Just stopped by to say that yes, yes, 'Slow Focus' is a fine choice (although I'll go ahead and echo the consensus: I prefer 'Tarot Sport'), but HOLY HELL CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT THE WEEKEND'S ALBUM?
It has thoroughly blown my mind. I can barely piece together my thoughts. So much so that I HAD TO RESORT TO ALL CAPS TWICE IN THE COURSE OF A SINGLE COMMENT.
As a Baydestrian, this makes me so proud.
I don't know why I never made the connection, but ScHoolboy Q fits in perfectly with the Bay Area Rap aesthetic.
I would suspect that a number of people here use Spotify/Rdio the way that I do: Listen to as much new music as humanly possible, and support the bands you feel compelled to support (most recently Speedy Ortiz). Admittedly, although I consider myself an ardent music fan, I haven't really reflected on the moral and economic implications of my Rdio subscription.
That said, Thom's argument seems predicated on the assumption that if Spotify didn't exist, then more money would end up in the pockets of new artists. But I don't know how true that is (I'm not necessarily disagreeing -- I honestly don't know). If I didn't have Rdio, I might buy marginally more music, but I would probably listen to a hell of a lot less, and so I don't know really know if it would be better or worse than the current state of things.
As for the underlying economics, I would look at it this way: The technology sector is wonderful (it's the sector in which I'm gainfully employed), BUT! A lot of tech companies are able to raise capital on the assumption that they'll be profitable "IN THE FUTURE." Because of this, they can do things that seem ridiculous, like try out new business models at a loss for a bunch of years, years that would bankrupt a more traditional enterprise like a restaurant or a factory. If we assume consumers are better off because Spotify/Rdio exist (a reasonable assumption, since they wouldn't be paying subscription fees if they weren't), then either these companies are converting investor surplus into consumer surplus, or turning an entirely different group's surplus (i.e., new artists) into consumer surplus.
We benefit, but if Spotify/Rdio are still unprofitable (which I am assuming they are), and they're still operating, then someone is necessarily losing. Thom would argue that the people losing are new artists, and he's closer to the ground than I am on these issues so I might even take him at his word.
A little economics and finance for your Monday afternoon.
Thanks!
This is why I enjoy Stereogum so much. Great writing that, in turn, leads to great discussions. You and the rest of the 'Gum team do an excellent job.
Solid article.
I think you basically got to the heart of the issue when you noted that because of the Internet's whimsical, echo-y feedback loop, certain things -- even things that might have previously been considered "fringe" or "outside"-y -- become part of the conversation, and everyone feels the need to have an opinion. Since most people don't have the requisite context for developing an opinion on a black metal album, they take their cues from the tastemakers. The herd then develops a consensus, and so on and so forth, in that fashion.
This conversation actually reminds me a bit of Arrested Development Season 4, which happened thirty years ago in Internet Time. It's impossible to say this without sounding like a douche, so bear with me, but I watched the show when it was on the air. I loved it. I told all of my friends, and, of course, they never watched. So it was really just kind of bizarre to see the Internet (my friends included) in an uproar about this thing that I once loved but that (seemingly) no one had ever seen before. Now it's entirely possible that the show would've been wildly popular if it existed when social media were more of a thing, and I'm happy it's found ex-post success, but still: The fact that it was the talk of a town for about a week, only to disappear into whatever the next conversation happened to be -- Yeezus, Magna Carta Holy Grail, the Mad Men Season Six finale or whatever -- is still very strange to me.
And don't get me wrong! I love the Internet. I am currently writing my thoughts and people are going to read, react, and maybe even reply to something I didn't say but that they imagined I said: That's awesome! And I also think it's also awesome that it's opened up these fringe-y worlds (black metal, dance music, mid-aughts comedies, etc.) to so many people. I mean, it's almost certainly opened up all the weird music we like to a wider audience. In so many ways, that's great I think it's never a bad thing when someone's world is changed because he encountered something that in the past he likely would have needed to seek out.
