Comments

You're still hitting them corners in them low-lows, girl?
Just want to say that I love the idea of this 'double take' feature. As stated, it might be difficult to make it something other than just a contrarians view of prevailing opinion, but I think the notion of 'reviewing reviews' and opening a critical dialogue is important and lamentably uncommon (maybe I'm just visiting the wrong sites). In any case, I hope to see more of this in future. Bravo, Stereogum/Brandon.
Yeah, those dudes should lay off the drugs.
Crystal Stilts - TBA If the 'Shake The Shackles'/'Magnetic Moon' 7'' is any indication of what the album will be like, then I'll certainly be looking forward to it.
re: Stereogum's leads. Scott, didn't Stereogum's 'trusted sources' say that The Avalanches' new album would be out in 2010? Safety wink! ;-).
My goodness, Matt Lauer is a slimy penis. Kanye, on the other hand, comes across as very judicious.
Without wishing to get into a debate on structuralism/post-structuralism, you know as well as I do that language is rarely as simple and honest as that. For example, I infer from "A denial I find interesting": 'A denial I feel somewhat smug about given that I had the measure of Cold War Kids on first listen'. I'm only playing, really. I like the controversy. Decent song, all things considered.
"I never liked them — feel free to do a background check" Flag-planting was seriously bad, but now you're actually anti-flag-planting to prevent yourself from the potential embarrassment of backlash? Honestly, brandon, nobody gives a crap... I like that Stereogum's bringing the opinionated style back though, it's a lot more fun. Anyway... I was wholly expecting to dislike this track based on their more recent output, but I thought it was pretty catchy and didn't sound completely shambolic (like much of Loyalty to Loyalty did, unfortunately).
Oh my days, have you heard yourself speak?
A few points about Chris Martin: - Chris Martin is less obnoxious with shorter hair. - Chris Martin has been working out. - Chris Martin likes simple rhyme schemes. - Chris Martin: "blahblahblah" Crowd: "LOLOLOLOL".
Thesauri don't regularly contain reviews.
As I remember this song was tagged on the end of the UK download version of the album, too. Good track, anyway.
Really good choice of cover. Love the original, this is great, too.
Cool track. Tentacles was a decent album, but it sounds as though they've really honed their sound with this song.
Honey got it going on, Daym!
I have heard that Girls' live show sucks, which, as an owner of Album, I can kind of understand. Perhaps that's why they have such a low billing.
You're no Johnny Cash, Peter Gabriel. But a decent cover nonetheless, I like the last couple of minutes in particular.
Yeah, I'm willing to concede defeat to some degree about the licensing matter given that you have 'the perspective that I lack', but I stick by my assertion that respectable artists will do their own legwork where finding/choosing their own artwork is concerned, which was my original contention in any case as exhibited in the following: "respectable artists usually do the legwork themselves and don't rely on a label to cultivate their image for them by submitting artwork" I wasn't even really referring to the statement regarding licensing from the comment posted by 'Forget it' or 'Randomoldlady' or whatever nom de plume that person is going by now, which I reiterated to you in the final sentence of my first response to you: "In any case, my point about doing the legwork wasn't so much about licensing images as it was finding/selecting the artwork they want to use for their records." I was merely drawn into that debate thereafter, on which topic I am happy to be more knowledgeable now, thanks to your industry expertise.
Don't let anybody tell you that Americans don't understand irony - yes, believe it or not (that is sarcasm, you get that, right?), my entire first paragraph was insincere. Felicitations on the job; lovely to hear that you're such a success. Thanks for the offer, if you're willing to pay for my plane ticket then we shall consider it a date. The 'Adam Young' comments were rather jocose, yes. However, the fact you were still so preoccupied with our debate a full 13 minutes after your initial response that you felt the need to tell me in postscript as a means of bolstering your cachet is just sad, really. MF McNUTT? Yeah, turns out you actually are.
To address your first paragraph, I'd say that Chris Bear probably handled all that stuff, Ed Droste can't be expected to do everything, you know? But then I'm being hypothetical again, aren't I? In all seriousness, while we're accusing each other of sophistry, you're well aware that you're being unreasonably pedantic, not to mention ostentatious and supercilious, even if it is facetiously so. Neither of us believes that such minor typographical/design characteristics really contribute to an artist's image very significantly in themselves - a photograph/drawing/painting/other such artwork plays a far bigger role. OK, I don't presume to convince you otherwise, but it is my opinion that if the image is published without crediting the original artist as part of Owl City's product, then the culpability is subsumed under that name. Regardless of who dropped the ball, he will have to accept responsibility for the mistake, therefore he should personally ensure that any artwork he uses is properly licensed beforehand (it really isn't that effortful a task), just as I am sure that many artists who take pride in all aspects of their work do.
