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

"say my name" is literally fucking nested with tunes, you're just being obtuse on purpose

I just heard the 1975, someone threadban me before this gets ugly

this is a safe space

Well (bites tongue hard) it felt super weird to realize halfway through that this is not a song from the 1980s

It's the uncanny valley phenomenon of mistaking something dead for something alive. I used to think this kind of stuff was just necrophilia but it's creeping me out that we can't tell if there's a pulse or not.

Wet Leg.

This isn't a Bad Bunny situation. This isn't a bunch of genres I'm unfamiliar with and I'm not having to make a hairpin reappraisal. This is what I grew up on. I'd say I'm well-placed to be the critic.

Opening track is slight enough to escape much censure even as it rides a bunch of irritating vocal mannerisms over a basic melody.

Second track is my least favourite EOY track winner except maybe Girl Unit and at least that was a Weird, very then-ILM choice. I said it at the time: extremely standard indie with slightly elevated presentation. Nuts and bolts bassline, a wisp of a riff, preppy spoken vox, ooh-naughty lyrics. Stinks of 2007. You people are a disgrace

Third track is actually quite good, even if I've definitely heard this riff or variants of it a zillion times over. They're singing without so many annoying affectations for a start (although the coy yelping does return at points, and the main singer's voice is always just a little bit Newsom iykwim), and there's a nice shoegazey texture to it all. Me and maximalism eh

Fourth track jacks The Man Who Sold The World for fuck's sake. Like, not even disguised. Voice less annoying in this one and there's a semblance of trying to use more than two chords. Minor chords even!

The next track is far too pleased with itself, to the extent where it repeats lines it's particularly proud of. A slick single that honestly doesn't have anything going for it that a myriad - a MYRIAD - of British indie from the last 20 years doesn't

I'll say this, though - they're wily enough to keep it all short.

Track 6 is, what have I got written here. 'Dull'. I don't think they're very good at songwriting tbh. Their talent lies in an instinct for, idk, slogans? Bright, clean, crisp production? That's not their work though. Slogans it is

Track 7 has the best lyrics ever, as discussed. What's a girl to do indeed?? They've run out of melodic juice too btw

Track 8 LITERALLY REUSES THAT ANGELICA RIFF! It's like they panicked about having to actually do an album and didn't realise they were just repeating ideas! There's one almost-okay guitar melody and one welcome gesture towards metal at least.

Track 9 is borderline unforgivable. If you want to hear this kind of thing done not only forgivably but well, I recommend the band Audiobooks, and not for the first time either

Track 10 is like, soooo relatable yeah! Oh, *I* fucked it up this time, oh my god, such introspection. Cogs turning...let's have a slower, sadder one here...bet the next one's really peppy and all

Yeah, here are Those Three Chords that mean Happiness. Chorus has a Joyous Affectation. Honestly, this is all so cynically put together. Even has those 00s backing vocals. Ohhh-ehhh-whoooa. Oh keep in that studio laugh, it sounds so natural!!

Final track, yeah let's have a slower one to end on, epic yeah. You know it's the slower epic one because she's singing one syllable at a time, really slowly! That bassline, let's call it the King Of Carrot Flowers Part 1 Bassline, has probably appeared what...five times on this album so far? There are NO IDEAS. Ooh, a post-rocky bit of course, I could have told you it was going to sound like this. It's a facsimile of a facsimile, a record almost entirely devoid of inspiration. It is cheap slogans over BILGE. And it ends with a whimper.

Tracks 3 and 4 were okay. Tracks 2 and 5, the singles, were slick (I don't like them though). The rest is just not even there. Shame on you all tbh. If this makes the EOY top ten we're truly lost

The fucking insulting thing is that so many UK indie bands have struggled for years and years making amazing music to almost no financial or critical avail, and these artistically bankrupt chancers get huge on the first roll. That's what galls. And I don't care if you like them either. You've never heard the good stuff. It's outside of your wheelhouse, I get it. You'd have no reason to. Yes, this is bitter, yes this is bad-spirited, yes Wet Leg seem to have an instinct for cheap slogans that people seem to prefer to, y'know, actual music. But I don't like injustice, what can I say

out of interest, what's the Angelica riff?

The riff of the third track, Angelica

oh right. thought you were talking about the band Angelica.

This Angelica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUNYdYd-QoE

I mean, please use other chords, but that does have a certain homespun charm conspicuously absent...elsewhere

oh right. thought you were talking about the band Angelica.

― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, July 28, 2022 4:35 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol same 🙀☠️

It's been a really long time since I felt the kind of angst about the chaff rising that imago described. But i listened to "Angelica" by Wet Leg and I feel like this song is to "fun" what Imagine Dragons are to "athletic triumph" or w/e. It's not as grating to me as Chaise Longue but it's a lot blander?

Stinks of 2007. You people are a disgrace

new board description please

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JObZ7JIV_E

ILM is an embarrassment

dead-eyed corporate pop behemoth queen billion the focus-grouped merely has to twitch her signet ring and the fanboys & girls slaver for more, even mocking an actual artist-of-consequence for having announced the same release date first. repugnant and unseemly

why yes I would love a stan war

Which is the artist of consequence?

CRJ, of course

I don't think I saw any CRJ mocking on the thread, not that I read it very closely

It is definitely a lot of posts for something that barely exists yet. I'm in the perpetual idgi camp re TS, but tbf I find her extremely easy to ignore outside of ILM these days.

