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

she's having quite a year

very excited to not know who this is, thank you for not linking sic

Twitter things you def need to care about for 5 seconds

https://www.stereogum.com/2025587/vox-lux-review-natalie-portman-death-of-poptimism/franchises/sounding-board/

otm

But at what cost? Maybe poptimism’s fatal flaw is placing too much of our hopes and ideologies on an art form that cannot support or sustain them. Or maybe it doesn’t matter

if you peer deeply into the clause "or maybe it doesn't matter" you will see the phrase "i really regret pitching this dumbass idea" slowly clarifying itself in the dimness

lol

how many times does somebody need to rewrite the "we've gone too far, time to reinstate cultural hierarchies" handwringer?

I mean apart from on ILM

alright everybody start writing Car Seat Headrest clickbait

“Every generation gets the rock star they deserve. An icon that both contextualises the surrounded cultural landscape and redefines it. Looking back on this bewildering decade, no star will better epitomise our fractured, hyper-sexed identities and fiscal insecurity than the swaggy nihilism of Post Malone. The world is literally on fire and 13-year-old YouTubers are covering entire Ferraris in Louis Vuitton x Supreme wraps. Posty reigns.”

ban fashion magazines from covering music imo

lol I had to read the whole thing. marilyn manson is def fondly remembered as stylish

“If you've ever seen a photo of Miles Davis, Dwight Yoakam, Debbie Harry, or OutKast, you know that writing about music and writing about style are basically the same thing”

https://www.gq.com/story/whole-new-era-at-gq-ed-letter

wow dude really excited for your cutting edge magazine where your music issue features, uh, SoundCloud rap, John Mayer, and Vampire Weekend? You do know that music evolved since you left Fader right

.... ah

People who wear their shoes untied on purpose are insane

pitching GQ as an way-out-there magazine when it comes to anything is wild

like it's literally for 30 somethings who have an interest in owning more than one suit and want to read about things they've already heard of

https://www.spin.com/2019/01/deerhunter-why-hasnt-everything-already-disappeared-review/

I'm probably being unfair, but this unedited+unreadable wordcloud (at one point referring to the "ponderous basso continuo" of a track, presumably to mean "it has harpsichord") turned up in my feed on the same day many of the best writers I know got canned, and I went for the state of "content" as I have not wept since Pitchfork Reviews Reviews was a thing

*first "went" should be "wept" obv, but thanks to autocorrect for trying to make me appear happier than I am

he shd have cut straight to "boffo continuo"

eh, dense screed apparently written by a megafan who is too close to gauge the interest to others of everything being said

united spiritual conduit tho

jesus christ dale

'Ponderous basso continuo' is perfectly fine imho. As for the rest, it's not exactly good but it isn't bland either.

PONDEROUS, MAN, FUCKIN PONDEROUS

“Nothing Ever Happened,” a short-but-sweet number that leads to one of the most-inspiring guitar riffs in modern indie rock history

I'd be hard-pressed to name one riff from modern indie rock besides maybe "A-Punk" which is just a busier version of Minutemen's "My Heart And The Real World"

I'm struggling to articulate precisely why, but (for reasons undisclosed) really rubs me the wrong way. It just seems so uh... presumptuous? Idk

I recall Vedder saying he wished he'd written the guitar line from the dismemberment plan's "secret curse"

I dunno what “most-inspiring” means (so I’ll bracket that); but when I think of great/iconic indie rock riffs, I guess I think immediately of — “Freed Pig,” “Hot & Cold Skulls,” “Trigger Cut” (which was swiped from VU), “Coming Hot and Proud”... (all from the ‘90s)

What VU is the "Trigger Cut" riff swiped from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lqyoq2P7OE

"modern indie rock history" means post-Oh Inverted World ifaic

*afaic

it's getting to the point where one of my favorite things about indie rock is its sheer unmemorability. if i could remember it i think i'd probably hate a lot of it.

I will def. concede there haven't been many memorable "indie rock riffs" since c. 2001 (that I have encountered)... indie music also became less guitar/riff-based around that time.

Here's a great one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcNcuGkhASw

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4152207-the-beginners-guide-to--slowcore
verges on unreadably bad

Despite being the second ever slowcore band, Galaxie 500 aren’t much of one.

makes u think

This is truly awful

Laughing Stock isn’t slowcore because it doesn't feel like slowcore.

Look guys sometimes space has to be filled

i mean does it tho

Well obviously no but I'm a nihilist maybe

not that i don't appreciate the irony of filling space with an article about slowcore, a space-filled form of music

By far the most recent release included in this guide, and our very own Album of the Year for 2018, Low’s latest work is definitely too close to see, but even considering the blinders of distance it is quite possibly their best work to date, and that can’t be understated

RLY makes u think

Maybe it’s not their best. I mean, I’m not really sure how someone could compare this to I Could Live In Hope or Things We Lost in the Fire; it seems like an immensely pointless task of comparing apples to oranges, or pecans to pelicans. But it’s not so different from Low’s previous work that it’s unrecognizable. Strangely enough, it feels quite the opposite, it’s strangeness and conflict the most obvious possible extension from the band’s past.

reading this part burst a blood vessel in my left eye

the "it's" made me burst a blood vessel, i know i shouldn't care when the writing is this bad but i still do

this isn't "worst music writing" so much as "worst idea for study," but I cannot think of a SINGLE confounding variable here:

Several years ago, Chris Johnson, an audio software developer, tested a theory, espoused by some anti-loudness war activists, that the hyper-compression roiling the industry was partially to blame for shortened careers. Using a list of all-time best-selling recordings, he rearranged them by “commercial importance,” assigning each a score derived by multiplying an album’s number of platinum certifications (how many millions sold) by the number of years it had been on the market. These were records that were not merely popular — they also displayed longevity.

(that isn't even sarcasm -- I can't think of a single confounding variable because they're more like a rat king of them)

(also this is an unpopular opinion, probably, but the proper level of loudness for an Eagles record is silent)

I barely made it through the FIVE commas in that first sentence.