At the same time, and I'm probably long past the point of being on topic, I really don't like "The Cult of Now" aspect, since I think it necessarily makes it harder to form lasting (and important) critical impressions. The constant churn results in things reaching a massive audience, but never really becoming part of the cultural cannon.
I can't believe Spice 1 is on this thing -- so fucking dope.
As for the album itself, half-way through it's about what I expected. That's not at all a bad thing. By way of comparison, the reason I listen to Freddie Gibbs is the same reason I listen to Amon Amarth in metal-land and The National in "indie"-world: I know exactly what I'm getting into.
Whew, you guys are harsher than I anticipated.
I guess I came in with relatively minimal expectations since I wasn't a huge J. Cole to begin with, but I think he's a technically talented dude. A lot of his rhymes had me grinning. Granted, "Born Sinner" is no "Good Kid M.A.A.D. City," mainly, I think, because J. Cole lacks the requisite X Factor necessary to make an album like that, but I would still give it a listen and see what you think.
Then again, the small sample size of 'Gummers who's responded does not bode well for my argument.
On the lyrical front, I think it's important to note that you can engage with the album without necessarily endorsing the viewpoints expressed therein. The lyrics are vulgar and misogynistic, and you're allowed to think they're vulgar and misogynistic. (I know this probably sounds condescending, and of course you know that you're free to have opinions, but I'm getting to something, I promise!)
That said, I think the lyrics actually do more to undermine the album's bravado than reinforce it. What I mean is: If the tortured screams at the end of "I Am A God" don't undermine the whole "I Am A God" message, then certainly what follows does. If the only thing you can do in the face of an unplanned pregnancy is whine and complain, and compare your plight to the plights of those who died during one of America's darkest eras, then you're not all that powerful, are you? The man can't even get his damn croissants when he wants them.
Plus, would an album that's ostensibly about being a god-like figure feature such dark production, and such dark lyrical content? There's nothing triumphant about Ye's ascendance. He's tortured, trying to build up an image for himself with words and bravado and ego that can't stand up to the album's schizophrenic sounds, let alone reality.
In another potential reading, could it also be that Kanye's sort of giving the people what they want? When he snarls "Fuck your Hampton house/I'll fuck your Hampton spouse," he's totally playing on the idea of black men on the prowl for white women (as he does when he raps about what people are want to do when they see a black man and a white woman on the top floor). That he does it in such a politically-charged song should indicate that a lot of the problems society has with race, or that people have with Kanye, shouldn't be laid at the feet of black kids in Chicago, or Kanye, but at the feet of those who propagate the problems to begin with. If you treat someone like a monster, eventually all you're going to see is a monster.
Or at least, these are the kinds of high school-level English class analyses that gets me comfortable with loving this album (and I really do love this album), despite the potential ambiguity surrounding just what Mr. West intends to do with that sweet and sour sauce, exactly. (I don't know how deeply Kanye thinks about these things).
Hell, I might go so far as to say that this album wouldn't be the same without the offensive lyrics. Say what you will, but taking that deep, dark thought in the back of your brain and stretching it out over forty minutes for people to gawk at is a crazy, crazy thing to do. It's also a large part of why this thing is so damn engaging.
Anyway, feel free to poke holes in this thesis. I'm just thinking aloud here.
My album of the week, non-Yeezus category, is J. Cole's latest. It's rock-solid, and I wasn't a big fan of his last two releases so that's saying something. He overreaches at times, copping the beat for one of my favorite rap songs of all time ("Da Art of Storytellin' (Part 1)" by Outkast) without doing it the necessary level of justice, but the early returns are looking really good.
I'll be sure to give the new Austra a listen -- this year just hasn't given me a break when it comes to music I want to listen to.
This is amazing, not necessarily in the way I was expecting -- but amazing.
MBDTF seemed like an almost impossible album to follow up, but fuck it, Yeezus did it. It's a dark, frantic, and weird listen. Dammit, Ye, excellent work.
