thread to dis hyped releases that you don't get/don't like/wanna complain about

I took an interest in her around the time of Fearless/Speak Now bc "Love Story" was pretty, I got excited that someone was getting jangly guitar pop on the radio, and the persona was endearing. In the end, I found both music and lyrics too thin (I've expanded elsewhere) to hold up for long, and with some of the directions she went in since then, even the surface charm started to get lost for me - and I tried a lot. Would never deny that she has a striking voice and skill for writing a hook.

Sounds fair to me.

Hm

I just intentionally listened to three back-to-back singles by The 1975 in hopes that I might have something to contribute to this thread but I’m disappointed to report that I enjoyed them

The lyrics are unappealing to the nth degree and I would sooner gun the singer down rather than have him date a relative but the music is a wonderful fusion of Tears For Fears and Collins-Genesis so as you were I guess

It seems to me, Tim, that 'projection' in your lingo means something akin to 'unpleasantly extraneous elements that I, Tim F, do not hear in the music I love'. Incidentally, I am not interested in knowing whether Taylor Swift really is sincere (that much is essentially unknowable), but whether her music *sounds* sincere does matter to me given the subgenre in which she operates. The work's more or less radiant 'aura' of sincerity has a bearing on whether I am emotionally invested in her songcraft or not.

I’ve argued in the past that I like TS best when she unintentionally subverts herself (I still contend that “You Belong With Me” works well as a song sung by a delusional stalker) but her shift to pop-pop imbued the tone of her songwriting with a winking irony that made these interpretations impossible— I haven’t listened to Folklore enough to really parse any opinions beyond “this is really well made and beautiful, congrats to everyone involved”

I think “this music doesn’t feel sincere to me” is handy shorthand for “i can see that this music is trying to forge an emotional connection with, and be relatable to, its listeners, but for a variety of reasons it doesn’t work on me.”

Rather than identifying a cause for the outcome, it restates the outcome.

“i can see that this music is trying to forge an emotional connection with, and be relatable to, its listeners, but for a variety of reasons it doesn’t work on me.”

You can say that about any music you dislike, not just music that strikes you as 'insincere'.

Once again, though, and at the risk of repeating myself, I am not a professional music critic who has been tasked with writing a detailed takedown of Taylor Swift's music for a major publication venue. I am an amateur (as in one who loves (music)) whose mercifully brief encounters with TS have been unpleasant enough that I saw fit to bitch about them in the quarantined thread that has been set up for this very purpose. And part of the reason I don't intend to muster a more convincing (to you and other Tay-tay fans) argument is because it would require me to spend more time with material I have no interest whatsoever in further exploring. Such is the amateur's prerogative.

You can say that about any music you dislike, not just music that strikes you as 'insincere'.

Right! this is kinda my point. Notions of sincerity appear to add something to the takedown but they end up begging the question - there’s a void in the critique that can either be skipped over with sleight of hand, or filled with projections as to the artist’s actual persona/intentions.

But yes you are right that seeking to apply some kind of standard tot he criticisms in this thread is probably a mug’s game.

I mean, it's music. So I feel the same way as pomenitul, and it's because some combination of the production, song structure, chords & melodies, vocal performance etc doesn't connect with me emotionally. That's an instant reaction on listening, but teasing out exactly why I have that reaction is where the critical brain comes in, which is interesting but shouldn't be a required justification (especially in this thread).

Fwiw, as a thought experiment, if someone were to commission such a screed from me, the insincerity angle would not be the cornerstone of my argument by any stretch of the imagination if only because it does indeed tend to draw upon an overly subjective rhetorical palette. That being said, I don't think reproaches of insincerity always bespeak a blind spot in one's negative impressions of a given work of art (emphasis on 'work of art' rather than 'artist'). In some cases, they can be convincingly deployed as part of a longer development, but such tactics require a minute conceptual deftness that is, once again, beyond this thread's shiposterrific scope.

*shitposterrific

lol I guess we’ll never know

I do think it would be interesting to hear some examples of artists that you (pom) consider sufficiently sincere.

I mentioned Billie Eilish upthread as a foil. But it's not so much the artist as the music, and the way the music sounds to *me*. For all I know, Taylor Swift herself may be 100% or 50% or 10% or 0% sincere in her musicmaking – it doesn't really matter.

