I guess if it helps us reach some consensus it does feel sometimes like Whiney leans a little heavy on clowning tropes of social justice than I’d be comfortable with
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 19:25 (six years ago) link
RIP real name shit got heated thread
― imago, Monday, 5 February 2018 19:27 (six years ago) link
Oops thnx for the fix
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 19:33 (six years ago) link
I mean, when I think of popular people on Twitter, I don't think of legacy newspaper critics
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, 5 February 2018 19:34 (six years ago) link
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, February 5, 2018 2:25 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
to be perfectly clear, social justice is necessary, but tropes can be funny, ymmv
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, 5 February 2018 19:43 (six years ago) link
like this was published at least by the 4th quarter last night, you can't tell me he didn't know what he was gonna write then just fill in the details of songs, etc
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/arts/music/justin-timberlake-super-bowl-halftime-review.html
― bhad and bhabie (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 5 February 2018 19:56 (six years ago) link
professional
― j., Monday, 5 February 2018 20:00 (six years ago) link
“popular on twitter” often means “followed by the same self reinforcing group of 800-900 people” though. who on twitter who thinks about music is actually popular aside from musicians?
― maura, Monday, 5 February 2018 20:11 (six years ago) link
that bald MRA dude
― j., Monday, 5 February 2018 20:13 (six years ago) link
Fwiw I am glad there’s been a correction to some extent, Timberlake was getting mega overvalued by 20/20. But it’s like the Eminem thing too, there’s ppl talking about the glowing praise at the time that made him the new Elvis, but then there’s like ppl deciding he was never good ??
I think it was Vince Staples who said if Eminem was black he’d be redman. The wild vascillations are like 🙄
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 20:20 (six years ago) link
Lmao Lefsetz being republished in DJ booth is *chef kissing fingers motion*
http://djbooth.net/mobile/feature/2018-02-05-justin-timberlake-super-bowl-performance
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 20:46 (six years ago) link
Like Katherine, look at who is lining up to parrot this new consensus. How can you not feel some skepticism?
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 20:47 (six years ago) link
fuckin lefsetz whyyy
― maura, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:03 (six years ago) link
tweeted about it and got this smarmy reverse ageist response lol
Ha. We often repost Bob's newsletter on DJBooth (with his permission). If you aren't familiar with Bob's work (he has been a music critic for longer than you've been alive), you should subscribe to his newsletter.— DJBooth (@DJBooth) February 5, 2018
― austinb, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:10 (six years ago) link
something tells me lefsetz is not taking his cues from twitter
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:10 (six years ago) link
amazing
― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:10 (six years ago) link
bob lefsetz, noted twitter personality and social justice warrior
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:11 (six years ago) link
also a "music critic" apparently
― austinb, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:12 (six years ago) link
basically at this point I assume lefsetz comes to his musical opinions by tarot card drawing or random number generator
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:15 (six years ago) link
he's not a true music fan, like you
― sleepingbag, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:18 (six years ago) link
he's a true something, that's for sure
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:19 (six years ago) link
This is pretty much to a large extent about context, isn't it? Pop-music got very political for a few years, and under Obama it could really seem as if things were getting better. So Taylor Swifts 'squad' was not perfect, but a step in the right direction? But now small steps aren't enough, and people are turning on those who they deem to not measure up,
― Frederik B, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:20 (six years ago) link
idk where he gets it from specifically, but hes not getting this randomly hes just reflecting the generic received wisdom
i just dont think we're in some new woke utopia just bc mainstream pundit class is scared to be on the wrong side of twitter, and saying so isn't the same as being a reactionary
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:27 (six years ago) link
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, February 5, 2018 2:20 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Did he mean that as a diss because Redman is classic as hell
― bhad and bhabie (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:30 (six years ago) link
no i think he just was talking about the way white rappers get blown out of proportion but that eminem was still a dope rapper (i agree w vince i'm saying hes a voice of reason, the vascillations are more pundit class ish ...)
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:31 (six years ago) link
brothers and sisters...i don't know what this world is coming to
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, February 5, 2018 3:31 PM (seventeen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
oh i get it basically like they were both dope but red doesn't get mentioned on all time top 10 lists like em and obv doesn't have near the sales/$$$$, i agree w/that
― bhad and bhabie (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:33 (six years ago) link
and fwiw im also not saying any individual pundit is *per se* just following consensus ... i know caramanica's been panning JT since at least 20/20. (that said the idea that he wasn't an essential pop star seems counter to my experience of his nsync through FS/LS peak)
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 21:33 (six years ago) link
"he's been around for a while so he's worth listening to" is some real rank shit
― maura, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:48 (six years ago) link
I’ve been worrying at this general issue a lot. Like how to square the following propositions all of which I agree with:
1. Taylor Swift’s handling of issues of race / gender / politics has been tonedeaf.
2. At least some of the prior broad support for Taylor probably has been due to her perceived status as a white “all American girl”, which probably has benefited her critically and commercially (at least in some ways or in some contexts) at the expense of other artists.
