Comments

This is just God awful. I reminds me of a song that some band would be playing at the Peach Pit After Dark. They really benfited from the low fi sound of the early 7 inches. Where you couldnt' hear the lyrics and her voice was lower in the mix. She also seems to have run out of good melodies. Which is also a huge problem.
Milo Goes to Compton was my motherfucking jam. My favorite of all the fuzzed out girl rock bands that came out around that time like Best Coast and Bleached.
Heard Em Say is also in my top five Kanye tracks. My top 5 Gone Flashing Lights Touch The Sky Street Lights Heard Em Say I Am A God Through The Wire Can't Tell Me Nothing Gold Digger Drive Slow
Heartless is terrible. Love Lockdown was ok. Amazing was complete trash. The only banger was Streetlights, and Coldest Winter and Say You Will were pretty good. But he's had other bad songs on other albums. Graduation had a bunch of shitty ones. MDTF had bullshit like So Appalled. Even Monster is mostly terrible until Minaj starts rapping. That Lil Wayne song on Graduation. Power was a weak single. I could go on. Kanye puts out some heaters, but he also puts out LOTS of trash. Even New Slaves was pretty shitty until the last minute or so. If I had to guess, there will be some amazing songs on this one, but I wouldnt be surprised if their weren't.
Well..... Besides Streetlights *808's was mostly a mess. I'd say that was a dissapointment. And aside from Late Registration he always has some clunkers on his records, so I wouldn't be surprised if he finally put out an album comprised entirely of bullshit. If he's singing on this whole record, than I'd say we could be in for adisaster, not because he can't sing which he can't, but because he writes horrible vocal melodies. For some reason Yeezy just hasn't been able to figure that out yet. Also Blochead. Kanye is a notoriously bad rapper. Everybody knows that.
Those Haim chicks make me want to vomit. SO LAME. I do like that save me song though.
I saw Granduciel on the Subway on Saturday night. He was with an actress named Kristen Ritter. Apparently they're dating. About a month ago I was at a dinner party at a friends house, and she had a fitness magazine, that I started reading. In it there was an interview with Ritter. In it she came off like the worst person alive. So much so that I had to bring it up at the party. The girl who's home it was responded with something like this, "oh yeah. I read that too. She's an awfil human being." Now in general, all actresses are pretty rotten human beings. But she seems to be at the top of actress awfulness. I saw them chatting while wating for the train, and she seemed just as terrible, as she did in the magazine. In conclusion. I bet he is not a cool guy to hang out with. I bet he sucks.
I actually think you're really bad at this. In my opinion you're one of the worst music writers around. You're all about back stories, and narrative, and live performances, charisma, etc. Almost everything you write you spend most of your time talking about shit like that. A lot of times I wonder if you actually even listened to the record. I remember when you wrote about Benji, you said something about tearing up during the song "I love My Dad", when he talked about Edgar Winter. After I listened to the record, I remember thinking I Love My Dad is probably the least sad, and one of the jauntiest tunes on the whole record. If I had to bet, you didn't even listen to the song, you just looked at a lyric sheet, and picked something that you could form some sort of narrative around. It seems like you do that a lot. There was a blurb about the new Iceage record, where you called it "country music"?? You also just don't seem very knowledgable about records. You don't strike me as a music nerd. You seem like you really enjoy writing about music, but don't really enjoy listening to it. I personally think you're the worst writer at Stereogum by a long shot. You seem to have this kind of white dude who uses rap slang to talk about stuff thats not rap, which I guess some people find cool or amusing, but I think its kind of lame. I also don't think you listened to this Bjork record even once.
Real Top Ten Rock Bands To Emerge In The Past 20 Years 1) Animal Collective 2) Neutral Mil Hotel 3) Lightning Bolt 4) Black Dice 5) Xiu Xiu 6) Wilco 7) Daft Punk 8) Ponytail 9) The Microphones 10) Women
Would you say that you like Pearl Jam more than The Beatles?
It seems weird that you always mention Allo Darlin, and never mention Tender Trap, or Heavenly.