I don't think people who chose Dream House are necessarily posturing or anything (I think Michael Nelson's love for the song/album is demonstrably sincere, for example). To say that they are seems a bit Straw Man-y to me. I mean, in my case, I just think it's the best black metal(ish!) song I've heard since Gin's title track, and I've listened to it a bunch in June. June, of course, is a month in summer.
Granted, Dream House might not have those #BreezyVibes one might be looking for in a summer anthem, but I don't think that should necessarily exclude it from the running.
All that said, I pulled you up from -1 because I really like your list. That Beach Fossils album didn't get nearly enough love.
To retain my indie cred, I'm going to go with some combination of White Noise, Get Lucky, and Unbelievers. I'll even throw in Dream House because holy fuck that song.
However, if I'm being honest, the song of the summer is "Blurred Lines" and it's not even close. Note that my primary criterion for selecting a "Song of the Summer" is "Song's ability to elevate a party from 'gathering' to 'paaaahtay.'").
And on that criterion, Mr. Thicke and company pretty much killed it.
I use iTunes Match to keep my vast gigs of music on the Cloud and off my iPhone's piddly hard drive, so I'll probably be using this over Pandora simply since it'll be ad-free for me; however, I totally agree that this isn't exactly blazing any new trails. Then again, I can see why Apple's doing it: Somewhere along the line, Apple went from being a company that seamlessly combined stellar hardware with smooth-ass software to being a company that made stellar hardware and let Google do the software heavy-lifting. They'd probably like to reclaim the dual crown.
Also, I'll just shamelessly plug Rdio over Spotify here: Spotify's mobile user interface feels like it was cobbled together by a guy who only listened to music in the form of playlists. I have no idea why the latter is more popular than the former, unless knowing in real-time that your aunt is jamming out to the latest Taylor Swift single is why you subscribed to a streaming service.
(Admittedly, it's been months since I ditched Spotify for Rdio -- they may have improved things since then).
I really like this list, even though I don't agree with a large chunk of it. When I stopped to think about it, I'm actually a bigger sucker for their sophomore effort than I realized ( say "realized" because I generally think of their debut and their third as superior albums, but now I don't know what to believe). I would put all of these in my top 10:
Well and the Lighthouse, (Antichrist Television Blues), Keep the Car Running, and No Cars Go...
Damn. One sec. I'mma revisit that album.
Great write-up. (I also would like to thank you guys for Prematurely Evaluating Deafheaven. A Comment Section that featured Stereogum's metal and dance partisans warring over which deserved to win AOTW honors might have gotten out of hand quickly*).
Anyway, I know you highlighted this, Tom, but I can't help but reiterate the point: As amazing as the individual tracks are -- virtually any could work as a dance club anthem -- I'm doubly impressed by how this thing works as a whole. The sequencing is perfect. Rather than feeling tacked on, the guest vocalists are completely integrated of the sounds of their individual tracks (I was genuinely taken aback by how well the music complemented theme/mood/tone of the guest singers' lyrics, and not just in a superficial way, either).
I don't know if I've heard a better album all year, genre be damned.
*I kid, I kid -- they're both phenomenal albums
Fantastic list for a fantastic half-year of music.
My go-to albums thus far have been The National's "Trouble Will Find Me" (possibly my favorite album of this young decade), Vampire Weekend, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Laura Marling, "Comedown Machine", Rhye, "After Dark 2", and Classixx's debut.
I also have to say that after a few spins of "Settle," there's a very real chance it might unseat all of the above. I can't remember the last time I've enjoyed a dance album so much (maybe "Rooty")? It sounds less like a debut and more like a Greatest Hits album -- except it's a Greatest Hits album with utterly perfect sequencing.
And I don't want to make it sound like I'm defending the guy, or think he's innocent or something. Domestic abuse is a terrible, terrible thing, and I know that charges are often dropped because the key witness (the abused party) feels too powerless, or too scared, or too conflicted to testify.