No, I get that (and I’m not taking you to task). Billie is an interesting example... I could see others finding her stuff to be heavily “calculated” (as an artistic move, not necessarily in a negative sense).

were you even targeting specific releases there, sleeve? ha!).

I was! Whatever Jlin and Caretaker release was hot in 2017 was what I meant

Ha! x2, you don't even remember! I rest my case.

(I think it was Black Origami and stages 2 & 3 of Everywhere at the End of Time, all three of which are awesome btw.)

why the fuck would I ever bother to learn the names of those terrible records?

they represent similar dead ends w/r/t the time-stretch aesthetic

“Sincerity” insofar as pomenitul seems to be describing constitutes “this wealthy and established artist has failed to convince me that their recent art is being made for any motivation other than to accumulate further wealth” and I think that’s fair?

oh totally! not trying to detract from that sincere hatred in any way

but it also needed to be noted that I am STILL mad that I listened to the Jlin record

That's definitely part of it, fgti. Who knows, perhaps her love of the craft runs deeper than that, but it's not at all what I hear when her music is on.

xp bringing the thread back to its roots, I see. Now we're talkin'!

<3

That's an instant reaction on listening, but teasing out exactly why I have that reaction is where the critical brain comes in, which is interesting but shouldn't be a required justification (especially in this thread).

― change display name (Jordan), Sunday, 13 December 2020 02:00 (five hours ago) link

idk i feel like it should be required justification if you want people to engage w you seriously

i dont really jibe w taylor's music myself but i find myself more sympathetic to her fans than her critics itt ... critics seem to want to be able to comfortable blanket the thread in cynicism w/out being challenged, and she's not a particularly interesting target for this as someone whose output has been divisive among critics from day one and whom the generalized Rockist continues to dismiss out of hand ... i like that ilx is a place where ppl propped up by rockism come for stronger critiques than the people who get counterintuitive arguments even if it means we get the lex on paris hilton sometimes or whatever

in that vein i found the yves tumor kind of disappointing after his previous work and i'm surprised he's kind of hit this crossover moment, tyler the creator even called it one of his favorite projects this year

yeah i loved Safe In The Hands of Love but this year's album from them was really disappointing. going all in on glam rock was really not an interesting direction

I think part of the appeal - for me, at least - of Taylor Swift's music is the romance and fantasy - it's YA drama, Dawson's Creek soundtrack music, a life that I haven't and wouldn't live.

also Sault are fine but not exceptional and the adulation they've received is bewildering to me. I found their lyrical themes to be very didactic in an unsophisticated way.

not to be cap’n save-a-critical-darling but there’s a lot more going on in the new yves tumor than just “going full glam rock.” the criticisms i’ve seen in this vein only really apply to 1-2 songs on the album (which to be fair, yves released as singles).

Though it’s true, I typically cringe away from critique which is grounded in projecting onto the artist, especially in a context where one is not motivated to extend the artist the benefit of the doubt and doubly-especially when the projection goes to whether the artist is authentic or being sincere - I mean, positive projections are also usually a bad idea but at least more thought, and more content actually derived from the object of critique, tends to go into them.

― Tim F, Saturday, December 12, 2020 7:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like there's this inherent trap though, I do agree with you in broad terms but the way culture and stan culture and the industry is so incredibly invested in the "intense personalization" unperson mentioned upthread, like christ there were practically explainers about Pete Davidson references on that Ariana Grande record, and I've read similar things about Swift like oooh massive shade to this ex boyfriend...I feel like you're constantly being told no this isn't up for interpretation - this is how X album is positioned in this star's life journey right now and here's x and x and x lyrics about it

So I get that projecting high school feelings on to a pop star's persona or your impression of them as a person isn't a great way - in the abstract - to judge art, it feels like a lot of things in late capitalism, it's basically made inescapable (like using Uber or something) by forces much bigger than you, but you're a dumb asshole if you do it

Another example more recent is Megan Thee Stallion, like maybe you can step it back in your own mind and not interpret it through the lense of the Tory Lanez incident but it's pretty hard to say people are dimwits for doing so when literally the entire coverage of the album is framed that way and then she does interviews about it and starts the album with a song about it