No, I've always thought Pearl Jam was terrible. I like Nirvana, I liked Soundgarden, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Lemonheads. A bunch, of bands from that era, but Pearl Jam is terrible. No melodies, no catchy riffs, nothing to like really. The only song I ever liked by Pearl Jam was Last Kiss. I remember being shocked that I actually liked a Pearl Jam song, and then I found out it was a cover, and it made perfect sense. The Dodos Visiter, is directly inspired by Sung Tongs. There's really no debating that.
You've been talking to Breihan too much, which you should not do, because he's a fucking idiot. The thing that made all those Animal Collective acolytes so intolerable was that there were just so many. The Dodos, The Keepaways, The Yawns, The El Guinchos, The Ruby Suns, etc. They were everywhere, but if you listen to them now, they all, except for maybe Millionyoung who were awful, had some pretty great songs. That's why you can't really compare them to Pearl Jam, because Pearl Jam themselves were awful, and all the stuff they inspired was of course awful as well. Animal Collective were a great band, and most of the stuff they inspired varied from decent to good, with a couple of great tracks scattered in there (I actually think Candy Claws is the best out of all of them, and I prefer AC influenced MGMT to Time To Pretend MGMT.) If some kid picks up all those Animal Collective inspred albums in ten years, he's gonna love that shit. With that said. I like this one better than Tomboy, and less than Person Pitch. Tomboy had bad tracks on it. Tomboy, Drone, Friendship Bracelet. The only one i'm not that into on this one is Lonely Wanderer.
This is great Tom. Where is Big Quis though? Mayweather was amazing! Also, can we please get a post about this insanely great Fetty Wap song?????
I'm judging. If you don't like Person Pitch, then I really can't even have a discussion about music with you. Also, i've never met someone who has heard that album and didn't like it, who I've had anything in common with musically. Also, I've read your comments before, and I generally hate everything you like. Glad you like this though. Sounds like your taste is just evolving, I'm sure you'll get into Person Pitch eventually!
I love Pom Pom. Its my favorite album of the year, along with Benji, and Nmesh. also I hate Halycon Digest, The Monitor, every Arcade Fire release,Channel Orange and Helplesness Blues. I also dont really care for the War on Drugs, My top 7 would be. In Very particular order: Mediafired- The Pathway Through Whatever Ariel Pink- Pom Pom Oneohtrix Point Never- Replica Katy Perry- Teen Dream Julianna Barwick- Bode Real Estate- Days The Dream- Love King
That's an interesting assessment. I actually think that she is one of those few girls, that is so ugly, that new clothes, make up, a new haircut, etc. Couldn't even help. Around these parts we call them girls with low ceilings
Considering that Grimes is one of the ugliest girls in all of music, I'm not really sure she should be giving beauty tips to anyone.
I think the reasons you like Swift, are probably the same reasons that she seems to connect with so many people. She is much more relatable and likeable than just about every other pop star. My problem with her is that I just don't care about any of those things. I only care about what the songs sound like. My problem with this article, and Toms defense of her in general is that he keeps metioning craft, as if she is just on another level of songwriting talent than everyone else in the Popsphere. And as you and I both agreed on. That is just not the case. She clearly isn't writing songs on the level of Teenage Dream. And when Tom or anyone else acts like she is. It just feels dishonest. You can like her more than Perry, and clearly most people do, especially music writers, and thats fine, I think I like her more that Perry also. Katy Perry seems like a jerk, but that has nothing do with what their actual songs sound like. If you wanna say she seems to have a more original voice. I'm okay with that. But to just say its all about craft is just nonsense. Because there are clearly people crafting better pure pop songs than she is. Even among the sound that you say she's going for, there's nothing on this album that even gets close to Mother We Share. And thats fine. I just wish that more people would acknowledge those facts. If this article had started off by saying Taylor Swift will never write a song like Teenage Dream, or even the Mother We Share, I would have no problem with it. But Tom basically says, these are the best songs crafted by any pop star in recent memory. And thats just crazy.
