I agree with you so much on this. Since I started reading music related blogs and “criticism” of popular music i’ve been baffled at the level of indifference critics show:
a) towards music theory and the possibility of -kind of- objective elements to ground their judgments (which are -to the dismay of many- utterly subjective, hence the logical impossibility of “grading” records).
b) towards a real questioning of what criticism mean (or may mean) in the context of popular music. Certainly you wouldn’t want to judge it based on its complexity because, let’s be honest, what passes for avant-garde in popular music would make composers from 100 years ago laugh. What makes good popular music is a great question that a lot of people seems to take for granted.

, not everyone is as imaginative and cultured as to make a beautiful interpretation of the elements contained -and surrounding- a cultural document, so even if you can look at the album cover, read the lyrics and find the ethnicity of an artist in Wikipedia, that doesn’t mean that you will automatically come up with a strong interpretation (maybe you, commentateur extraordinaire djfreshié, can, but a lot of other people can’t or won’t). So, I don’t agree with you on that.

Please note that I absolutely dislike this “deconstruction” and, like the other ones, I think it forces the inclusion of typical cultural criticism concepts in contexts that didn’t require it. The Grimes article and the reference to gender theory (which, in my opinion, is by itself kind of bland and naive, but that’s another story) was based on the factor that Grimes is a woman and tried to justify its inclusion by mentioning some *very* contingent factors to build its case. It’s like if I watched a Skrillex interview and then, since Skrillex speaks, I were to use Wittgenstein and Lacan (#whythefucknot) to interpret the jouissance in his discourse and the language games he is playing [?].

In the 90s, there was such a trend of ultra-theoretical, banal essays coming out of american universities that a “post-modern essay generator” was created in 1996 by a linguist at Monash University. Post-modern essays fresh from the oven. It is a true beauty! Check it out at: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

Obviously there are still great cultural criticism essays being written but -as it happens with actually worthwhile contemporary art- its reputation gets diluted with all the happily hyped shit that’s floating around.

The things you can accomplish with a prudent and precise Rhodes arrangement and an adequate voice… great.

How I enjoyed that first EP. This guy and Holy Other are awesome. Hell, anything Tri Angle puts out is solid gold.

Do djfreshie and theduchessofthomyorke count as bands? ’cause if they do…

Keith Rowe
Fred Frith
Bill Orcutt
Fennesz

Also, not trying to be rude, but everyone saying that Hendrix is an incomprehensible choice are trying too hard.

So you are for wealth disparity? The excessive wealth disparity evidenced by these people has no excuse. Let’s say Kanye works 365 days 10 hours a day. He cashes 5 million dollar a year (and I’m being magnanimous with his working schedule). A guy works at a farm/construction earning minimum wage 12 hours for 365 a day, yearly income is $31,755. Kanye makes 157 times more money than the farmer. If said farmer wasn’t american the difference would be MUCH bigger (e.g., for the same amount of time a mexican farmer would earn $1565). No system that allows such catastrophic gaps between people can be, in principle, fair or just. It simply can’t. The consequence of thinking that way would be, in the end, that people are poor because they want to, because they don’t “try hard enough”, because they are lazy, because they don’t “create stuff”. There’s no “fair” way of making money in a world where a LOT of people can’t aspire to a dignified existence because of some people making shitloads of money.

Take a look OUTSIDE of America and you will see people working their fucking asses of just to survive, that is, just to make it so they are alive the next day to go to work. Can you even imagine living like that? Can you imagine a world where more than half of the people living in it are in precisely that situation? No need to close your eyes; just open them wide.
I generally try to be very courteous here but… fuck your apology, fuck your naïveté.

I feel so ashamed of myself and of everyone not doing MORE to stop this. We have nothing to discuss. Every second passes and a opportunity to rise up against this is missed. These kids have risen. Let them rise and let them be realists and demand the impossible.

This sounds like my band! Yes, we’re THAT* good.

* “It’s maybe the best thing done by anyone, ever”. Truly immortal words by Lou Reed. Wikiquote material, ladies and gentlemen.

I always end not liking 80% of the stuff on these lists, but they sure are a great way to discover some exciting new projects. Even if I find only one artist I really end up liking, this list will be a much appreciated effort.
It was only through last year’s list that I found about the existence of Oneohtrix Point Never (embarassing, I know) and boy did they blew me away. Thanks Stereogum!

So many memories! It made me laugh so hard! I remember myself being so sad watching all these scenes when I was a young and beautiful boy…
Great compilaton man! Chapeau!

Damn! that was great!

Channeling Milli Vanilli’s Rob Pilatus

Again a great track! Seems to me that this is the weakest of the ones released until now, but still great. I can’t wait for the album release.

Looking forward to SBTRKT’s remix! I really enjoyed his album. One of the great surprises -for me- of this year.