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

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).

Oops! I should really research my trenchant disses more carefully. Thanks for correcting me.

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

No idea whether the critical discourse bears this out at all, but a name that spontaneously springs to mind is… Kenny G.

I wonder if the discussion would be different if we were using the word "affected" rather than "insincere."

I almost wrote 'Jeff Koons' before I remembered which board this is.

xp

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.

― boxedjoy, Sunday, December 13, 2020 6:54 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would say that Arthur Russell's best stuff almost pointedly defies the concepts of master performances or final drafts.

The most incidental things are actually notated a lot of the time, like the little "oh, good" in soon to be innocent fun

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 legit can't tell if you're joking

i enjoyed calling out of context a lot when it came out but I did feel uneasy because the tracks were obviously rough and incomplete and I’m just not thrilled about doing that shit after the artist is dead, unless they give it the ok before dying or something, ugh now i feel bad

I was always frustrated by the apparently premature fadeout on the WoE version of let's go swimming, but now that we have the full performance i actually think it's smartly edited.

It's not that kind of refinement isn't part of his approach, but his pieces clearly aren't meant to ve fixed either

Steve Knudson knew the guy IRL and I believe he is well qualified to deal w/ the archives

I wish Neil Young had someone 10% as competent

also:

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

― Soundslike

You are misunderstanding the point of this thread, it is to provide a safe space where you can come here and say "wtf is this garbage that ILM likes now" and then somebody else can say "omg I thought I was the only person who felt that way"

ITT: reaction >>> analysis
|

No idea whether the critical discourse bears this out at all, but a name that spontaneously springs to mind is… Kenny G.

Metheny certainly thought so.

I think male artists in a lot of critically derided genres were criticized on grounds of sincerity or authenticity, at least historically. Christgau's review of Yes's Fragile ends "But isn't there supposed to be more to art than great contrivance?" Lester Bangs said of Black Sabbath's first album: "The whole album is a shuck – despite the murky song titles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés that sound like the musicians learned them out of a book, grinding on and on with dogged persistence. "

Open Up and Say . . . Ahh! [Enigma/Capitol, 1988]
Hard rock trash as radio readymades, these cheerful young phonies earn their Gene Simmons cover art.

https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=2399

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

― boxedjoy, Monday, December 14, 2020 12:18 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Citation needed. While I agree with your latter argument that Russell wouldn't have put out all this stuff (no living artist opens up the vault like those opened by people looking after a dead artists' estate), but "opportunistic cash-in", man, I don't know... While rightly much lauded and praised, do you really think a live recording of yore rakes in the cash? Need a citation myself but I highly doubt it makes them a lot of money.

His estate is run by his partner fwiw

yeah I think with Russel there's a hunger to understand a guy with a pretty unique view about music and its uses -- he had a singular vision, visionaries tend to inspire (and reward) exhaustive archive digging

Absolutely. Most of what's being released by him still contributes new, unexpected pieces of the puzzle.

There's a macabre amusement in imagining someone stumbling into this thread, seeing all the Arthur Russell posts, and assuming he is the dissee

Nothing a newly unearthed demo tape from '78 can't fix :)