But cheer up! there's a new Dawn Richard album out 10/21 as well

I heard the preview tracks! Feels like it is one extended piece, so hard to judge it on the opening stretch alone, but intrigued to hear it all, yes

soft pink truth double-lp too

Usually post-rocky ambient classical isn't my bag, but DR writing and arranging vocals could easily alchemise that into something marvellous

new arctic monkeys is also apparently coming out on 10/21 lol

lmao oh shit

did quite like the new single

you heard it here first, october 21 is ilm day

if taytay had named her new album 'the car' i might have cut the hype parade some slack, but it's some hallmark bs as usual

ppl care about this way less but the new tegan & sara also comes out 10/21. literally gonna be the stupidest day of the year for me

No one mocked CRJ in that thread, wth

“ILM is a disgrace, allow me to manufacture a grievance against my fellow posters to illustrate this point”

I'm already sick of hearing about the new Arctic Monkeys. I haven't heard it but I know I won't like it, because curmudgeon.

Wow, can't wait to dis the living crap outta a couple of these

imo muna are extremely corny

― flamenco drop (BradNelson)

Couldn't agree more. As a queer woman I felt obliged to give the new album a chance but it's just so painful. Silk Chiffon is a terrible single too. Yuck.

I’m kind of with imago here— I feel like there’s an entire realm of ILM that I cannot access because I read these reviews and listen to the songs and can’t figure out why everyone loves trash. (I do love CRJ tho mostly because of one or two songs, I don’t “follow” or “stan” her).

it’s fine tho— we don’t all need to love the same stuff! however, i sort of do think it would be nice to have EOTY polls for music that isn’t pop— or maybe exclude certain things from our 77. last year’s album and tracks rollout left me depressed as hell.

(I think) I love pop music, but find both CRJ and Taylor just leave me cold. There's something about them that's so mainstream AOR-radio ready, there's nothing wrong there but no edge to it, nothing that hooks me.

crj isn't exactly known for her radio success in the last decade to be fair

yeah I know nothing about what is actually played on the radio tbh

ilm is still a treasure but yeah the overall year best of playlists sound like something Starbucks would release. i think they key is appreciating pop qua craft rather than art: that’s been the poptimist slide during the 10s

looking back, it was Akeelah and the Bee OST taking AOTY in 2006

I will never not have difficulty imagining the middle aged people on here who used to post about Mobb Deep, Archers of Loaf and / or Ornette Coleman sitting at home by themselves listening to CRJ

There's something endearingly hilarious about a decade and a half of voracious listening and critical discussion on ILM culminating in devotion to polite pseudo-pop by white Northern women. xp!

For me I can’t shake the hang up I have believing every meticulous detail of major pop records is coldly orchestrated by a team of marketers. I work in CPG package design for corporate snack brands and 100% of the brand and product is crafted with the intent to appeal to the broadest demographic possible. Similarly, the pop star’s story or album context reads like the romance copy on a box of crackers to me, and the music is produced in such a way that it sounds like it is pitching to be used in a TV commercial. So there’s something soulless about it. Hopefully this doesn’t just sound like a repackaging of the tired “authenticity” complaint, it’s more like that feeling where an advertisement is trying to trick me or something. Idk.

(Me xp barging in being a chart bore): TS vs AM will be an interesting UK sales week. AM have sadly never not had a number one album but will this be their Robbie vs JLS moment!! (probably I'm thinking)

lol whoops just read this thread

yes imago, I was mocking CRJ by bringing her up in the other thread

give it a fucking rest

For me I can’t shake the hang up I have believing every meticulous detail of major pop records is coldly orchestrated by a team of marketers. I work in CPG package design for corporate snack brands and 100% of the brand and product is crafted with the intent to appeal to the broadest demographic possible. Similarly, the pop star’s story or album context reads like the romance copy on a box of crackers to me, and the music is produced in such a way that it sounds like it is pitching to be used in a TV commercial. So there’s something soulless about it. Hopefully this doesn’t just sound like a repackaging of the tired “authenticity” complaint, it’s more like that feeling where an advertisement is trying to trick me or something. Idk.

I think the deal is that, as even Adorno recognized, you can't literally mass produce songs in the same way that you can mass produce bags of salt and vinegar potato chips - they still have to be distinct creative works that need to stand out and are heard as expressive or at least affective on some authentic level by listeners. (Obv you can mass produce CDs or mass distribute digital files but not the songs themselves. Ofc new flavours of chips or new packaging ideas are also developed but generally not as quickly as the number of songs released in a week.) 'Song factories' are ultimately only really factories in a metaphorical sense. So the tension between the industry's desire to control the product and market as you describe vs the nature of the product itself is what I think leads to the weird breakthroughs and surprises (even to the industry itself) and makes pop music interesting to the people who are interested in it. That said, it certainly still operates within limits and formulae and represents a narrow slice of the music that is out there, one that I think diminishes in interest for some of us as we get older.

It's increased in interest for me as I get older, but I also think it's "better" now than it has been in a while (or at least the narrow slice of it that I connect with) (or maybe there are other reasons, I dunno)

Anyway, isn't it natural for folks who listen to a variety of music throughout their lives (as ppl here do) to ebb in flow in what they're into?

I don't know if it's "natural" but that certainly describes my musical life! My interest in pop* has dwindled somewhat in my 40s, but so has my interest in what other people listen to when they're home by themselves.

* Whatever that means—I suspect we're all using different definitions.

There's something endearingly hilarious about a decade and a half of voracious listening and critical discussion on ILM culminating in devotion to polite pseudo-pop by white Northern women. xp!

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, September 3, 2022 9:48 AM (three hours ago)

this is a direct hit though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbo317IbmAc

why Tracey Thorn getting dragged into this?

I really want to like the Charlotte Adigéry album, Topical Dancer, because the production sounds amazing, but I am just not finding the wit in these songs that others are. The lyrics are kind of like annoying tweets and for me they reduce the songs to novelty. Take a track like "Thank You," which I listened to again this weekend, where the sarcasm is extremely drawn out and you get the point immediately.