pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Wow, that campaign is bonkers... (but doesn't it sort of support my point, in that RS was pushing back against the "faulty" perception that it's a crusty hippie mag, and pointing out how current/relevant the mag -- and its readers -- actually are?)

I don't think that seems incredibly off-base because as opposed to funneling product advertising to readers, they were using their internal marketing to do self-definition and market themselves to advertisers. It's telling that they're not straying far from their original market, in that all of the stereotype-breakers imply their readership isn't a different young person, it's a settled, monied reader that's been with them all along. It reads as a cynical ploy, but it's relatively honest about who their market was all along: readers who were interested in culture and commentary but were more likely to be consumers than outliers or artists.

I don't think p4k has done anything as bad as this: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/perception-vs-reality-a-look-back-at-rolling-stones-greatest-ad-campaign-ever/

― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 4, 2018 2:57 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow

lmao re: cobain & morrison - "the emptiness that we feel in their leaving is a living testament to the passion of 8 million readers whose attitudes, ideas, and life styles continue to change the world"

lol/holy shit at the pig/cop ad

our readers actually hate drugs and sandals and love cops

http://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/rs-4.jpg

Mushrooms appear on salads instead of on horizons. And that's no hallucination.

that pig/cop ad is the most amazing terrible thing

Wait when did this campaign run? It's all from the '80s, except for the Cobain thing stuck in there(?)

(And the mushroom ad, too - the Cold War sure as hell wasn't "on ice" in the mid-'80s.)

Ok, it says "beginning in 1985...". (Beavis & Butt-head also obv. not from the '80s)

the Beavis & Butthead one, along with some of the later ones, is where they finally admit they do have an upper/lower age range imo

the two thoughts that stick with me are my parents, who are definitely in the original age range for RS, griping about their peers dropping ideals as soon as they were making a paycheck and punishing the next generation for having any ideals

the second would be my friend who is in marketing very insistently explaining that "advertising" and "marketing" are two distinct things. advertisers are definitely RS's actual market, and somehow they decided to market themselves to both advertisers and readers with the same "this is us" stereotype set, which is... something

i remember tripping and sitting by the speakers listening to a college radio new age show once and i was like omg, this stuff is more insane than anything i have in my record collection.

Dude, ambient music on psychedelics is the absolute best. David Sylvian's Approaching Silence is all time, in this regard. I mean, for me, music on psychedelics feels "stretched out" anyway, but it's so magnified with that stuff, in the best way.

i know this is against the rules of the thread but i really enjoyed their write up on Beetlejuice & Harry Belafonte. it was more interested in digging into the historical contexts of the song itself & Belafonte as musician & Burton as filmmaker than the usual wide-eyed blog wonder at the machinations of music marketing and product placement.

^^^ otm

Half the fun of American Recordings is knowing that it’s not the end of something, but the start of something. It sends him down a road that ends with him writing some of the best songs he’ll ever write and it nets him an immortality-cementing hit in 2002 with “Hurt.” Which, by the way, is unthinkable. To begin your career in 1955 and have a hit in 2002 is like starting out in 1971 and having a hit in 2018. Who the hell could even do that?

Does Blackstar count as a hit? David Bowie started in 1967 and had a hit in 2016.

I wouldn’t say so, no. It didn’t cross over to youth culture in the same way.

Yoko has had like 13 Number One Dance hits

Was "Hurt" a "hit?" It was a "hit" video, but that's really not the same thing, is it?

pretty sure Johnny Cash was immortality cemented long before he did a NIN cover

I saw Johnny Cash at a club here (probably his last Chicago show) not long after "Unchained" came out, and my friend and I were pretty much the only ones there under the age of 40.

Only 1,000 kids bought American Recordings but all of them grew up to own a craft beer bar or a bespoke barbershop

hurt was on mtv a fair amount in the early 00s which i think counts

that piece is very uh.... indulgent

"Hurt" hit me hard when I heard it upon release, and I was not familiar with Johnny Cash at all - made me want to check out those American recordings

I think it had huge "youth culture" crossover appeal, it's difficult to cram more pathos into a song and that's always been a hit with (a lot of) teenagers, myself included. Interesting, since it's basically a hymn of atonement from an old man's perspective (that's the way it's sold in the video), that it would hold such appeal for young people.

This probably belongs in controversial opinions thread but god I hate that Rick Rubin Johnny Cash shit.

there's also a bit of "look at this AUTHENTIC cover of a song" going on (the song doesn't quite fit that, but I would guess the reception does)

I love appraisals structured around ambivalence.

xp not sure it's that controversial, I never revisit them and don't particularly like the authenticity schtick, but at the time I did and they were important to me (I would retell a story I'd read somewhere about how Rubin would push Cash to rehearse the songs again and again until he truly understood them and could deliver them authentically)

I love appraisals structured around ambivalence.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 8, 2018 7:17 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just kinda sounds like he doesn’t know what to say throughout

lol anyway i don’t know why this is bothering me so much so i’ll stop

Beethoven began his career in 1795 and had a hit in 1976

The Man Comes Around is probably the true late-career Cash classic. Plus he wrote it himself iirc?

Cash is my least favorite of the classic country giants, so I have little invested in preserving his mythos. The best of the American Recordings is the second, thanks to the Heartbreakers imo. Kaleb Horton otm about the inappositeness of the Danzig and Depeche Mode covers.

I’m not huge into Cash either, my entire collection of his music is comprised of Live at Folsom Prison (genuinely great) and the song he sings on Zooropa.