3. The music she made up until 2014 was (with some variation) largely excellent.
4. Her most recent album is her worst by some distance.
5. The critical pile-on against her in response has frequently irritated me for its lack of nuance, and in particular the way that propositions 1, 2 and 4 above are collapsed into each other.
This is not even an erroneous cause and effect issue for me, or not specifically (“Taylor’s new album is awful because she is the face of white feminism” is a proposition that one sees often enough, of course, but in truth these arguments rarely bother to actually spell out that presumed causal relationship - it’s more often presented as a kind of cluster of badness), and it’s certainly not about the invasion of social justice considerations onto the field of pop music criticism.
I think really the broader issue I have is the collapse of all critique of pop music into polarised debates over the status and intentions of the creator (typically considered first and foremost by reference to their social media presence), and a marginalisation of any other prism through which a given piece of pop music may be considered. The social justice gloss is at least in part something that we as critics use to make ourselves feel better about our interest in policing celebrities - is Taylor woke (2017) seeming like a rather more worthy topic than is Britney a talent-devoid sexbot (1999). But the structure of these arguments haven’t really changed from 1999 to 2017, which is maybe why a lot of white male critics are happy enough to adopt these new arguments - it allows the continued conflation of popular music criticism with prurient celebrity gossip culture.
― Tim F, Monday, 5 February 2018 21:58 (six years ago) link
I think really the broader issue I have is the collapse of all critique of pop music into polarised debates over the status and intentions of the creator (typically considered first and foremost by reference to their social media presence), and a marginalisation of any other prism through which a given piece of pop music may be considered.
Or: confusing a Facebook acquaintance's disgust with Swift or Timberlake with a useful prism through which to look at their work.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 5 February 2018 22:09 (six years ago) link
I don't see how it's surprising for the consensus to "change" on Timberlake from wherever it was five years ago around the time the last albums were released, when his most recent moment of pop culture ubiquity was actually not The 20/20 Experience but that horribly peppy song he provided to the Trolls film, which even now still continues to haunt pop radio, and he's then presented us with the cognitive dissonance of appearing on a red carpet wearing a "#TimesUp" pin while appearing in a forthcoming Woody Allen film (and then, in the pièce de résistance, asking Twitter for clarification as to the meaning of the phrase "have one's cake and eat it too" (
The saying means, for example, you can’t support #TIMESUP and praise sexual predators at the same time. You can’t retain your credibility as an activist (i.e. - retain the cake) and, at the same time, praise a sexual predator (i.e. - eating the cake).— Dylan Farrow (@RealDylanFarrow) January 23, 2018
Add to that the context of being invited back to the Superbowl stage after what happened the last time he was there, the Grammy awards ceremony last week where barely any non-male pop artists were given any notable recognition, and the ugly nature of the music he's just released, and you have everything required to provoke a lot of people into getting mad online and letting themselves quickly forget about "My Love" or whatever.
― monotony, Monday, 5 February 2018 23:06 (six years ago) link
"Can't Stop the Feeling!" is one of the decade's biggest recurrent hits. I hear it on the radio at least three or four times a week.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 5 February 2018 23:07 (six years ago) link
(and then, in the pièce de résistance, asking Twitter for clarification as to the meaning of the phrase "have one's cake and eat it too" (
this was a powerful scene in Good Time
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 23:17 (six years ago) link
― monotony, Monday, February 5, 2018 5:06 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i dont think anyone is saying its happening for no reason but its not like hes more of an idiot now than he was when he was younger, people just care more. like half the shit you're complaining about is super "who gives a fuck" when people like the music, or if he was on the upswing ... cardi b said transphobic shit but its not slowing her roll
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 5 February 2018 23:20 (six years ago) link
are these sorts of critical pile-ons knocking previously respected artists down a peg even that unprecedented, or is the unusual thing here that we've had ~two in a fairly short period? (the 'pile-on' for taylor was also not nearly as uniformly negative as this conversation would suggest.)
has the nature of #content changed so fundamentally that this is something to remain worried about for the foreseeable future? like yes, i would say there are certainly worrisome recent developments in how information in general, including criticism, reaches its audience and is expected to resonate in a manner that induces shares/virality/etc., so while i do get the sense that things are not quite right i am also failing to understand what is specifically objectionable about the situation discussed here. i would not guess it's especially related to 'elitism'.
given the context of reactionary backlash that katherine has patiently* delineated i am not eager to add to the chorus of " ______ otm"s, as lovely as it feels to do that here on the ilx.