I'm going to take a different stance against Swift than most of the people on here seem to be taking. I'm actually a fan a pop music. In fact Katy Perry's Birthday and Chris Browns New Flame are two of my favorite songs of the year. I also think that Taylor definitely is involved quite a bit in the making of her songs, especially in the lyrics and the melodies. And this is why I think Taylor makes probably the worst pop music of any of her peers. She simply doesn't have a gift for melody. Songs like Teenage Dream, Or Cyrus's We Don't Stop, or Beyonces Love on Top are amazing pop songs that sound like they were labored over by a team of pop music genius' until they came out with a perfect pop song. Taylor doesn't have anything in her catalog, that even gets close to those songs. She's a really bad songwriter. Her lyrics are always bad, like a lot of pop music lyrics are, but her melodies are weak too, and thats what makes all her songs with the exception of Our Song underwhelming. I get why people like Taylor Swift, but it has nothing to do with her craft. She's actually kind of bad at her craft. When I hear her songs it sounds like Max Martin, and those guys went in there and tried to do anything they could do to save these really bad melodies. When I hear Teenage Dream, or Britney Spears 3, I hear Pop songwriting at its finest. I listened to those voice message songs and their horrible. She writes melodies like someone who doesn't listen to a lot of music. She's not even close to the best pop songwriter of this generation. I would argue that she's one of the worst. The people who wrote the Miley Cyrus album, the Sky Ferrera album, the Katy Perry album, and the Ariana Grande album, are not just better at crafting pop tunes than she is, they're hundreds of miles above her. I wish she would let Max Martin and shelback write her songs. Then maybe they would sound like Teenage Dream and I would like them.
I'm a straight black male from the midwest, who now lives in Williamsburg. I've been living here for 8 years now. I am completely on team Koz. Meredith is very similar to a lot of the girls who live here. Or used to. the neighborhood has changed quite a bit now. Ugly fat girls lke her are not as seen as frequently as they used to be, and all the pussy dokry guys arent as prevelent as they used to be either. And I love it. Its not as cool as it used to be around here, but at least everyone isnt a self righteous vegan sissy. Koz is right. for a while it was all clones here. I had a few friends visit form the midwest, and we took them to Market Hotel, Dead Herring, Death By Audo, and Below The Auto Parts Store. and my buddy summed up the music scene here perfectly. "Its as if they took the ugliest girls and the dorkiest guys in every highschool in America and put them in one place." I love it here, but this is pretty accurate. Growing up in the midwest I never realized that everyone who likes good bands is a vegan uptight pussy. Guided By Voices are just like Koz. Pavement dudes are just like Koz. This we are the world, we were all picked on, so anyone who isn't dork is an asshole thing is somewhat new. Koz calls it out and I love it. Also. Sun Kil Moon is bigger than ever, the idea that he is somewaht jealous of WOD is insane. He's the biggest indie star this year by far. And Benji is Awesome. i never liked RHP, but his new shit, is fantastic. It reminds me of the dudes I grew up with. I love that he's acting like an asshole. The first thing i learned when I moved here was that I would never want to hang out with most of the musicians I love. They;re all mostly sissys. But I don't care if The Pains Of Being Pure Heart are all a bunch of vegan pussies, i like their jams. Just listen to the music, and mellow the fuck out. He didn't kill anyone. He's just having a good time with his time in the limelight. and this is coming frome someone who's favorite song of the year is Perfect Pussy's Inherent Fits. And I hate fat ugly girls like her. My second favorite song of the year is Clarissa. And third is Drakes Trophies. Also Blochead you don't know shit about music. music nerds hate Arcade Fire. i once was at Below the Auto Parts Store to see No Age and Ponytail, and i heard a conversaton with a bunch of people talking about how much better Britney Spears was than Arcade Fire. But I agree with you about this. Koz is awesome!!!!
I loved Children of Desire, And Become What You Are was one of my favorite songs of 2012. But I kind of hate this. Didn't like the singles at all, and was hoping the album would have some better jams, but not really. These dudes have no hooks. That new Literature album is a much much better 80's homage record this thing. Too bad, I really thought this record was going to be epic.
I actually remember the very first Quit Your Day Job. I believe it was Blood on The Wall??