Just trying to think it all out, I guess. Thanks for providing me with a comment box to do so, Stereogum. I hope I handled it with at least a decent amount of thoughtfulness. It's an admittedly difficult thing to process, given that we all probably listen to music to make real life better, and then a situation comes along that drags real life (with all its misery) all up into our music.
As conflicted as I feel typing this, I'm going to go ahead and take issue with the following: "Pitts came off as something of an aggrieved party, claiming that legal issues prevented him from talking about it before and pointing out repeatedly that charges had been dropped, as if that proved anything."
Except that those are, like, both kind of important points, aren't they? Not being able to discuss legal issues is a real hurdle to discussing legal issues. Similarly, you can't just write off the charges being dropped as not proving anything. It might not change the lead singer's moral character in the slightest, but it strikes me as very, very dangerous to say, "Well, sure he wasn't found guilty, but let's keep impugning the guy anyway." This is Nancy Grace-ian bullshit, and it's something the Internet is exceedingly (and frighteningly) good at doing.
Not saying you have to give the guy's music a chance. I mean, psychology teaches us what human beings are ridiculously good at rationalizing decision's ex post, so it would probably be irrelevant anyway: Even if you pretend to give the guy's music a chance but hate him (for a reason as serious as domestic abuse or as frivolous as you don't like his taste in clothing), you could easily develop an objective-sounding narrative to justify your subjective inclinations.
Which is all to say... I would stop covering this.
The fact that you guys have no problem unironically debuting an Amon Amarth song is what makes you guys the coolest. (Yes I'm sucking up right now).
Anyway, this is a gym jam if I've ever heard one. Looking forward to the whole thing.
I really enjoyed this album, and that was a great write-up.
Also, this seems like a decent enough place to start this conversation (since Tom mentioned that Daft Punk would've earned "Album of the Week" honors if it were eligible), but on the topic of The Robots: Did some sort of Zeitgeist-y change happen this weekend with respect to people's opinion on Random Access Memories?
The Internet conversation has seemingly turned from a general feeling of disappointment to glowing -- or at least growing -- praise. In general, I was initially quite surprised by the gulf between the fan reaction ("meh" to downright negative) to the album and the critical assessment (quite positive) of the album, and I was curious to see which viewpoint would win out in the months and years ahead. Of course, I should've known that in Internet time, "months and years" would turn into one week, and it looks to have already been decided: The fan reaction is moving closer to the critical perception, and not the other way around (your profession has been validated, music critics!).
Is it survivorship bias? People who like the album keep commenting while the people who didn't moved on to something else? Has it "grown" on people? I am legitimately quite curious.
Also: Please note that I am hating on Random Access Memories at all (though I would've named "Trouble Will Find Me" AOTW). I called RAM "pretty good" in the Premature Evaluation and I stand by that hard-hitting assessment; however, it's Tuesday and I am bored.
In any case, just please tell me that the change isn't related to the Pitchfork review...
Nah, it's an awesome album.
The album's core trio of If I Had A Tail, My God Is The Sun, and Kalopsia is incredibly strong, even by QOTSA's lofty "Millionaire ---> No One Knows ---> First It Giveth" standards.
It's an assured, focused effort, and I dig it. When a band has been around as long as QOTSA, I think it can be hard to find the line between "Owning every fucking moment on their latest record" and "Resting on their laurels." Whereas "Era Vulgaris" was undoubtedly the latter, I think "...Like Clockwork" is triumphantly the former.
Feeling you.
As a working-ass man who doesn't have iTunes on his work computer, this week was physically and emotionally painful. Also, why hasn't Apple implemented the ability to stream said albums through the iPhone's iTunes app? I don't understand.
(And, yes, before you ask, I am the tiniest bit self-aware, and realize that some dude complaining about the inability of his Mobile Everything Machine to stream music at exactly the moment he wants to listen to it is ridiculous).
Anyway, I would second the NPR First Listen suggestion. Use that platform more, aritsts! Then I might feel like my annual donation to NPR is going to something more than pissing off my father.