― dyl, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:02 (six years ago) link
* and gently too btw, despite the 'omg you're calling me a fascist/4chan' pushback
― dyl, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:03 (six years ago) link
oh and also were the 'poptimists' of the stylus mag era even that uniformly supportive of jt's work at the time? i seem to recall some scathing reaction to "sexyback"
― dyl, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:10 (six years ago) link
xps: the tolerance for Timberlake's brand from pop culture critics was always going to turn south when the songs became as unpalatable as they now have - without any distraction all the corniness is much harder to ignore. His conventional presentation of manhood is also all so dull and wearying, at least to me personally. This is something I felt lex explained well in his review of the album:
In some ways, Timberlake is a victim of the rapidly changing zeitgeist – though surely it is a pop star’s job to have their finger on its pulse, if not actually create it. His aspirational masculinity is the same story he has been peddling for his whole career – and when he and his collaborators were young and fresh, it resulted in genius. It is also the narrative that pop culture as a whole has sold us for a good half-century – which is why it is increasingly feeling so familiar and so tiresome.
Cardi B's circumstances are not really analogous here so I don't know that she provides a helpful comparison, though I certainly wouldn't say that her comments have passed unnoticed by the same people who have recently piled on Timberlake.
― monotony, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:11 (six years ago) link
are we man of the woods yet are we man of the woods yet are we man of the woods
― I will finish what I (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:19 (six years ago) link
what is the 'aspirational masculinity' he is describing there? does he go into more depth than those two words?
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:19 (six years ago) link
though I certainly wouldn't say that her comments have passed unnoticed by the same people who have recently piled on Timberlake.
― monotony, Monday, February 5, 2018 6:11 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
hmmmmmm isn't the difference between those who *did* notice them and those who (appeared to) not notice them exactly where the me vs. katherine argument is breaking down here
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:20 (six years ago) link
I missed the Super Bowl and halftime show and showed up at my friend's party late. My friend showed me the clip of the half-time show, and we both responded similarly ("that was bad!") and then he made a show of playing "Cry Me A River" one last night before deleting it from his iTunes.
I remarked that I had a soft spot for that song and the 'dialogue' it held with "Everytime" by Britney, and he said "oh no, I don't fuck with Britney. Let me show you how much I don't fuck with Britney," and began playing "Toxic". It was the instrumental version. He had four Britney songs and they were all instrumental. "I don't need Britney when I got this," he said.
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:25 (six years ago) link
Anyway I disagree with most of the sentiments of this thread's revival
Timberlake had mega-bangers
That half-time performance felt like literal erasure of Prince and Prince's own legendary halftime show
I googled "Prince halftime show" after it was over to cleanse my brain from Justin's bullshit and all that came up was "Justin performs with Prince at the halftime show"-- it was literal, functional erasure
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:27 (six years ago) link
Here's lex's full review for context. At least for me, the aspirational masculinity Timberlake presents on this new album is one which conflates manliness with working on the land, having your woman wear your shirt so she feels like she's yours, serving as protector to wife and child, etc etc. Whether it's an overly dramatic shift from his previous work is up for debate I guess. IMO he's probably just been looking at some different Pinterest boards for inspiration as to aesthetic.
I'm not too sure what the argument is anymore and haven't been keeping a list of who has and has not called out Cardi B, but I can understand why people are less willing to disparage her personally when there are other factors like race, gender and class to consider that aren't relevant to Timberlake or, say, Ed Sheeran when he writes songs like "New Man", or Charlie Puth when he favourites Mark Dice tweets.
― monotony, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:42 (six years ago) link
And a big congratulations to Britney on one year with her hunky instathot boyfriend. https://www.instagram.com/p/Be1Ht6wF4Lj/?taken-by=britneyspears
― monotony, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:43 (six years ago) link
Ugh, instahot?
― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:44 (six years ago) link
uh insta-not
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:52 (six years ago) link
the way ~algorithms~ engage in the erasure of the past fgti outlined is very upsetting
― maura, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 01:24 (six years ago) link
* and gently too btw, despite the 'omg you're calling me a fascist/4chan' pushback― dyl, Monday, February 5, 2018 7:03 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― dyl, Monday, February 5, 2018 7:03 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yeah it was shitty of me to react the way i did to that b/c i revived this thread with inflammatory and flippant commentary and katherine was only responding in kind. i'm glad the popism 2.0 thread got started because, even though i harbor so much irrational bitterness towards the post-max martin/lou pearlman/iheart/livenation pop landscape, i was basically raised by ILM so seeing people talk out why this evolution in thinking happened is genuinely interesting and insightful to me. it was stupid for me to broach the subject in such a hostile way.
― vicious almond beliefs (crüt), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 01:37 (six years ago) link
i got pretty shook by the 4chan reference because i think i do have that bitter-white-guy-who-got-bullied-in-middle-school thing going on. in my case the bullying was soundtracked by *NSYNC and Britney, so there u have it, katherine otm
― vicious almond beliefs (crüt), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 01:45 (six years ago) link