1. Maxim takes on tougher targets than does Alex in NYC or amst (shock! outrage! they named bad bands and didn't go after the backstreet boys -- coz nobodys ever gone against THEM before!! its like everyone's afraid of making fun of current teenpop! they're practically on pedestals with the lips of every rockcrit ever puckered against their ass!) or derogatis.
2. Amst complains when ppl. (me) mention things they like with some reasons (tiffany's we're both thinking of her tonight coz its a great heartbreak song) and don't include dissertations. This is a rockist dbl. standard coz sure i'd love to write a dissertation on Tiffany sometime (i actually wrote one -- or at least an article) but if amst. sez "I love the rolling stones" who's gonna go "dude you have some fucking nerve saying you like them without proving it. its like yr. just trying to upset my critical applecart for no reason you annoyingly puckish scamp." More to the point I've never ONCE seen amst. give any in-depth explanation for his like or dislike of ANY MUSIC EVER.
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 22:57 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 22:59 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 22:59 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:00 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:01 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:03 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:04 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:05 (twenty years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:07 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:08 (twenty years ago) link
Sterling -- what if you hate (or love) both?
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:08 (twenty years ago) link
― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:11 (twenty years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:12 (twenty years ago) link
― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:13 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:14 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:14 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:16 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:16 (twenty years ago) link
i'd say more tiffany was APPRECIATED for dance numbers and deborah for ballads. but deborah hand so little range, a comparatively weak voice, and even her dance-numbers were pretty damn go nowhere. (out of the blue was the first tape i ever bought tho and it has a special place in my heart even if for no other reason.)
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:22 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:23 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:25 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:29 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:30 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:31 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward, Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:31 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:32 (twenty years ago) link
― Nicole (Nicole), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:33 (twenty years ago) link
(isn't shake your love just the chorus over and over and over or am i missing something? i mean granted i love the double-entendre but it only takes you so far. foolish beat was a bit better i recall)
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:35 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:38 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:39 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:40 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:41 (twenty years ago) link
(Actually, I compare & contrast them plenty in my second book, and it would take me thousands of words to go into here, but I'm going home.)
And I still don't get how "self-congratulatory let's-hyberbolically-enthuse-over-what-we-imagine-others-think-is-utterly-disposable shtick" is not questioning my integrity. But who gives a shit, y'know?
― chuck, Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:45 (twenty years ago) link
Actually, I'm a Company B guy. (But NOT in a boogie-woogie bugle way, I swear.)
― chuck, Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:48 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:52 (twenty years ago) link
I'm also curious where exactly I do this:
>fail to extricate their like for the music from their desire to make a statement about the value of disposable/etc. Pop Music<<
Can you give me examples of where exactly I've made such statements, Amateurist? (Actually, I HATE most disposable pop, if you wanna know.)
― chuck, Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:57 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 23:57 (twenty years ago) link
― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:02 (twenty years ago) link
As for Klosterman, I have not read anything apart from his books, but in the newest (forthcoming?) one, he relies very heavily on the naughty-scamp routine, going so far as to make heavy use of the whole 90s "only a weirdo like me would think this" routine.
― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:08 (twenty years ago) link
As for the disposable pop thing, you're right that I don't necessarily have a leg to stand on Chuck (maybe 1/2 of a leg, which isn't of much use), and I think I've already granted that I might be mischaracterizing your overall outlook on the basis of a handful of ILM posts. (I also may be confusing your writing with that of the other Chuck, and perhaps a raft of other VV critics as well.)
To try and explain myself, it seems (from my perspective--which means the threads that I read) that you are most interested in defending stray albums from much-maligned subgenres and artists and although you mention Dylan as being a major focus of your book, I haven't noticed a lot of posts on ILM (again, this may be due to my own myopia) about such consensus figures or for that matter many artists/genres that don't have the potential to raise questions about your credulity. I accept your sincerity, in fact, but it's your seeming choice of focus on precisely that music which raises hackles that begins to annoy me. Your celebration of these things (again, on ILM) seem to employ a po-face quite occasionally, such as (made-up example) "Manowar is better than Motorhead," and it's then left to subsequent posters to fill in the reasons behind this. There's a contrarianism here that--again, on selected ILM posts--seems to overwhelm other impulses and emotions. Of course this is not uncommon in general on message boards. Some ILMers have made virtual careers of such contrarianism (some of them are on this thread).
I employ the device mentioned above (let's call it the "Manowar>Motorhead device") sometimes, although I'm not proud of it. This gets at what Sterling says, that I myself am guilty of that of which I accuse others. I've said so myself numerous times on ILM. My musical literacy is woefully inadequate to the task of writing the sort of music criticism (or music study) I like to read. If it's a truism that we single out others for faults that we find in ourselves, I'm a living illustration. But if I've singled you out for criticism (some of it founded, some of it clearly not) it's because you are a convenient representative of the rock criticism establishment (by which I simply mean a popular and well-read and -entrenched published critic) and as such I hold you to a higher standard--and probably hold you accountable for a whole state of affairs for which you far from wholly to blame. That probably sounds insufferably condescending itself.
The contradiction here is that I should judge you on the stuff you actually get paid for. Which I hope to read more of this weekend and hopefully I will be robbed of my misconceptions or at least more nuanced and sensible in my criticism.
[Put another way: When I write I'm simply one guy, with no professional connection to music, who is often bored at a job he's about to leave and prefers this ragged discourse to the endless dotting of i's and crossing of t's. When you write Chuck, from my POV at least, you're writing in your professional identity.]
I probably haven't addressed all the sundry criticisms I've received on this thread, least of all Sterling's which seem in their definitiveness ("you never say anything at all" etc.) an unfortunate echo of my initial statements (now regretted) about him and Chuck. I should add that I feel bad for personally offending you and impugning your sincerity, although I remain unconvinced of the virtues of your writing style and wary of--I'll say it again, just to see if Trife can get more mileage out of it--your insistent puckishness as I've perceived it on ILM.
As for the members of the peanut gallery, it's actually quite amusing to see you graft a whole host of attributes onto me that aren't evident from my posts (and would seem obv false if you bothered to recall my general contribution to ILX outside of these unfortunate lashings out on criticism threads): rockism, anti-hip hop, whatever. I think the protean nature of this thread (starting in one place, quickly moving to another) encourages this sort of thing so in a sense this is another mea culpa.
― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:19 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:22 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:24 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:26 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:32 (twenty years ago) link
― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:39 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 00:41 (twenty years ago) link