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

Lesson being, I should keep my ears open more often. Like, uh, I recently discovered that I like a lot of Linkin Park songs.

I still don't understand the love for Taylor Swift, but I have given up there.

xp Sund4r I was mostly thinking abt the John and Yoko thing and how that was reflected in some later period songs

You don't have to look hard. The filmed concert from the 1989 (?) tour that was up on Apple Music at the time included all kinds of shit like videos of her celebrity friends like Selena Gomez talking about baking cookies at TS's house, TS telling the audience they were all her personal friends, bringing other celebrity friends on stage to meet the audience.

I don’t watch that stuff! Maybe I’m the weird one here – but I consider myself a fan of her music, buy her records, etc., and I don’t engage in any of that.

(I did try watching a little of the thing on Disney+, where she sits around talking about the songs, and I thought it was boring as shit)

Plastic Ono Band is probably the first album that demanded to be taken as a "real" statement on the artist's life, with the assumption that the audience is ready to be fascinated. There was also the paradoxical element that Lennon was tearing down the artifice of celebrity, which I don't think anyone says of Taylor Swift.

plastic ono band is a good call in that it operates under the assumption that the you know a lot about lennon's life, childhood, the whole break up of the beatles saga etc

I mean, projecting sincerity, direct personal connection, and autobiographical expression have afaict been a part of TS's deal all along so it doesn't seem unfair to critique her on those grounds.

people have talked in similar ways about Beethoven for 200 years. this is just certain romantic ideas about art and heroism adapted for a neoliberal clickbait era isn't it

it's generally obnoxious but a lot more so if you don't like the artist to start with. I don't get the need for all this analysis to justify the initial distaste. reminds me of the interminable debates about M.I.A. 15 years ago, except Taylor is actually popular so the discourse around her is harder to avoid

I don't get the need for all this analysis to justify the initial distaste

lol sorry

projecting sincerity, direct personal connection, and autobiographical expression have afaict been a part of TS's deal all along so it doesn't seem unfair to critique her on those grounds.

This seems common to so many singer-songwriters though. I just take at face value that they are doing that, and then it’s a matter of whether the music connects with me or not. That’s just me personally.

TS: the smugness of dismissing music out of hand because you supposedly dislike being ‘challenged’ vs the smugness of writing a bible-length theoretical epic that carefully explains why Tay-tay sux.

No better thread to type it, I guess: every time I see people fawning over a new Arthur Russell thing that has been unearthed, I wanna scream we get it. you like your music fags to be dead. it makes the music so much more meaningful. thank you for reminding me. I feel like you're just rubbing it in my face at this point. "oh, haven't you heard the new Arthur? also, why don't you die? die, die, die."

I don’t smugness inherent in either of those things tbh

xp

I def agree, my post was facetious more than anything.

No better thread to type it, I guess: every time I see people fawning over a new Arthur Russell thing that has been unearthed, I wanna scream we get it. you like your music fags to be dead. it makes the music so much more meaningful. thank you for reminding me. I feel like you're just rubbing it in my face at this point. "oh, haven't you heard the new Arthur? also, why don't you die? die, die, die."

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, December 13, 2020 11:46 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

A million times this.

And I too am a huge fan and rinse every new thing that is unearthed!

I honestly never thought of it like that, and although I'm really glad Knudson is doing that work I can see the point

but y'know dead artists sell, that's certainly true across the board

My thing with him, which obviously is coming from a less invested place but nonetheless, is how people seem really intent on reinventing an artist who was known as much for making (brilliant) dance music as an indie singer songwriter

well he was really fuckin good at both things tbh

I think Sault are good. Don’t have strong feelings abt it but do think it’s a bit 30 something record collector to make them the center of your musical universe but there’s nothing wrong w that per se and it’s a really well done version of it ? Idk

the LCD Soundsystem of the 2020s

well he was really fuckin good at both things tbh

― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Sunday, December 13, 2020 3:22 PM (nineteen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sure (tho I’d hesitate to pigeonhole his non dance work as “indie singer songwriter) but only one of those gets a real commercial emphasis (i guess ? Because that was what was on the tapes, regardless if there are good reasons for it or not it feels like it’s remaking his story a bit to me)

well there's also been releases like "Corn" and "Calling Out Of Context" that were "on the tapes" so idk about that

and he played in The Necessaries! ffs

sorry for derail

he was good at everything basically

Tbh his Echo demos are super-stunning, very pleased to have them in my earholes

I was more just... surprised when I got Love is Overtaking Me, like no fuckin way this guy who was so good at dance music and experimental (modern classical adjacent? but basically the world of echo type stuff) could be that good at singer songwriter stuff....I almost kept thinking I was fooling myself, but those songs are just really good songs

this thread is getting alarmingly positive

lol otm

here

Ok . MORE Arthur Russell (But This Is Great)

this thread is making me feel like I have a moral obligation to listen to Sault

The constant unearthing of Arthur Russell out-takes and demos and rarities feels more like opportunistic cash-ins than anything, even when the stuff is good the status of it makes me feel a bit uneasy

why?

https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/arts/music/arthur-russell-archives-new-york-public-library.amp.html?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16079016016183&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F05%2F29%2Farts%2Fmusic%2Farthur-russell-archives-new-york-public-library.html

oh man - don’t let sic see that url!!

%2Farts%2Fmusic

I don't believe he would have wanted people to hear every version of every song. I certainly wouldn't be thrilled to have the first drafts of my writing or my music published before I've revised and improved them.

sorry on my phone!

I think Mariah Carey is very successful at this, to such an extent that I would bet a lot of people don't even know she writes her own material; they likely just assume that she has squads of contributing songwriters like every other giant pop icon.

and hey i speak from experience, i called her manufactured when i reviewed emotions in my high school paper

would be really interested to hear which male artists are viewed as “insincere” though!!

yeah this assumption has nothing to do with misogyny or anything

Sure, misogyny, general critical misconceptions/assumptions about pop and how it's made/how it works, etc., etc., but it's also her choice from a marketing/image management standpoint. How much does she press the issue in interviews? She's only really brought it up recently, with her autobiography. She has not gone out of her way over the last 30 years to paint herself as part of the singer-songwriter tradition the way Taylor Swift does.

would be really interested to hear which male artists are viewed as “insincere” though!!

Tom Waits and David Bowie, to name two.

This thread is like the ghost of ILM circa 2001, wandering around moaning and being wrong.

_would be really interested to hear which male artists are viewed as “insincere” though!!_

Tom Waits and David Bowie, to name two.

_yeah this assumption has nothing to do with misogyny or anything_

Sure, misogyny, general critical misconceptions/assumptions about pop and how it's made/how it works, etc., etc., but it's also her choice from a marketing/image management standpoint. How much does she press the issue in interviews? She's only really brought it up recently, with her autobiography. She has not gone out of her way over the last 30 years to paint herself as part of the singer-songwriter tradition the way Taylor Swift does.

someone like Ariana Grande who strikes me as very much a curated product - like, Ariana writes a tweet about a relationship, and her team of songwriters writes a song about the tweet which is then seen as intensely personal and autobiographical

Even a trenchant dis like this fails get the chronology right (the song was written & recorded long before the tweet).