Purple Mountains (RIP David Berman, August 2019)

I think my Pavement buddy is very disappointed he just had to alert me this was David Berman and not a new psych folk bore band. I listened to All My Happiness Is Gone and was meh on it until it turned into a Camera Obscura song. Silver Jews was the show in nyc that broke me on being over going to shows in nyc. They had the absolute worst audience.

As an artist I go to extraordinary lengths to avoid seeing any reviews or criticism of what I do, and what I do is probably less than 1% as personal & soul-exposing as the average Silver Jews record, I can absolutely see how a bad or lukewarm review could throw his system out of whack

As an artist I go to extraordinary lengths to avoid seeing any reviews or criticism of what I do

But do you share your art with your friends and family? Wouldn't their opinion mean more to you than that of someone you don't know personally? If your art is more than a commodity to you, then why would you care about the opinion of someone who treats it as such?

this is such an absurd conversation, musicians and artists are just people.

Regardless of everything else on the subject, I was still bummed out to read that Berman was so negatively affected by that review. Perhaps it's easy to not immediately understand why this gifted lyricist of his stature would have his confidence knocked so hard

But do you share your art with your friends and family? Wouldn't their opinion mean more to you than that of someone you don't know personally? If your art is more than a commodity to you, then why would you care about the opinion of someone who treats it as such?

― del griffith, Saturday, July 20, 2019 6:24 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Friends and family are typically not very reliable critics, so their opinions can't always be trusted. Of course your boyfriend thinks you make the best techno; of course your mom thinks your songs are as good as Bob Dylan's. Putting your work out into the world allows you--for better or worse--a relatively more accurate read on your talents. I'm not an artist but I imagine it's similar to the reasons I choose to see a therapist rather than just meeting a friend for a drink to discuss the same things.

Is this the Pfork review in question?: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11916-lookout-mountain-lookout-sea/

That review, in retrospect, doesn't seem especially harsh to me

Friends and family are typically not very reliable critics, so their opinions can't always be trusted. Putting your work out into the world allows you--for better or worse--a relatively more accurate read on your talents.

OK maybe not family necessarily, but you choose your friends, and if you're choosing friends whose critical standards are wildly different from your own, well then you've really only got yourself to blame if you're not getting from them the meaningful feedback you're seeking. And to another point, I don't know that artists are necessarily seeking an analytical/critical judgement so much as they're seeking to merely share their thoughts, to be heard, understood, and appreciated in the same insightful and empathetic way that they do for others. At least that's how I like "my" artists to think, and I like to think David is one of "mine."

this is such an absurd conversation, musicians and artists are just people.

I agree with the second part of this statement!

Euuuuuuuugggghhhhhhhhh ok I was harsh upthread, really just speaking for myself as I just couldn’t imagine getting miffed in the slightest about some writing by a stranger (sorry more glib). let alone proactively seeking out random negative criticism to help me “improve” my craft or serve as therapeutic in some way... my music is just so fucking personal to me... but I mean, I make instrumental music for my own high standards of listening pleasure and I’m never really in doubt as to whether or not I’m enjoying or not enjoying something I’ve made/am currently working on. Yeah it’s different for music with lyrics and stuff. Maybe some people are just drawn to searching bad stuff out. I know I sound totally crazy and childish, sorry, bye :-(

I’m 12 years old btw

That review, in retrospect, doesn't seem especially harsh to me

It's not. This whole thing has really been blown out of proportion. If I recall correctly, he merely stated in an interview that he had made his best effort for that album and then it just kind of received a middling review. So what! People are allowed to read their own review, feel that what they've created hasn't been fully appreciated, and then not get called a primadonna for offhandedly mentioning it in an interview. If he'd further internalized it and called his next album Pitchshit Mountain, Pissfork Pee, then yeah that might signal some ego issues.

Uh, no, he didn't just say that he made his best effort and that it received a middling review. He said:

"It got a really average rating on Pitchfork, 6.7, and that really burned me for a long time. I really felt like, wow, I really tried as hard as I could and I really got the message back that maybe I had peaked. And so I decided to walk away from it."

I would say a review being the reason (or the final straw) for David Berman walking away from music for a decade is a pretty big deal! I don't think we've blown it out of proportion. (I also don't at all think he's a prima donna for mentioning it.)

I mean everyone who's been in a band there's this sort of feeling that creeps in after awhile why the fuck are we bothering with this?

I would say a review being the reason (or the final straw) for David Berman walking away from music for a decade is a pretty big deal! I don't think we've blown it out of proportion.

Alright, well, by all means then, keep talking about it until it's in the proper proportion you want it to be?

You guys aren’t going to believe this, but I was just out walking and heard a guy whistling that little melody from “Living Waters.”

The review isn't THAT harsh, but I feel like it's off the mark, kind of just makes it seem like a poorly produced, half-hearted mediocre collection of songs, when it's way better than that. I love the Nashville-sounding production, and pretty much all the songs are at least really good to great. Suffering Jukebox, San Francisco BC and Party Barge are all-time-great Joos songs in my books.

I do remember not loving it that much when it came out, but I think the record has aged really well, and is way better than most of the stuff Pitchfork hyped in 2008. Sorry, The Mae Shi.