I think post-Folsom and pre-Rubin his career has tons of corn, lots of it bad corn (some great, like that U2 collab.)

(fwiw I wrote my comment before reading the review, it sure looks silly now that the entire review is about that)

There are like 10 million Johnny Cash records, and save the Sun stuff and the live albums most are just ... Johnny Cash records. I do really like most of the Rubin records, though, for getting rid of the glop, getting tasteful, tactful players in there and doing such a good job honing in on the man's huge voice and personality. I do think too many of the songs are hokey square peg/round hole fits - for every Hurt or Rusty Cage there's a Personal Jesus or something dopey like that - but there are plenty of great country songs (like Sea of Heartbreak) he absolutely nails amidst the contemporary hookups, and there are a lot more of those country/folk/gospel songs than there are those novelty pairings.

My favorite story of those sessions, by the way, was that supposedly Joe Strummer just showed up one day to watch and enjoy the experience, and basically stayed for days, sleeping on the studio floor.

There are like 10 million Johnny Cash records, and save the Sun stuff and the live albums most are just ... Johnny Cash records

This statement is equally true of most of the classic country dudes. There are way, way too many Willie Nelson albums in the world. Same with Waylon Jennings, same with Merle Haggard (though Merle's catalog, overall, is way stronger than any of the others.)

Agree that the second Cash/Rubin album, the one where the Heartbreakers back him all the way through, is the keeper.

I would retell a story I'd read somewhere about how Rubin would push Cash to rehearse the songs again and again until he truly understood them and could deliver them authentically

― niels, Sunday, April 8, 2018 10:21 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is fascinating to me because the thing I dislike most about Johnny Cash's music is that it always sounds like he's not only reading the lyrics from a sheet of paper but also like he's reading them for the first time

xp willie's made more good records than bad, and his good ones are masterpieces. Johnny Cash isn't in the same stratosphere. Willie is an artist, Cash is a cool guy with a cool voice who has made a thousand unlistenable gospel records and whose entire reputation rests on like seven good songs

never heard the story about rubin trying out having the rhcp back cash before, that sounds so bizarre

it worked for alanis

I pitched Todd Burns on a feature for Stylus in the late aughts on Cash’s American Recordings era that he dug but I never actually delivered. So I was pleasantly surprised when this came across my Twitter feed this am (I follow Kaleb).

Anyway, I thought the piece was excellent – the ambivalence mentioned upthread was exactly what makes it interesting to me. I loved that he actually concluded that the record was important but not actually great (I’ve always struggled with getting through the whole thing myself). He had some inspired reasoning as to why – that some of the covers are poor fits, sure, but also that it’s virtually an a cappella record in a lot of ways (which he correctly notes made it more of a statement but also a bit of a slog).

In general, I prefer retrospectives that blend analysis with a bit of archaeology – and show their work when necessary. To that end, I enjoyed the slightly nonlinear take here on the competing histories and mythologies (i.e., the public history with Columbia and U2, but also the less well-known Branson debacle, etc.).

Ultimately pitchfork may be dumb but this was a great piece – one that could’ve been pretentious as fuck but wasn’t. Thankfully.

never heard the story about rubin trying out having the rhcp back cash before, that sounds so bizarre

Iirc Chili Drummer Chad plays on the Rubin-produced Dixie Chicks record. There's a similarly eclectic lineup backing Nanci Griffith on her album "Flyer" (which sort of fits in with the Cash and Emmylou Harris of the era as crossover/hipster resurgent). Flyer (produced by Peter Buck) has U2's rhythm section, some Peter Gabriel vets, Indigo Girls ... I love these sorts of hodge podge all-star session line-ups. Syd Straw's Surprise, that one features everyone from Eno to Van Dyke Parks to Bernie Worrell, though there is that Golden Palominos connection.

hurt was on mtv a fair amount in the early 00s which i think counts

hah as if having your music video on MTV in the early 2000s (during the only non-reality-based programming slot from 5am-630am) counted for anything.

Cash is a cool guy with a cool voice who has made a thousand unlistenable gospel records and whose entire reputation rests on like seven good songs

yeah this is one of the dumbest takes ever and likely the audience pitchfork is writing for.

Was "Hurt" a "hit?" It was a "hit" video, but that's really not the same thing, is it?

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, April 8, 2018 11:11 PM (yesterday)

pretty sure Johnny Cash was immortality cemented long before he did a NIN cover

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, April 8, 2018 11:15 PM (yesterday)

this is the exact opposite of the point Kaleb was making though

I found it charming but lol pitchfork the way Kaleb's eyes start darting around the room in panic when he has to try and mention non-outlaw-Americana musics. British punk musicians like... uh... Cabaret Voltaire and Voice Of The Beehive. Noted... uhhh... [misreads Less Than Zero sleeve] Public Enemy producer Rick Rubin. U2 - the very U2 who had, once, previously, made an album.

it is always classic to see hipsters dismiss country or gospel, entire careers worth of music, because it doesnt fit some narrative, the last dregs of rockism. like i got news for you buddy, country music and gospel sells millions of records, it doesn't need punk rock cred to be relevant. it has been relevant for millions of people for decades.

Rubin is a miracle worker and he encourages Johnny Cash to make the best music of his life. This is the door Johnny Cash walks through to dethrone Hank Williams as the king of country music.

lol this is the stupidest fucking thing ive read in a long time

that's meant as a caricature of the standard narrative iirc

Hurt is by far his biggest hit on Spotify/Youtube btw

Great job misreading the essay Adam, well done.