So I mean I think it's natural when albums are framed in these ways, as outgrowths of the life journey of famous people who we all feel a faslse sense of intimacy with because of social media, that people are going to judge the art based on their gut feeling about the sincerity of the person making it

Don't know if that makes sense

It is an overwhelming thing, sometimes, for me to grasp that in the eyes and ears of the consumer, the personal lives of these pop stars effectively intersects with their art as vividly as WWF wrestling, and yet these are "their actual lives" and not constructed fictions

Wrestling is a great comparison, that weird mix of the real person, the character they play, the scripted events and real events all intermingled

It is an overwhelming thing, sometimes, for me to grasp that in the eyes and ears of the consumer, the personal lives of these pop stars effectively intersects with their art as vividly as WWF wrestling, and yet these are "their actual lives" and not constructed fictions

If the major record labels still had any real power they could do what the Hollywood studios used to do in the 20s and 30s - pair off their young talent for publicity purposes and send them out on "dates" which would then be covered in the press. Of course the ubiquitous/atomized amateur surveillance network - artists' and celebrities' comings and goings being documented by fans in the moment wherever they happen to be - renders that impossible, too.

re: yves tumor "going full glam rock" is an overgeneralisation of course but the more rock-oriented direction just really wasn't very interesting to me compared to what they were doing before and the album didn't stick with me at all. the increased emphasis on their voice when they're not really a strong singer didn't help either.

pair off their young talent for publicity purposes and send them out on "dates"

fwiw this is the vibe i get from camila cabello and shawn mendes

just heard a few songs off the new sault albums & found them to be insipid

like christ there were practically explainers about Pete Davidson references on that Ariana Grande record, and I've read similar things about Swift like oooh massive shade to this ex boyfriend...I feel like you're constantly being told no this isn't up for interpretation

lmao, you’re too plugged in / that’s on you. That stuff is so easy to ignore, just stop reading about it.

lmao, you’re too plugged in / that’s on you. That stuff is so easy to ignore, just stop reading about it.

Ah, but I have been told by a poster I won't name for fear of it having a summoning effect that to not deal with this stuff, and focus one's critique of the art on the music rather than the lyrics and the backstory, is disrespectful to the artist and their art.

Well, I don’t know who that mystery poster was, but I strongly disagree.

I'm not even particularly plugged in that shit was all over

what I'm saying is that these artists are making the music in these contexts and for fans that are far more connected than me

so is to ignore how it operates within this context, created and designed seems...weird

I know/work with people who would call themselves (for example) “big Taylor Swift fans” whom I don’t believe get into minute parsing of the lyrics, or then other kind of discourse that music nerds / superfans (like us) get into. And even if you follow those artists on “social,” they don’t necessarily get into that stuff. Taylor posts about Scooter Braun, but not her lyrics!

Many people don’t read about or discuss music in any forum, and still follow it / buy records / go to concerts... I’ve learned this thru experience, it seems weird to me too, but it’s true!

i think casual fans more than any other assume the artist is being sincere and sincerely expressing themselves though

also if you think I'm a dummy just say so and can the patronizing tone pal

Come on, this is TS's most recent tweet. She explicitly describes what the lyrics to several of her new songs are about:

I have no idea what will come next. I have no idea about a lot of things these days and so I’ve clung to the one thing that keeps me connected to you all. That thing always has and always will be music. And may it continue, evermore. evermore is out now: https://t.co/QYMUTL0IAj pic.twitter.com/tlSmahDkBi

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) December 11, 2020

Lol, ok, fair enough. (ums – I’m honestly sorry if I sound patronizing! I don’t think you’re a dummy. I thought we were just rapping)

(I do think you can ignore all that stuff when you listen to an album, though, and it doesn’t have to taint the experience.)

hey no worries morris sorry if I misread your tone

just heard a few songs off the new sault albums & found them to be insipid

― imago, Sunday, December 13, 2020 10:51 AM (one hour ago)

lol dude, as much as I think Sault are a valid target for this thread, going from this thread to checking out a few songs is a little self-fulfilling prophecy, no?

Also, apols if you already know this but: the main production force in Sault produced the Little Simz thing from last year that, iirc, you were super into