Not sure this is the case, but if you tell someone who has cleaned up their act that their new music is half-assed...

I think Berman's reaction makes more sense if you remember just how bad Pitchfork and the media ecosystem that had developed around it were by 2008. Their ability to make or break indie acts with a single review was at an all-time high, but the level of actual engagement with the music in those reviews had ebbed. Dan Bejar registers this same phenomenon in his weird "Grief Point" monologue, speaking about an album that came out the same year as Lookout Mountain and received a similarly lazy and disinterested, pro forma good review from PF:

The message from the critical reception of [Trouble in] Dreams was quite clear: We will not be listening to you any further.

(Btw I just looked up the Pitchfork review of that Destroyer record and it's truly pathetic, just a bunch of indie rock horse-trading and market analysis. The reviewer wastes multiple paragraphs drawing parallels between Bejar's career arc and Guided By Voices, a band that his band sounds nothing like, a band that at that point had been broken up for 4 or 5 years. The concluding paragraph tells us "I caught only one pun, two snippets of others' famous lyrics, and two references to other bands" but I guess the writer+editor thought readers of this review would be more interested in William Bowers's parodies of GbV song titles than in knowing, e.g., that one of those famous lyrics is Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)". I could go on, I won't.

I was talking to one of the screenwriters of Top Gun 2 after its Comic-Con panel last weekend. Turns out the guy is a big Purple Mountains fan, believe it or not. He told me he managed to work in a last-minute line for Aging Maverick to say: "I feel the need... the need to speed into the lead suddenly decline."

Anyway, this album is basically unruinable for me, and that's good, because otherwise the sound of that third line being snuck into "Nights That Won't Happen" as an obvious last-minute overdub might've just shot the whole thing down for me like a MiG over the Indian Ocean.

How does PM come up in conversation with an action movie screenwriter?

Easy, it's all I talk about anymore. Also, he writes rom-coms too.

Was listening to the album on headphones in a small shop then took them off to hear 'Darkness And Cold' playing on their speakers. Felt nice, can't say that has ever happened before, strange for it to be a Berman-related experience

Paul, you're gonna wanna register that here, I think.

Obscure Singles Heard at CVS

I know "Darkness and Cold" is the single with the video starring Steve McNair, but I hadn't picked up on the "first and goal" football reference in "All My Happiness is Gone" until someone pointed it out to me this morning.

Fittingly, I'm very proud of myself for being the only one I know so far to have discovered the lil reference to Starlite Walker in "Maybe I'm the Only One for Me."

I wonder how many clicks per week pitchfork would lose if they did away with patronizing aspies by summarizing works of art on a numerical scale.

please don' talk like this on this board or elsewhere. instead, choose not to be an asshole. thanks.

You're right that I shouldn't have used the a-word there, but I do think numerical ratings does a great disservice to the written language. Which is kind of the whole point of a review.

Excuse me, do! Do a great disservice to it. Heh

I agree with you on that point massively actually, I think numerical ratings as a default did irreparable damage to music criticism

i give this album 5 bag of popcorn

and a grape Fanta

Anyway, this album is basically unruinable for me, and that's good, because otherwise the sound of that third line being snuck into "Nights That Won't Happen" as an obvious last-minute overdub might've just shot the whole thing down for me like a MiG over the Indian Ocean.

― del griffith, Thursday, 25 July 2019 21:13

I hadn't noticed that. Now I'll hear it every time. Thanks for ruining this album for me forever (joke)

DB albums have always had weird, obvious overdubs. Which is why I find it so strange he left the weak go of the first line of the album.

I agree it's great though.

Fittingly, I'm very proud of myself for being the only one I know so far to have discovered the lil reference to Starlite Walker in "Maybe I'm the Only One for Me."

Hadn't caught that, thanks for pointing it out! I'm a little surprised I haven't seen anyone note how Snow Is Falling in Manhattan is kind of an extension of "We're trapped inside the song."

Anyway I love this album and I'd say the first five tracks are a perfect album side.

Finally listened to this in full... I dig it (natch), and can also see why he used a different moniker this time around; somehow it doesn't feel like a Joos record.

Holy fuck.

Just heard from Peyton Pinkerton. I wish it was a sick joke. Our friend David Berman has committed suicide. Devastated beyond words.

— Joe Pernice (@JPernicious) August 7, 2019

GODDAMN.

We couldn't be more sorry to tell you this. David Berman passed away earlier today. A great friend and one of the most inspiring individuals we've ever known is gone. Rest easy, David. pic.twitter.com/5n5bctcu4j

— 𝕯𝖗𝖆𝖌 𝕮𝖎𝖙𝖞 (@dragcityrecords) August 7, 2019

fuck, awful news

oh no.... goddamn it. what a talent

Fucking hell. RIP

what the fucking goddamn fuck

Aw man

:(

oh fuck

Oh no

Rest in peace, few as great as him. Felt something so friendly and warm in his voice and words.

I was just introducing a friend to his work and life story yesterday. He'll be spoken of long, long after many of his contemporaries are forgotten.

Damn.

wasn't a huge fan but this is such a punch in the stomach after reading a fair amount of the press about this album and the last few years of his life

Just.... man.