He's not trolling us. He really just has god awful taste in music. Take a look at his best songs of 2008 list he did when he was at Pitchfork below: >> Tom Breihan 1. Young Jeezy [ft. Kanye West]: Put On 2. Hold Steady: Lord, I'm Discouraged 3. Lil Wayne: You Ain't Got Nuthin 4. Jordin Sparks [ft. Chris Brown]: No Air 5. Gary Allan: Watching Airplanes 6. B.O.B.: Generation Lost 7. Mary J. Blige: Just Fine (Treat Em Right Remix) 8. Cut Copy: Hearts on Fire 9. Pink: So What 10. Big Boi [ft. Raekwon and Andre 3000]: Royal Flush 11. Trace Adkins: You're Gonna Miss This 12. Gaslight Anthem: That '59 Sound 13. Vampire Weekend: A-Punk 14. Sugarland: Already Gone 15. Lil Wayne: A Milli 16. Hotstylz: Lookin' Boy 17. B.O.B.: Fuck You 18. T.I.: No Matter What 19. Taylor Swift: Love Story 20. Hercules & Love Affair: Blind 21. Usher [ft. Young Jeezy]: Love In This Club 22. Raconteurs: Old Enough 23. Kanye West: Love Lockdown 24. Santogold: Lights Out 25. Bun B: Damn I'm Cold
I was really excited when you came on to Stereogum, mostly because you wrote at Tiny Mix Tapes and loved Saint Pepsi, and I mosly aways agree with you. But Coldplay is awful. This isnt some "God" given talent. Song writing I mean. Chris Martin is laying up with an actress who may be th eworst human being on earth. Going to award shows. Dressing like a scumbag. Basically just being a huge asshole. Apposed to someone like lke Ariel Pink or Noah Lennox who are probably listeing to records all day, and being awesome. Between this post and the rest of your obnoxious week in pop post you have let me know you nothing about music or records, And that you're an awful person. You're a know nothing asshole and I'm going to fuck your mother if I ever meet her.
Is anyone going to mention that the last two minutes of this song are a cover of Purple Rain??? Jesus Christ Breihan get on your shit!! I thought you were the R&B/Rap Guy????? GET A GRIP!!!!!!
Considering that her parents are both actors, and actors are quite possibly the most awful people on the planet, she she should actually be commended for not becoming a model, or an actor or herself. But instead making pretty rad music. I actually liked her more when I found that out, and I absolutely hate all actors. The fact that two of them could make a pretty cool kid is astonishing to me.
I liked the first Girls record, but Father Son Holy ghost and Lysandre were just lazy, tuneless, terrible records. I was telling everyone who would listen that this guy couldn't write a good melody to save his life, and Lysandre proved it. This song is absolute garbage as well. What JR Chet White has done after Girls has been way better. This dude is terrible and always has been. And all his melodies sound the same, except the the beach boys one he borrowed for Honey Bunny, which was great for obvious reasons. Even his choice of covers are just god awful.
People who don't like candy are awful human beings. I really dislike this chick.
Before I even clicked on this post, I knew it was Chris Deville. Dude is singlehandedly making Stereogum a great place to visit again. I picked up that Hang On To life 7" a few weeks ago. Its easily one of my favorite singles of the year. So yes. I love Mexican Summer!