But Ed Droste DID contact the artist personally with regards to using one of his images. Would this not qualify as legwork to the end of an eventual contract drafting? Indeed, it could be contested that William O'Brien's words, "of course, you're welcome to use them," effectively act as an oral contract. This wouldn't necessarily preclude the drawing up of a full contract, but if Ed were to get served with a subpoena it certainly wouldn't be inadmissable evidence in court. Do you think Owl City similarly got in contact with Ben Eubank to similarly request permission? I think, given the nature of the story, we can be pretty sure that he didn't. However, I will grant your point that Owl City could have feasibly selected the photo for his album art. But in that case, it would also presumably have been his decision to add the utterly abominable photoshopping. So he's pretty much damned either way - as a musician who doesn't put adequate effort into all of his creative endeavours, deciding instead to let his label select or propose artwork, thus effectively allowing them creative control over his image, or as an artist who chooses his own artwork and then mutilates it beyond any merit whatsoever.
You haven't? http://pitchfork.com/news/36469-take-cover-grizzly-bears-iveckatimesti/ I'd draw your attention to the first couple of sentences of the second paragraph of William O'Brien's second response. In any case, my point about doing the legwork wasn't so much about licensing images as it was finding/selecting the artwork they want to use for their records.
In which case, I hope "Batanglij started giggling, and DeLonge turned and looked at him" is as good on tape as it is in my head.
lol no, respectable artists usually do the legwork themselves and don't rely on a label to cultivate their image for them by submitting artwork etc., because if you let record labels dictate such things you end up like this guy.
What I would give to see a video of this.
Or should I say, like ALL respectable artists do.
No, he's not expected to paint his own (though Kyp Malone thought it preferable) or even design it himself, he's just expected to get the permission of/pay the rightful owner of the image that he stole - you know, like most other artists do.
Thanks for that. A really interesting and touching interview. Americans need to nationalise their health care already; it's fucking ridiculous that anyone should be forced into debt (not least $50,000 of it!) through necessary medical procedures. As Vic said, he was totally uninsurable because of his condition. It's bloody disgusting that he should be faced with that predicament. Obviously, in Vic's case, it's a lost cause. Damn shame.
Yes, and we might say he then got a gun and then shot himself in the foot emerging from his anus, before sawing it off, along with his other lower limb, thus he didn't have a leg to stand on (with regards to dignity, that is). Then Beck came along, and fed him the bullet-holed newly severed foot, which also represents the speech emanating from his buttocks, effectively making him eat his words. Too much?
I reckon it'll be a grower.
What's with all these gay suit avatars?
I'm not a fan of the guy or his music personally, but like Brandon said, to leave Wavves out of the top 50 and even the honourable mentions is harsh. I know the top 50 is aggregated, but you've got to feel that if he was asked to play their music festival then there must have been widespread support for him at some point; enough, you'd think, to put him in the lower end of the list at least.
He should have called his Myspace post "Clarifornication".
Pretty easy to guess what albums you voted for then...
My thoughts exactly, hombre. Then again, Pitchfork didn't give it a 9+/10 so most people probably didn't like it (or even hear about/bother to listen to it. Yeah, I said it). Also see: The Strange Boys.
Andrew WK went up a notch in my estimation for voting his own album as best of the decade; notch 1.
Nice list, but the top 3 was woefully predictable. None of my 3 chioces made the top 50. How cool am I? Very.
After putting BLK JKS' 4 song EP on their halfway through 2009 album list, you'd have thought that their full length, After Robots (which was admittedly quite a bit weaker than the EP), would have at least beaten Kiss on to the list.
Sounds promising. But didn't Funeral come out in 2004? If they can't go on Wikipedia and find that out, then I'm skeptical of their sources' ability to find out the release date for an upcoming album, much less one as secretive as this.
I almost always hate it when an artist says "going to be the best yet!" about an upcoming album, it feels too much like a hyped press release intended to get people to buy the record. But reading that Matt Berninger said it just makes me ridiculously excited.