Listening to the super duper Distortion — which we’ve already prematurely sainted — it’s pretty clear Stephin Merritt likes the Jesus & Mary Chain and their rainy feedback. Listen no further than the a-clang backdrop of “Too Drunk To Dream,” though a better example would be “Please Stop Dancing.” True, the white noise smears frostily across Distortion (even the girl group garage of “Three-Way” gets a dollop), but we didn’t realize the J&MC love bordered on obsession. In an article at Drowned In Sound (via LHB) he says:
Psychocandy is the last significant event in popular music production. That’s the last thing I’ve heard which sounds blaringly original. I haven’t heard anything else since then that says, “this is a new way of making records.”
He notes that he hoped to bring the 1985 record’s “huge masses of shrieking feedback; the sense of singing over an espresso machine” to his 2007 record. We think he definitely conjures some of that swirl, but who agrees with the idea that Psychocandy was “the last significant event in popular music production”? Got some blaringly original examples to refute Mr. Merritt?
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Somebody posted a new Coachella poster! It’s more interesting than the blue one.
http://www.coachella.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13801
NBA rookie of the year?!?! Jamario Moooooooooon
http://www.jamariomoonshine.com
ah and speaking of rumored Coachella line-ups I’ll kick things off with the first and obvious example to refute Stephin Merritt:
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
69 Love Songs
Take that, Stephin Merritt!
umm…how about a little micro-genre called hip-hop?
Timbaland alone has done more to impact modern record production techniques than the Reid Bros. ever did.
Is “Loveless” that much of a departure from “Psychocandy”?
dude if you’re looking for props to hip-hop from stephin merritt, you are barking up the wrong tree. not that there’s anything wrong with that, stephin, i’m not getting all sasha frere up in herrre.
@Analog Bass
Well, my initial reaction was Loveless, too, but an argument could be made that Alan Moulder was just expanding on the sound he pioneered with Psychocandy.
“Psychocandy is the last significant event in popular music production.”
I nominate the creation of ProTools as a post-1986 significant event in popular music production.
great point on Timbaland. I completely agree with that.
motherfucking “ack”.
RACIST!!!
Timbaland was not revolutionary, he stole beats from drum n bass.
Someone get Mr. Merritt a copy of “Paul’s Boutique” (or “Endtroducing”, or “Since I Left You”) forthwith!
sampling
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back.
As for white musicians: Disco Inferno – D.I. Go Pop
THe Jesus & Mary Chain meets The Beach Boys!
Sounds worth a further listen.
radiohead?
psychocandy is indeed that good. I was 19 when it came out and it still resonates (and I listen to a lot of new music). It’s a timeless record, wildly original and blissfully simple.
they were the main reason I went to Coachella last year and there were plenty of others in the same boat.
He makes good music but is he capable of doing an interview where he doesn’t sound completely arrogant? (not racist, mind. that was just ridiculous) I mean his goal is to re-do the sound of J&MC? What.
ok computer?
Actually, as far as production goes, Kid A is probably just as good if not better than OK Computer, both of which are miraculous in the world.
‘Loveless’ is a tedious, dreary and vastly over-rated recording.
i love how the formula for ‘classic record’ is simple pop songs coated in (pick one) shrieking feedback/arse-clamping distortion/freescape jazz/monotone vocals.
well, classic indie record anyway. but that’s why we’re here!
“Timbaland alone has done more to impact modern record production techniques than the Reid Bros. ever did.”
Sorry – is Timbaland actually classified as proper music?
To be fair, he’s being saying this about Psychocandy for quite some time. The last time I read about him saying it was probably 4 years ago in TapeOp. In that interview, he specified that he was talking about “rock” music. The interviewer asked him about other, more modern records that might shake his argument. He responded that he would argue that those weren’t “rock” records.
I always take everything the man says with a grain of salt. But “Distortion” sure beats the hell out of “i”.
He is entirely correct. Psychocandy is the best album of the 80s and saying that Loveless was just as revolutionary is like saying that UB40 was as revolutionary as Lee Perry.
best album of the 80s, so there
GBV and much of the lo-fi movement was just as significantious.
Psychocandy was so great but the Jesus & Mary Chain were unbelievably BORING on stage – at that time. So much British hype! On the contrary, My Bloody Valentine was unbelievably great and crushed eardrums repeatedly on their Loveless tour. It was the loudest thing I’ve ever encountered and yet it felt warm and druggy. They sounded like the new drugs of the day. Both bands previewed their production methods with singles/ep’s prior to the LP’s, so neither album seemed like a revelation.
Stephin Merritt is a proven racist. He has gone on record and stated as much by inferring that Hip-Hop is not real music. This statement is so steeped in typical ignorant racially-based western cultural classism that it is tantamount to saying that African Americans are not “real humans.” I was a big fan of the Magnetic Fields for many years but now I cannot listen to them because of hateful comments such as this made by Mr. Merritt. No one should pander to this sad little antiquated man.
http://myspace.com/itsmeaningless
Not as racist as, say, inferring that “hip hop” and “African American” are synonymous.
It takes an internet of millions to talk such cack.
When I first heard TV on the Radio it was the first thing I’d heard in forever that didn’t remind me of anything else. (Still feel that way about it.)
A lot of black people don’t like country music, does that make them racist? This is silly.
how dare you take away black people’s country music, you fucking white supremest fuck, you
If I want to hear an new take on the original JaMC sound, I’ll listen to Brooklyn’s awesome A Place To Bury Strangers, not the lame Magnetic Fields.
I hate Tejano music, yet I’m Mexican – does that mean I hate myself? To insinuate that someone is racist based on whether they like a genre of music or not is ridiculous. Look there has been a campaign against Merrit for years, started by the Chicago Reader and carried by some bloggers ever since. And his dislike of hip-hop is taken out of context in an interview with Slate where he said he liked “the first two years of rap,” including the first Run DMC record, but that he finds contemporary hip-hop boring and racist. Look hate if you want to, but don’t make an assumption because of misinformation.
I’m irish and i don’t like U2. but i also hate myself. but i love “Distortion”. it’s confusing.