What I found so interesting about this article, is that I'm not sure if you forgot or just never knew, but MGMT were not like this big blog hype, critically loved internet band when Oracular Spectacular came out in "08. There was nothing being written about them the way there was when like Vampire Weekend, or Animal Collectives MPP came out. In fact the first I remember ever hearing about them was in a really short Pitchfork review of CMj and they basically just said something like, " This band is terrible, and this is evidence as to why major labels are failing." Shortly after they gave their album a pretty low rating, and that was it for a while. The didn't become popular until long after the record was released. All the big blogs of that time period Hipster Runnoff, Brooklyn Vegan, Idolator, Gorilla vs Bear. I don't remember any of them really mentioning them. Even Stereogum didn't really have much to say about them. During the time period MGMT was blowing up. The internet was busy writing about bands like Vampire Weekend, and Vivian Girls, Hercules and Love Affair was huge around that time. If you were just reading those blogs that I mentioned, you would have barely known that MGMT existed. I think Time to Pretend was was only ranked like 30 or something in Pitchforks year end single list. I don't think there was any mention of the album in the year end list. The first time I remember blogs actually start writing about them was after they became big. And it was more along the lines of "This band sucks, how on earth did they become so big?" I remember reading post after post like this on Hipster runoff and Brooklyn Vegan especially. Drowned And Sound and some post like this. Tiny Mix Tapes certainly didn't like them. My point being that if MGMT had kept going with the sound from the first record, I imagine the band they would most resemble would probably be Panic At The Disco. And i'm not exactly sure what you mean by taking over the world, but I don't think of a band like Panic At The Disco as "ruling the world." I think their best case scenario would be to be like a band like Coldplay, or Mumford and Sons, but even those bands I don't think of as Ruling The World. I think you have to have some sort of critical admiration as well mainstream popularity to rule the world. I would say Nirvana ruled the world, but certainly not Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit. In my opinion MGMT has always wanted to be liked by critics the way bands like Animal Collective and Deerhunter are. And I think with this album their probably a lot closer to that, than if they would have made something that sounds like Passion Pit. I also just don't think they listen to the kind of music that would allow them to make songs like kids anymore. If I had to guess, they probably spend a lot more time reading sites like Tiny Mix Tapes or Ad Hoc, than they do Stereogum. Which makes their case even more interesting because I would imagine most of the people who spend time on those sites still think of MGMT as "that joke band who had those cheesy synth pop hits" When they are the ones who would probably appreciate this stuff, and the people who liked Kids shouldn't even be attempting to listen to this.
I must have posted on here a half dozen times last year about how amazing that Mediafired album was. I'm glad you guys are now kind of covering it. Carly Rae is also my song of the year so far, but its not as good as my song of the year last year, which was Mediafired- Pixies!
This is my favorite list that you guys have done so far, though If I Needed You would be in my to 5 for sure. With that said this is mostly pretty great. Can you please do a Jerry Jeff Walker best of next!!!!
I don't really like when people try to hide their bad taste in the disguise of opinion. Its like if some dude was trying to tell you that in his "opinion" bird shit taste way better than Peter Lugers. Thats fine I guess, but it what really tells me is that he has terrible taste. And thats what your comments tell me about your musical taste. And I guess that's why I commented, because I don't really like when people with bad taste "geek out" over music. Just as I imagine you wouldn't really want to be sitting at a table with a bunch of people "geeking out" about how great the last Katy Perry record was. And that's how I feel when I read your comments, like I'm in a bar being lectured by a bunch of guys about how great the John Mayer deep tracks are on Your Body Is A Wonderland.
The best album since In Rainbows? How many albums have you heard since then? Three? Person Pitch came out around the same time and absolutely dominated it. With that said. Bloom isn't even in the top 25 best albums of the decade so far right now. Both Ariel Pink albums are much better. That Mediafired album kills it. Oneohtrix Point Never's Replica is better, Caribou's Swim is better, The Dreams Love King is better, Destroyers Kaputt is far better, Gang Gang Dance's Eye Contact, That Grouper record. I could really go on forever. And also Master Of None is their best album. This band is fine, but not even close to one of the best of the decade. GET A GRIP dude.
If you think that Monomania is a better song than Spring Hall Convert, than your ears aren't working correctly. Also, I'm not quite sure why no one wants to talk about the fact that Lockett Pundt is a much better songwriter than Bradford Cox is.
Not sure how many r and b records you've heard in your life, but the opening of this song sounds like Jodeci Diary of A Mad Band era, and the verse kind of sounds like H-town or Silk. And the chorus sounds almost identical to the pre Chorus to Forever My Lady. Basically this song is the shit, and The Weekend has nothing on The Dream.
No one in Williamsburg really reads this site anymore bro. Nor does this sight really cover that many bands from there anyway. And most Brooklyn bands live in Bushwick not Wiliamsburg these days.
Well he did say this was currently the album of the year. That was pretty stupid.
Agreed. That Marnie Stern album is fantastic. Phosphorescents new album is much better than this as well. Also, as far R and B goes. Shy Girls'- Under Attack is better than anything on this record. With that said, the end of Strawberrry Bubblegum is fantastic.