It's pretty good. A lot of cool little musical moments to geek out on, and the last three songs are money, but it's a little bloated. Whoever edited "Get Lucky" down to the radio version should have gone ahead and edited the whole thing (only slightly kidding).
I do admire Daft Punk's willingness to just fucking go for it, though, I will definitely give The Robots that. A few more Summer Dance Anthems and/or Club Bangers would've been welcome, but Disclosure's debut is coming out soon, so...
I guess what I'm saying is: I like it, and now I will go back to listening the new National album.
Top 3 are undoubtedly right on.
I would exclude "45:33", "I Can Change", "Dance Yrself Clean" and "You Wanted A Hit", and then add "Pow Pow", "Yeah (Crass Version)", "Get Innocuous!", and "All I Want".
But honestly, it's LCD Soundsystem: So long as you include those first 3, you can include any other 7 and be technically correct -- the best kind of correct. (Full disclosure: They are my favorite band. I am quite biased).
Agreed on both counts.
I loved Nine Types of Light -- thought it was massively underrated -- but it's just awesome to see TV On The Radio writing bangers(z?) again.
In a year with an unfair amount of good music, this feels like the album that I've been waiting for.
I can't articulate it quite yet, but I feel as though I just listened to something completely remarkable -- the type of album that reminds me why I spend so much time listening to new music, going to shows, and reading Stereogum.
I can't remember the last time I felt this way, this captivated, upon a first listen, and all I want to do is listen again.
Was never a big fan of Small Black (to me, they always seemed like the weakest of the "Chillwave" wave, and I don't live in Brooklyn so I just didn't get them really); however, this is utterly, utterly fantastic.
Thank you, Stereogum.
Ambition-wise, Vampire Weekend seems to be on a completely different planet with this album. I can't wait.
Great lyrics, great tune -- what's not to love?
I would say that the weird, incomprehensible chipmunk voices are supposed to be weird and incomprehensible, and fit absolutely perfectly with the theme of the song, but I won't make such an annoying point, because it's Friday!
Have a great weekend, y'all!
Don't get me wrong, "Angles" had some downright decent tracks. I loved "Under Cover of Darkness", and I thought "Machu Picchu", "Taken For A Fool", and "Life Is Simple In The Moonlight" are all pretty good, too.
The problem is the other half of the album is pretty uninspiring. "Two Kinds of Happiness" has some decent guitar work, but Julian's vocal performance is flat from the beginning of the song. "You're So Right" and "Metabolism" sound like FIO knock-offs. I think "Games" and "Call Me Back" could have been interesting songs, but came across as half-baked to me. "Gratisfaction" was one of those love-it-or-hate-it songs, and you can guess which camp I ended up in.
But, hey, agree to disagree and all that -- I'm all for civil Internet discourse. I hope something on "Comedown Machine" ends up pulling you in the way "Under Cover of Darkness" did.
I gotta disagree.
During my first listen-through, I kept on waiting for the inevitable, "Oh... oh this just isn't very good" realization to set in. Then the album ended without that realization ever happening.
A few listens later, and I agree with Past Me: this album is awesome. I've already listened to it more times than I listened to 'Angles' (an album I recently revisited to find out it was just as underwhelming as I remembered).
Good God, "Step" is just gorgeous. Not much more to add there.
"Diane Young" might require some repeated listens. Thgouh I was a defendant of the vocal manipulation on their last album, the same technique didn't really work for me on this one.
Just finished my first listen -- and loved it.
I think it's funny... So much of the coverage made it sound like this album wasn't going to be very "Strokes"-y, and that "All The Time" was the lone exception.
I think it's the exact opposite.
"All The Time" sounds too much like The Strokes trying to be The Strokes (which, if you think about it*, is a totally un-Strokes thing to do). The rest of the album is definitely a sonic departure, but it sounds assured in a way "Angles" wasn't, and more importantly, makes me want to listen again.
*"it" being the band's leather jacket-and-sunglasses-indoors aloofness
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