koo-by-rick-derringer/

Not clicking on that but the URL is making me laugh, so thanks.

I tried with that Hyden thing, but a) I have no memory of roughly 20 of those 25 albums, have certainly never listened to them, so who cares, and b) some of those blurbs are present-day-AV-Club lazy. Like, if you hit Chuck Klosterman in the head with a hammer, this is the level of prose you'd get.

xpost I'd expect more from the author of articles like "8 Wham songs you didn't know were written solely by George Michael"

omg M@tt that is incredible

When I got to “in the throws of whatever” I started full-on hollering (also even my phone knew it was “throes” as I was typing)

this one is really what killed me:

the song’s titular phrase, “hoochie koo,” describes a state of being. It’s playful, emphasizing the excitement and freedom the music makes him feel. It lights his fuse.

I can't distinguish between AI prose and grotesque human prose

it's so weird because listen I've worked in the content mines and do have sympathy for everyone who's gotta pull up their pants and, say, shit out Taylor Swift article to do numbers when the tour is going on but like who asked for this?

As we’ll see, this is the year when the 2010s really began in a musical sense, while a lot of the trends that were popular in the previous decade fell away.

― omar little, Thursday, June 22, 2023 11:03 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

anyway here's an album by the national

Derringer wrote “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” during his tenure in the acclaimed blues guitarist Johnny Winter’s band, Johnny Winter And. Winter was the first to record the tune, releasing it on his 1970 album, Johnny Winter And.

damn try reading this aloud

Johnny Winter And by Johnny Winter and Johnny Winter’s band, Johnny Winter And

Did Johnny Winter's Band Johnny Winter And ever tour with The Band?

Bad enough they overlooked Tony Molina and Joanna Gruesome, but overlooking Ovlov is just unacceptable. They had 10 years.

"25 albums from pitchfork's year-end list in a slightly different order plus 5 albums by huge rock acts" - Every reassessment of mid-00s to present, until the end of time, is going to be exactly this.

That was also Omar Souleyman's breakthrough year in the U.S.

That was a giant xpost btw

It would just be nice for once to feel like there's any room left in this world for people who don't give a fuck about Vampire Weekend or Haim or Arctic Monkeys.

As we’ll see, this is the year when the 2010s really began in a musical sense, while a lot of the trends that were popular in the previous decade fell away.

― omar little, Thursday, June 22, 2023 11:03 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

anyway here's an album by the national

― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili), Thursday, June 22, 2023

lol

The Uproxx thing really bums me out in that, I feel like the last few years of rock criticism have just been endlessly endlessly recycling agreed-upon but essentially flawed narratives like "Woodstock 99 was cause by male rage" to "The Strokes were an important band" to "Pitchfork Indie was actually the best music" All these places just kind of rewriting opinions media people already held but with some new headline to signal this is new content for social media. Lots of 10 Year Anniversary content from people that already covered the stuff 10 years ago. Just an oroborous of content and received wisdom. It's really sad.

Idk if it's part of it that anyone else notices but there's just a real lack of enthusiasm in so many of these pieces, like zero love for music expressed, just an exhausted recitation of everything, like someone forced to write a paper on history and muster some feigned appreciation for the subject matter. It's maybe part of why a lot of it reads as AI when it's actually not, it's just the dead-eyed cliff notes style too.

you say that like ILM wouldn't wearily regurgitate 90% of that list if required to repoll 2013 lol

facebook memories of music writing

it reminds me of the AMG reviews that, when compared to some of the much higher quality jobs on the site, were obvious rush-jobs from people who didn't have a lot of experience writing about said genre, and either got a lot of details wrong (an old review that's since been pulled down of Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I, that erroneously said there was never a Part 2 made), or just seemed like "by numbers", as if half of the content was drawn from received wisdom merged with cursory thoughts of the new album.

now this style seems like the predominant writing style.

you say that like ILM wouldn't wearily regurgitate 90% of that list if required to repoll 2013 lol

― imago, Thursday, June 22, 2023 12:51 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

at the very least 1017 thug would be on there lol

i appreciate it that there's a lot of care put into so many AMG reviews, because that's a site that could likely get away with half-assing it a lot more than it does.

2013's rap masterpiece was Signor Benedick The Moor's El Negro, I will not be swayed on this

xp Whiney otm

2013 feels way too recent for a reappraisal. Most of those acts have put out like two albums since then.

"an oroborous of content and received wisdom" nails it, I think. Almost as if there is a desire to create a canon despite the rest of the world seeming increasingly very post-canon

It’s not really a problem if a consensus forms around what the most popular/“best” acts of a particular time forms; the issue is when everyone talking about it says exactly the same thing with no nuance/interrogation/sense of enjoying the music as a tangible, meaningful artifact

otm

i think only food adjectives should be allowed in reviews